[Blake]

board,

i dont know if you guys experience this, but it feels like i have no emotions at all. i miss them so much. i am dp/dred 24/7 and miss what it feels like to feel things for real. the worst is seeing something that would normally make you so happy, but you just sort of acknowledge that feeling and thus cant truly experience it.

hearing music that im supposed to like, but dont. im sulking and am going to catch myself and stop... i just wonder if people on the board deal with this.

this is one the worst parts of dp for me. after 3 years, all the visual distortions dont bother me. but living without emotions, its just hard when you are waiting to feel something every day and it never comes.

blake

 

[Guest]

I am really interested to hear you talk about this, Blake as I was going to start a thread on exactly the same topic. I have read that a common symptom of DP is a numbing of emotion. I know I have DP but I seem to have exactly the opposite thing going on - I have too much feeling for people. It's almost as if I can feel other people's pain (or, at least, what I THINK they are feeling - which, I guess explains it all).

You know, when I think about some of the kids I teach at my school, it really breaks my heart to even imagine that they might have any worries or fears about anything - I just want to jump in and sweep all the pain out of their paths! It is almost like I am hyper-sensitive. Yet if you have DP, aren't you supposed to be exactly the opposite to this - aren't you supposed to find it difficult to empathise with people?? Or is it not like that? I'm confused.

 

[whiterabbit]

Blake, I certainly experience a numbing or almost complete absence of emotions when I am in a bad way and it is a kind of Hell, because everything - the mundane and the personal - becomes an objective exercise, eg. I know i must pay my bills because otherwise I will be prosecuted, I know this is my friend who I have known for a long time and with whom I have spent some happy times, (as well as dp'ed ones), who can make me laugh and with whom I can talk about all sorts of things, so therefore I must try and relate etc, etc, but there is no real feeling there, the only thing I can come up with is a kind of disconnected grin or laugh, which does not really attach itself to me or the conversation properly just sort of floats about in the room. Most of the time, there is nothing, no feeling and not much intellectual functioning either. Horrible and yes, very difficult to fight.

Darcy, given the above, you may not think I can relate to your post, but objectively I can! Because, in my more normalised non-dp periods, which are relatively recent phenomena, I have quick emotions and a lot of connection with people. At the therapy clinic I attended the word 'hypersensitive' was used to describe me on several occasions. This always struck me as really strange because 'immune' and 'indifferent' were what I had observed in myself for endless years.

 

[Guest]

I can't stand this, depersonalization. It is hell. I have no emotions, nothing matters. I have rapid mood swings, everythings all mixed up. I want to die.

 

[JasonFar]

It is almost like I am hyper-sensitive. Yet if you have DP, aren't you supposed to be exactly the opposite to this - aren't you supposed to find it difficult to empathise with people?? Or is it not like that? I'm confused.

Darcy, I think that's totally a characteristic of most of us anxious folk, with DP as a symptom. We feel too much. I can totally, totally relate on your "overwhelming empathizing", or whatever you'd like to call it. I think that we often possess some sort of unusual sensual experience, or a constant overwhelm of the information coming into our senses. I read this was a trait of Avoidant Personality Disorder once, where we SEE so many things that aren't actually there... It seems like we just have incredibly overactive imaginations that are on automatic. Anyway... Like, feeling other's pain, it can be a total gift, I think, for compassion and higher things, but it can also be petty. For example, I was laying down on my futon the other day, and a cricket was gnawing its way at my window, like it was trying to get it. It was spazzing out like hell. I just watched it, for like 15 minutes, imagining the pain it was in, and feeling sorry for it. That's not usefull, I'm sorry. The other day at work (I work retail), a customer stepped on this huge dragonfly that was buzzing around the ground, and I saw it, and she hadn't killed it. I intensely and immediately told her "well make sure it's dead and not in pain!", then went over and stomped it with all the force I had. I had to see it put out of its misery... Yet, it's just a fucking bug.

So while I would consider this ability to "feel" or get into another's pain or feeling a state of higher being (I think... sensitivity I think by nature allows one to more fully experience things in Life, good and bad), I think it's just as much a curse as a blessing. In the case of the midst of our anxiety panic and all those awful feelings, most certainly the former. But one day hopefully we'll all be that fully utilize that potential for outside feeling for good.

 

[Blake]

Its strange because I have the same problems...an over-sensitivity to other's feelings yet little to no feelings for myself.

my god, how confusing it is even after all this time.

even trying to psych myself up for something thats coming up... like classes starting or new job...blah blah... the excitement/balls/determination/etc still is just synthetic. when i can muster up the positives, its still thin and never truly feels authentic.

but pre-dp, i was mr. over-sensitive to other's. it wasn't always a problem, i just seemed to automatically tune into (or at least try) how someone was feeling.

when i "recovered", i clung to being able my emotions again. it was heaven. but oh well, must keep showing up.

whiterabbit, you wrote "I can come up with is a kind of disconnected grin or laugh, which does not really attach itself to me or the conversation properly just sort of floats about in the room."

i know the horrible disconnected grin/laugh combo far too well. im glad someone else knows. "really? -grin- slight chuckle-" never really entering the conversation truly. somehow that has gotten these past two months.

are we just supposed to fake it? when i try to act happy for my sister who just did something great or sad when my friend gets dumped, am i cheating? am I hurting them by faking it? one feeling i am able to process is disgust at NOT FEELING for them! my god, its confusing.

i dont know how many people have seen the film "American Psycho"... the beginning scene of Bateman's morning routine. "There is an idea of Patrick Bateman..."

long, dp'ed, disorganized post...

keep showing up,
blake

 

[Guest]

--

 

[Guest]

Ive found this link for those who are interested, its a selftest.

http://members.tripod.com/~HighlySensitivePerson/self_test.htm

 

[Janice]

Hi Everyone,
I have not had any emotions for a long time. I have had DR for 18 yrs. My dad passed away on Jan. 1st 2004 and I felt nothing. When I went to his viewing and funeral I was in another world. DR took over and I was so out of it. The thing thats really weird is I don't remember anything either. It seems my long and short term memory are gone. I went off klonopin in Oct 2003 and I have been like this ever since. I don't know if its the withdraw from klonopin or the DR. Has anyone been through this? My brother has been in the hospital for 40 days and he is deathly sick. He has cirhosis of the liver. He is only 46. My family is devastated and they cry alot. I just feel nothing. I ask God to help me feel this pain but I am just numb. I have tried 30 medications for DR and nothing has helped. I got addicited to klonopin and went in tolerance withdraw. I want to be able to feel sad, happy etc... and I don't know if I will ever get these feelings back. It's hard living like this. Hell on earth definately.
Janice

 

[Janice]

Hi Everyone,
I have not had any emotions for a long time. I have had DR for 18 yrs. My dad passed away on Jan. 1st 2004 and I felt nothing. When I went to his viewing and funeral I was in another world. DR took over and I was so out of it. The thing thats really weird is I don't remember anything either. It seems my long and short term memory are gone. I went off klonopin in Oct 2003 and I have been like this ever since. I don't know if its the withdraw from klonopin or the DR. Has anyone been through this? My brother has been in the hospital for 40 days and he is deathly sick. He has cirhosis of the liver. He is only 46. My family is devastated and they cry alot. I just feel nothing. I ask God to help me feel this pain but I am just numb. I have tried 30 medications for DR and nothing has helped. I got addicited to klonopin and went in tolerance withdraw. I want to be able to feel sad, happy etc... and I don't know if I will ever get these feelings back. It's hard living like this. Hell on earth definately.
Janice