I do care, I do worry. I would say that's actually what has replaced the true, acute anxiety that I felt in the beginning of all this. The gut-wrenching fear has been numbed by my meds and has sort of evolved into "how does this progress/how does this end?" as well as questions like "how will I support myself in the future?". DP has really sapped my confidence and my belief in my ability to forge my own destiny. I don't see a career for myself, or being able to have kids, or anything along those lines. I have a multitude of symptoms that I experience all day every day. DPDR has impacted my ability to even enjoy leisurely things. For instance, even a vacation is too stressful for me. It has made me live a very careful life - I live in a very small, low-energy world where I try not to rock the psychological boat, or exhaust myself physically or mentally.
But I guess what really worries me is what I perceive as cognitive decline. My faculties feel greatly affected, with no improvement over the years. I'm forgetting pretty basic everyday things, and my concentration is totally shot. My brain feels like it's shut off and is now just doing its own thing. I constantly experience what I would describe as tangential daydreaming - where my mind is just working non-stop, thinking about things, often abstractly, but rarely about anything relevant or practical. It's on a kind of non-stop treadmill, and along with my floaty/dreamlike experience of the world makes me feel dizzy and out of it almost constantly, and very removed from the world around me. I'm only 33 and I find it scary to envision a future where this gets even worse. By all accounts, I have many years to go, and I'm afraid to live as uncomfortably as this for decades to come.
So really, short of putting a bullet in my brain one of these days, how can I not care?
