Been In A Chronic State of Dp/Dr for over 12 years...feeling close to giving up...

1803 Views 8 Replies 8 Participants Last post by Pondererer, Oct 20, 2018

GoneInSpace

Discussion Starter · Aug 28, 2018

Hello,

I would like to tell my story. I am not sure why, but I don't know how much longer I can keep going.

I'm not sure exactly when the change came, but at a certain point I no longer had a contrast between my normal connection to reality and episodes of dp, but rather began to exist solely in a state of unreality. Everything I do is based on just assuming things are real, or pretending, or acting. I no longer know if I am alive, but rather am just going with that assumption.

About 12 years ago I started to have major depression and panic attacks, with occasional episodes of dp. Eventually the dp took over, and simultaneously I no longer was able to get any kind of deep sleep. For the past decade I just lay in bed at night until morning, without the feeling of having fallen asleep. My mind is awake the whole night. I have had sleep studies done where they have said I only enter stage one sleep, but I don't even feel like I enter that. I have tried over 20 kinds of medications. I have been hospitalized many times. I have tried CBT. Psychotherapy. Nothing has helped.

Now I am 34 years old and I haven't left my parents house on my own in over 4 years. I am only able to go out of the house accompanied by one of them, and they are now very old. Although I don't feel they are entirely real, they are my only connection to a previous sense of reality and I only feel somewhat comfortable to leave the house when I am with them. Sometimes I don't even safe to be left alone at home. I am constantly trying to distract myself, but nothing seems to work. I exercise strenuously for an hour or more, but it does not help much. I used to be a musician and a photographer, but I have lost all interest in those things because they don't feel real. I feel nothing. I used to enjoy reading, but my mind can't focus long enough to read more than a page at a time.

I have been constantly seeking some help and or/trying to help myself, but my condition just keeps getting worse with each passing year. I try medications, see a psychiatrist regularly, exercise, don't drink or do drugs, but it just seems I am imploding and fading from existence.

I constantly feel like I am a robot or a zombie and there is "nobody home" in my body. That I am on auto-pilot. I am in constant fear that I will just go wander off into traffic (that actually happened once) without knowing it, or harm myself without even having made that decision.

I have not been able to work, to socialize, to have a relationship, and I am now a guy in my mid-30s with no hope. Things no longer just feel like a dream, but I am convinced that they are, that everything is just ephemera and shadows and has no real substance. Almost like a Buddhist, but instead of a sense of enlightenment there is instead total and complete hell.

My apologies for this self-indulgent rant. It has always been a hope of mine to meet some people who are like myself, that have had there life completely altered and stolen and are somehow quietly trying to cope and make it to the next day.

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Aridity

· #2 · Aug 28, 2018

I can totally relate to you,I have been depersonalized since I was 4/5 years old on and off,and the past 8 years 24/7 and very severely. You described it veryy well. I am 24 now,I haven’t tried much to battle this illness so that’s my hope. You as well still have many options left to try. There’s always hope,there are people who had it longer than us and found some relieve. Did you try TMS? Ayahuasca? Anything,if you want to end it all. Why wouldn’t you try a few more things?

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forestx5

· #3 · Aug 29, 2018

Just curious...have you ever had an EEG? Treatment for brain issues are partitioned to neurology and psychiatry. In my opinion, psychiatry is a dead end. If you find yourself being treated by a psychiatrist, you have been triaged. I was treated by psychiatry for over 20 years, and made zero progress in understanding my illness,

or having my symptoms adequately treated. But, I figured I was at the end of the road and that is all there was for me. But I never stopped researching for information that would help me understand the riddle of my life, which was how I became mentally ill. I had experienced some unique and odd sensations leading to my mental illness, and I knew I was not the only human to walk the path that I did.

38 years after my initial neuro/psychiatric trauma, while reading British neurological texts and medical journals, I found the case history that matched mine in every minute detail. Epigastric Aura. Temporal lobe seizure. Focal temporal lobe seizure. Post Ictal psychosis. Affective disorder of Major Depression. Worst Case Scenario. Difficult to diagnose.

I had a lot of psychiatric symptoms, but the gist of my illness was epilepsy. My panic attacks were seizures. I had an EEG which showed I had a history of epileptic seizures. Suddenly, my entire adult life came into focus. I've had the average 5 major depressive episodes in my lifetime. I had ECT in 2014 and it was awesome. I think I am still improving.

I know I will never have another episode of Major depression, because I am myself again. Sometimes I read symptoms on here that I used to experience. Intrusive thoughts, existential fears, etc. Not anymore. I'm well. The beauty of it is, I had zero hope that it would ever happen for me.

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Chip1021

· #4 · Aug 29, 2018

Hi there.

Sorry about your plight. Your story is very similar to mine, I'm also 34, haven't left my parents's house except to walk to the end of the street, which can be too terrifying most days. It's been about 6 years since I've been housebound. Also tried all the meds, hositalization many times, therapy, everything I can think of that is within my means and abilities. Can't do much of anything, don't sleep most nights, etc. feel free to PM me if you ever want to talk, self-indulgent rants are welcome.

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Amethysteyes

· #5 · Aug 29, 2018

Hi, im really sorry youve been suffering for so long...ive dealt with dpdr for only three years along with manic depression with psychosis so every so often i get psychosis with it which can make it so much worse and more confusing, espessially at nighttime.

Idk if my advice will help but i will try since i just recently recovered from dpdr.

Have you tried guided meditation to help sleep? They are on youtube. The first time i put it on, i felt skeptical and it didnt work till a couple more nights of trying. I didnt even remember drifting off to it when it first worked. Fuck, i hardly remembered putting it on, which scared me a little but it worked. Cant say itll solve your problem but i know what you mean when you dont feel youve slept at all for a night, like your just laying there. I get that alot too. There was a time i was sleeping in my moms room but i felt completely awake the whole time and it felt i was just laying there in a trace state and when i "woke up" my mom said id been clocked out for a couple hours, appearently she had asked if i was awake, even poked me a few times and i didnt remember it or feel it but i swore i was awake the whole time, drowning in crazy thought patterns. I thought i hadnt slept at all as the only things occuping my mind was thinking about dpdr, non sensical thoughts and how sleep was nowhere in reach when it mightve accually been and i was accually dreaming a continuation of the thoughts if that makes sense?
Have you tried sleeping with white noise? Like a fan? It helps me alot too, along with guided meditation. Or just putting a light tv show on, on low volume. It can help drown out your thoughts.

Two things really helped me recover. Those were accually going out by myself and leaving my comfort zone and trying my best to connect to emotions, like watching or listening to sad shit or watching comedys to try and spark anything in me at all. It was super hard and scary at first to leave the house on my own because it made the dpdr worse for a while but eventually i got used to it as i powered through it and it accually helped me recover and feel more present after a while. That took months but it was worth it. Being with friends or people who do things that require you to REALLY focus helps too.
The thing that really prevents recovery is stagnation! Dont let your life become dull, its poison to the mind. I know its incredibly hard but keep yourself moving. Go to public places with lots of people like a mall or park with somebody. Go swimming. Fun things, even if you cant feel the enjoyment. ANYTHING. And keep doing stuff and remind yourself your making yourself better by doing it.

Another issue are the delusions, like thinking your dead. You gotta develope a "i dont give a fuck" additude toward them and find ways to disprove them.

Just treat your dpdr as just exactly what it is: a change in perception of reality.

Dont give up! Theres light at the end of the tunnel! I promise!

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ruby

· #6 · Aug 31, 2018

Just made an account just for this post. You are not alone, i am 28 and i've been suffering from DR/DP for around 2 years, at first i thought it may have been jetlag as i had literally just left my old life in england to live with my now husband in australia, but then these feelings didnt life after a few days, i was scared sh******, i felt like i was the only person going through this, and i was terrified my inlaws would see me as ''not the girl they met a couple of days ago'' because then, i was happy, smiley, talking to them, But now? well i feel like i'm on autopilot, like someone else is that happy smiley person, my body forces me to smile or act like not myself and that gives people the assumption that im that person. I have tried grounding myself, for example, i will walk bare foot outside in the grass but it doesnt help, nothing seems to help. Outside looks ''HD'' like what i'm seeing isnt real, and it hurts my eyes. And i absolutely HATE going out and socialising because those people that see me again, feel that im a sociable person. But if they saw the real me, like the person who isnt happy, and rarely smiles or shows emotion, i feel they would think differently of me. I feel i got this DR/DP from my childhood, because i experienced stuff no child should ever have to witness, Like my mother treating me like i wasnt her child, she never treated me right, always had a favorite child which was my older half brother. And at the age of between 8- 10 was sexually abused by 78 year old next door neighbour, i did tell my mother of this and she didnt believe me, so the fact that she didnt believe me, made me not want to tell my father about it, and to this day he still doesnt know. and between the ages of 12-15 i was sexually abused a total of 5 times by my best friends dad. Anyway i have no idea how to get myself out of this mess that i'm in, i want so much to feel myself again, but i feel like its a lost cause. But again GoneInSpace please know, you are not alone and i will be here if you ever want to talk

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GoneInSpace

Discussion Starter · #7 · Oct 19, 2018

Hi all,

I would like to thank you all for your supportive postings. Lately I have been seeing some more naturopathic/spiritual healers and they seem to have a totally different approach to what is wrong with me. They seem to think that my past marijuana use has opened up some sort of new plane of existence, where i am stuck between this physical plane and the astral plane and that is why I am so confused. I'm not sure if I believe in that, but it is interesting, but also frightening. Currently I am trying to increase some of my meds, but I find it is making things worse??! I recall that usually happens at the beginning. I would like to at leave solve one of my issues- depression or anxiety or insomnia or dp- All 4 is just way too hard, especially for 15 plus years. Like one of the previous posters said, I have been housebound for over 5 years, at best I can walk down the street of my parents house, but even that is extremely hard and terrifying. It's like I don't know if i am real or not or asleep or dead.

It's true like some of you have said, "a not giving a fuck approach is helpful", to some extent.

I have had an EEG, a cat scan, MRI, my brain appears to be completely healthy to the doctors....sigh. I just wish I could walk down the street to buy groceries. That is my goal. But everything is had when YOU DONT EVEN KNOW IF YOU ARE ASLEEP OR AWAKE OR ALIVE OR DEAD or watching your body from metres above you just go about your business with no one behind the wheel.

I'm sorry there are so many other people suffering, but it is somewhat comforting, in a sad sorta way.

Much love and peace to all of you.

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REB

· #8 · Oct 19, 2018 (Edited by Moderator)

Hi, man.

DP has robbed me of everything including my reading comprehension, so i don't know the content of your post, but i read from the title that you've had it for 12 years and that you're pretty bummed out about it.

I just want to say that i'm celebrating my 14th year of chronic primary DP this year, and that i feel your pain.

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Pondererer

· #9 · Oct 20, 2018

I'm in a similar situation and wanted to say you are not alone.

DP has literaly robbed me from everything..

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