[PoorYorick]

Hello everyone, I don't plan to spend much time on this forum since one of the main symptoms for me is involuntary rumination about my condition but I need to get it off my chest once. I smoked weed once on my 18th birthday and also had been drinking but not too much (stupid, i know) and upon standing up from where we were sitting I got a panic attack and thought I was about to die but then everything seemed to be fine until the next day where I noticed that something was off. The first thing was, that I couldn't seem to concentrate on the podcasts or audiobooks because I was ruminating. It didn't seem interesting or funny anymore and I had a lack of the curiosity that I was used to from myself. I aws hyperaware of my internal monologue, one could say I'm mostly living in my head now. Then in the first few days I noticed visual symptoms come on, something like tunnel vision (like it's harder for me to process anything I'm not directly looking at, seeing the big picture) and lights being bright and blinding. What is frustrating to me and what makes me so sad is that I had no history of depression or anxiety or something like that. My childhood was not amazing since we moved a few times and parents were both working all the time and I was closeted gay kid, I was on my own a lot but I had a lot of interests, like film, music, riding my bike listening to audiobooks, playing video games with friends and most importantly I was content with being like that. It was like I had too little time to do all the things that I wanted to do and now I don't want to do anything, since anything besides recovery seems pointless and I know it isn't and I really am trying to "fake it till I make it" but I do not see much progress happening and everyone is saying that I need distraction and it does help for coping sometimes but it hasn't made me ruminate less in the long run.

Things that have changed in the 6 years after: First three years were really bad. Every second I was ruminating and ruminating and couldn't concentrate on anything else. Somehow I was still on track with getting my bachelor's degree but day to day life felt really shitty. I don't have episodes, I constantly feel that something is wrong with me and that I don't feel at home in the world, like it's a foreign planet that I used to intuitively understand. When I was with other people, I could forget about it for maybe a few minutes at a time but when I'm alone I can't help but think about my condition and analyze it, even though nothing comes from it, I can't stop doing it. I have done CBT but it was pretty bad. The good part was having someone to talk to, the bad part was these mindfulness exercises, which I found painfully pointless (also I have aphantasia, which I found out at some point, meaning that I can't imagine anything in my mind). I can't stress enough that my condition and what it could be and what I could do and how I could explain it to someone was on my mind almost every second for all these years and even now.
Then after 3 years I had a huge falling out with one of my best friends, by whom I felt betrayed, long story and I was feeling especially bad. I started going on Lexapro and then shortly after I met my current boyfriend, who means a lot to me. I've taken Lexapro/Escitalopram for about 3 years and my experience with it (10mg or 5 mg) is the following: It helped great against the constant anxiety and reduced the rumination a bit, the bad feeling in my chest went away, I found things less funny, I was not at all happy but I was less sad, it took effort to be interested in what someone was saying to me, I gained weight (not great for self image), time went by faster (good). All in all a mixed bag but now I'm off the medication for 3 weeks and am trying to lose the weight by exercising and to feel a little more of everything, although the rumination is almost as bad as before. I think I feel a few moments of happiness or sadness compared to 3 years ago but I am still mostly ruminating every single moment. What helps me cope is playing video games with friends. Doing anything with other people.

I really hope that one day I can get at least 50% of my old self back. Not in the way that I was as a person but in the way that I was casually being day to day. I'm going to finish my master's degree and hope that time will heal some of the wounds. I may try therapy again, especially EMDR. I may try ADHD meds, since I suspect that I may have it and it has been suggested to me before (I also had an paradoxical reaction to Wellbutrin/Elontril, which made me tired as hell and that could be an indication of ADHD but it's hard to get diagnosed with it in Germany. I may try Zoloft or Prozac and I can always go back to Lexapro when things get too bad, which is a small relief but all in all, I'm sad that my life or a great portion at least has been ruined by something absurd almost noone is even aware of. I will not be staying on the forum for long and try to move further because I have no other choice, since I want nothing more than to live again.

I wish all of you best of luck and stay strong.

 

[NoDevils]

anything besides recovery seems pointless

This makes no sense and is totally antithetical to recovery.

The term "CBT" is used like a catchall. I would never have thought from hearing "CBT" that you were doing mindfulness exercises. Then again, I'm no therapist. It sounds like your problem is obsession and anxiety, something similar to OCD.

It sounds like the antidepressant subjectively blunted your emotions while reducing your depression and anxiety. That's a typical reaction to an antidepressant.

Congratulations on getting your bachelor's degree and pursuing your master's. I think you've done well. You say you don't care about anything other than depersonalization but you 1.) attend school, 2.) had close friends, 3.) had a boyfriend, and 4.) want to leave here because you don't want to think too much about depersonalization. Something must matter to you other than constant monitoring of symptoms, otherwise you wouldn't have done these things.

 

[coolwhip27]

Hello everyone, I don't plan to spend much time on this forum since one of the main symptoms for me is involuntary rumination about my condition but I need to get it off my chest once. I smoked weed once on my 18th birthday and also had been drinking but not too much (stupid, i know) and upon standing up from where we were sitting I got a panic attack and thought I was about to die but then everything seemed to be fine until the next day where I noticed that something was off. The first thing was, that I couldn't seem to concentrate on the podcasts or audiobooks because I was ruminating. It didn't seem interesting or funny anymore and I had a lack of the curiosity that I was used to from myself. I aws hyperaware of my internal monologue, one could say I'm mostly living in my head now. Then in the first few days I noticed visual symptoms come on, something like tunnel vision (like it's harder for me to process anything I'm not directly looking at, seeing the big picture) and lights being bright and blinding. What is frustrating to me and what makes me so sad is that I had no history of depression or anxiety or something like that. My childhood was not amazing since we moved a few times and parents were both working all the time and I was closeted gay kid, I was on my own a lot but I had a lot of interests, like film, music, riding my bike listening to audiobooks, playing video games with friends and most importantly I was content with being like that. It was like I had too little time to do all the things that I wanted to do and now I don't want to do anything, since anything besides recovery seems pointless and I know it isn't and I really am trying to "fake it till I make it" but I do not see much progress happening and everyone is saying that I need distraction and it does help for coping sometimes but it hasn't made me ruminate less in the long run.

Things that have changed in the 6 years after: First three years were really bad. Every second I was ruminating and ruminating and couldn't concentrate on anything else. Somehow I was still on track with getting my bachelor's degree but day to day life felt really shitty. I don't have episodes, I constantly feel that something is wrong with me and that I don't feel at home in the world, like it's a foreign planet that I used to intuitively understand. When I was with other people, I could forget about it for maybe a few minutes at a time but when I'm alone I can't help but think about my condition and analyze it, even though nothing comes from it, I can't stop doing it. I have done CBT but it was pretty bad. The good part was having someone to talk to, the bad part was these mindfulness exercises, which I found painfully pointless (also I have aphantasia, which I found out at some point, meaning that I can't imagine anything in my mind). I can't stress enough that my condition and what it could be and what I could do and how I could explain it to someone was on my mind almost every second for all these years and even now.
Then after 3 years I had a huge falling out with one of my best friends, by whom I felt betrayed, long story and I was feeling especially bad. I started going on Lexapro and then shortly after I met my current boyfriend, who means a lot to me. I've taken Lexapro/Escitalopram for about 3 years and my experience with it (10mg or 5 mg) is the following: It helped great against the constant anxiety and reduced the rumination a bit, the bad feeling in my chest went away, I found things less funny, I was not at all happy but I was less sad, it took effort to be interested in what someone was saying to me, I gained weight (not great for self image), time went by faster (good). All in all a mixed bag but now I'm off the medication for 3 weeks and am trying to lose the weight by exercising and to feel a little more of everything, although the rumination is almost as bad as before. I think I feel a few moments of happiness or sadness compared to 3 years ago but I am still mostly ruminating every single moment. What helps me cope is playing video games with friends. Doing anything with other people.

I really hope that one day I can get at least 50% of my old self back. Not in the way that I was as a person but in the way that I was casually being day to day. I'm going to finish my master's degree and hope that time will heal some of the wounds. I may try therapy again, especially EMDR. I may try ADHD meds, since I suspect that I may have it and it has been suggested to me before (I also had an paradoxical reaction to Wellbutrin/Elontril, which made me tired as hell and that could be an indication of ADHD but it's hard to get diagnosed with it in Germany. I may try Zoloft or Prozac and I can always go back to Lexapro when things get too bad, which is a small relief but all in all, I'm sad that my life or a great portion at least has been ruined by something absurd almost noone is even aware of. I will not be staying on the forum for long and try to move further because I have no other choice, since I want nothing more than to live again.

I wish all of you best of luck and stay strong.

Gotta say, your story sounds a lot like mine. From the weed induced panic attack to the first 3 years being constant rumination, and then the falling out with your best friend. My “best friend” ended up blocking me.

“I can't stress enough that my condition and what it could be and what I could do and how I could explain it to someone was on my mind almost every second for all these years and even now.”

I used to have an obsession with trying to get others to understand. Because I didn’t feel like myself, I was so anxious and felt like nobody really knew me for who I really was. But now I’m finding that the more I don’t get the urge to explain it to anyone the better off I am. Since it only lead to regret anyway

 

[PoorYorick]

This makes no sense and is totally antithetical to recovery.

The term "CBT" is used like a catchall. I would never have thought from hearing "CBT" that you were doing mindfulness exercises. Then again, I'm no therapist. It sounds like your problem is obsession and anxiety, something similar to OCD.

It sounds like the antidepressant subjectively blunted your emotions while reducing your depression and anxiety. That's a typical reaction to an antidepressant.

Congratulations on getting your bachelor's degree and pursuing your master's. I think you've done well. You say you don't care about anything other than depersonalization but you 1.) attend school, 2.) had close friends, 3.) had a boyfriend, and 4.) want to leave here because you don't want to think too much about depersonalization. Something must matter to you other than constant monitoring of symptoms, otherwise you wouldn't have done these things.

This makes no sense and is totally antithetical to recovery.



The term "CBT" is used like a catchall. I would never have thought from hearing "CBT" that you were doing mindfulness exercises. Then again, I'm no therapist. It sounds like your problem is obsession and anxiety, something similar to OCD.



It sounds like the antidepressant subjectively blunted your emotions while reducing your depression and anxiety. That's a typical reaction to an antidepressant.



Congratulations on getting your bachelor's degree and pursuing your master's. I think you've done well. You say you don't care about anything other than depersonalization but you 1.) attend school, 2.) had close friends, 3.) had a boyfriend, and 4.) want to leave here because you don't want to think too much about depersonalization. Something must matter to you other than constant monitoring of symptoms, otherwise you wouldn't have done these things.

Thanks for replying, I understand that placing recovery above everything is bad and won't lead to much. That's not the way I see it, that was meant to be a description of the rumination that I have and the way it feels to me. You are right, objectively there are a lot of good things in my life but through all of it, I'm not remotely having a good time or even really experiencing it. Monitoring of the symptoms doesn't matter to me as much as I just can't stop doing it... i know it's stupid and I still can't stop, is what's absurd about it. The symptoms and the monitoring are just so immediate. I have a hard time understanding what else I was thinking about all the time before I got this crap. I feel like a lot of different things but I was just not extremely aware of every thought all the time.

 

[PoorYorick]

Gotta say, your story sounds a lot like mine. From the weed induced panic attack to the first 3 years being constant rumination, and then the falling out with your best friend. My “best friend” ended up blocking me.

“I can't stress enough that my condition and what it could be and what I could do and how I could explain it to someone was on my mind almost every second for all these years and even now.”

I used to have an obsession with trying to get others to understand. Because I didn’t feel like myself, I was so anxious and felt like nobody really knew me for who I really was. But now I’m finding that the more I don’t get the urge to explain it to anyone the better off I am. Since it only lead to regret anyway

Yes I get that. My bf knows that I have this rumination issue since having smoked weed but I don't get into the details because I don't want him to think I'm crazy or get the wrong idea. Since I'm trying to move past the disorder, I feel like it's more beneficial if people don't know that I have it.

 

[NoDevils]

Thanks for replying, I understand that placing recovery above everything is bad and won't lead to much. That's not the way I see it, that was meant to be a description of the rumination that I have and the way it feels to me. You are right, objectively there are a lot of good things in my life but through all of it, I'm not remotely having a good time or even really experiencing it. Monitoring of the symptoms doesn't matter to me as much as I just can't stop doing it... i know it's stupid and I still can't stop, is what's absurd about it. The symptoms and the monitoring are just so immediate. I have a hard time understanding what else I was thinking about all the time before I got this crap. I feel like a lot of different things but I was just not extremely aware of every thought all the time.

The symptoms and the monitoring are the entire problem. I understand this is blasphemy to many depersonalization sufferers because the disorder is so neglected and takes a chunk of our emotional lives away but unless you're going to join or create some advocacy group you might as well accept and live your life. I wasn't saying that your life is good because you have a social life and go to university I'm saying there's a part of you that cares about real shit otherwise you wouldn't be doing all these things in your life. The chronic pain community has a similar problem and similar debates to the one I've started with you here. Predominantly this community isn't about ruminating over symptoms though we know from experience depersonalization is horrible and we welcome people who want to commiserate. After all, the forum was created so people could relate to each other's plight.