Hello. I need help. I am not feeling good, I am not sure what I am experiencing right now and I am absolutely terrified.
I need to know what is happening.
This is my story.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A BAD TRIP
I am a teenager. That is why I was stupid enough to do what I did.
About two months ago, I made the biggest mistake of my life. I took a very big dose of a drug LSD and had a terrifying trip. It wasn't simply a bad trip - it was hell - I was fully hallucinating, talked with imaginary beings, kept falling into "realities", travelled in time. I convinced myself I fucked my life up for good - that my brain just got destroyed and there's no helping it now.
Basically a typical example of what happens when one is being irresponsible like I was. The morning after, I was pretty shaken up, but I was telling myself I am alright. I was very wrong.
DEPERSONALIZATION STARTED
A week passed, and everything was normal as always. And then one night, when I went for a bike ride, something hit me - I would probably call it a flashback - I suddenly realized how awful and intense my trip was and it scared the living hell out of me. The thing is, I couldn't get that thought out of my mind. Whatever I did, I only had one thing on my mind - the memory of the bad trip, reliving it over and over again, every single moment. As days passed, I believe DP/DR started - I felt like I was going insane, kept searching for symptoms of schizophrenia and other mental illnesses, felt like my body wasnt mine, my voice was weird. Everything was suddenly scary, blurry, loud noises scared me and I got extremely paranoid. I didnt sleep and eat properly for two weeks. My whole body hurt, my brain felt like someone set it on fire, and i spent the whole night shaking in panic attacks. Everything looked different - I couldnt describe it, but it was as if I was seeing everything for the first time. My house, my friends. I had very bad dreams. I was like a zombie.
And all of this was triggered simply by the fact that I couldn't stop reliving the memory of the bad trip. I believe that might be some form of ptsd.
QUESTIONING MY PERSONALITY, GOALS - IS THIS STILL DP?
I was always a very confident person - outgoing, talkative. I considered myself hard working, very motivated. I always knew what to say to make people laugh. I knew exactly what I want to do in life - music - I was insanely ambitious. I knew my qualities I spent my free time doing nothing but making more and more music. I had a plan for my future, travelling, meeting new people. I was amazed by how beautiful life is and I wanted to make the best out of it. I
In this state that I was in, totally terrified because I could not get the memory out of my head, and in a state of feeling unreal, I began to question everything. I started to question if my personality is really like that - if I am really the person I always thought I was, I started to question my goals, my hobbies, my qualities, my outlook on life, basically everything. And then I did something very bad - I spent days searching through forums on the internet about people that have had a bad trip, depersonalization and whatnot and their lives are now destroyed. I basically believed that all these things must apply to me as well. I got really confused. I was very stupid and this only made me more anxious, adding to my DP. I was now convinced that everything I thought I am, everything I wanted is not true and I imagined that I will suddenly be a worse, different person than I was. I always liked my personality - that is why I got so afraid why I suddenly started to question it. I never questioned my existence. I am asking, what is this? Is this some weird thought process caused by DP? Was my mind tricked into believing something that was completely irrational? To me, it seemed very real. Very scary.
For the whole two weeks I spent depersonalized, I could not get the memory out of my head. And then, suddenly, one night, having yet another panic attack, something as if switched in my brain.
MY THINKING PROCESS GOT DESTROYED?!
One night, I suddenly began to hear a song playing over and over in my head. It played the whole night and then the whole day after. Because the forums I read were basically the only thing I was really doing, I also started to hear random sentences I remembered from articles I read. I would start associating the things I read with how I felt, it was like an ongoing thought cycle. I felt as if someone destroyed my thinking process - before, I believe, I used to think about things I have to do throughout the day, I used to think creatively, freely, I would contemplate ideas or the events of the day. All of that was suddenly gone and replaced by repetitive songs, words, intrusive memories from my life before this horrible thing happened. I look at these memories with sadness - I remember the night before I did this stupid thing and just cry. I have stuck thoughts, racing, intrusive. I do something and I suddenly very vividly remember going shopping when I was 6 years old. It does not make sense to me. Later, I started having random, messed up thoughts - for example when falling asleep, as if I was already having a dream. I started to repeat sentences that I heard people say, or just some words. When I said something I heard an "echo" in my head. When I see a sign somewhere, I remember it for a long time and start saying it over and over. I would imagine crying, shouting in my head. I know I only imagined it, I always try to self-diagnose somehow and try to get myself out of these thought processes in my head, but I can see it's only making it worse. I feel trapped inside of my own mind - I am a prisoner.
I also get intrusive memories of the bad trip very often - maybe even every minute or so.
The worst came one morning when I woke up, and I suddenly couldn't hear my voice in my head. I felt then that I won't ever think "normally" again - whatever normal means, I don't remember anymore. I don't have an inner speech that keeps a person organized. I only have these weird thought patterns that concern me very much.
Is this, too, depersonalization?
HOW I FEEL RIGHT NOW
I feel extremely anxious. I noticed I don't really yawn anymore - and when I do, it's like 50%. My whole body feels tense, on alert. I began feeling so depressed that I refused to go to school - I studied abroad this year, a huge opportunity, which I had to give up. Waking up every morning and finding myself remembering the bad trip and simply being in my own head again with my thought processes makes me want to only cry. I cry, shout, but those are the only emotions I really feel. Other than that, I feel totally empty. My interests don't make me happy anymore. I am sad that everything seems insignificant. My goals, me. Everything seems pointless. I started hating everything and everyone, myself included. I feel distant from everything. Although I am here, I don't feel like I am in the moment - all that I have been through these two months is, to me, so horrible, that it totally cut me off from reality. I sit in the bus but I feel like I am in a fog. I feel like I am sleeping the entire day, but I am awake. I also feel like I got stuck in some different reality than the one other people live in. I only pretend to laugh and smile, it is never honest.
I try to be funny, but I am mostly quiet. I cannot crack jokes like I used to. I stutter. I don't like to talk - the one thing that I always did. I could never shut up. My voice feels weird - I believe I had a deeper voice before. I never know what to say in a conversation, because I don't really think - I cannot think with "broken" thought processes. It all seems unnatural and simply not right. Like something is wrong, but not so much wrong as when I actually felt physically sick.
I feel almost retarded. I can't remember the simplest things and I forget everything.
This, I see as a change - the change that began with questioning the real nature of my personality. I don't know if it is permanent, because I don't know what I used to act like before.
WHAT I ALREADY DID
Because I still live with my parents, I told them everything that has been happening. I have been to two psychologists. I was trying to describe to them that my thought process seems "broken" somehow, but they did not seem to understand. Talk therapy is obviously not helping. I have seen a psychiatrist, who prescribed me an antidepressant Sertralin (SSRI), and told me I have anxiety, depression, depersonalization.
Maybe I should start exercising heavily, but I have no energy to do that. I eat pretty healthy.
Still, I am not sure what this is anymore. I don't know if it is depersonalization, or if I am really someone else. I want to act like I used to. I try to let myself just be, but still, it is as if it was someone totally different. I don't recognize myself, but most of all, I hate this person. She is lazy, depressed, unmotivated and sad. I never was like that.
I will be very happy for every advice. I really need some, as you can probably see.
Tha
I need to know what is happening.
This is my story.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A BAD TRIP
I am a teenager. That is why I was stupid enough to do what I did.
About two months ago, I made the biggest mistake of my life. I took a very big dose of a drug LSD and had a terrifying trip. It wasn't simply a bad trip - it was hell - I was fully hallucinating, talked with imaginary beings, kept falling into "realities", travelled in time. I convinced myself I fucked my life up for good - that my brain just got destroyed and there's no helping it now.
Basically a typical example of what happens when one is being irresponsible like I was. The morning after, I was pretty shaken up, but I was telling myself I am alright. I was very wrong.
DEPERSONALIZATION STARTED
A week passed, and everything was normal as always. And then one night, when I went for a bike ride, something hit me - I would probably call it a flashback - I suddenly realized how awful and intense my trip was and it scared the living hell out of me. The thing is, I couldn't get that thought out of my mind. Whatever I did, I only had one thing on my mind - the memory of the bad trip, reliving it over and over again, every single moment. As days passed, I believe DP/DR started - I felt like I was going insane, kept searching for symptoms of schizophrenia and other mental illnesses, felt like my body wasnt mine, my voice was weird. Everything was suddenly scary, blurry, loud noises scared me and I got extremely paranoid. I didnt sleep and eat properly for two weeks. My whole body hurt, my brain felt like someone set it on fire, and i spent the whole night shaking in panic attacks. Everything looked different - I couldnt describe it, but it was as if I was seeing everything for the first time. My house, my friends. I had very bad dreams. I was like a zombie.
And all of this was triggered simply by the fact that I couldn't stop reliving the memory of the bad trip. I believe that might be some form of ptsd.
QUESTIONING MY PERSONALITY, GOALS - IS THIS STILL DP?
I was always a very confident person - outgoing, talkative. I considered myself hard working, very motivated. I always knew what to say to make people laugh. I knew exactly what I want to do in life - music - I was insanely ambitious. I knew my qualities I spent my free time doing nothing but making more and more music. I had a plan for my future, travelling, meeting new people. I was amazed by how beautiful life is and I wanted to make the best out of it. I
In this state that I was in, totally terrified because I could not get the memory out of my head, and in a state of feeling unreal, I began to question everything. I started to question if my personality is really like that - if I am really the person I always thought I was, I started to question my goals, my hobbies, my qualities, my outlook on life, basically everything. And then I did something very bad - I spent days searching through forums on the internet about people that have had a bad trip, depersonalization and whatnot and their lives are now destroyed. I basically believed that all these things must apply to me as well. I got really confused. I was very stupid and this only made me more anxious, adding to my DP. I was now convinced that everything I thought I am, everything I wanted is not true and I imagined that I will suddenly be a worse, different person than I was. I always liked my personality - that is why I got so afraid why I suddenly started to question it. I never questioned my existence. I am asking, what is this? Is this some weird thought process caused by DP? Was my mind tricked into believing something that was completely irrational? To me, it seemed very real. Very scary.
For the whole two weeks I spent depersonalized, I could not get the memory out of my head. And then, suddenly, one night, having yet another panic attack, something as if switched in my brain.
MY THINKING PROCESS GOT DESTROYED?!
One night, I suddenly began to hear a song playing over and over in my head. It played the whole night and then the whole day after. Because the forums I read were basically the only thing I was really doing, I also started to hear random sentences I remembered from articles I read. I would start associating the things I read with how I felt, it was like an ongoing thought cycle. I felt as if someone destroyed my thinking process - before, I believe, I used to think about things I have to do throughout the day, I used to think creatively, freely, I would contemplate ideas or the events of the day. All of that was suddenly gone and replaced by repetitive songs, words, intrusive memories from my life before this horrible thing happened. I look at these memories with sadness - I remember the night before I did this stupid thing and just cry. I have stuck thoughts, racing, intrusive. I do something and I suddenly very vividly remember going shopping when I was 6 years old. It does not make sense to me. Later, I started having random, messed up thoughts - for example when falling asleep, as if I was already having a dream. I started to repeat sentences that I heard people say, or just some words. When I said something I heard an "echo" in my head. When I see a sign somewhere, I remember it for a long time and start saying it over and over. I would imagine crying, shouting in my head. I know I only imagined it, I always try to self-diagnose somehow and try to get myself out of these thought processes in my head, but I can see it's only making it worse. I feel trapped inside of my own mind - I am a prisoner.
I also get intrusive memories of the bad trip very often - maybe even every minute or so.
The worst came one morning when I woke up, and I suddenly couldn't hear my voice in my head. I felt then that I won't ever think "normally" again - whatever normal means, I don't remember anymore. I don't have an inner speech that keeps a person organized. I only have these weird thought patterns that concern me very much.
Is this, too, depersonalization?
HOW I FEEL RIGHT NOW
I feel extremely anxious. I noticed I don't really yawn anymore - and when I do, it's like 50%. My whole body feels tense, on alert. I began feeling so depressed that I refused to go to school - I studied abroad this year, a huge opportunity, which I had to give up. Waking up every morning and finding myself remembering the bad trip and simply being in my own head again with my thought processes makes me want to only cry. I cry, shout, but those are the only emotions I really feel. Other than that, I feel totally empty. My interests don't make me happy anymore. I am sad that everything seems insignificant. My goals, me. Everything seems pointless. I started hating everything and everyone, myself included. I feel distant from everything. Although I am here, I don't feel like I am in the moment - all that I have been through these two months is, to me, so horrible, that it totally cut me off from reality. I sit in the bus but I feel like I am in a fog. I feel like I am sleeping the entire day, but I am awake. I also feel like I got stuck in some different reality than the one other people live in. I only pretend to laugh and smile, it is never honest.
I try to be funny, but I am mostly quiet. I cannot crack jokes like I used to. I stutter. I don't like to talk - the one thing that I always did. I could never shut up. My voice feels weird - I believe I had a deeper voice before. I never know what to say in a conversation, because I don't really think - I cannot think with "broken" thought processes. It all seems unnatural and simply not right. Like something is wrong, but not so much wrong as when I actually felt physically sick.
I feel almost retarded. I can't remember the simplest things and I forget everything.
This, I see as a change - the change that began with questioning the real nature of my personality. I don't know if it is permanent, because I don't know what I used to act like before.
WHAT I ALREADY DID
Because I still live with my parents, I told them everything that has been happening. I have been to two psychologists. I was trying to describe to them that my thought process seems "broken" somehow, but they did not seem to understand. Talk therapy is obviously not helping. I have seen a psychiatrist, who prescribed me an antidepressant Sertralin (SSRI), and told me I have anxiety, depression, depersonalization.
Maybe I should start exercising heavily, but I have no energy to do that. I eat pretty healthy.
Still, I am not sure what this is anymore. I don't know if it is depersonalization, or if I am really someone else. I want to act like I used to. I try to let myself just be, but still, it is as if it was someone totally different. I don't recognize myself, but most of all, I hate this person. She is lazy, depressed, unmotivated and sad. I never was like that.
I will be very happy for every advice. I really need some, as you can probably see.
Tha
