So, I'm sorry to say but this post might be a little long winded and it also might just be a giant blog post, so I'll include a TL;DR at the end for those of you who aren't really interested in reading a giant wall of text basically talking about myself and some of the things I've experienced and tying it back into how it has personally affected me and drawn me to some ideas that led me to this forum.
I may be coming to some ridiculous conclusions but I think I may have DP or some form of it, and I really hate self-diagnosing. And it's not like I've been searching around for a few minutes after feeling a tad bit strange for a few hours, but I spent a lot of time in my life trying to find the right counselor, therapist, or psychologist to attempt to help me cope with my situation, and they've all failed in that time that's passed since. Years have gone by, and I've stopped searching for any form of self-help. I've come to sort of live in this odd way for what feels like since my childhood. My memories and thoughts were vivid and detailed back then, but all that time from adolescence feels like a mindless blur. I can't recall there ever being certain turning point as to when in my life I started feeling distanced and almost mindlessly drifting through, but a slow progression into a deeper and more secluded way of living as I never seemed to function like the rest of the children.
My parents were both relatively uncaring and borderline negligent. I can't blame them though, as even as a toddler I rarely ever said anything, and never required attention. But, I do remember a certain point as to where I can begin to see how everything began to unravel. It was when I was 14, after a long, strenuous divorce of my family and the abrupt relocation of my entire life along with the diagnosis of Ovarian cancer of my mother I lost basically all sense of feeling. The entire affair was worsened from the constant pushing and pulling from both of parents for both custody and trust of me. Both of them trying to paint one another as immoral and evil, but in the end, my stepfather gave up as in most custody battles my mother would win, as well as the fact that he wasn't my legitimate father. With this, my trust in my own mother shattered, I left nearly everything with short notice, and being sworn to silence by her as to not alert anyone, not even family, of where we were going. I began the next year of as a sophomore, living in a strange, unfamiliar place, with strange unfamiliar people, with the mother I hated, and her new, infatuation, a coworker of hers and the source of the problem. Funnily enough, the only people I even remotely trusted while living there was my roommates across the hall. I lived in the windowless basement as a recluse, lifeless as I now lived in a relatively poor neighborhood with no one I could really trust, and no way of contacting the close friends I had. I refused to see anyone and never once did I confront her new "friend" during my entire year long stay, keeping myself locked up in the basement nearly 24/7. An extremely dark and unremarkable period in my life, my marks in school fell drastically and conflict arose at almost every meeting with my mother, as she was seldom ever home, likely away in some attempt to recapture her youth as she was facing death itself. The arguments were usually one-sided, as I was now completely on a sort of "auto-pilot", giving stock phrases without emotion or eye contact. My feelings only really ever escalated once, during a long heated argument. With the only thing I can remember saying, was something to the effect of, "I wish you would have died of terminal cancer before all of this so I at least I could still remember you as a good person". That still haunts me to this day.
The void between us was growing blindingly obvious. At the end weekends, I would spend hours upon hours walking a distance that would normally take an hour and half to close friends to get away from the house, as I could not make any connections or friends in this new school. It became the norm, as I would be away on weekends for days upon days, usually skipping school to do so, until I'd tell my mother where I was. During the summer, this is all I would do. It was my escape, my bastion where I could finally be free of all the stress of feeling like I had been living vicariously through someone else and failing horribly at it. Where I could live in a better dream, for just a short while. I had failed a large sum of my classes, but not enough to warrant me retaking the year, a permanent stain of my record that pains me all throughout high school. Finally in the last month of summer break, I finally pestered my mother enough to let me live somewhere else, finally frustrated enough to conform to my wants.
And that remained all that was. I lived with my aunt, basically living the same way I did at my old house. Refusing to confront anyone, even though they were family. I locked myself in my room 24/7 and only came out to cook, shower, or perform any tasks extremely late at night. The paranoia still urged me, so I adjusted my schedule accordingly. Sleeping during the day, interacting with no one. My life was still on a mindless, predetermined schedule. I felt nothing, loved nothing, only indulged in any activities to pass time, without thinking. In contrast, there were certain eye-opening moments. It's been a constant in my life, but the shower has always been a sort of Zen place for me. Whenever I began to reflect deeply upon myself, I would sometimes get this strange feeling as if for a short time, I was the person enacting this motions. It's like, the most psychedelic thing I've ever experienced. I'd begin to feel real, overwhelming fear and anger at myself and begin plot on how to reverse my life. And then, the gates would close, that enlightening moment would come to a close and that apathetic, hazy, spectator like view of the world would reinstate itself, and I would continue life. The moments even happened when I was younger, because even back then I was still living at a distance. I always tried to go back to that place, where I somehow ripped open the locked gates that clouded my identity and peered out of that small creak and screamed as loud as I could. I know, the imagery is strange, but all these moments were so abstract and metaphysical that at the moment I had to find a way to visualize it all, and so, I saw gates. I want to push myself through the gates. I want to feel things once again, as it's losing myself and destroying my few human interactions left whether it be my family or friends.
Every once and while, I'll take long showers trying to get to that place in my mind, and it's really the only telling thing I have to say about my condition, other than the fact I was also diagnosed with depression, but that was just underlying cause of my DP disorder. Also, it doesn't help that my family has a history of chemical imbalance. But, I'll be honest, I haven't read as much as I'd like about this, I just wanted to express my thoughts and some of my life, as until this moment I'd felt like I was alone in this experience, and it's comforting just to have a word for what I've been searching to identify all this time and to be around others who share that same feeling, which seems kind of odd coming from someone who rarely ever feels anything at all. That dissonance between agency and loss of self may seem strange, but if there's anywhere I could find someone to relate, it'd be here. Even now, typing this I feel a relief, an emotion I haven't felt an ages, and for this short moment, for however it lasts, I'm myself. When I wake up tomorrow, I may be back in that robotic and cold protocol I've been living in for a decade, but I don't want to forget right now. Like some sort of awful rendition of that movie with Adam Sandler, 50 First Dates (I think?). I want to find a way to stay like this forever.
TL
R - A strange new discovery, a slightly traumatic last few years, a new outlook, a new place to sift for posts around, and possibly a road to maybe a recovery, because for a short while I feel sort of like myself.
Also, to keep this at least somewhat related to discussions, do any of you get that same sort of feeling of realized agency?
I don't know if the discussion board allows this so I guess the moderator will tell me when I post this if it's alright, but post some music you like (I promise this is not some really dedicated advertisement for my Soundcloud or something).
https://soundcloud.c...eam-karamel-kel
I may be coming to some ridiculous conclusions but I think I may have DP or some form of it, and I really hate self-diagnosing. And it's not like I've been searching around for a few minutes after feeling a tad bit strange for a few hours, but I spent a lot of time in my life trying to find the right counselor, therapist, or psychologist to attempt to help me cope with my situation, and they've all failed in that time that's passed since. Years have gone by, and I've stopped searching for any form of self-help. I've come to sort of live in this odd way for what feels like since my childhood. My memories and thoughts were vivid and detailed back then, but all that time from adolescence feels like a mindless blur. I can't recall there ever being certain turning point as to when in my life I started feeling distanced and almost mindlessly drifting through, but a slow progression into a deeper and more secluded way of living as I never seemed to function like the rest of the children.
My parents were both relatively uncaring and borderline negligent. I can't blame them though, as even as a toddler I rarely ever said anything, and never required attention. But, I do remember a certain point as to where I can begin to see how everything began to unravel. It was when I was 14, after a long, strenuous divorce of my family and the abrupt relocation of my entire life along with the diagnosis of Ovarian cancer of my mother I lost basically all sense of feeling. The entire affair was worsened from the constant pushing and pulling from both of parents for both custody and trust of me. Both of them trying to paint one another as immoral and evil, but in the end, my stepfather gave up as in most custody battles my mother would win, as well as the fact that he wasn't my legitimate father. With this, my trust in my own mother shattered, I left nearly everything with short notice, and being sworn to silence by her as to not alert anyone, not even family, of where we were going. I began the next year of as a sophomore, living in a strange, unfamiliar place, with strange unfamiliar people, with the mother I hated, and her new, infatuation, a coworker of hers and the source of the problem. Funnily enough, the only people I even remotely trusted while living there was my roommates across the hall. I lived in the windowless basement as a recluse, lifeless as I now lived in a relatively poor neighborhood with no one I could really trust, and no way of contacting the close friends I had. I refused to see anyone and never once did I confront her new "friend" during my entire year long stay, keeping myself locked up in the basement nearly 24/7. An extremely dark and unremarkable period in my life, my marks in school fell drastically and conflict arose at almost every meeting with my mother, as she was seldom ever home, likely away in some attempt to recapture her youth as she was facing death itself. The arguments were usually one-sided, as I was now completely on a sort of "auto-pilot", giving stock phrases without emotion or eye contact. My feelings only really ever escalated once, during a long heated argument. With the only thing I can remember saying, was something to the effect of, "I wish you would have died of terminal cancer before all of this so I at least I could still remember you as a good person". That still haunts me to this day.
The void between us was growing blindingly obvious. At the end weekends, I would spend hours upon hours walking a distance that would normally take an hour and half to close friends to get away from the house, as I could not make any connections or friends in this new school. It became the norm, as I would be away on weekends for days upon days, usually skipping school to do so, until I'd tell my mother where I was. During the summer, this is all I would do. It was my escape, my bastion where I could finally be free of all the stress of feeling like I had been living vicariously through someone else and failing horribly at it. Where I could live in a better dream, for just a short while. I had failed a large sum of my classes, but not enough to warrant me retaking the year, a permanent stain of my record that pains me all throughout high school. Finally in the last month of summer break, I finally pestered my mother enough to let me live somewhere else, finally frustrated enough to conform to my wants.
And that remained all that was. I lived with my aunt, basically living the same way I did at my old house. Refusing to confront anyone, even though they were family. I locked myself in my room 24/7 and only came out to cook, shower, or perform any tasks extremely late at night. The paranoia still urged me, so I adjusted my schedule accordingly. Sleeping during the day, interacting with no one. My life was still on a mindless, predetermined schedule. I felt nothing, loved nothing, only indulged in any activities to pass time, without thinking. In contrast, there were certain eye-opening moments. It's been a constant in my life, but the shower has always been a sort of Zen place for me. Whenever I began to reflect deeply upon myself, I would sometimes get this strange feeling as if for a short time, I was the person enacting this motions. It's like, the most psychedelic thing I've ever experienced. I'd begin to feel real, overwhelming fear and anger at myself and begin plot on how to reverse my life. And then, the gates would close, that enlightening moment would come to a close and that apathetic, hazy, spectator like view of the world would reinstate itself, and I would continue life. The moments even happened when I was younger, because even back then I was still living at a distance. I always tried to go back to that place, where I somehow ripped open the locked gates that clouded my identity and peered out of that small creak and screamed as loud as I could. I know, the imagery is strange, but all these moments were so abstract and metaphysical that at the moment I had to find a way to visualize it all, and so, I saw gates. I want to push myself through the gates. I want to feel things once again, as it's losing myself and destroying my few human interactions left whether it be my family or friends.
Every once and while, I'll take long showers trying to get to that place in my mind, and it's really the only telling thing I have to say about my condition, other than the fact I was also diagnosed with depression, but that was just underlying cause of my DP disorder. Also, it doesn't help that my family has a history of chemical imbalance. But, I'll be honest, I haven't read as much as I'd like about this, I just wanted to express my thoughts and some of my life, as until this moment I'd felt like I was alone in this experience, and it's comforting just to have a word for what I've been searching to identify all this time and to be around others who share that same feeling, which seems kind of odd coming from someone who rarely ever feels anything at all. That dissonance between agency and loss of self may seem strange, but if there's anywhere I could find someone to relate, it'd be here. Even now, typing this I feel a relief, an emotion I haven't felt an ages, and for this short moment, for however it lasts, I'm myself. When I wake up tomorrow, I may be back in that robotic and cold protocol I've been living in for a decade, but I don't want to forget right now. Like some sort of awful rendition of that movie with Adam Sandler, 50 First Dates (I think?). I want to find a way to stay like this forever.
TL
R - A strange new discovery, a slightly traumatic last few years, a new outlook, a new place to sift for posts around, and possibly a road to maybe a recovery, because for a short while I feel sort of like myself.Also, to keep this at least somewhat related to discussions, do any of you get that same sort of feeling of realized agency?
I don't know if the discussion board allows this so I guess the moderator will tell me when I post this if it's alright, but post some music you like (I promise this is not some really dedicated advertisement for my Soundcloud or something)
.https://soundcloud.c...eam-karamel-kel
