I cannot remember a time without DP. Previously, my dissociated periods were few and far between. I didn't recognize them then for what they were. I thought these symptoms - emotional numbness, the fog, the muting of my sensations - were not symptoms but just something everyone experienced periodically.
I had many seemingly inexplicable symptoms throughout my childhood: DP periods, a NECESSITY to cross-dress (I felt I needed to look as un-feminine as socially acceptable so as not to be noticed as a girl), inability to sleep, horrific nightmares, many bizarre fears (specifically of physical contact and intimacy), paranoia (particularly in regards to sleeping).
I also had panic attacks, which I did not recognize as abnormal. My freshman year of college my nightmares became increasingly disturbing and upsetting. Most of them involved sexual abuse. I began to read online about symptoms of sexual abuse in childhood and was shocked by the similarities in all of my symptoms- down to those that I thought were most bizarre (some examples: burning desire to lock doors after entering them, a very in-depth sexual knowledge at a young age, etc). I also read that memories could be suppressed, although this is a controversial belief- one that I now firmly know to be true. Shortly after beginning this research and attempting to do some self-discovery, I had a massive panic attack. I told my boyfriend of two years that I believed I had been sexually abused as a child but could not remember the details. He calmed me by convincing me that if I couldn't remembers specifics than my mind had likely fabricated the situation.
About a year later - fall semester of my sophomore year- I was at a party at a friend's house. I do not drink alcohol but all of my teammates did, and they throw large events that I usually attend. All night a man continually pestered me to dance but I refused, my panic increasing. I had always had a fear of men and of physical contact with anyone. While these feelings had decreased as I grew older, I was still very uncomfortable with the situation. As the alcohol ran out early in the morning, the party wound down. The music was still extremely loud and the dancing area crowded, but many rooms in the house were practically devoid of people. As I guarded the door to the bathroom for a friend the man aggressively approached me. When I still refused to dance he pushed me into the kitchen. There were several other guys in there so I at least felt a little safe. Little did I know, they were all the man's friends. He told me he wanted to be with me. I refused. He then grabbed my arm so hard it left a bruise for a week, and tried to drag me out the back door. I was frozen in fear, being pulled along. I tried to scream but my voice only came out at a muted level. I gasped wide-eyed at the other boys but they just laughed.
Luckily my friend emerged from the bathroom and in an irate drunken rage began swinging fists in my defense. The man released her, swearing. I grabbed her, told our friends to kick the man out, and left the party crying.
After that, flashbacks began, primarily in the form of nightmares .My depersonalization increased suddenly and drastically, as did my paranoia. After several weeks of depersonalizing almost daily I realized there was something severely wrong and decided to see a therapist.
My symptoms continued to worsen through most of spring semester. I hardly slept - sometimes sleeping only two hours out of sixty. My anxiety ramped up my metabolism alarmingly and I ate almost constantly. However, I still lost about 15 lb.
First, I wallowed in the symptoms. I was terrified. I was paranoid. I sealed myself away, watching TV in my room for hours and only emerging for class and practice. I destroyed friendships and began the destruction of my relationship with my wonderful boyfriend of 3.5 years.
Then came spring break. My beloved teammates and I planned a trip to Florida. On the car ride I had a thought: "We're missing someone." I went through the list of people I would want to come.... they were all there. Then it hit me: I was missing myself. I cried and depersonalized. In an attempt to feel emotion I scratched off a large piece of skin on my wrist.
That episode was a turning point. I dedicated myself to my recovery. Upon my return home I told my therapist everything I had been unwilling to go through before. I vomited in her trashcan but made it through the session. She and I used EMDR therapy to approach my abuse. It sounded wacky to me at first but it worked beautifully, despite it's difficulty.
As I faced all of my fears, the depersonalization gradually began to be easier to control.
Unfortunately my fear of men and intimacy became so great that my relationship with my boyfriend ended.
However, I am doing a lot better. I smile. I live. I am now working on repairing any damage that occurred in my life while I was under the hold of DP- repairing relationships and really enjoying every day.
What I would say to others is: RECOGNIZE THAT IT IS A SYMPTOM- A CONDITION CAUSED BY AN UNDERLYING FACTOR. You must identify and face that factor, however painful it might be. And you must WORK HARD. This was the most exhausting and painful journey of my life. I've never put so much effort into something: physical, emotional, and mental. I am not 100% but I am close. And I can say for the first time in about a year, I am feeling very positive. I'm feeling like I will be better when this is all over than I was before it began.
Hope you all can find an outcome as good as mine.
EDIT:
For actual tips-
1. Like I said above... FACE THE CAUSE and put in the work
2. Remember what brings you joy: When I was at my DP worst I stopped hiking and being outside, I avoided people, I didn't paint or draw or write like usual. The more I started forcing myself into social situations I used to enjoy and the more I engaged myself in outdoor adventures and art, the better I felt. Not only are they distractions from the symptoms they are a relief. Remember what brings you happiness and do them until you feel happy again.
3. Don't seal yourself away: this pretty much goes hand in hand with number two.
4. SLEEP. My insomnia made the DP way worse. My bizarre sleep remedy: warm milk and honey, a fan, nature sounds music, and a new cuddly kitten I adopted.
5. Be your own motivation: Before my spring break episode my motivation was other people. I thought " I need to get better to keep my relationship. I need to get better to make my parents stop worrying. I need to get better to do better in school and impress professors." It wasn't until I felt I'd lost myself, and that I wanted to do better to gain MYSELF back, that the motivation became strong enough to overwhelm the disparity.
6. Go to a therapist/psyciatrist. I never would have been able to see and understand my mind the way I had if it weren't for the therapist I saw. Though I was skeptical at first, she really did save me.
7. Diet: a lot of people on this forum swear by diet changes. I didn't do anything drastic- just cut down on my sugar and my caffeine. I felt a lot more in control of my energy once I eliminated most of those. Also, drinking water constantly seemed to help me a lot, and curbed my ridiculous eating and high metabolism a little bit.
I had many seemingly inexplicable symptoms throughout my childhood: DP periods, a NECESSITY to cross-dress (I felt I needed to look as un-feminine as socially acceptable so as not to be noticed as a girl), inability to sleep, horrific nightmares, many bizarre fears (specifically of physical contact and intimacy), paranoia (particularly in regards to sleeping).
I also had panic attacks, which I did not recognize as abnormal. My freshman year of college my nightmares became increasingly disturbing and upsetting. Most of them involved sexual abuse. I began to read online about symptoms of sexual abuse in childhood and was shocked by the similarities in all of my symptoms- down to those that I thought were most bizarre (some examples: burning desire to lock doors after entering them, a very in-depth sexual knowledge at a young age, etc). I also read that memories could be suppressed, although this is a controversial belief- one that I now firmly know to be true. Shortly after beginning this research and attempting to do some self-discovery, I had a massive panic attack. I told my boyfriend of two years that I believed I had been sexually abused as a child but could not remember the details. He calmed me by convincing me that if I couldn't remembers specifics than my mind had likely fabricated the situation.
About a year later - fall semester of my sophomore year- I was at a party at a friend's house. I do not drink alcohol but all of my teammates did, and they throw large events that I usually attend. All night a man continually pestered me to dance but I refused, my panic increasing. I had always had a fear of men and of physical contact with anyone. While these feelings had decreased as I grew older, I was still very uncomfortable with the situation. As the alcohol ran out early in the morning, the party wound down. The music was still extremely loud and the dancing area crowded, but many rooms in the house were practically devoid of people. As I guarded the door to the bathroom for a friend the man aggressively approached me. When I still refused to dance he pushed me into the kitchen. There were several other guys in there so I at least felt a little safe. Little did I know, they were all the man's friends. He told me he wanted to be with me. I refused. He then grabbed my arm so hard it left a bruise for a week, and tried to drag me out the back door. I was frozen in fear, being pulled along. I tried to scream but my voice only came out at a muted level. I gasped wide-eyed at the other boys but they just laughed.
Luckily my friend emerged from the bathroom and in an irate drunken rage began swinging fists in my defense. The man released her, swearing. I grabbed her, told our friends to kick the man out, and left the party crying.
After that, flashbacks began, primarily in the form of nightmares .My depersonalization increased suddenly and drastically, as did my paranoia. After several weeks of depersonalizing almost daily I realized there was something severely wrong and decided to see a therapist.
My symptoms continued to worsen through most of spring semester. I hardly slept - sometimes sleeping only two hours out of sixty. My anxiety ramped up my metabolism alarmingly and I ate almost constantly. However, I still lost about 15 lb.
First, I wallowed in the symptoms. I was terrified. I was paranoid. I sealed myself away, watching TV in my room for hours and only emerging for class and practice. I destroyed friendships and began the destruction of my relationship with my wonderful boyfriend of 3.5 years.
Then came spring break. My beloved teammates and I planned a trip to Florida. On the car ride I had a thought: "We're missing someone." I went through the list of people I would want to come.... they were all there. Then it hit me: I was missing myself. I cried and depersonalized. In an attempt to feel emotion I scratched off a large piece of skin on my wrist.
That episode was a turning point. I dedicated myself to my recovery. Upon my return home I told my therapist everything I had been unwilling to go through before. I vomited in her trashcan but made it through the session. She and I used EMDR therapy to approach my abuse. It sounded wacky to me at first but it worked beautifully, despite it's difficulty.
As I faced all of my fears, the depersonalization gradually began to be easier to control.
Unfortunately my fear of men and intimacy became so great that my relationship with my boyfriend ended.
However, I am doing a lot better. I smile. I live. I am now working on repairing any damage that occurred in my life while I was under the hold of DP- repairing relationships and really enjoying every day.
What I would say to others is: RECOGNIZE THAT IT IS A SYMPTOM- A CONDITION CAUSED BY AN UNDERLYING FACTOR. You must identify and face that factor, however painful it might be. And you must WORK HARD. This was the most exhausting and painful journey of my life. I've never put so much effort into something: physical, emotional, and mental. I am not 100% but I am close. And I can say for the first time in about a year, I am feeling very positive. I'm feeling like I will be better when this is all over than I was before it began.
Hope you all can find an outcome as good as mine.
EDIT:
For actual tips-
1. Like I said above... FACE THE CAUSE and put in the work
2. Remember what brings you joy: When I was at my DP worst I stopped hiking and being outside, I avoided people, I didn't paint or draw or write like usual. The more I started forcing myself into social situations I used to enjoy and the more I engaged myself in outdoor adventures and art, the better I felt. Not only are they distractions from the symptoms they are a relief. Remember what brings you happiness and do them until you feel happy again.
3. Don't seal yourself away: this pretty much goes hand in hand with number two.
4. SLEEP. My insomnia made the DP way worse. My bizarre sleep remedy: warm milk and honey, a fan, nature sounds music, and a new cuddly kitten I adopted.
5. Be your own motivation: Before my spring break episode my motivation was other people. I thought " I need to get better to keep my relationship. I need to get better to make my parents stop worrying. I need to get better to do better in school and impress professors." It wasn't until I felt I'd lost myself, and that I wanted to do better to gain MYSELF back, that the motivation became strong enough to overwhelm the disparity.
6. Go to a therapist/psyciatrist. I never would have been able to see and understand my mind the way I had if it weren't for the therapist I saw. Though I was skeptical at first, she really did save me.
7. Diet: a lot of people on this forum swear by diet changes. I didn't do anything drastic- just cut down on my sugar and my caffeine. I felt a lot more in control of my energy once I eliminated most of those. Also, drinking water constantly seemed to help me a lot, and curbed my ridiculous eating and high metabolism a little bit.
