Remember, when you guys are in search of ?self? and use terms like ?I?m not me!? or ?I miss myself? etc., while I know that is exactly how it FEELS, that is not actually what is happening with DP. We lose our ?SENSE of who we are? not the ?who we are? of identity. That sounds nit-picky and like typical Janine-Wordiness, lol?..but it is a very very important distinction. Here?s why.
We THINK we must DO something to ?recover? our Self. We think we need to ?look for? the self, or observe where/how/when the self is ?more there? or ?less there? as if we (the observer) is in charge of keeping things from getting worse, or somehow must keep watch like a sentry guard.
That conviction is the result of a terrible mind trick, because those activities are PRECISELY what is KEEPING you feeling so DP?d.
When we are lost in these altered states of dp consciousness, we lose our RELATIONSHIP to self. We lose our connection to the Experiencing/Being entity of ?I? ? it continues to exist with or without our connection to it ? granted, the quality of one?s life is crap, and the experience of BEING human is nearly totally gone. The dp experience is tragic, no doubt about it. But it is tragic because we have lost our ?relatedness? to the personal experience of BEING a self in the world, not because we have lost identity.
Read the regulars? posts. Notice the very distinct personality of each person. This is not a board of a bunch of people with no personalities! That?s why we have moderators, lol. EVERYONE here is easy to ?get to know? from their posts ? their identity comes through loud and clear, and after being a regular here, one could almost ?guess? whose post is whose without reading the names. THAT is the ?who you are? of you.
And when/if you are able to eventually recover from DP totally, trust me, that YOU is totally intact. It always has been. But you would be regaining your ?relationship? to that experiencing self, rather than the way you live now which is unable to FEEL your own personal experience, as you are only observing it.
Self-monitoring did not PUT you into DP, but it keeps you there.
The thing you are searching for (identity) is not ?gone? but totally unavailable once you have become so inverted in your experience of self. You will never ?find? it again by deepening the search. In fact, what happens if you keep doing it for a very long time (and I speak from hideous experience) is this: you can start to destroy the very ?meaning? of what ?self? is to you. Not only can you not FEEL it, you start to doubt its existence , i.e., your own existence. You will scare the beeheebies out of yourself by creating delusions that the universe is not real, never was, etc. And you will think you are LITERALLY inventing the world, or that you are the only ?person? in existence and that you are nothing but ?a thought? or nothing but some kind of cosmic existential godhead that is in total isolation.
Self-implosion ? the result of obsessive self monitoring - is what I consider the ?deeper? level of the DP experience and trust me, if you?re there, you KNOW it. And if you?re not, you do not want to get there.
Stop LOOKING for self. It?s there. Ain?t going anywhere. But you need to rediscover your connection to that self and that is only ?reachable?
Love,
J
