Hello all,
I feel like my story with DPDR is quite unusual, so I feel like it's worth sharing.
It all started back in 2014, due to a weed induced panic attack. It was relatively mild back then, things just felt unreal / like in a movie, and I had horrible, debilitating brainfog that actually made work / school very difficult. In fact, most people thought I was plain stupid back then. I went on Prozac in 2015, and within a week the DPDR went away, 100%. People often say getting cured via medication, or being fully cured is impossible, but it was true for me. I had rather severe Anxiety back then however, so it's safe to assume that the DPDR had its roots there. I was prescribed Zyprexa and Risperidone before the Prozac, they didn't help me at all though.
I had to learn in 2018 that, for reasons I still don't understand, alcohol binges would be triggers for me. I was anxious again, and back in the DPDR fog. After 8 months of hoping it would just go away again, I tried Prozac again, but this time around it made the DPDR 10x worse. For the first time I also had DP symptoms, felt like an actual observer of myself. It went away after quitting the Prozac after 1 1/2 months though, and suprisingly the DPDR itself also went away after I quit the meds. However, during that time I went through a lot of personal growth, and achieved a lot of the things I always wanted, such as a good group of friends, developing better social skills, attracting women, etc. Pretty sure that had something to do with it.
Because I'm a fool, I relapsed into it 3 times during 2019. Each episode felt different, with new / other symptoms I didn't previously have. One time, the episode only lasted 1 week, and went away when I had a nightout with friends. I could literally feel it going away after the first drink, which struck me as extremely strange. Couldn't reproduce this again, but I notice that hangovers would often make the DPDR temporarily go away.
The other episodes went away on their own after about 2-3 months each, but I believe that each time, I did something in which I was fully immersed, and just giving these obsessive DPDR thoughts a break was enough for it to go away. One time it was hooking up with a girl, which was the first time back then, another time was when I was at a 3 day long assessment test for a job in the military. Being a military officer was my biggest dream since 2016, so that test was extremely important to me. Because I was in another episode during that time, I was scared shitless that the DPDR would make me fail. But once I was there, I was so hellbent on passing, that I just blocked out the DPDR. After I actually passed, I saw that I could do it despite the DPDR, and it went away for some time again.
This was in the last months of 2019, following that it would suddenly creep back up, slowly. Usually every episode was triggered rather spontaneously, not this time. December saw me having another episode, this time not triggered by alcohol, but I believe by stress due to school. Which was rather silly, because I literally just achieved my biggest goal in life, school has absolutely no impact on my life from here on out. Because of this I was in a rather shit mood during that month, and come New Year's Eve I fucked up again and drank a little too much. I instantly knew it would be worse again, and said to myself 'fuck this, I accept it'.
I believe my poor brain also said 'fuck this' in that moment, as the episode I have to face since then is the worst one so far. Feelings of unreality, emotional numbness, not even anxiety. No brainfog however, I still do well in school, and continue to be completely functional. It got a little better by now, but usually it went away completely after 3 months. The emotional numbness only got better by maybe 10% since this started.
This time around it also comes at the most inopportune time, since I'll be in the military come summer. Meaning, I'll have no more chances to try out medications etc.
I'm torn wether I should put it on hold for a year, try out meds, then come at it next year, or just go regardless. I've come to notice that avoiding certain things makes the DPDR worse, while actually doing the things you'd normally do make it better in the long run. But despite being 100% functional, I still want to actually enjoy this life I've worked so hard for. Just 2 years ago, I had exactly 1 friend, poor social skills, not an assertive person. But even when I had DPDR during time, I still tried improving myself and my situation, and despite this condition I did exactly that.
So now, 2 years after my resolution, I have a big group of friends, I'm school president for the second time at my school of 400 people, and people generally describe me as 'confident' and being charismatic.
I'm not saying this to come across as an arrogant prick, but rather to show you that achieving your goals / dreams is still possible even when suffering from this shitty condition.
However, life currently feels like a cosmic joke, because I phyiscally can't enjoy, or be proud of all these things. I should be ecstatic that I'll finally be in my dream job come summer, but nope.
I've heard of a promising experimental nootropic called NSI-189 that is said to cure these anhedonic feelings, but obviously that'd just be treating the symptoms and not the root cause. Which brings me to another problem, this time around I don't even know the root cause, since everything is objectively great. Possibly some unconscious anxiety? No clue.
Can't try things like Lamictal or Mirtazapine, as that would take too long before I'm in the military.
Well. I hope this was atleast insightful, if you want to share any thoughts or advice, I'd be most glad to hear it.
I feel like my story with DPDR is quite unusual, so I feel like it's worth sharing.
It all started back in 2014, due to a weed induced panic attack. It was relatively mild back then, things just felt unreal / like in a movie, and I had horrible, debilitating brainfog that actually made work / school very difficult. In fact, most people thought I was plain stupid back then. I went on Prozac in 2015, and within a week the DPDR went away, 100%. People often say getting cured via medication, or being fully cured is impossible, but it was true for me. I had rather severe Anxiety back then however, so it's safe to assume that the DPDR had its roots there. I was prescribed Zyprexa and Risperidone before the Prozac, they didn't help me at all though.
I had to learn in 2018 that, for reasons I still don't understand, alcohol binges would be triggers for me. I was anxious again, and back in the DPDR fog. After 8 months of hoping it would just go away again, I tried Prozac again, but this time around it made the DPDR 10x worse. For the first time I also had DP symptoms, felt like an actual observer of myself. It went away after quitting the Prozac after 1 1/2 months though, and suprisingly the DPDR itself also went away after I quit the meds. However, during that time I went through a lot of personal growth, and achieved a lot of the things I always wanted, such as a good group of friends, developing better social skills, attracting women, etc. Pretty sure that had something to do with it.
Because I'm a fool, I relapsed into it 3 times during 2019. Each episode felt different, with new / other symptoms I didn't previously have. One time, the episode only lasted 1 week, and went away when I had a nightout with friends. I could literally feel it going away after the first drink, which struck me as extremely strange. Couldn't reproduce this again, but I notice that hangovers would often make the DPDR temporarily go away.
The other episodes went away on their own after about 2-3 months each, but I believe that each time, I did something in which I was fully immersed, and just giving these obsessive DPDR thoughts a break was enough for it to go away. One time it was hooking up with a girl, which was the first time back then, another time was when I was at a 3 day long assessment test for a job in the military. Being a military officer was my biggest dream since 2016, so that test was extremely important to me. Because I was in another episode during that time, I was scared shitless that the DPDR would make me fail. But once I was there, I was so hellbent on passing, that I just blocked out the DPDR. After I actually passed, I saw that I could do it despite the DPDR, and it went away for some time again.
This was in the last months of 2019, following that it would suddenly creep back up, slowly. Usually every episode was triggered rather spontaneously, not this time. December saw me having another episode, this time not triggered by alcohol, but I believe by stress due to school. Which was rather silly, because I literally just achieved my biggest goal in life, school has absolutely no impact on my life from here on out. Because of this I was in a rather shit mood during that month, and come New Year's Eve I fucked up again and drank a little too much. I instantly knew it would be worse again, and said to myself 'fuck this, I accept it'.
I believe my poor brain also said 'fuck this' in that moment, as the episode I have to face since then is the worst one so far. Feelings of unreality, emotional numbness, not even anxiety. No brainfog however, I still do well in school, and continue to be completely functional. It got a little better by now, but usually it went away completely after 3 months. The emotional numbness only got better by maybe 10% since this started.
This time around it also comes at the most inopportune time, since I'll be in the military come summer. Meaning, I'll have no more chances to try out medications etc.
I'm torn wether I should put it on hold for a year, try out meds, then come at it next year, or just go regardless. I've come to notice that avoiding certain things makes the DPDR worse, while actually doing the things you'd normally do make it better in the long run. But despite being 100% functional, I still want to actually enjoy this life I've worked so hard for. Just 2 years ago, I had exactly 1 friend, poor social skills, not an assertive person. But even when I had DPDR during time, I still tried improving myself and my situation, and despite this condition I did exactly that.
So now, 2 years after my resolution, I have a big group of friends, I'm school president for the second time at my school of 400 people, and people generally describe me as 'confident' and being charismatic.
I'm not saying this to come across as an arrogant prick, but rather to show you that achieving your goals / dreams is still possible even when suffering from this shitty condition.
However, life currently feels like a cosmic joke, because I phyiscally can't enjoy, or be proud of all these things. I should be ecstatic that I'll finally be in my dream job come summer, but nope.
I've heard of a promising experimental nootropic called NSI-189 that is said to cure these anhedonic feelings, but obviously that'd just be treating the symptoms and not the root cause. Which brings me to another problem, this time around I don't even know the root cause, since everything is objectively great. Possibly some unconscious anxiety? No clue.
Can't try things like Lamictal or Mirtazapine, as that would take too long before I'm in the military.
Well. I hope this was atleast insightful, if you want to share any thoughts or advice, I'd be most glad to hear it.
