[jen]

has anyone here tried to cope with their dp/dr by obsessing over a celebrity or an unattainable guy/girl? i've had whole fantasy relationships that felt completely real to me. they were present, in my lives, and i would interact with them as though they were characters.

is this a normal experience for a person with this disorder to have?

j

 

[Martinelv]

No, it isn't, I doubt it very much. This isn't what you want to hear, but this post disturbed me.

It's a perfectly natural approach, and quite a novel one if you don't mind me saying so, to indulge in fantasy in order to rid yourself of your DR/DP. But, and it's a big but, if these fantasies are all consuming, real to the extent that you describe, then I think it's very dangerous.

 

[terri*]

After being on this board a while, I don't recall anyone having an obsession of this type. There are times we all need to discuss our obsessive thoughts with someone and this may be a good time for you.
It may help you a little more with reality. It doesn't seem that your fantasy is going to help you stay in the present. To move forward you really need to stay aware of the real things that are around you, in my opinion.

Hope all goes well.
terri

 

[Guest]

Yeah, I did this when I was younger... It helped me loads!

I don't do it now, it doesn't really help all that much in the long run, but it really gave me something to think of other than the DP/DR at the time!

 

[jen]

thank you for being so honest. it was really hard for me to get that up there, but i really welcome all your thoughts.

i would construct elaborate fantasies around my life and my world... but i don't recall ever actually believing they were PRESENT in my life in the physical (metaphysical?) sense... meaning my fantasies never became real at the level of perception.

however, they were real in ever other way. and i did believe, with all my heart, that they once will. i still sometimes believe this. (i think i've heard this described once as 'magical thinking.') and now, newly diagnosed with dp, i don't know whether to blame this on my long term condition, or whether it could be something else, because i sure as hell haven't discussed this with my therapist...

... thanks for listening.

 

[Sojourner]

Discussing it with your therapist is an excellent idea!

Can you describe what one of these experiences might be like? I'm a little confused because you first said they were really present and then said they weren't, so I'm not sure I am understanding what you are trying to convey.

 

[jen]

i would act as though they were with me wherever i went... as though they were perched over my shoulder or something.. i would even talk to them sometimes... but i knew that i wouldn't like, bump into them or anything... lol. but i believed for the longest time that this celebrity dude and i would meet and fall in love and i'd become rich and famous and everything. looking back on it, it seems silly (and after reading this now, what i wrote seems like an ugly caricature of the very intense, very real feelings i remember experiencing). only this wasn't the sophomoric childhood fantasy you'd think. it started out that way- i was about 13, experiencing mild/baseline dp. as things got worse over the years (i contracted severe dp at the age of 15), the fantasy became so elaborate that it consumed my life truly to the extent that i described. i actually tried to plan out my life believing this would happen, and in my more extreme states, i still sometimes do.

i'm 20 now, but i've only let go of the fantasy sometime last year. and it was only because i found some other guy to idealize, to worship, to cling to. obviously it's just some kind of defense mechanism, because he's really not that great of a guy. (in fact, he kind of sucks.) at least i know that now. but looking back, these were not cases of a simple crush, these were cases where i feel and have felt threatened that the lines between fantasy and reality have blurred.

has anyone else experienced this? i have wasted so much time on my fantasies, believing them to be all life is worth living for.

i'd spend hours on the internet, god i was such a stalker.. i would stare at their picture for hours and hours on end. it was the way i coped at the end of the day. it was almost like i had an entire life that no one else knew about. i'd lock myself in my room for days. i felt so split in two.

i am so embarassed to tell all this to my therapist!

 

[Sojourner]

Oh, jen, dearest, I understand your reluctance to tell your therapist. Perhaps he or she is not the best therapist for you, if you don't feel comfortable being totally open with him or her.

I wish you would reconsider. I'd say, "Don't be embarrassed," but I know it's easy to say. Why not tell your therapist that you are embarrassed but want to understand your experiences. I'm sure he or she will not make you feel more embarrassed, but less.

However, if you feel your therapist is not the best person, look for someone who has lots of experience with understanding fantasies that bother people.

Your fantasies are not alarming to me, so maybe that will help you feel that nobody's going to jump on you for having them. They may well be less of a problem than you think.

Please reconsider finding a therapist with whom you can feel totally free to share everything about yourself. When we hide things in therapy, I think we are wasting our time and the therapist's time.

You sound like a person who has a good head on her shoulders, jen, so all you did may not have been wasted time at all. If you can see the difference between reality and a comforting fantasy now, you are letting go of something you don't need anymore to comfort you.

I think you used a very creative way to make yourself more comfortable, and I see nothing wrong with that in and of itself. If it intrudes on your life and you don't want it to, then you do need to tell someone, just to ease your own mind about it.

You're a brave girl! I know you will do what you know is right.

 

[Guest]

When we hide things in therapy, I think we are wasting our time and the therapist's time.

Sojourner,

That seems the most logical way to deal with ones own issues: not hide, but talk about it. Here's what Ive learned. Sometimes we can force ourselves (or a therapist) to talk about issues, we are not yet ready to talk about.
Sometimes its better to keep things hidden, eventhough how illogical this may sound, its not good talking about stuff one is not ready for.
It can create more feelings of unsafety and actually create a setback. Not that this is impossible to overcome though, but we dont want to be re-traumatized again by crossing our own boundaries.

Ive found its hard to find the balance between when the right time is to talk about things, and when Im not ready for it at all (eventough I MAY feel I AM ready or think am ready).
Hiding stuff serves a purpose too. Sometimes hiding is the only thing a person can hold on to to be able to survive.
Sometimes we need to 'push' ourselves, but at other times, we need to be carefull with ourselves. Finding a personal balance is the key, works different for everyone ofcourse 8)

 

[Guest]

As the Therapy Queen, lol, let me tell ya, guys...if somebody says they are telling EVERYthing to their therapist, I'd say (a) they're lying, or (2) they are so scared of their own secrets, they don't acknowledge what they're not telling, lol

I went to shrinks for most of my life and from 15-31, there was more I did NOT tell than did. I talked about alot of stuff I did during a day, but not what I thought.

With my beloved analyst who finally really helped me (and with whom I formed a great relationship), it was literally two years before I actually began to open up. And even THEN, I was veryyy careful about what I coudl say and about how much I thought HE could handle, lol

YEars into it, and I was still holding back.

About FOUR years into it, I finally told him I slice my own skin up sometimes. FOUR years.

Trust ain't easy and a good therapist EARNS it, not demands it.

Don't pressure yourself.

Now all that said, there is NOTHING shocking at ALL about your fantasy life. NOTHING that would even make a shrink blink.

Peace,
Janine

 

[Sojourner]

Let's put it this way, Janine. I tell my therapist everything that I am aware of; now the task ahead of me is to find out what exactly I am hiding in my unconscious. This is great, because now she and I are on the same page.

I really feel I've turned a corner this weekend.

Honestly, I really do not hold back. I feel completely comfortable with her, and maybe I've had a dull life, so there are no exciting escapades to tell. But then, it's been about 15 years and I'm just ready to really allow myself access to my own unconscious. I was so afraid of it before, and I still am afraid of it because it is unknown.

Yes, you wrote about that today -- thanks for that post.

I am afraid of it, but I know it wants to help me and I am determined to become a whole person, not a woman who is living ruled by my inner child's insecurities and distortions.

And by the way, psychological work can take place much faster. Mine took this long because I've been depressed since about age 14 and I am quite stupid.

Everyone else can make much better progress than I have made. ; )

 

[mcsiegs]

Yeah - what Sojourner said.

 

[person3]

I just started going to a new one, and I have told her quite a bit in the last couple days...i don't know..i find it gets easier over the years once you start to get the ball rolling you can tell people stuff you never even imagined telling yourself, like it's not such a big deal. sometimes.

 

[Lilymoonchild]

Jen, I totally know what you are saying, I can totally relate. I've never been officially diagnosed with dp, but I KNOW that this is what I have. And from what I've read of dp, yeah, I think what you describe is a part of it.
Lemme throw in my description of what I believe you are describing, and see if anyone else can see the correlation.
It's basically like you have this constant daydream in your head, running parallel to reality. Like, you know what's real, and yet what's in your head feels real, even though you know it's not.
When I was younger, I would have either a celebrity boyfriend, or whoever my crush at school was, and we had a total relationship in my head. Wherever I went, he went too.
I specifically remember family reunions, and how throughout the day, in my head, my fantasy boyfriend was by my side the whole time. Even when I was having conversations with people, in my head there would be a parallel conversation of which my boyfriend was a part. I knew it wasn't real, and yet it felt as real as what actually was happening.
Sometimes I was afraid that I would say something from the fantasy conversation out loud, and sometimes I was afraid I would suddenly snap and not know where the fantasy was any more. And sometimes I worried that maybe I really had no idea of where the fantasy/reality line was, I just thought I did.
And in order to get a particular person out of my head, we would actually have to break up. I would work out this whole dramatic scene--sometimes he cheated on me, sometimes I cheated on him, sometimes I got pregnant and he was a jerk about it, there was all kinds of reasons my fantasy boyfriends and I broke up.
For me personally, the fact that the daydream manifested as an imaginary boyfriend I think reflected the fact that I was hyper-sexual and sexually repressed at the same time, and I was also withdrawn and overweight so I never had real boyfriends (thank God, otherwise I'm sure I would have been pregnant at 14).
As far as talking to your therapist goes, seriously, do it. I went through 4 therapists before I ever brought up anything about sex, and sex was really the crux of my problem. It seems like the most embarrassing thing in the world to discuss these things, but really, they've pretty well heard it all before. Once you get all this crap out, it's amazing the weight that is lifted from you.

 

[jen]

wow, lilymoonchild, thank you for the courage it took to post that... i feel so relieved now... i went through EXACTLY THE SAME THING. i gained so much weight in high school, i was a whopping size 16. eeek. well i've lost all the weight since, down to a size 6. but i still carry the trauma around with me (literally.) sometimes in a dp state i'll feel as though i've reverted to my *old* body, too heavy to carry around. i think weight change contributes to the dp, definitely, because i'm still not even sure who i see in the mirror sometimes... and the kicker is that these feelings are rooted in reality however unreal they may be. did you go through anything like this?

anyway, in terms of the fantasy, i DEFINITELY relate to feelings of hypersexuality and repression. i definitely have some issues with sex, no doubt.. but how did you find sex to be the CRUX of the issue? what did you mean by this?

i mean, i got really lucky in some ways- my therapist is a very lovely person whom i trust completely. but he's not necessarily trained in freudian methods, so i don't know how he'd feel about all the sex talk. i'm worried i might come off sounding too provocative/inappropriate...

j

 

[Guest]

Jen, two things:

1) there is nothing wrong with the fantasies you've had (or still have). The PROBLEM, in a non-judgmental use of that word, is that you have had to experience all your powerful emotions ALONE inside your own mind

We tend to feel so ashamed of our "secret" thoughts, and desires...and we think the CURE for us involves getting rid of our strong feelins. Not true. The "cure" involves redirecting exactly who you are OUTside to the real external world...learning to form real relationships and live out HERE rather than alone in seclusion.

Make sense?

2: also, your idea about feeling you return to a differnt time and body type when you have extreme DP. Yep, that's partly what dp does. Ever restore your computer? If someone has a bad virus or some odd link on their hard drive that is causing a problem, they can REVERSE time by restoring their computer to a date much earlier than the date where they picked up the bug.

Point is: DP is a way of emotionally "restoring" the Sense of Self to another time. We retain the data (the information, facts about life, etc.) but it is as if we've restored to an earlier form of software. As if you restored the computer to a very early version of WORD. Suddenly you woudln't have the same new snazzy WORD features anymore...you'd be back using WORD 97 and you'd be very very confused as you did word processing. (please, no one ask me computer questions here, lol..if I've taken liberties with my metaphor, just indulge me. I'm making a point, and not at ALL sure of what I'm saying techno-wise, lol)

That's similar to what altered states of consciousness do when we experience any symptom that involves "regression"

 

[jen]

interesting. i never understood that dp had the power to do that. jeez. give me regreesion if you want but at least put me back in the sandbox where i can play.

why the hell would my mind want trick myself that i'm fat? do we choose our own illusions or is the dp/dr experience totally random? (happens sometimes when i am simply walking down the street, minding my own business...)

also, and this may or may not be related, but i came across in one of your old posts, janine, a reference to therapies that focus on 'resistance or defense identification.' what do these terms mean, and how do you tell whether your therapy is (or should be) focused on matters occuring at the unconscious level?

 

[Lilymoonchild]

I'm still overweight, by about 100 lbs, and I've had a few times where I've lost 25 lbs or so, and it's like I panic, and my appetite surges until I go back up to the old weight. I'm losing weight now, VERY slowly (30 lbs in 9 months) and I'm hoping that the slowness of it will override the panic. I'm also trying not to focus on the weight-loss AT ALL, I'm just eating healthier.

As far as sex being the crux of the problem, I'll try to explain as best I can without going too into detail. I began masturbating as a very young child, like I don't even remember when I started, I just always have. (I wonder if I was sexually abused, but I don't recall any such thing happening, and I got sick of obsessing about that, so I figure it doesn't matter, I have to deal with me now no matter what did or didn't happen.) I was raised religious, as I mentioned before, and I knew at a very young age that masturbation was "wrong," so I experienced much guilt and shame over this behavior, but it was also something I couldn't stop (seriously, I started trying to stop at age 6). All through grade school, jr high, and high school, I knew I was this horrible dirty person because I masturbated (seriously, I thought no one else did, or only other bad people did). It was just always this HUGE thing that took up much of my thoughts and energy.
Any way, I lost my virginity at age 19, and after that I quickly became very promiscuous (sp?), sometimes having sex with 3 different people in a weekend. At age 21, I started attending Sexaholics Anonymous meetings, which I have attended off and on ever since.
I saw 3 therapists with whom I never talked about sex. This was all while I was still a virgin, but when my energies were very focused on sex. They couldn't help me, because I didn't talk about what was really going on with me.
I don't know why I chose to bring it up with my 4th therapist, who I think I did shock a few times (he was fresh out of school, and also very religious) but it was still very helpful to me to finally get some of that sh*t out.
If your therapist can't deal with your issues, it's time for a new therapist. But I doubt that will happen. Therapists are people, yes, but they also went to school and learned a lot about how to deal with all kinds of issues. Any way, that's my $1.48 on the issue. :lol:

 

[Guest]

I may not be the right person to say this, but excessive fantasy self-involvement and, in certain respects, dp/dr, can only indicate to you that you resent or fear reality, or aspects thereof, in some way. Therefore, analyzing the source and nature of these fantasies can help you to reconnect with and rediscover reality, whatever that is. After all, knowledge is power, and you can wield this power over your inner demons. In conclusion, I hope that you reach your Promised Land, reality, soon. Know that we who are yet imprisoned in the Abyss send our best wishes with you.

Yours truly,
XEPER

 

[jen]

i'm floored... we have such similar experiences. thanks for posting all that, i really appreciate it. it's funny, because i have the same thing w/masturbation, been doing it as long as i can remember... and i was raised religious too! (ortho jewish... yikes. lol.) but it's not that i felt guilty exactly, i didn't realize that what i was doing was sexual in nature until like 8th grade or something... i was that innocent. weird, huh? and i ALSO lost my virginity at 19, mostly because it was after i had lost all the weight and was finally feeling somewhat comfortable in my own skin. since then (happened this past summer in fact) i've also been doing lots of crazy shit, very similar to the stories you've told. i also discovered i'm bisexual. so there's so much going on. i just saw my dad the other day and our conversation actually made me think of you and the issues we are both going through. basically, i lost maybe 50+ pounds or something.. went from a DD all the way down to a B... so feeling VERY self-conscious and just yucky i began to seriously consider plastic surgery. my dad heard about this and he was beyond supportive of me and everything, he really was wonderful, except i felt like he was paying waaay too much attention to my body... you know? he was all like 'you'll need to lift those things up and maybe put in some silicon too.. don't worry, they'll feel just like normal' and he was going on and on about it. so all these body issues are definitely related to these sexualized/freudian attachments we can have with people and our family especially. scared about the plastic surgery though... in terms of dp. i keep asking myself why there isn't an "am i beautiful yet" syndrome... and if there isn't there should be.