Hi. My name is Caleb. I’m 25. I think I am suffering from DP/DR but I don’t quite know. Everything started almost 3 weeks ago now after my girlfriends harmless statement of “I am afraid to grow up”. Since then, it started an existential spiral of thought and then things started feeling fabricated, I started to not be able to look at my reflection nor my hands, and it’s triggered 2 different panic attacks. Now it’s like I feel hyper aware of my existence, and I can’t help but feel out of place. Like I’m not in real time, but reliving a memory. I don’t know what to do and I’m starting to feel hopeless, like I will feel this way forever and my brain is just broken. It’s so exhausting and the most frustrating part is I remember how I felt before all of this, I was able to just live and not worry every waking moment that I am just some construct of my own mind, reliving something that’s already happened, or worrying about what happens after death, or worrying about how the future will be or what part of my current experience I will remember years down the line. It’s constant and my brain is like an echo chamber of these thoughts and it feels as if there is a constant pressure on one side of my head. I’m so so tired. The only times I really find peace is when I’m playing a video game or when I’m going to sleep. Outside of that, it starts from the time I wake up until then. I consulted a telehealth provider and I was proscribed Escitalopram at 10mg because they diagnosed me with General Anxiety Disorder, but I haven’t started because I’m afraid that not only will it not work, but it will make what I feel 10000 times worse. I’m constantly searching for why I feel like this and I can’t help it. My mind is searching for answers and I’m desperate to go back to normal. I found this website via Reddit and I hope to get some good advice, sorry if this was long and rambly.
I relate a lot to this thing about the "fear of growing up". I wrote something
here and I would be interested to know if you identify with it. I wrote this for long time sufferers but I have no piece of information that shows that this is more prevalent with long time sufferers than short time sufferers (or prevalent in any group of people for that matter). It's just that for people who have it for a short time, generally just removing a source of stress is enough for them to recover and they don't have to wonder too much I feel. I hope this will be the case for you, but if you have had it only for two weeks, I would tend to think that chances are on your side.
But if you identify with what I wrote, it's probably not just being afraid of your future. In my case it's not even being afraid at all most of the time, but rather a problem of not inhabiting my life, which for me is a more central problem, of which stress is just a temporary side effect sometimes. I think there are no good or bad decisions in life, what matters is what we want to do. But with my weak sense of self, there is nothing I want, it's like that voice is silent. I can only hear what others want or might want. It feels like I am an impostor in the world of adults, because I don't want anything and still have to make decisions all the time. But when my self is more there, there is no fight, there is no mountain, I just do what I want and I naturally feel more legitimate. My DPDR symptoms decrease, but I feel that having a self, and being myself is at least as good as getting rid of DPDR symptoms. I didn't even know how much I was missing that until I started to get it back. What has helped me so far had technically little to do with any DPDR symptom, but it was usually about respecting myself in concrete ways. Finally saying no to people who abuse me in different ways, making them respect my boundaries more, to not forgive others out of convenience and hold people more accountable instead. It happened bit by bit, or just with a few isolated people first. Also deciding to forgive myself more, to have more understanding for myself. In my case I probably have ADHD too and it made my life difficult in addition to DPDR, and I always kind of tried to fix myself or hide those problems, but now I realize more that what matters is that I know I am doing my best. The opinion I should worry most about is mine. Somehow I care about all others, but I mostly leave myself all alone and sacrifice me needs and self respect.
Sorry, I'm telling about my whole life and it might not even be relevant to your problem, when you said you talked about "fear of growing up". But I would be curious to know if you relate to any of this.
