I went many years with lots of diagnoses, with anxiety being the most common. But the docs would always say "yes anxiety, but there seems something more." It really confused me, for yes i knew I had anxiety issues, but I also was experiencing many things that other anxiety folks were not. I attended a group sessions for panic attack/agpraphobics, I hung out with a support group for the same and I talked at lenth over the years with my siblings who also had huge anxiety issues (ocd etc). I could relate well to the anxiety and panic in all these folks, but they could not (except episodic) relate to my descriptions of dp/dr. Furthurmore, all the treatments that helped these people (meds, exposure, cognitive thereapy, biofeedback, relaxation techniques etc) did little for me. So I felt truly alone and depressed over this. Finally In 1984 I stumbled upon Claire Weeks book and it was there that I found two pages talking about dp/dr. It was so obvious to me what I was experiencing. I then researched med libraries (no internet...I had to travel far and wide to the city to use resources) and read journals and started to understand more. It was with excitement that I reentered therapy becasue now I had a word for it, but to my disappointment the docs did not know anything about it. So I went a few more years until finding hppdonline and this site a couple years ago and for the first time in my life related to another human being with similiar symtpoms. It took me thirty years to get to this point. Before this I jsut went along in life trying to manage in my ignorance. I am very grateful for this site.
jft
jft
