Hi everyone,
I had DP now for over a year, which is probably in comparison to what other people have experienced a short time period. But I am getting better every day and I really notice how mentally and also physically the fog resolves.
A little bit about me and why I am posting this:
I worked a couple of years in high tech in Silicon Valley before I got my DP. I had the very same symptoms everyone else is describing here. I felt like I was going to die, at the same time ironically I thought I was already dead, like my soul was gone or like there was an entity seperate from me or felt like a robot. I had panice attacks and much more symptoms. Essentially any of the major symptoms described on this forum.
I was by no means a strong believer of any religion, but at times I felt like I was controlled or maybe that this was a challenge that was put opon me.
I don't want to argue in here whether this is true or not, but I want to lay out some of the things I researched that have helped me to a great extend in overcoming this.
First of all if you just started experiencing any of these symptoms, I wanted to let you know that it will go away. When I first read an article online stating it will go away when I was deep down into the DP, I thought to myself "No its different with me. Something in my brain is wrong. Etc etc." Before I go into some of the things I researched, one of the main things that will help you along the way is acceptance. It might sound odd to you because depending on your stage it could be quite the opposite of what you want to do.
One thought that helped me was to accept that I am not special. Just like you reading this. And since everyone who is posting about their symptoms here is experiencing essentially the same objectively speaking (robot feeling, detachment, etc) although it might feel stronger for you than to somebody else, the symptoms are the same. Alone from that you can conclude that there is nothing majorly wrong or unfixable with you.
Where I am at right now I can have the thought "Hey I am a robot" without getting a panic or anxiety attack. To me this was one of the most annoying things about DP: That thinking about some of these thoughts lead me to fear and I couldn't control stop thinking about it.
Now that I have introduced myself a little, I wanted to share some of the tricks that helped me get rid of it.
One of the first things you can actively do is to get a physical examination maybe even see a neurologist. For the majority of the people this will rule out any physical heritage of the DP. If it's physical you can get medical treatment, if not you need take a different approach.
If you find out there physically nothing wrong with you, you need to accept that you have a mental problem.
Again the topic of acceptance comes up. This is a crucial step though. Because next you need to self reflect what has happened in the last couple of month, maybe years that lead up to this development of DP. Maybe somebody died in your family, another tragic event has happened or maybe you have just been overstressed with work or you have been extremely depressed for a long time. Yes, DP can come from depression.
Why does it occur in the first place?
Unless you have been experimenting with drugs and even then I would argue that there is an underlying problem and not the drug only by itself that caused your DP, DP is a protective mechanism of your body and mind.
This is another key acceptance point that helped me along the way. DP is just there to protect you.
You might ask now OK what does it protect me then from if I feel literally the worst I have ever felt in my life?
Valid question. The answer depends a little bit on what you found out to be the root cause for your DP. It could protect you from the pain you experienced from losing someone beloved or from the unhealthy stress that you put your body through from maybe work. Accepting this will help you along the way too. But as soon as your body and mind have realized you don't need to be protected anymore it fades. Slowly but surely.
Personally, I would stay away from any depression medication. Clinical depression runs in my family. My mom has it, my sister has it, I have it. But that medication can easily make you addicted and whether you solve the root cause is not guaranteed just because you take some pills. Whether you believe in God or not, I doubt taking pills solves this problem for you. Because it can be that your way of living has caused this DP and if you keep on living the same way you have just taking some mood increasing pills, the underlying cause essentially gets ignored. And if you believe in God I doubt he wants you to take pills to deal with your problems.
What I would suggest to you, is to actually view this DP as something positive. It might be hard but what helped me was to think of it as a challenge not everyone is trusted with. I started to do more sports, I set more goals for myself, I went out with my friends more even though I felt like staying home, visited my family, changed jobs, started new hobbies and joined clubs.
The mind responds very positive to social activities and doing sports does not only help with battling your mental thoughts but also helps you gain more energy which let's the DP not feel as heavy. I started with jogging.
I have read and also experienced myself how my memory was effected and I can also give you a very good reason why that is happening. Traumatic experiences are tried to be cut off from your mind. In a way it's like a last resort of your mind when it cannot deal with the negative impact. There are studies on trauma patients that have shown that this cutting off actually happens physically by your neurons being detached from each other. The axons are cut off. On top of this since your mind is very busy with processing either the root cause subconsciously or you consciously thinking about it or being busy focusing on the symptoms, your concentration naturally lacks. That leads to absorbing less information about the now, which in turn makes your memory worse.
What helped me was to take my mind of thinking about these symptoms by doing a hobby. For me it was research and development of software while listening to old school R&B.
There are symptoms which might throw you off. I had in the beginning a really weird sense of time perception. While this was only in the beginning it really threw me off. But also this faded over time naturally. Reassuring your self that it is only temporary but at the same time also giving yourself the time to heal without putting additional stress on yourself by wanting this to go as fast as possible makes all of these symptoms much easier to deal with.
Battling the confusing thoughts it hard but one thing that helped me was to question my thoughts. In the sense of "would a healthy minded person think this right now?".
If you are interested in some of the workings of DP itself, there is ongoing research about how DP has greatly to do with your endocannabinoid system being part of your central nervous system. Which would make sense taking into account the effects marihuana has on your system and how people claim to have developed DP by smoking weed.
Which would also make sense why Naloxone in Russia has shown great reduction of DP, as it is used to inverse the effects of many drugs working on the central nervous system when people are being send to hospitals completely overdosed. Even the effect description of marihuana high in CBD fits this thesis as it is supposed to help with a lot of mental issues and do the inverse of the psychoactive THC component. Although I would not put my money on this one regarding the ongoing monetization of legal weed in the US.
To summarize, acceptance is key while staying calm. Understanding that you are not the only one and that there are effective means you can take in order to battle this, is important.
Ultimately, you just want to live normally again so make plans to live a normal healthy live and the DP will go by itself.
There is no need to rush things.
I hope this helps you a little.
I had DP now for over a year, which is probably in comparison to what other people have experienced a short time period. But I am getting better every day and I really notice how mentally and also physically the fog resolves.
A little bit about me and why I am posting this:
I worked a couple of years in high tech in Silicon Valley before I got my DP. I had the very same symptoms everyone else is describing here. I felt like I was going to die, at the same time ironically I thought I was already dead, like my soul was gone or like there was an entity seperate from me or felt like a robot. I had panice attacks and much more symptoms. Essentially any of the major symptoms described on this forum.
I was by no means a strong believer of any religion, but at times I felt like I was controlled or maybe that this was a challenge that was put opon me.
I don't want to argue in here whether this is true or not, but I want to lay out some of the things I researched that have helped me to a great extend in overcoming this.
First of all if you just started experiencing any of these symptoms, I wanted to let you know that it will go away. When I first read an article online stating it will go away when I was deep down into the DP, I thought to myself "No its different with me. Something in my brain is wrong. Etc etc." Before I go into some of the things I researched, one of the main things that will help you along the way is acceptance. It might sound odd to you because depending on your stage it could be quite the opposite of what you want to do.
One thought that helped me was to accept that I am not special. Just like you reading this. And since everyone who is posting about their symptoms here is experiencing essentially the same objectively speaking (robot feeling, detachment, etc) although it might feel stronger for you than to somebody else, the symptoms are the same. Alone from that you can conclude that there is nothing majorly wrong or unfixable with you.
Where I am at right now I can have the thought "Hey I am a robot" without getting a panic or anxiety attack. To me this was one of the most annoying things about DP: That thinking about some of these thoughts lead me to fear and I couldn't control stop thinking about it.
Now that I have introduced myself a little, I wanted to share some of the tricks that helped me get rid of it.
One of the first things you can actively do is to get a physical examination maybe even see a neurologist. For the majority of the people this will rule out any physical heritage of the DP. If it's physical you can get medical treatment, if not you need take a different approach.
If you find out there physically nothing wrong with you, you need to accept that you have a mental problem.
Again the topic of acceptance comes up. This is a crucial step though. Because next you need to self reflect what has happened in the last couple of month, maybe years that lead up to this development of DP. Maybe somebody died in your family, another tragic event has happened or maybe you have just been overstressed with work or you have been extremely depressed for a long time. Yes, DP can come from depression.
Why does it occur in the first place?
Unless you have been experimenting with drugs and even then I would argue that there is an underlying problem and not the drug only by itself that caused your DP, DP is a protective mechanism of your body and mind.
This is another key acceptance point that helped me along the way. DP is just there to protect you.
You might ask now OK what does it protect me then from if I feel literally the worst I have ever felt in my life?
Valid question. The answer depends a little bit on what you found out to be the root cause for your DP. It could protect you from the pain you experienced from losing someone beloved or from the unhealthy stress that you put your body through from maybe work. Accepting this will help you along the way too. But as soon as your body and mind have realized you don't need to be protected anymore it fades. Slowly but surely.
Personally, I would stay away from any depression medication. Clinical depression runs in my family. My mom has it, my sister has it, I have it. But that medication can easily make you addicted and whether you solve the root cause is not guaranteed just because you take some pills. Whether you believe in God or not, I doubt taking pills solves this problem for you. Because it can be that your way of living has caused this DP and if you keep on living the same way you have just taking some mood increasing pills, the underlying cause essentially gets ignored. And if you believe in God I doubt he wants you to take pills to deal with your problems.
What I would suggest to you, is to actually view this DP as something positive. It might be hard but what helped me was to think of it as a challenge not everyone is trusted with. I started to do more sports, I set more goals for myself, I went out with my friends more even though I felt like staying home, visited my family, changed jobs, started new hobbies and joined clubs.
The mind responds very positive to social activities and doing sports does not only help with battling your mental thoughts but also helps you gain more energy which let's the DP not feel as heavy. I started with jogging.
I have read and also experienced myself how my memory was effected and I can also give you a very good reason why that is happening. Traumatic experiences are tried to be cut off from your mind. In a way it's like a last resort of your mind when it cannot deal with the negative impact. There are studies on trauma patients that have shown that this cutting off actually happens physically by your neurons being detached from each other. The axons are cut off. On top of this since your mind is very busy with processing either the root cause subconsciously or you consciously thinking about it or being busy focusing on the symptoms, your concentration naturally lacks. That leads to absorbing less information about the now, which in turn makes your memory worse.
What helped me was to take my mind of thinking about these symptoms by doing a hobby. For me it was research and development of software while listening to old school R&B.
There are symptoms which might throw you off. I had in the beginning a really weird sense of time perception. While this was only in the beginning it really threw me off. But also this faded over time naturally. Reassuring your self that it is only temporary but at the same time also giving yourself the time to heal without putting additional stress on yourself by wanting this to go as fast as possible makes all of these symptoms much easier to deal with.
Battling the confusing thoughts it hard but one thing that helped me was to question my thoughts. In the sense of "would a healthy minded person think this right now?".
If you are interested in some of the workings of DP itself, there is ongoing research about how DP has greatly to do with your endocannabinoid system being part of your central nervous system. Which would make sense taking into account the effects marihuana has on your system and how people claim to have developed DP by smoking weed.
Which would also make sense why Naloxone in Russia has shown great reduction of DP, as it is used to inverse the effects of many drugs working on the central nervous system when people are being send to hospitals completely overdosed. Even the effect description of marihuana high in CBD fits this thesis as it is supposed to help with a lot of mental issues and do the inverse of the psychoactive THC component. Although I would not put my money on this one regarding the ongoing monetization of legal weed in the US.
To summarize, acceptance is key while staying calm. Understanding that you are not the only one and that there are effective means you can take in order to battle this, is important.
Ultimately, you just want to live normally again so make plans to live a normal healthy live and the DP will go by itself.
There is no need to rush things.
I hope this helps you a little.