[RPH_Thiper]

Hi all.

This is my first post, and I couldn't find anything specifically addressing this-I apologize if it's a duplicate.

I started experiencing DP/DR after being pulled cold turkey off psychiatric medication. The details aren't incredibly important but this was the cause of my DP/DR if it makes a difference.

I had a question I was hoping members could help me with anecdotally, as I've never been able to find this exact scenario described:

I have a really bizarre scenario with my past/memories, and by that, I mean everything that happened before the cold turkey scenario. I have a fragmented sense of self/reality and it feels like my memories are someone else's or happened to someone else like I'm viewing them in the third person. However, there are times when I can sit and replay or process memories in my mind, even simple things like a conversation I had a month or so before this happened, and it's almost as if it's "too much" for my mind. It literally creates anxiety to replay memories because it seems to confuse my mind and/or it's struggling between recalling my own memories, while still having that fragmentation and feeling separated.

I get the same thing when I'm in a familiar place I visited before the withdrawal. Like my mind somewhere knows I was there and the details but I can't "access" or connect to it, or it hurts my head if I start to.

Is this a thing in DP/DR? I'd sum it up by saying I remember my life before the trauma of withdrawal but I can't quite "reach it".

I'm asking please for normal/positive responses, and no doom-scrolling material or negative advice-this condition is already difficult to deal with.

Thanks all.

 

[JayB]

Hi Thiper,

I experience the same thing. The way I describe it is that my memories feel detached from me. All my thoughts (words or images) seem too loud or apparent. It's like my memories ''flash'' before my eyes but I don't feel ''connected'' to them. They never seem to be attached to the emotions I experienced at those moments. I feel detached from my inner voice if I focus for more than 3 seconds on it too. It creates a lot of anxiety, often panicky feelings. Being so aware of my mind makes me feel like consciousness is strange and it makes me feel a prisoner of my own mind.

You are not alone. We are all in this together.

 

[RPH_Thiper]

Hi Thiper,

I experience the same thing. The way I describe it is that my memories feel detached from me. All my thoughts (words or images) seem too loud or apparent. It's like my memories ''flash'' before my eyes but I don't feel ''connected'' to them. They never seem to be attached to the emotions I experienced at those moments. I feel detached from my inner voice if I focus for more than 3 seconds on it too. It creates a lot of anxiety, and often panicky feelings. Being so aware of my mind makes me feel like consciousness is strange and it makes me feel like a prisoner of my own mind.

You are not alone. We are all in this together.

Well put. I can relate to all of this. Thank you for sharing this and making me feel less alone.

 

[Chip1021]

Hi guy (or gal)!

I’m not sure what a normal/positive response is, nor do I know what “negative advice” entails, but hopefully this won’t be offensive. And if so, I proactively apologize.

First of all, don’t worry about if anybody has posted about your specific problem before. I’m sure at one point somebody has, but we are very familiar with hearing and responding to the same complaint over and over again, so you would be in good (?) company, lol.

I can’t be sure, but I suspect that much of my own experience with this “thing” is due to my own use of or withdrawal from the variety of psychiatric interventions I’ve had.

While everyone’s experience with DPDR is unique, the issue that you describe doesn’t appear to be particularly unusual or uncommon among us sufferers. But I did find the language that you were using very interesting. Your sense of a fragmented self is heavily reflected in the very impersonal way you described these experiences. You discuss your mind as if it were distinct from you as a person, and that your your mind is replaying these memories which produces anxiety due to the memories seeming foreign or distant or that they somehow don’t belong to you (correct me if that was a gross misinterpretation of your post.

DPDR is a very strange and unusual experience, especially when it is new and unfamiliar. We then feel the powerful desire to make sense of that experience, which seems to be what you are doing in trying to remember your past and find some way to connect it with your current self and situation. I apologize that I don’t personally have any advice on how to return to “normal,” but I hope this might perhaps bring a little clarity to what is happening at the moment.

At the very least, I hope I didn’t just bring you anymore suffering or problems. And if I did, then I apologize once again.

 

[A14n]

I have this being cold turkeyed from my GP. Can't connect to my memories or emotions, my time perception is messed up get very confused. I never know what to do with myself because I don't know who I am anymore each day now seems the same no matter what I do, time, days, seasons, holidays mean nothing to me now. Very strange