G
Guest
·In reading through the posts on this forum, I came across a "theme" just now that I want to throw my 2 cents in on. I think it's important. Like I said in my first post, I'm 50-something, and that's a lot older than the average here I'm sure. DR hit me when I was 18, and I talked about that. But what I want to say --what I want to STRESS-- is that I DO NOT have it now. Man, I haven't seen the Unreality for decades. By the time I was 30, unreality was history. It went out with a whimper instead of a bang (as I always hoped it would). There came a point when I said, "Jeez, what's going on? What happened to the unreality of perception?" It wasn't like I found reality (a great big "welcome back" to the world), but I noticed one day that I was not unhappy with the way things looked. Everything was more or less acceptable, if unclimactic.
I still desire that wrenching-rip-back-into-the-fullness-of-existence that I never got, but I am not at all bothered by the way things look to me now. And they've looked this way to me for the last 25 years or so. Just average. Pedestrian. I mean, I haven't _worried_ about unreality for decades. It's from another time in my life. It's just not an issue. And make no mistake, I was deep into DR "back in the day." Every morning I would awake to it. It was the first thing I thought of. I hated it. But by the time I was 30, I _could not tell_ if it had gone away or if I had adapted to it. It quietly diluted away.
That's what I want to tell you from the POV I have. It won't make it go away any faster for you, but you shouldn't worry that it's a life-long condition. The unreality is bad enough without worrying about that too. I was reading posts of people saying they were discouraged about reading of older DR'ers who've had the ailment for 20 years. I think that's unusual. It certainly is not my situation. For me it was 12 years from permanent onset to "where did it go?"
I'm thinking a lot about DR these days, having just discovered this forum and seeing myself in your posts. From your descriptions, I'm remembering how horrible it was to be in it. I had forget about the flourescent lights,... whoa. Also, classical architecture (columns and the like) would turn it up for me. There was a painting ( http://www.moma.org/collection/provenan ... 03.43.html ) that I thought captured the unreality pretty well. It's important for me to "work some things out" of which, the DR is an integral part. It's my closest horror that I have yet to come to terms with. I am trying to understand what the DR really was ...
But anyway, in reading about people who were depressed at hearing older people still had DR, I don't want to leave anyone here with the impression that it's still an active problem for me. I have _other_ problems to be sure, but Unreality isn't one of them. The closest I get to that now is when I get a flu that won't go away for weeks. It's like, "OK, enough already!" Unless I'm radically different (which I doubt from reading your posts), know that just the flu goes away at some point, so does the DR.
I still desire that wrenching-rip-back-into-the-fullness-of-existence that I never got, but I am not at all bothered by the way things look to me now. And they've looked this way to me for the last 25 years or so. Just average. Pedestrian. I mean, I haven't _worried_ about unreality for decades. It's from another time in my life. It's just not an issue. And make no mistake, I was deep into DR "back in the day." Every morning I would awake to it. It was the first thing I thought of. I hated it. But by the time I was 30, I _could not tell_ if it had gone away or if I had adapted to it. It quietly diluted away.
That's what I want to tell you from the POV I have. It won't make it go away any faster for you, but you shouldn't worry that it's a life-long condition. The unreality is bad enough without worrying about that too. I was reading posts of people saying they were discouraged about reading of older DR'ers who've had the ailment for 20 years. I think that's unusual. It certainly is not my situation. For me it was 12 years from permanent onset to "where did it go?"
I'm thinking a lot about DR these days, having just discovered this forum and seeing myself in your posts. From your descriptions, I'm remembering how horrible it was to be in it. I had forget about the flourescent lights,... whoa. Also, classical architecture (columns and the like) would turn it up for me. There was a painting ( http://www.moma.org/collection/provenan ... 03.43.html ) that I thought captured the unreality pretty well. It's important for me to "work some things out" of which, the DR is an integral part. It's my closest horror that I have yet to come to terms with. I am trying to understand what the DR really was ...
But anyway, in reading about people who were depressed at hearing older people still had DR, I don't want to leave anyone here with the impression that it's still an active problem for me. I have _other_ problems to be sure, but Unreality isn't one of them. The closest I get to that now is when I get a flu that won't go away for weeks. It's like, "OK, enough already!" Unless I'm radically different (which I doubt from reading your posts), know that just the flu goes away at some point, so does the DR.
