[Martinelv]

I apologise, despite being a long term member of this board, for not being able to give out any worthwhile advice with regards to DR/DP. I really am. I'm not feeling sorry for myself (I'm incapable of that - I just feel angry), but I sometimes feel like I'm wasting your time with my relentless babble.

DR/DP sickens me more than anything. It makes my gorge rise. Especially in the younger of us. And I feel helpless. The complete summary of my advice is: Don't give in, continue to live your life, take benzo's when you need them. Five years of this and that is all I can think of.

Anyway, I apologise. I'm still here to offer support and sympathy, but I'm sorry that I'm so utterly useless at giving help. I have my own problems, but they are insignificant compared to yours.

Sorry again. I'll keep trying though.

 

[g-funk]

Shut the hell up you fool

You offer brilliant advice. You are allowed to have your own problems. Don't EVER apologise for that again

Or I'll have to bend you over my knee....

 

[sebastian]

oh hell martin...i can't remember the last time i posted something useful on here. The totality of my contributions consist of ridiculous squid anecdotes, subtle references to my complicity in a nefarious alien conspiracy to topple earth, and twisting around people's posts so that i get to say something about myself instead of addressing the problem that they present...kind of like what i'm doing now.

It's difficult to constantly utter the same anti-dp mantra over and over again. The problems people have on here all just various manifestations of the same thing and it's difficult for us long-timers to think of ever more colourful ways of phrasing the same basic tenets (ie. Stop worrying, focus outwards, etc.)

I'd like to suggest you go out and get yourself hammered. I know i am.

s.

 

[g-funk]

absolutely

me too

 

[agentcooper]

you're getting hammered right now, sebastian? can i come? it'd be better than having to deal with one of my students poking another of my student's eye out....horrible! junior high! arg!

 

[sebastian]

The hammering shall commence in T-six hours, and yes Coop, you're more than welcome to hop on a plane to Toronto and join me and my gang of hoodlums for a night of drunken mayhem. :wink:

 

[Guest]

Sympathy does help, Martin, a great deal, and despite your bellybutton-obsessed life, I do see you offer that in copious amounts, and it's always touched me a great deal (and surprised me sometimes).

 

[Guest]

ive been a member for what 2 years now and half of my posts have been meaningless drivel, and the other half arguments with other board members, which of course doesn't happen anymore because Im more mature now. But still, I haven't made too many helpful posts or given any great advice.

Actually Martin you have given some good advice if i recall correctly

yup

 

[Scattered]

The more we speak the less we disappear.

 

[Sojourner]

The thing about focusing outward is that if one is in the anxiety stage of DP, that's just not possible.

I just spent 24 hours with no anxiety, which is a good thing because it means that the next time I feel it coming on, I'm taking .12 mg of lorazepam without apologies.

Yes, I'm a convert. We have to shorten the actual time spent with the symptoms by using as low a dose as will bring relief. There is absolutely no point in experiencing the symptoms. There are no benefits whatsoever to experiencing the symptoms. It's a malady that may indeed clear up in some people. Other people may need other methods of keeping the symptoms under control. But under control, I believe, they MUST be kept. Part of the problem I see here is that people are "braving" it -- to no avail. Their great suffering does not help anyone or anything.

The longer we spend in the symptoms, the harder it is to get out of them -- by ANY method.

DP is the canary in the coal mine. We are the coal mine. Our own unconscious feelings are the dangerous substances in the coal mine air to which the canary reacts. The conscious mind really does not want to look at or acknowledge the unconscious feelings. I am experiencing that myself. The feelings are scary enough to run from, but they must be faced if we are to eliminate feeling scared by anxiety and DP.

The good news is that feeling the scariness of how we really feel is freeing ultimately, while the scariness of anxiety and DP is not freeing at all. It is enslaving. It enslaves us to fear while we think we are fleeing fear.

I'm discovering that indeed, I have been repressing feelings like this:

"If I have negative feelings toward people, they will stop loving me."

"If I get angry, I will lose love."

"I am bad for having angry feelings."

I never would have believed it, but its true: I'm a little kid inside who still believes my mother will yell at me if I say anything about how I feel about anything at all. But because the angry feelings don't actually stay buried and out of sight, they come out in various ways, including self-persecution.

I can't admit that I hate my siblings and my parents. Of course, I love them too (I think....) but I really do hate them. I'm starting to admit it and I do feel uncomfortable hating them.

Bottom line: Becoming comfortable with our true feelings and tolerating that they are not what we think we would "like" to have toward people siphons off negative energy that we have been using to tell ourselves in various ways that we are "bad."

DP is actually, I think, in some cases, a sign of impending mental and emotional health "breaking out" or trying to break out. It means something inside us is off-kilter and we need to look inside to find out what's really going on.

So "focusing outward" is something that I am starting to think is not the great help I once did, and I think that learning to live with a sense of unreality is unsound advice.

I know I'm probably going to be disagreed with, and that's fine. Just please don't yell at me or I will cry.

:lol:

 

[rainboteers]

The longer we spend in the symptoms, the harder it is to get out of them -- by ANY method.

This is something that worries me. :?

 

[Sojourner]

Rain,

Weren't you set to go to the doctor not too long ago?

 

[Scattered]

Yes, I'm a convert. We have to shorten the actual time spent with the symptoms by using as low a dose as will bring relief. There is absolutely no point in experiencing the symptoms. There are no benefits whatsoever to experiencing the symptoms.

The conscious mind really does not want to look at or acknowledge the unconscious feelings. I am experiencing that myself. The feelings are scary enough to run from, but they must be faced if we are to eliminate feeling scared by anxiety and DP.

Bottom line: Becoming comfortable with our true feelings and tolerating that they are not what we think we would "like" to have toward people siphons off negative energy that we have been using to tell ourselves in various ways that we are "bad."

So "focusing outward" is something that I am starting to think is not the great help I once did, and I think that learning to live with a sense of unreality is unsound advice.

Ok...let me get this straight. We must face our feelings because this is the way we get better. Except when we get these feelings we should take lorazepam so we don't experience them. This is a bit confusing because you obviously think your symptoms are in no way related to or can be considered "feelings" themselves.

I have a lot of issues which I can trace to causing my dp/dr, anxiety, depression, etc. It is when I feel these thoughts that I experience symptoms. Your speaking as if these symptoms serve no function but to torment us, yet these symptoms seem to me to be a natural progression of the thoughts I feel. If I think something negative, I'll feel depressed. If I'm thinking of something scary or disturbing, I feel anxiety. How is stopping these feelings as quickly as possible going to help me? It isnt. Thats the whole point of cognitive behavioral therapy, is it not? To experience these symptoms as bad as they can be and to work through them, using various coping skills as well as different activities to desensitize you.

Symptoms serve a purpose. And if we don't learn to work through them we either are not going to get over our problems, or we're going to be donating a large portion of our income to drug companies.

 

[Homeskooled]

Dear Scattered,
I have several points to make in reference to your post, but first - Sojourner : I agree with what you have posted, but be careful with taking Lorazepam. It is more powerful than Klonopin and will give you "buzz" - it is also highly addictive. Dont use it too much, because dependence will sneak up on you - I know because I was on it. Scattered, Sojourner made a very clear differentiation between symptoms and feelings. What she is trying to do is distance herself from her feelings of dissociation so that she can deal with the emotions that she is afraid of venting. It is possible to do that, you know. My second point is that while you may expereince each of your emotions as welling up from a specific thought, the great majority of psychiatric disturbances happen unprovoked. This is a HUGE problem with DP sufferers - they of course try to control their thoughts, stop the DP singlehandedly, and of course, its like having a tiger by the tail. While this may not be the case with you, you may also be falling into the trap of controlling something which is outside of the power of your psyche to start or stop. Be careful. Lastly, I beleive that the neurologic disturbance occurs first in DP, and byproducts of that are unprovoked anxiety, mood swings, etc....Everyone must work through the problems which DP will cause their psyche, whether it is neurologic or not. In my model of this illness, pills too can only go so far. But I dont think it's necessary to open a pandora's box and search for the "answer" - I've seen that destroy too many people on the site.

Peace
Homeskooled

 

[Sojourner]

Scattered,

Homeskooled (I hope) explained what I meant. I consider the symptoms and the feelings different things. The symptoms are the "crazy" feelings that HIDE the actual feelings. I'm saying that at their most intense, they don't illuminate our true feelings. They scare us shytless instead.

Homeskooled,

So far, I've never taken more than .25 mg in a 24-hour period. I usually take .12 mg., and it's been something like 3x a week, if that. Some weeks it's nothing at all.

Ativan has no buzz at all; it just removes the panic takes me back to "normal".

When a bit of anxiety comes late at night before bed, I just live through it, though.

 

[Homeskooled]

If you never go over .25mg, thats fine Sojourner. Keep the times you use it down to something like 3x a week, and your body wont get accustomed to it forcing you to up it. At one point my mind was so intensely overfocused on the DP that I was given 6mg a day for it, and it didnt do a thing. Well, I take that back - it did allow me to work 8-12 hour shifts, but it never got rid of the DP/DR. Its very difficult to slow my mind down once it gets going, and I'm a medium sized guy, so it might take more to medicate me than you will need. What was really brave/dumb of me is that I weaned myself off of that in about 2 weeks. Yeah. Was probably alot like heroine withdrawal. But I knew that the psychiatrists weren't on to my problem- I was going to have to research it myself. It was shortly thereafter that that I began studying brain imaging.

Peace
Homeskooled

PS- How are things going for you? Think you'll be going to Thanksgiving this year? (I think you should!)

 

[Sojourner]

I'm doing much better, Homeskooled. Much better.

The following URL describes the psychodynamic approach to treating panic that has worked for me and continues to work on depression and life issues in general:
http://jppr.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/co ... ll/8/3/234

At this point I am planning to go at Thanksgiving, but I have left myself an out and my family knows about it. Sometimes the feelings that I've been repressing for years come up and while I feel them in the now moment, I don't want to feel them. I certainly don't want to feel them when I am among my family.

And NEW feelings of the sort that I repressed keep occurring because of their present behavior, for example, after knowing I was in a crisis, not contacting me for three weeks to even find out how I am. That hurts me NOW and I just don't know if I want to repress the ANGER I feel NOW just to be there with them. I just don't know. If I sublimate my anger at them now, what have I learned from all this? Bottom line: I don't like the way I am being treated. Over the last three weeks, I felt very hurt and angry that one sister with whom I had been talking by e-mail just dropped out of the conversation with, "You can have a happy life if you really want it." As if I didn't want it. Then no contact at all.

I just don't know what to do. Part of me loves them, and part of me hates them. It's the same feelings I'm grappling with accepting from my childhood (toward my parents). I have yet to learn what to do with the conflicting emotions. In the past, I just "did the right thing" and didn't cause a fuss, but now, I don't know whether I should bury the feelings of anger or just feel them and go anyway. I guess I don't know how to do this:

1. Feel the anger.
2. Decide not to express it to them.
3. Consciously decide not to punish myself for having the angry feelings.

I think that's the healthy response to anger, but I don't know if I can do it.

 

[Guest]

Ive been on Klonopin for two years and don't find it addicting in any way

 

[sleepingbeauty]

i think maybe what homie means is the Kpin WD. cause as we well know its horrific. but i find that pretty much all of them have bad WD to some degree or another especially if youve been on them for a while.

 

[boohoo]

Martinelv

Stop fishing for compliments