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Hi everyone,Im new to this group,but have been reading this sight for about a month now.Ive been suffering chronic dp/dr since I was a child and continuously for the last 10 years.I was diagnosed with depression and put on seroxat,the terror and anxiety lifted after about 18 months but the numb and empty feeling of dp/dr has remained.As far as Im concerned,its worse than depression as you are totally isolated by it,totally trapped under the ice.Its as if everything is a split second behind normal time,like Im living an echo half a yard behind everyone else.The sound of my voice,peripheral sight of my nose,noises in the night,the lucidity of reality and constant,constant inner dialogue all continuously distract me leaving 'normal' functioning impossible.Im just going thru the motions and cant help raging with myself and the world for not shaking this thing.Im sure there are people out there with advice specific to long term dp.This isnt just a quirky and cool condition to boast about at parties,its the most relentless,continuous and maddening form of overanalysis and obsessiveness there is.Ive tried hypnosis but my conscious mind wont shut down.Im not sure if Freudian therapy is appropriate for this anyway,it seems to be playing a blame game and desperately clutching at straws.I was well brought up in a loving house and had good parents.Could it be genetic,or could it have something to do with the wiring of the brain?Is this something that follows certain personality types or just the luck of the draw?
I cant accept my condition any longer,Ive heard all types of professional advice,I accept responsibility lies with me in progressing but I just cant make the quantum leap.
In need of advice and a modern day miracle

 

[Guest]

The thing that makes chronic DP states so difficult to treat is that WE are difficult to treat - it's not that you have some "untreatable condition" biological disease. In my opinion, the reason long-term DP has poor prognoses is not because being DP has "settled into" the brain or something equally ridiculous, but because the person's PERSONALITY and stubborn way of doing things has grown deeper and deeper entrenched in their daily habitual self.

The more obsessive a patient is, the harder they are to treat in therapy. Period. And the more they ruminate and self-monitor and believe they NEED TO do those things in order to stay sane, or in order to stay connected to the world at all, then well....the patient becomes VERYYYY hard to treat.

Obsessions and self-ruminations serve a purpose for us - we FEEL like we're just caught in the ruminative trap, but we are distracting ourselves nicely from other feelings and thoughts that have scared us.

OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) is often very similar. yes, I KNOW that many psychiatrists will say that all OCD is biochemical. NOT all of it is. And in fact, hide and watch - most of the "Miracle Cures" of OCD with medication in the last five years will have a rebound effect over time. Patients with obsessions and compulsions have been around for centuries - and very often those patients are caught in a loop of their own psychological defenses. If you "take away" the OCD, other symptoms often crop up very quickly.

All that said, I am NOT saying your situation is hopeless. NOT AT ALL.

But your recovery/change will depend on how able and willing you are to REALLY AND TRULY be willing to change yourself. If you can look long and hard and realistically at how INEFFECTIVE your obsessions are, you can begin to truly try to stop them. Otherwise, and I speak from personal experience here, trust me....we SAY we want to stop our obsessing, we SWEAR we want "it to go away"

and we do want that

But....what we are saying is that we want the DESIRE to obsess to go away. And then once that desire is gone, we promise to not obsess anymore, lol

We obsessives are veryyy tricky.

We have to FORCE ourselves out of the obsession rut while it still feels good.
Obsessions and magical thinking and compulsions and self-monitoring are like addictions. We need to FORCE ourselves to stop them against our desires to continue them.

Notice, and be honest, how often you say "oh, I wish I COULD STOP THINKING THIS WAY" when what you really mean is that you wish you no longer felt the intense URGE to think that way. The urge won't stop. WE have to stop.

Most of the dp type symptoms we are talking about here are FUELED by self-monitoring, and I mean CHRONIC self-monitoring and obsessions with unanswerable questions. And many readers here will agree with me. And then they will log off the computer and go self-monitor and ask themselves some unanswerable questions.

Change is harder than death.
But if you can find it in you to really do this, the reward is like a New Life.

 

[Kelson12]

As always Janine, I agree with EVERYTHING you say. And right now my psychiatrist has begun the cognitive behavior therapy on me and trying to control those "automatic thoughts". But I just don't know how! It's like having the worst habit x 100! It's so hard to break. I want out, but don't know how.

It's like I want out, I have the key to the lock, but I just don't know how to insert and turn the key.

 

[Guest]

I don't get it. DR is a HABIT??? Like chewing your fingernails?

Ok, so here's the $1.000.000 question - how do you snap out of that "habit"? Just give me a plain old answer...

 

[Guest]

I, too, have had dp/dr since early childhood, although the dp was always more prominent until a few years ago...
I don't know if recovery is really an option, since I've had it for as long as I can remember and I used to think that this is the normal way of thinking.
However, Janine is very knowledgeable. It does seem to be a habit in many respects, just as depression is the habitual acceptance of stressful states and the malaise that results from long-term exposure (not to mention thoughts like, "life sucks," or "I'm gonna kill myself...")
OCD is definitely habitual, from a logical point of view.
The trouble with dp/dr is that not only does it cast doubt on one's own ability to reason, and indeed the nature of logic and reasoning itself, but often one cannot imagine or remember thinking differently, which hinders the task of returning to healthy patterns of thought.
I'm sorry if I discouraged you; I hope you have better luck than I did...