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Cloudbursting

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#1 ·
Good evening my dp brethren (and sisteren...i wonder, what is the female equivalent of that word?),

I've had so much i've wanted to say to you all for the past two weeks and yet so little time to say it. There were posts i've read and wanted to reply to and thoughts that had popped into my head that i suspected would have held meaning for many people on here. Alas, everytime i alloted myself an hour to sit down and put bit to byte (as it were), the temporal allowance i'd courted was swallowed up by some trivial inanity or another, and so i've had numerous ideas build up to the point where i simply must write this long soliloquoy just to keep the dam from bursting.

A quick overview of my situation: (Somehow when i get into this i always feel like a TV announcer: "Previously...in the life of sebastian...")
I've had dp for ages...off and on...intermittently...(my story is in the story section if you've hit that stage of boredom where you're willing to try just about anything). A couple of years ago, events in my life and states of my mind dictated to me that the dp i'd suffered with throughout the ages had been conquered...quashed...quittlybooped. I was so certain that it was all over that i seriously got to the point where i laughed at the idea that i'd suffered from it in the first place. The THING had become a ludicrous joke...an absurd idea that i was entirely able to look back upon as a growth experience and a lesson in life never to take anything (especially my mental state) too seriously. I was dp-free. Done with it. Happy as a hiccup.

It all came crashing down in March of last year. And it came back slowly...very slowly...in the insidious guise of an obsession. Now...this obsession stewed within me for weeks...in fact, i remember coming on here the first couple of nights at 3 in the morning, unable to sleep...suffering from severe panic attacks. Unable to resolve the obsession in my mind. Gasping for breath...gasping for life...little thought gremlins scurrying furtively through my brain...not forfeiting even a minute for some solace and respite. I was in a horrible, abject state. Going crazy...unable to resolve the obsession...it kept gnawing at me and gnawing at me...poisoning my mind with it's devilish tongue. Spinning me round and round. I was frantic. I was panicky. I was spiralling out of control. But...oddly...i was still dp-free.

The horror that i endured in those first few weeks was beyond parallel to anything i'd ever experienced...in the past or since then. I've often come on here and spouted out the usual lamentable litanies, how i feel worse than ever, how this is the end of everything, the sky is falling, etc etc. And while i certainly undergo a gruelling hell on those occassions, i think objectively, the first few weeks of this current spat of dis-ease were indeed the worst. I don't know. You know, it's hard to rate these things. I've had harrowing nights and desperate days where i feel as though i've only managed to cling to sanity by the skin of my teeth. The depersonalization once again resurfaced after about a month of battering down my psychological defences with obsessive ruminations and anxious brooding. Since mid-April i've had dp quite consistently, some days worse than others. There was one week when i completely "dissolved" while driving my car on the highway after a weekend of partying and i nearly got in an accident. I was totally lost that day. And since then, i've questioned reality on an almost daily basis and have felt myself slipping and sliding on precipitous slopes. I've felt adrift from friends and family alike. I've been totally divorced from myself and who i used to be. And i've felt it for so long, and so often, and so powerfully, that i've exhausted every adjective i could use to describe it, rendering words meaningless...

My point to all this is that i had beaten dp. Defeated it. Cut off it's hydra head and pissed on it's grave. But it came back...born again from the swamps of the amygdala...born of fear and anxiety and obsessions. I know now clearly that this disease can undoubtedly be caused by anxiety. Fear is the fuel that keeps this thing alive.

I come on this forum just about every day. Sometimes i'll spend a few minutes...sometimes over an hour. The one thing that never ceases to amaze me is this: The same people have the same problems over and over again. The same people fall into the same traps. Fall for the same tricks. Fail to heed the same advice that's given to them over and over again. As a very wise woman once told me; this fact, this psychological recidivism on the board, is both frightening and reassuring. It's frightening because one suspects that they may be destined to follow the same path again and again. The doomed Sysyphus...pushing the rock up the hill only to have it tumble again to the ground...over and over again for all time...while the Cassandras of the board shriek out their prophecies which fall on deaf ears. Well, not deaf i suppose...but a little hard of hearing. We are all actors in our own tragedy, endlessly playing our parts...needing just to realize that we can step off the stage anytime we like. I really believe that's all it is. It's just incredibly hard to do so. I know a lot of people here will disagree with this, but i think that's it. I think the only physical aspect of this disease is that somewhere in our brains we are predisposed to anxiety, and we unfortunately, allow that anxiety to spiral out of control. I'm not even sure if the physical component is necessarily necessary. You know, i'm sure in some quantum way it is, but i think the catalyst for all of this is our propensity to question...to doubt...to brood.

Anyway, back to the idea of the board recidivism rates. What makes this fact reassuring is that if i had a dime for every time i've heard someone on here say they thought that "This time really...for sure, for sure...i'm going crazy! It's the end! Nothing can stop me from losing my mind now!", then i'd be one wealthy MoFo. That is a very reassuring thing. The fact is, we are not going crazy. We're not slipping away. We're not becomming more and more of a hopeless case every day. Things really do seem like the end of the world. But they just seem that way.

I know a lot of people on here feel as though they don't have the anxiety, and simply feel dissociated with themselves. Perhaps they've suffered through some trauma or induced dissociation through some form of narcotic or another. In these cases, i would opine that while the depersonalization is certainly present, it is the fear of that very sensation that perpetuates it. Or rather, it's the attention paid to the sensation that keeps the sensation there. Regardless of how we all ended up here, i suspect that it's the very fear of this thing, and the assiduous attention we pay towards it and accompanying mental horrors, that keep us wrapped up in it's web...walking around in circles.

When i first experienced depersonalization, i was wacked in the head while wrestling. I was about 12 years old. It was the scariest thing i'd ever felt. Ever since that day, i lived in constant fear of that sensation coming back, until one day, inevitably, it did. It has haunted me ever since. But while i may have suffered something as innocuous as a slight concussion, that fear was so horrifying to me, that it then became the focus of my energies, constantly lifting my defences and residing in a mental citadel...hoping to, at all costs, defend against this sensation.

As i brought it on myself back then...constantly thinking about it and it's implications...i can think back to every other time in my life when it has made other frontal assaults. That terrible halloween day on the eve of the millenium. Those lurid black nights living at my father's when the room spun and the world tipped and the light burst through the window. Last March...i remember how i sat and thought for hours on end. Literally. Just sitting and thinking. Obsessing. Systematically destroying the aura of invincibility i'd built around myself.

I thought my way into this.

I won't ramble on about all i've been through in the past year. Paroxysms of panic...shifting sands...ends of worlds. An unrelenting bombardment of mental anguish. I've lost who i am. Swimming in sorrows and wistful goodbyes...watching my life come crashing to the floor...like a distant supernova...a short burst of light, barely seen with the naked eye...falling stars and fevered dreams. I won't bore you with all that. Because it's been said before. By me, by you. By everyone on here. You all know of what i speak. How does it end?

I can really say that i've been to hell and back. Often you'll hear people yak on about how this isn't a real disease and how if we ever experienced something TRULY horrible, we'd be blessing our stars that we only had depersonalization.

But those people have never had what i had. They've never journeyed through my world...had their minds spun in endless spells...their sky ripped apart...their soul exorcised...they don't feel that horrible emptiness...that vacuous nothing. That hole inside...they've never been where tears no longer fall...watching those they once loved drift by them like ghosts, not realizing they're already gone. On the wrong side of the mirror. Waterfall dreams forever lost. It is quite unbelievable what the mind can do to itself. But it's true...i thought my way into this.

I'm still sick. This isn't my Wellness Manifesto. Nor is it a tortured plea for help. I just want to share all this with you. I think i'm slowly coming to a realization. You see...it's like this: Two weeks ago i started to feel happier. The winter solstice was regarded by me, as far back as september, as a time for change. The days are getting longer. The light is out all the more. And what a difference it makes. Little sparkles of hope are starting to creep their way into my brain again. Two weeks ago, i met a girl at a bar, and we really hit it off, and for many hours i forgot about my problems again. Even the next day, things seemed hopeful. A series of other small triumphs bubbled up in the days following, and for the first time in a long while i began to feel much more normal. It was the wednesday of last week that i suddenly catapulted back into a horrible wave of dp, and then it was a couple of days ago that i shot back. The oscillations are getting more frequent...and wider...

i'm sitting in the very room where all this started, one year ago. when i sat down and obsessed and obsessed and obsessed. Always looking for the way out. I remember thinking my way into this...this is all me...i did all of this...

Merriam-Websters'
Cloudburst: A sudden copious rainfall, or deluge.

sebastian's
Cloudbursting: That moment in time when the rain falls so hard that an epiphany strikes. One comes to a realization, so true and so pure that they run out into the rain, throw out their arms, and raise their heads to the black, tempestuous skies and laugh and gaze in awe and wonder. When things look their worst...when the winds howl and the gales blow...and when you're tottering, drenched in a starless night, you know that no matter what happens...no matter how bad it gets...the rain has to end. There are only so many clouds in the sky. And you wait for them to part...tempering the storm. The tides have turned. This is the time. This Cloudbursting...this is what happens when the spell is broken.

Do you remember staring in wonder at those glorious sheets of white up in the sky? When did they become our enemies? When did the moonlight change from enchanting to suspicious? Where did our lives go? How did we manage to lose the plot? I've wasted almost a year of my life doing absolutely nothing. It's time to get on track again. I remember gazing across the ocean...up into the night...those moonlight clouds moving the way i told them too...you kings, you knights, you bright brazen creatures of the sky...what secrets you whispered to me that night...

Anyway, that's all i have to say. The spring is coming people...we thought our way in...we mustn't think our way out.

s.

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#4 ·
Okay, i'm copying your description of Cloudbursting and having it done in calligraphy on one of the walls in my bedroom. Plan on giving you all due credit. :D

Very good stuff, Sebastion.

(I bet you do wish you'd written that, Little Missy Janine. :p Don't we all?)

Classic. Really.

terri*
 
G
#6 ·
This is the truely the best piece of writing regarding the subject of depersonalisation I have yet to read, I shall print this off and keep it with me always. It really has inspired me! and I really mean that!

You are a very gifted writer, never stop writing.

Regards

Sig
 
#8 ·
Thanks Sebastian.

Very informative. I know that I need to stop thinking about it. But just haven't quite figured out how yet. Guess that is why I am seeing a Psychiatrist and Psychologist.
Sometimes it seems to just take over without me knowing. Actually that is most of the time.
But again, thanks for the info.

Kelson
 
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