[peacedove]

I don't think this is going to go away. I used to tell myself that I can know for sure I'll get better because there was a time I wasn't like this. So if I was normal once I can be normal again. But I haven't been normal in 17 yrs!!! The last time I was normal I was six! I don't even know if that was even me anymore. Maybe that small six-year window of normalcy is a figment of my imagination and this DP I've been living in for most of my life is actually reality. That would make more sense wouldn't it? I mean that is what I face everyday... that is my reality.

I don't even question things anymore. I'm just at work like yeah this is really scary. I feel like I'm on another planet. I want to die. But no, if I ignore it it will go away. I don't know who I am or what I am, but I don't care anymore. I've stopped fighting. I don't avoid things anymore, I face shit head on, but still the fear stays. I've improved in a lot of ways, but none of it matters cuz I still feel the same.

 

[Sojourner]

Find a therapist in your area:

http://www.apsa.org/members/olroster.htm
http://www.psychoanalysis.org.uk/uklist.htm

 

[peacedove]

I already have a therapist and a psychiatrist, but thanks anyway.

 

[Sojourner]

I believe we are all more alike than we are different.

People get mentally and emotionally skewed when their conscious minds make decisions that ultimately thwart the self-healing mechanisms we were created with.

Are you with me so far?

 

[Sojourner]

OK.

You know how when you put your hand on a hot stove, you feel pain?

OK. Our emotions and our sense of personhood also feel pain, but we are sometimes socialized very badly by our families and our societies so that we (a) do not react to the pain, (b) hide the pain where no one can see it, and (c) when asked if we are in pain, deny it.

Now, the universal symptom of inner pain that has been repressed by (a), (b), and (c) is emotional distress and "mental illness."

Ready to go on?

 

[Sojourner]

While we can remove our hand from the hot stove to stop the pain, we cannot alleviate inner pain unless we take our "hand" from "the hot stove."

Our "hand" is our current emotional inner landscape.

The "stove" is the "place" within us where we have hidden our pain.

We sometimes just do not even believe that such a "place" exists, but if we really get to the point where we are at our wits' end, if we are desperate enough to be well again, we may just summon the internal courage to go looking for that "place," just on the basis of the fact that someone -- probably many people, actually -- cares enough to spend the time to talk to us and explain that there is a solution and that the solution is not outside of ourselves but INSIDE US.

More? Of course, you know very well where I am going with this, right?

 

[Sojourner]

The fear you experience is your defense against experiencing the inner pain. You may have a huge amount of pain inside; I know that *I* do.

The fear is just another defense against experiencing the PAIN inside. But the pain inside is not so bad as to demand such a horrible defense. It really is painful, but it's far less scary than the fear.

Again, let me give you some encouragement: the pain that we are avoiding is but a tiny prick compared to the horribleness of the fear. I know the fear, peacedove, and I would take the pain any time you ask in place of the fear.

The pain is our true defender. What we could not or were not allowed to express in the past can come to our aid now and restore us to health. When you begin to experience your inner pain, you will feel better and more connected with yourself.

We are all the same, peacedove, we really are. We are all made of the same stuff and wired with the same basic design.

Repressed feelings seem so terrible to us that our unconscious mind has erected elaborate defenses to "protect" us from that pain, but it needn't bother and we don't have to listen to it.

So, go to a psychoanalytic therapist and cooperate with the therapist. Allow yourself to enter territory that scares you out of your mind. Do it and you can be restored to health.

Don't do it, and you face more fear.

Fear is the worst.

Pain is nature's way of healing and protecting.

Hand on hot stove = pain

Pain saves you from dying of burns.

Pain saves you from dying of fear and mental distress.

Pain is expressed in the body and then DEPARTS when it has done its job.

Let me say that again:

PAIN IS EXPRESSED

IN

THE

BODY

AND THEN

DEPARTS

WHEN IT HAS

DONE

ITS

JOB

 

[Guest]

--

 

[Phill]

I think there comes a time where you have to accept things the way they are and make something from what you have left, as little as that may be.

I don't mean give up, but if you can, come to a place where life with dp/dr is bearable and where you can still get some sort of happiness or joy from something.
Don't see your life as a waste because surely you still have something
inside you to give.
I came to that place and it has helped tremendously.
And I know you have Faith, Peacedove,
so also think about eternity and look forward to being with God forever.

Just some thoughts.

 

[terri*]

Hi Peacedove,

I'm sorry to hear you continue to struggle with living with this disorder. As Phil was suggesting, if you could find a place where you decide "this I can live with", it may help ease a lot of your frustration. Thoughts like "this is the dp, not me" and " oh, this is just my mind's reaction to stress"...simple positive ( well, in the most positive frame of mind we can be) statements like that can begin to override some of the negativity that comes with having dp/dr.

I know you know all this. I just hope so much it gets easier for you.

terri

 

[peacedove]

Thanks everyone for your replies. Sojourner... so do you think I should be hypnotized?? Cuz I've always thought something really bad must have happened to me when I was little and that's how I got this way... and your posts kinda reaffirmed this belief. I think that's the only way I can face the pain cuz I try digging for the source of this pain myself, but I can never get to it.

Phill... I wish I could look forward to being with God forever, but quite honestly he scares me. I'm not completely positive he exists and if he does exist I'm not sure if I like him very much. And now I feel guilty for writing that but he already knows what I'm thinking right? So I'm probably already damned to Hell.

 

[Sojourner]

Thanks everyone for your replies. Sojourner... so do you think I should be hypnotized?? Cuz I've always thought something really bad must have happened to me when I was little and that's how I got this way... and your posts kinda reaffirmed this belief. I think that's the only way I can face the pain cuz I try digging for the source of this pain myself, but I can never get to it.

No, I really don't mean that at all, peacedove. You *can* get to it with a good therapist. I am in the midst of doing it myself, and though it's hard, it's definitely possible. The pain is actually not all that buried, right? It manifests itself in how you feel today. You need someone that you like as a person and feel comfortable with to talk to about your feelings and whose training is primarily in helping people talk about how they feel.

Phill... I wish I could look forward to being with God forever, but quite honestly he scares me. I'm not completely positive he exists and if he does exist I'm not sure if I like him very much. And now I feel guilty for writing that but he already knows what I'm thinking right? So I'm probably already damned to Hell.

I know exactly how you feel, peacedove; but you neednt' worry -- God knows how you feel and it's okay to tell Him you don't understand and that you wonder if He's really there.

Do you have Christian friends? I don't know what denomination you are, but you could probably find a pastoral counselor who could help you sort through these things.

There are also lots good books dealing with these emotional issues we face from a Christian perspective.

Just some ideas -- but please know you are not damned to Hell by any means. It would really be a great help if you could find a Christian psychotherapist (there are a few out there).

Are you in therapy now?

 

[peacedove]

Well my pain isn't buried, but the cause of it is... the cause of the DP is.

I was raised Christian... not any particular denomination though. I don't have Christian friends. I don't really have any friends at all now that I think of it... well a few that I hardly see.

I used to read a lot of Christian self-help books when I was younger. I am in therapy now and my therapist is Christian actually, but he doesn't usually talk about his faith in our sessions unless I ask about it.

 

[Sojourner]

Well my pain isn't buried, but the cause of it is... the cause of the DP is.

I'm in the process of discovering the cause of my pain right now. It's not necessarily a "fact" or a "real event" -- it's turning out to be a feeling that I had growing up in my family. I find it hard to believe that they didn't "love" me, but I am discovering that the pain inside me is all about deep down inside, today, believing that I never really felt loved. Period. That's just some feeling I have had all my life. What it appears to be saying is not that my family *didn't* love me, but that *I* didn't *feel* it. There's no right or wrong here, just understanding. I have plenty of evidence that my parents and sisters loved me. That I didn't FEEL it says something about ME, not them. Sure, they obviously didn't deliver what I needed or wanted, but if I couldn't accept it then, I have to accept it NOW that they did the best they could. And I have to forgive myself for feeling all this time that I was just an afterthought, the fifth kid who just tagged along and didn't get listened to or paid enough attention.

That's MY pain. I know that's it, because it tears me up and I've just begun to recognize that the little girl in me is so sad and alone, even today. But I have no depression and no anxiety, peacedove. I have no symptoms of mental illness, which I had most of my life. None! But this pain is pretty bad at times. Yet the freedom it brings, little by little, is enough to make your heart soar.

Is your therapist using a psychodynamic or psychoanalytic approach? Are you talking about your feelings? Do you feel free enough to feel your feelings in the presence of your therapist? You are female, right? I urge you to get a female therapist; it's just so much simpler. Besides, your therapist shouldn't be doing the talking except to help YOU talk.

I'm in a similar situation as you with regard to friends; I don't have any right now. But *I* am my friend, and you are yours, and maybe we could be two friends.

I hope you don't feel you have to stay with one therapist. In fact, if you are not able to freely talk about how you feel with him, I would recommend finding someone with whom you feel more comfortable. But the male/female dynamic is unquestionably a factor in therapy, what with transference and so on. Anyway, I'm rambling.

Are you able to talk about your feelings in therapy openly and to access your feelings in the presence of your therapist? Does he encourage you to do so?

 

[peacedove]

My therapist is using CBT. We constantly talk about my feelings. He is always encouraging it, I just find it hard to describe them accurately. I am female and he is male, but I've been with him forever and think I've come along farther with him than with any other therapist.

You say you have no symptoms of mental illness... so you mean to say you are completely DP free??

I would like to see another therapist in addition to this one but I don't know how my insurance would work for that.

 

[Sojourner]

Yes, I am completely DP free. My DP was only part of my panic attacks. I started lorazepam in May when my panic began. We increased the Zoloft and my depression went through the roof.

On July 1 I stopped all drugs -- no anxiety, no depression. Pain? Yes, but I am seeing my therapist twice a week now. I find the experience of it to be healing, though, which is often the case in psychotherapy. It's why I said elsewhere that it's almost "magical" how just feeling a feeling can be healing. But it's true. Something shifts in us when we express emotion that has been penned up for years, hidden from our conscious awareness.

But it's not FAST, although one can feel better after the first session. Our personalities were not built in a day and they won't be understood in a day, either. But it's worth the time and the money, I think.

 

[Phill]

Just wondering, how old are you Sojourner?

 

[Sojourner]

I'm 58.

 

[Phill]

ok. You just seem so wise.

 

[Sojourner]

I apologize if I sound pompous, but I don't mean to. I've been told that I sound like a know-it-all, but I don't know it all. But I think the years I've put in on the planet have taught me a few things. Basically, I'm struggling like all of you here, but sometimes feel that I have something to offer.

I understand you are a Christian, Phill. Sometimes I think there are ideas from religion that can help everyone, but I hesitate to bring them up because I don't want to enrage people or add to their suffering.

The misconceptions about Christianity on this forum are such that I want to tell the truth, but I am a lousy spokesman!