2004 - My best year

Hello everybody. So today is the last day of 2004 and I wanted to just share with everybody why this has been the greatest year of my life. It might seem strange to those of you who are suffering with DP/DR and cant see how life can ever be great again....but I'm living proof that it can be. Not because I've recovered from it, because I haven't...I still suffer from DR 24/7 and DP whenver I'm really tired, which is most of the time. But what I've come to realise this year is that good things can still happen in life, that life goes on despite my suffering and that I dont need to totally 'feel' experience to appreciate the beauty of it.
I know why it's been easy for me to become so positive this year and that's because fate has been so favourable to me. I met a girl, my soulmate and fell in love....that gave me more meaning to my life than I'd had in years. I've travelled further than I ever have done in my life (Hawai'i)...for the past few years the furthest I'd been is London once or twice, but I'd hardly left Brighton. In Hawai'i, Sleepy and I got up to real adventures, real memorable stuff, the kind of stuff you dont do every day. I've also got around this country more and done things..I went to silverstone to see the british grand prix...went on a national tv gameshow and won it! Then after well over a year of not working I got an excellent job working in a school as a teaching assistant, which I love. And now, unlike last year, I'm ending 2004 not just with good memories to look back on, but good plans to look forward to.
So a lot of what has made this year great has been good fortune, but a lot of it has also been my desire to live again and not let this illness drag me down. I know now that wallowing can never do anything but make matters worse....there's just no way it can do any good. So if you're ending this year feeling a bit hopeless cause you think DP/DR is the end of happiness, think again....

I lived 21 years of my life DP/DR free, not knowing any mentall illness at all...and then i have lived 5 years of my life with this illness. And my favourite year has been with it....so having this illness doesnt mean life comes to an end. There's hope for all of you if you dont give up on the chance of happiness.

Happy New Year to you all and lots of love
Gavin