[Guest]

for some people on here it seems like its not that bad. for others, it seems disabling...as it is for me.

dp/dr has drained my personality almost completely. sometimes when my dp/dr is really really bad i analyze every little detail about the universe, my life, people, objects, and the world until i have a major depressive and panic attack. it feels like its destroyed my mind. it feels like i have no beliefs, and that im not sure about anything. it feels like im SCARED to be sure of anything because it might be wrong. even what was once the simplest and most ordinary things.

when its at its worse, id be around people and in my head im freaking out. not because im scared of people, but because i have to act. i dont think i act to be accepted, i act because i cant NOT ACT. I cant BE MYSELF...because there there is NO "MYSELF"...I have to know what I'm feelign and thinking but I never find out and analyze all of my thoughts and movements and possible things that are wrong with me then I analyze other people and what might be going through their head. it makes me feel INHUMAN.

when im trying to have a conversation [which dp/dr has GREATLY reduced my ability to have conversations] and I'm supposed to respond, sometimes I'm thinking "theres millions of ways I can respond to what he just said, millions of words, dozens of faces..." and I dont even know where to start.

its deprived me of the inability to see inside the box, instead i feel so far away from the box... that i cant even see the damn box, and im looking in the opposite direction into outer space.

through all this analysis i have many confusing ideas about how peoples and especially my own mind works and how it is related to mental illness, behavior, and belief. for example, creative minds are more prone to dp/dr. im not gona try to explain here.

when dp/dr is at its worse, i cant function at all. the mind is the loneliest place in the universe. i walk around in circles panicking and wanting to die, or i possibly curl up in a ball and just sit there with my mind racing in another realm until i have no choice but to do something [work, sleep, eat]

when my dp/dr is at its less intense, im still extremely depressed, i dont feel like im functioning normally, kindof like reality is dragging me along by my hair, and im often doing things to take my mind off of my mental problems, which is only slight temporary relief.

for be its bad enough that i often feel like im in a living hell and im just so far away..

 

[Sojourner]

Have you been to see your doctor about the way you feel? Do you think that might be a good idea? You don't have to suffer this way. There are drugs that can help you short-term or longer-term. And therapy has proven to be helpful for many people. Have you had therapy?

 

[Guest]

im currently on adderall and cymbalta, ive been on meds for over 2 years and have had about 6 months of therapy. but this thread isnt about that.

 

[Sojourner]

im currently on adderall and cymbalta, ive been on meds for over 2 years and have had about 6 months of therapy. but this thread isnt about that.

The thread contained your description of how bad and confused you were feeling, and how you wanted to die. I wrote what I wrote because medicine ought to be able to help reduce your symptoms.

 

[Guest]

Well, yes, medication SHOULD be able to help those deep symptoms, but honestly, very often they just don?t.

I was completely crippled at my worst ? had to drop out of college after only a 2 month attempt. I couldn?t walk across the campus without feeling like I was losing my mind, couldn?t sit in a class (with those damn flurescent lights) without feeling like I was in a dream, or that nothing was real, as if I was inventing the world?I felt like I was always seconds away from running and shrieking in terror. I?d often leave mid-class, acting like I was feeling physically sick, etc?.and stand outside, desperately trying to keep my mind together long enough to get on a bus to get home.

At home, it wasn?t much better. I ended up staying inside the house for about a year ? ANY interaction felt overwhelming because I felt like there was NO me, as if there had once been something called Janine that had drained out of my body?or was continuing to drain out ? I used to say I could ?feel myself wafting off? like a ghost?like some kind of smoky soul that was floating off away from my body and soon there would be NO self at all left, nothing but flesh and blood.

Meds really couldn?t do much at that point except help me sleep. Once we get SO inverted (so inward focused, chasing the sense of Self that we are petrified is vanishing) it?s not an issue of anti-anxiety (benzos) or anti-depressants. Those work on entirely different kinds of emotional activations. The DEEP dp state, where it truly feels like you are the only human on earth and simultaneously that there IS NO you, is a shift in consciousness ? it?s as profound a shift as if you?d taken a dozen tabs of acid.

While we CAN detect reality and act/speak appropriately, we FEEL like we are no longer connected to a real world. It?s just petrifying.

I?m not trying to scare you more, lol?.but wanted you to know that I have been there ? I know precisely what you?re talking about, and how utterly terrifying it is. And?and this is a very important ?and? ? I am now OUT of it. Being that deeply lost to yourself and to reality is NOT a life sentence. Total, 100 per cent recovery, is absolutely possible.

It?s not even very complicated, the recovery?.but it is HARD because it requires first, a way of forcing your attention away from Self ? you must do all you can to invest your psychic energy into ANYthing but you?.any project, any reading material, etc?anything that can allow you to ?lose? yourself for a moment?.to lose conscious awareness of your plight. That?s step one. After that, then yes, therapy, even meds if you choose?but none of that is going to make a dent while you?re still clinging to the inverted self-monitoring.

Take care, and please know you are not alone in this experience (even though it certainly feels like it)

Peace,
Janine

 

[whiterabbit]

Hi Dreamland Native - just to answer your question, I would say that dp/dr completely dominates my life and my ability to live it. I have some similar experiences to those recounted by you and Janine - going back along way - my mind feels paralysed or static and I can't connect with the world around me, it seems unreal or not really there (and I obsess about that continually). The world around me looks filmic, I can't quite access it, a bit like that sense of remove you get when you play music over a film - except its kind of pleasurable and enriching of films, but completely destroying of life. Yes conversing is very difficult because I don't feel that I can access words or memory or feelings and it doesn't feel as if my voice belongs to me. Also I find it very difficult to take in or connect with what people are saying to me. My mind feels fractured somehow. Like you, I constantly analyse my state and that of people around me and i feel inhuman or sub-human or just profoundly not right anyway - immune and indifferent and a long way off. But I don't actually know where I am, just not there and very aware of this absence, this not being all the time. Unlike Janine I haven't yet been successful in beating it. I do have periods of relief, since i have a bi-polar form but after fifteen years of trying to work this thing out it still comes back and still wreaks havoc and makes me often feel suicidal. Mind you I did not get any depersonalisation diagnosis until I found this website a couple of years ago and it has been very helpful to me finally to know what 'IT' is and to try and add the advice given here to the mix of coping strategiees. It sounds to me that your symptoms and Janine's are very close so I hope you will take real heart from her words. I also know the advice about forcing yourself to connect with things 'beyond the state' even though it feels incredibly difficult and futile, is actually the way through it, because doing nothing and obsessing about it just takes you further into the rabbit hole. I find this very difficult because I am always aware of my detached state when I do things and it depresses me. My cognitive and imaginative functioning is practically zilch - I am a low functioning dp/dr person - and getting the wherewithal to do very simple tasks is somehow very difficult because I can't connect my head to what I am doing. However, for example rather than withdrawing for four to six months which was my customary habit, last year I managed somehow, to muddle my way through decorating my flat and also kept seeing friends and generally more connected to people. It was all excruciating and empy and horrible, but the result was that the episode was reduced to around six weeks. Now I am in it again, and it has been about a month so far of dp/dr obsessions and yes am in despair a lot of the time, but am trying to keep going with seeing people and doing basic tasks. I don't do any paid work, so have to set up my own routine. My aim for August is to try to run, do yoga, practice singing and cook a meal each day and to keep seeing friends, even though my mind wants to do none of this, it just wants to go further into obsessing about itself. I don't know whether any of this helps you, but I hope you will find the courage to persevere with the 'focussing outwards' thing and keep going with the therapy (that is a long-term game).

In a Spirit of Comradeship

Sarah x

 

[maria]

when im trying to have a conversation [which dp/dr has GREATLY reduced my ability to have conversations] and I'm supposed to respond, sometimes I'm thinking "theres millions of ways I can respond to what he just said, millions of words, dozens of faces..." and I dont even know where to start.


Me too! I guess I've thought that I've become smarter or wiser now that I realize there's not just one way to say things...but I also know that's not true. Now I just analyze the whole process of speaking too much. I wish I had become smarter though.

 

[rainboteers]

In answer to the question as well..... with dp/dr I really feel that I have no quality of life. To me this isn't living, it is barely existing.

 

[Guest]

It affects my life both positively and negatively...but more negatively.
I like to think life has no meaning. That all life really is about is having fun and getting drunk and dressing up...etc. Because the whole world seems fake to me, so if it really is fake, then it is REAL. It also affects my relationships with freinds because i am never conctent to just be. i always have to be drunk or be out doing things. not many people will put up with that. At 2 in the morning when i can't sleep because there's a mosquito hawk in the other room, or i think that air is escaping my lungs through a hole in my back most people ditch me.
Postively, it is part of what makes me who i am. I see things differently than other people and that makes me creative. i guess that's it.

cheers