[danny]

This may sound slightly bizarre, but over the last few months i have been slowly improving (with the odd bad day) but when i am in the good days and i am dp free for maybe an hour or so, i suddenly realise this and feel scared im not in dp :shock: Its so weird, almost like i feel more secure in dp than outside.

Is this because dp is my 'normal' state now and i have to re-learn how normal? Any one else get this?

 

[Dreamland]

Bingo..!!! You're on to something. Peeling back the layers of depersonalization could expose another ugly state of mind.

 

[Milan]

I get that. I'm lost in an activity and then I realise I'm feeling normal, get a bit wobbly, find myself being frightened that I will fall back into the awful state and then bam I'm there again. It's like riding a bike, when you notice your doing it you fall off. For me it's simply feeling scared that I can not maintain the normal state and by thinking that I fall down. Always a trap.

 

[Guest]

It's not that you WANT to be in DP land, but the terror here is a terror of Change (even change for the better)

We get into DP precisely because we are afraid to exhale or shift to the left or the right. Frozen, in a quarter inch of consciousness, the only place we feel SAFE is in immobility. The slight inevitable "shifting" of ANYone's mind state (even in intense DP) is petrifying to us. We are so afraid of it, of NORMAL dips and sways, that we cling to ANYthing to keep afloat - even the old "friend" dp.

It's a phobia of "transitions" - a fear of going into or coming out of. That makes recovery a bit tricky, lol.....and I remember it vividly.

"....change feels catastrophic, rather than just a normal phase of human thought. We have forgotten HOW to dissociate...I keep insisting on that distinction. We are not dp because we're dissociating, we are DP because we're so afraid of NOT being fully aware, so afraid of letting ourselves zone in and out the way NORMAL minds do..." ?
[the description of the theory in that paragraph IS copyrighted from my next book, just FYI]

Peace,
Janine

 

[SillyPutty]

I know this is of topic, but Janine When exactly can we expect that next masterpiece, I'm very interested in anything you have written.

 

[Da'Burgh]

Janine, I'm curious as to what it actually feels like coming out of DP. I think I'm starting to see the end and maybe a few things you remember would be helpful.

 

[Guest]

This past week I, too, have been starting too come out of dp too and I have a lot of fear. For any of you with depression it is similar to that too. I cling to my fears and insecurities and illnesses because I tend to use them as my labels. I tend to consider them as who I am though I know they are not who I want to be. I just feel secure because I have been that way for so long. I have also heard that my personality type (meloncholy) tends to take on the role of martyr. That is, I allow myself to suffer for some reason and I fear letting go of this suffering. I tend to use my suffering as a crown of strength and in that way I am afraid to get better. For me personally, it has a lot to do with my securitiy being in others. I am dependent on others. The more I begin healing the less I need others; thats the way I feel at least. I want to be independent, but then another part of me really wants to be the victim. Can anyone relate?

 

[person3]

Janine you once made a post about how the problem is that we don't dissociate enough...it was really insightful. Do you remember where it is?

That reminds me about how everything in this disorder is about duality. We DP because we are afraid to dissociate in the first place. We fear something because we seceretly wish for it. We think we have nothing but love for our parents when we secretly wish to kill them and take all their money.

And the DP starts when we deny the flipside to every feeling, when we deny the secret part that is innappropriate or seemingly harmful or bad...when we think "oh no I'm not LIKE THAT...this part of me is me and that's it"...interesting.

Also for me fear of letting go of dp is the same as fear of being myself. because if i were totally myself, then i wouldn't be obsessed with my appearance, and then who knows what I would look like if I just stopped caring, and then I wouldn't have the control i think i do over situations in my life that seem impacted by my looks. TThat's just one of my big issues though, physical appearance. For others it could be something else. But the fear of letting go of dp is actually the fear of letting go of yourself because you might lose the hold over whatever trait you're trying to control.

Fear of letting go of dp is fear of letting go of something else. It's just better and neater in our minds to be fearful of letting the DP go because that OTHER thing we can't let go of we feel we HAVE to have to survive and obtain love and security. So we CANT let go of that...we don't TOUCH that. Instead we worry about letting go of the DP.

I'm overeating as I write this LOL speaking of appearance.

But yeah. A LOT of this stuff became less scary for me when I realized that whatever I thought I feared actually wasn't REALLY what I feared, and didnt' have to be attended to. Whatever I obsessively worried about losing I was also secretly WANTING to lose just once and for all...what ever I feared also excited me, etc. The worst breakdowns started to become interesting and fascinating and learning experiences. I was so busy looking at only ONE side of things (which got me into this mess in the first place)...I was so busy viewing things very simplistically because I wanted to control situations and in order to do that effectively you can't operate in "reality"...it's really hard to explain right now.

 

[Guest]

I can definitely relate to what you're saying Melissa, but I can't quite figure myself out. It is as if I have denied or separated out all the negative parts of my personality, all the anger towards my parents, etc., but I am very aware of the part of my personality that wants to kill, and destroy and rape, etc. The consciousness I have that always wants to do the right thing and always wants to treat other people with the respect that they deserve battles the near-solipsistic sociopath that really wouldn't mind dying if the whole world would pass away with me. I think it's not really as simple as a duality either, because there's the Christianized moral conscience, the simple Libertarian Humanist conscience, the cutthroat and the sick sociopath in me all vying for a say, all influencing the way I think about the world. There's the part of me that's tolerant, the part of me that's racist, etc., etc. and it gets a bit hard to deal with all that stuff scuffling and moshing around in my brain.

 

[person3]

I guess what I'm trying to say is that for me I had the problem of ONLY seeing one side of things, REFUSING to acknowledge another side. So finding the "flip side" of a thought or feeling is kind of a good thing for me.

But I think what you're talking about is the extremes we go to...a different kind of duality. Mine's was about not seeing all sides of the situation...you seem to describe the extremist thinking, which is also a problem a lot of us have. To love the world or want to murder, etc.