Depersonalization Support Forum banner

Dropping this here, take it as you will, wish I heard it 20 years ago

1K views 4 replies 4 participants last post by  Cali1234 
#1 ·
Hi, I would like to offer a bit of advice that will save you years of incredible hardship. You may take it, you may not. You probably don't know me. I had DP years ago. I don't have it at all now. Honestly, I would rather have a lifetime of DP than some other problems that are so much worse than DP but I was so obsessed with JUST THE DP at the time that I threw everything else away to try to cure it.

I got what I wanted.

It was not worth it.

Anyway, my advice is this:

DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, QUIT COLLEGE!

DO NOT.

I don't give an F how bad you feel right now. Slay that degree and get a graduate/JD/MBA afterwords if you have the resources. If you don't have them, do what you can to have them unless your BA is a degree like finance or engineering. (if you are financially unable to pursue higher education, exhaust every other option - learn programming at a community college where you can get scholarships for high grades, find ways your city or state can fund you - the state of NY gives scholarships for undergrads in need - train in a valuable skill, do SOMETHING and do it NOW. If you are in high school, study like hell and you could possibly get a free ride somewhere; I know my home state gave FREE tuition at the state universities for certain ACT scores. Put in the work somehow and somewhere. Learn any skill you possibly can that will make you valuable to others. These skills are usually hard and not so fun, but do them anyway. Society doesn't need another Anthropology expert. But someone who understands AI is valuable. If you cannot do any of these things, work the jobs you are working excellently, network and build a stellar reputation and constantly look for ways in your industry that you can become the best as sometimes those opportunities will open new doors. I know people who had Ivy League Degrees paid for by their employers because they were valuable to the company. If you have the brains to get into an Ivy League school, many offer a full ride to those in need. Go to a reputable school, not the University of Phoenix, haha.)

PLEASE.

All those things you are going to do, once your DP is over and you get your life back, you will be unable to do if you are not financially straight because you don't make enough g.d. money.

Do NOT screw yourself over. It will be so much worse than your worst day of DP to constantly worry about the rent getting paid or, hell, eating FOOD. You will be praying for the days where you lived at home and "just had DP."

Yes, I am saying this as someone who had a very bad case of it for years and as someone who does not suffer from it now.

I got a BA in History. It was a Bullsh*t degree, that is for sure. They should have just labelled it a BS degree, haha. It got me some excellent jobs at…waitressing. That I could have gotten anyway. Granted, it did open several doors, but not enough doors. Not what I truly wanted or needed. If I had just pushed through my anxiety a little more and held on more, I would have had an MBA under my belt or even a JD and the doors would be far more open. Thank goodness, there are options now, but it's so much more juggling, to the point where I contemplated selling my body to fund it because I was that desperate for more education. (Do you want to put yourself in that situation?) I so would do that if I had to, because it hurts less than the pain and humiliation of not being financially secure. Fortunately I am ok, for today. I am back in school and grateful for it like I have never been grateful for anything in my life. I almost cried, I was so happy. I'm studying subjects I would normally hate and soaking them up like they will save my life.

BUT. I look back and see how fear dictated my life, and how it was 10 feet tall, 10 feet wide, and paper thin. I was so afraid of another breakdown if I stressed myself too much in school that I quit before I had reached enough education to support myself and live the life I want. I cannot have children now because they are too expensive. I cannot do the things I want to do now, like travel. I cannot fully live. I have enough to get by but it is hard and my LinkedIn profile is an embarrassment for all to see. Because I let fear win.

No - you did NOT break down from too much work or stress. You think you did. I thought I did, initially when the DP first came on. It wasn't the work. It was the direction I was taking myself, with an eating disorder and basically not listening to my intuition and taking several paths in life that were totally unsuited for me. When I recalibrated, much of the DP went away but I was afraid to ever try again in school because I was afraid of a second massive breakdown, since I thought that the first breakdown was due to school stress. I was lying to myself. Maybe it was a way to protect myself from having to change the things in life that really broke me down, like eating 500 calories a day and building a false persona.

Education is a treasure and the key to the rich life you will have later. Do NOT waste it. It will make your "recovered life" a total field of BS when you realize it's so hard to fund.

And save/invest money NOW. Oh my god, check out the investment charts by David Bach. An 18 year old investing aside 2000 a year, every year, for less than a decade, and investing it in good mutual funds, will have over 2 MILLION in retirement just from the interest. Because the biggest factor to wealth is time for compound interest to kick in. But a 40 year old putting aside 2000 a year will never reach that number. They will have to invest far more and never stop, and retire later than 65, to get even close to that goal.

If you don't have a good job with a good income, then you cannot invest that damn money because you are constantly having to use it for an emergency. If you stay in school and get the best paying careers possible while you are still young and desireable by employers, you can easily stash that money and get on with life.

Additionally, YOU WILL WANT TO RETIRE. You may think now because you are so depressed, you won't live to see 65. But you will. And it will hurt like bloody hell. As you age, you have less energy, some even say less mental capacity unless you keep it up like a bloody hawk. So what are you going to do at 65 when you have no money because you screwed up your 20s and never really saved or whatever because you were feeling sorry for yourself with DP, and now you have to go work at some fast food place when you are older and cannot run around without breaking something and humiliated on top of that for doing this at an advanced age?

NO ONE WILL SAVE YOU. SAVE YOURSELF NOW. DO NOT LET DP RUIN YOUR FUTURE.

I don't give a F*CK how you feel. Don't want to get out of bed or do research papers or study? Then prepare for the days when you seriously contemplate a sugar daddy to help you fund expenses, or when you are afraid of your landlord, or when it's 15 degrees Fahrenheit outside and you cannot afford a second portable radiator to heat your home and the landlord has decided to withhold your heat, illegally, but what can you do, the real estate mafia in the city is too powerful so just freeze…it's frightening, but you will end up someone's b*tch in a very bad way if you don't work like the devil when you are young to protect yourself.

You may think it's funny, and if so, go ahead and carry on.

YOU CAN DO THIS.

You may think you CANNOT. I SWORE I could not do this or that due to severe anxiety. It is SUCH a lie of your brain. SUCH a lie. You can. Give it all you have, take it a day at a time if you have to, ask for help if you are stuck on a certain aspect of your schoolwork. But do NOT QUIT!

Honestly, I am worried no one will listen to this because you never understand regret until you feel the pain of the consequences you experience, and right now for many of you young people, you aren't in those shoes. That is the trick of life. The best opportunities come when you are too priveleged to truly want and go for them. It's cruel and life is very cruel unless you work harder and faster to outpace it.
 
See less See more
Discussion starter · #2 ·
Additionally, I am saying this as someone who suffered tremendously with DP. Everything in my life came to a halt. I lost years of my life in that misery. I did TONS of therapy, at least 20 different medications, always had a mini pharmacy in my purse and I cannot believe I operated a car on what they prescribed me. It did not have to be that way, but I truly believed I couldn't engage with the world so I just gave up for a while. If I heard these words from someone who never had DP, they would be worthless because that person never understood what DP felt like. But I am telling you as a person who suffered, who knows exactly what it was like, who landed in the hospital after taking 100 sedatives because I just wanted the DP to go away, who put myself in dangerous situations in hopes of "feeling" something, etc., that these things in the above post are more important than life itself for you. So, there is that.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top