[danny]

OK, see, heres the deal. I have had drug induced dr for almost 2 years now. I have definately improved from my lowest point almost a year ago but i am still only 50% better from there and i have the odd days where i almost slip back into it. I hear wonderful stories of recovery from long-term dp e.g. Janine, which is extremely positive for me and all of us sufferers here.

Yet I dont think i have come across any stories of cured drug-induced dr? Is this because the dr has come about in different ways, for example my brain has been chemically damaged v just simply patterns of thought? Or is this simply the same desiese with all of us open to recovery?

Dan

 

[Guest]

I don't think there is really any difference between drug onset and "regular" dp states. There are SOME symptoms, such as HPPD sensations of light trailers, etc. that do seem exclusive to the drug trip set. But the inner anxiety states and feelings of unreality and/or impending insanity or that the self is vanishing, that's all the same drug-induced or not.

It's the experience you WENT THROUGH on the drug, not the drug's chemicals that caused the breakdown. Even if you didn't have a "bad trip" there is something so traumatic to a drug user's experience if he/she is a highly controlled, highly self-guarded person. The sudden SHIFT in reality and/or the sudden breaking down of self-image and status quo is enough to send the person into pre-breakdown mode.

Then a couple of weeks later, or later still, the dp starts. It's as if the mind hasn't been able to account for the bizarre leaps out of reality that the drug provided....as if it tried to re-establish a sense of "ah, all is fine again now..." and failed. The dp is the result of the brain's inability to turn back time (and to erase the "new insights" or shifts of consciousness) that the drug experience provided.

You can definitely recover from this. I assume most rec drug users dont' come back and post because 1) they're all young and have better things to do, lol, and 2) they were maybe not that "into" mental issues before their bad experience, so their interest in psychology, etc. is minimal.

 

[danny]

It's the experience you WENT THROUGH on the drug, not the drug's chemicals that caused the breakdown

This does make sense, as many of us drug induced dr-ers did not get full blown dr until a month or so after the initial episode. For me it was 3 months before it became 'permenant' (hopefully soon wont be!)

Well hopefully ill be posting in a few months or years about a long term drug induced dr recovery!! :roll:

Fingers crossed

 

[university girl]

Hola to ya my fellow drug-induced DPer. As far as symptoms go, a study by Dr. Daphne Simeon actually looked at whether or not there was a significant difference in the symptoms of drug-induced versus non-drug-induced DP. They found no significant difference. Now, this does not necessarily mean the actual biochemical mechanism for the cause of the disease is the same but I think it's a good indication that it is at least similar.

There are two major theories out there as to why drugs can induce DP. One is that the actual experience of being high was in some way traumatic, as Janine mentioned. The other is that the actual drug induces the DP. I know for myself personally, the high that induced my DP was in no way traumatic.

 

[Guest]

Uni Girl, I agree that the high from the drug need not have been traumatic. But what can form trauma to the brain are repeated failed efforts to REINSTATE status quo - the disjointed experience from the altered state versus "normal" thinking creates a disparity of such magnitude that some minds will register that as catastrophic.

IT's as if the mind is asking "WHAT IS REAL? this? or THAT?" and the inability to re-synthesize a stable sense of boundaries and self versus other, etc...can be enough to invoke dp.

It's not the experience that does it, but the mind's relentless efforts to make sense of it all. Imagine that you've never had a dream and suddenly at 20 yrs. old you have your first vivid night dream. You'd wake up and say "What the hell was THAT?" and probably spend the next few weeks totally obsessed with the bizarre expulsion from reality...how did it happen? What is real, this or that? And that obsessing would cause the mind to soon create symptoms.

We have no better explanations for dreams now, but we accept them as dreams. We can wake up and say "oh, well....that was then and this is now..." and bop off to the kitchen. THAT is dissociation, put to good use. IF instead, we spent the entire day trying to synthesize what the dream experience was from what waking consciousness is, we'd likely produce something like dp pretty quickly.

And even if the mind is not consciously trying to sort out reality after a drug trip, some people's minds just do that naturally. Folks, like us, who cannot just say "oh, well" to mental enigmas..who need to exert over-control, and to pursue the intricacies of eerie states - to the detriment of the sense of self.

 

[university girl]

But does that not happen every high an individual has? For example, my DP set in on my tenth (or there abouts) high. Curious what your theory is on this.

Uni Girl, I agree that the high from the drug need not have been traumatic. But what can form the trauma to the brain is the efforts to REINSTATE status quo - the disjointed experience from the altered state versus "normal" thinking creates a disparity of such magnitude that some minds will register that as catastrophic.

IT's as if the mind is asking "WHAT IS REAL? this? or THAT?" and the inability to re-synthesize a stable sense of boundaries and self versus other, etc...can be enough to invoke dp.

 

[Guest]

we posted at same time! I was adding to my other post above.

I do think you're right - but the killer is always one of degree. It's fine to sort out reality and say "is this real?" versus "is that real?" but do it ENOUGH, with enough intensity and at the exlusion of the real external world, and there you have How To Create Dp In A Nutshell. Some of us did exactly the same thing without the drug. Interesting stuff here.

 

[bat]

hi danny

i got drug induced dp/dr over 10 years ago. i have spent about 85% of the last 10 years virtually dp/dr free. i say virtually because the memory of it doesn't leave me even when i am not dped.

i believe there are alot of people who experience some level of dp on come downs from drugs but mostly the dp's fairly mild and you know it's going to get better over the next couple of days or, if need be, put off for a bit.

anyway i know that it's possible to heal from dp(even if it's not to forget) and to lead a 'normal' life.

since my initial episode i finished an economics degree, resettled in a new country, trained as a teacher, bought a house, got a relationship and a dog. who said you can't have a second chance at life! hope this helps

 

[dalailama15]

It's the experience you WENT THROUGH on the drug, not the drug's chemicals that caused the breakdown

This is absolutely true, unless, of course, it is not.

In other words, how in the world, Janine, (I ask with respect and affection) can you KNOW this?

It seems reasonable that yes, we got shocked by the borders of our ego structures being shaken, and yes, we got crippled by the conflicts between our concocted unreal, or idealized selves, and our real, or true, or core selves. Except that, for one thing, there is no real evidence that any of this stuff even exists. These psychoanalytic models of human nature were early stabs which became mature and complete while psychiatry was just advancing to the stage of frontal lobotomy, and when real brain science was virtually non-existent.

It doesn?t seem reasonable to me that introducing THC into some brains causes an ?experience? that can have the same results as the experience of living, day after day, from toddler to adult, in an emotionally un-natural home, because of a mentally ill parent, or because of an un-naturally cold or distant family. The magnitude of the difference between these two experiences, compared to the similarity of the results (DP/DR), suggest to me that the other factor, ?the drug?s chemicals,? simply can not, with any confidence, be relegated to some kind of inconsequential trigger. We can?t know that the chemical is not causal--uniquely, for at least some of us who report an intimate relationship between the drug and the disorder

 

[halcyon]

i suffered from drug induced dr....abilify helped to cure that...cant say itll help for everyone but it did for me..you might want to give it a shot. good luck!

 

[danny]

since my initial episode i finished an economics degree

Hey pdr, SNAP! since my initial and continuing episode i finished an economics degree, well i do in 3 weeks, my finals are next week :shock:

Thinking about my initial attack, i do remember constantly racking m brain over what is reality when i was heavily stoned and wondering why i couldnt just snap back into reality

Thanks

 

[bat]

best of luck for your finals

 

[Guest]

Fine lama, I don't know it. Nor do psychoanalysts KNOW what they have learned either. nor psychiatrists. Nor any specialist. NObody knows anything 100 per cent, but when people talk, people are using their theories that have provided THEM with enough evidence to allow them to state a conclusion.

Forget it.
sorry.

nobody knows.
it's all conjecture.

i'll disclaim everything I say with that.

 

[dalailama15]

Ah god. Sorry. Did I sound that brisk or callus?

My point is not personal nor is it to debate -- I think transcending the debate itself could lead us closer to the real truth of all this. Like nature v. nurture, biology v. psychology could simply be the wrong question, a sterile question. I should have said, "how can one know this?" or "how can this be known?"

That it is not known, right now, may not mean that it is unknowable. I believe it can be known, or certainly can be assessed with greater or lesser accuracy, with the only methodology that, to my mind, seems to work--the scientific method.

I think, in my heart of hearts, that there is a decent chance that THC some how "gunked up" something in my lymbic system, all by itself, regardless of what I thought about it. This is a new idea for me, not a default idea, but after 30 years of being essentially a walking corpse, it probably doesn't make any difference.

Forget me. Sorry. I really wish everybody well.

-- Your friendly neighborhood dalai lama

 

[Guest]

no, my apologies. NOT having a good day and I just heard your words wrong.

 

[person3]

I do know to an extent

I have friends that get together and do drugs together, the same batches of drugs.

some can do six or seven hits of acid at once, one can't even take more than a fourth of a hit. (not surprisingly, the 1/4 hit wonder is much more of a type A personality than the six or seven set)

some can smoke a little pot, some a lot.

etc

same stuff

just different personalities using the stuff

it's not the drug

and btw the landslide majority of my drug use...and by this i mean ecstacy every single weekend for a couple of months, DXM, cocaine, Nitrous oxide, a little pot, a LOT of pills...the majority of that came after the breakdown. The breakdown broke me down, not the subsequent drugs. My personality had already been cracked by then.

Also it's a part of some personalities to want to place the blame elsewhere. So there is a psychological side to placing the blame squarely on the drug. That way you assume you spend your whole life looking for the antidote rather than examine yourself and flaws in your own personality. Just a way to further protect your psyche from thinking YOU need to change.

I should practice what i preach a little more shouldn't I?

 

[Da'Burgh]

I was doing DXM and after coming down (not completely) I smoked a few joints and that was too much I guess. It makes you trip so much harder. I had a major panic attack and the DP/DR didn't come 'til about almost a month later. I was after excessive worry and hoping I didn't F myself up that I got the DP/DR. I thought I was just "perma-trippin'" because a DXM trip feels like DR and when it gets more intense, DP. Needless to say, I don't do drugs anymore.

 

[bat]

what's dxm?

 

[agentcooper]

it's a hallucinogen...kind of like acid but it only lasts a short while (from what i've been told...never tried it myself).

 

[Da'Burgh]

I never really felt like it didn't last long... it usually kept me up all night.