Hello everyone. Here is my story:
In my adulthood, my family grew to be very close. We all lived within walked distance to each other and were always together. I say in my adulthood because I remember my childhood being very chaotic and hard. My dad was always gone, working, and my mom was never the loving nurturing type. This is due to her own up bringing and what she had to endure as a child.
Anyway, September of 2021, my father passed away from a heart attack. I was absolutely crushed. I felt my world shatter. A few months later, my aunt passed away from heart failure. In June of 2022, my brother, at 38 years old, died of a heart attack. So, in a span of 9 months, I lost 3 of my immediate family members. thought I was handing everything really well, but in reality I was just pushing my emotions under a rug and trying to forget about them. A couple months after my brother died I started getting heartburn and indigestion, which is the two symptoms that my brother complained about minutes before his death. I had never had heartburn or indigestion before, so this sent me into an absolutely panic. I had my first panic attack. I went to the doctor and she told me that my symptoms sounded like a stressed induced ulcer. But I could not get my anxious mind to accept that. I was so worried that it was my heart, like my brother, and I was going to die. My anxiety was quickly getting out of control and I was having multiple panic attacks a day. I ended up in the ER one night because of it and had a EKG and stress test done. Both of which came back normal. These results helped ease my health anxiety. However, the medicine that I was put on for my stomach ulcer was giving me increased nervousness, body pains, and other side effects that was giving me more anxiety. I had another intense panic attack during which I was convinced that I was going to die. The heavy DPDR symptoms got really heavy then. Although looking back I feel that I had some mild symptoms before then. The ulcer has sense healed, my physical health anxiety has subsided, but I am stick with anxiety about having these DPDR symptoms. I went to talk to a therapist, who knew what DPDR was, but told me that she thought it was weird that I have these symptoms constantly and not just in episodes.
My symptoms include:
-the world feels dreamy
-for about a month I felt like I was floating slightly up and out of my body - that has subsided.
-I feel weird and off all of the time
- my brain feels spacey and foggy
-existence seems weird to me.
The main symptom though that drives me nuts is this feeling that I can see the world around me, but not see at the same time.
for example, I look at it phone, I know it’s there, but it feels weird. Sometimes it feels weird to me that I can even see at all?
It’s like there’s a space between what I’m viewing and me. If that makes any sense at. It’s driving me nuts. Is that the “feeling disconnected” or the “feeling like being behind a pain or glass”? I am not really sure. Has anyone else experienced this?
I often have thoughts about the first person perspective, like everyone has it. If someone stands beside me, we will literally see the same thing, but it feels weird for me. Does that make any sense at all?
Does this go away?