# Rating Scale (0-100%)



## Guest013 (Apr 26, 2010)

Let me know what you guys think. This is how I would rate how I have felt during my DP journey. I am feeling amazing now though! I am about 99%. I am hoping I can go a week without DP/DR symptoms (cross your fingers!), but I will keep you guys posted and continue to post on here.

Rating Scale:

100-95%: Means you are completely normal 95-100% of the time. You have small times when you get DP (usually by yourself). The DP is usually very mild (80-95% range) and you can talk yourself out of DP.
85-95%: Majority of DP/DR symptoms are gone, brain fog and occasionally losing train of thought are your only remaining symptoms.
65-85%: Feeling better, paranoia and panic attacks are gone. Suffering from a degree of brain fog and vision problems (peripheral vision is basically missing). You occassionally lose your train of the thought.
50-65%: Brain Fog, Vision problems, and paranoia (but the paranoia is only about the DP, not about someone trying to kill you or something random). Often space out for minutes at a time.
35-50%: Extreme brain fog, vision problems, and paranoia about multiple things. Memory problems and you space out often. You feel very robotic and can travel across town and not remember any of the trip.
20%-35%: You basically sit on the couch all day. You barely remember any of the day. Hours go by and it seems like minutes. You have poor memory, no emotion, and no desire to do anything. You have major brain fog and vision problems. Paranoia is very strong... ranging from someone killing you, friends betraying you, to the DP never going away. You can still converse normal with people, but you barely listen to the conversation.
5%-15%: Extreme paranoia attack. People around you realize something is wrong. Full blown symptoms of brain fog, vision problems, and paranoia. You can barely string a sentence together. You might break down and cry.
0-5%: Full blown panic attack, you feel like you are going to die.


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## shogun (May 15, 2010)

I'm about 70%

I've come to the realization my lifestyle is the cause of my DP/DR (unemployed, not participating in hobbies,spending all day at home on the net, don't go out enough, not enough exercising, poor diet, poor sleep pattern etc)so i've been eating healthy and worked out for the first time in ages and making an effort to do tasks around the house and helping my mum out. Also going to head back to judo and jiu jitsu to give me a sense of purpose while i'm looking for work. I'm doing a cert IV in personal training aswell and just got around to arranging work placement so i can get some on the job training.

Just working out and eating better balanced meals has lead me to a better nights sleep and feeling better today, plus going to judo and jiu jitsu and arranging work placement has given me something to look forward to and a purpose so that alone has lifted me up from about the 30% i was feeling last week.


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## rob35235 (Feb 21, 2009)

I would not really say that your descriptions match my feelings exactly, but, my days will range from about 25% up to 60%, you know it just all depends on the week and the mood my DR is in.


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## nix (Feb 27, 2010)

Yes, your description doesn't match also my feelings, because some of those symptoms I don't have and some other I have. I can't put most of the time a finger to how I feel and what my symptoms are. Most of the time I only know that something is very wrong. 
Right now I am somewhere on 30% because I've had bad night. At best I am on, let's say, 70%.


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## insaticiable (Feb 23, 2010)

At my best, I'm probably around the 35%-50% mark, but usually my everyday baseline is around 20%-35%. I cannot say that I experience any of the paranoia that you describe. In fact, I've never experienced any type paranoia this whole time I have had DP. Everything else that you wrote is pretty accurate, just minus paranoia. For me, it's like I'm in a deep, deep cloud or mist ALL the time. I do agree with rob, in the sense that it varies based on the day for me (not week), and also the mood that I'm in (depressed, anxious, lethargic, etc).

Glad to hear that you're doing so well and getting very close to recovery. It just goes to show that feeling better and getting rid of this monster is indeed possible.


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## nix (Feb 27, 2010)

Right now I am at 37,5% that is better than my previous 30%


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## nix (Feb 27, 2010)

46.9 % ... it's getting better! I'm recovered till the end of the day.... yeah, but only in my dreams


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## Doneanddusted (May 17, 2010)

The only real symptom for me now is the vision. Sometimes I wonder how I can ever know if its gone away or not, or if I've just gotten used to it. I used to have severe paranoia (horrible) but thankfully that's one of the symptoms that gets better fairly quickly in comparison to some of the other things. I still get anxious especially at night but no where near as bad as I used to. I seem to bounce between 20% for a couple of hours (or minutes, it all feels the same!) then suddenly up to 95%, ie feeling completely normal apart from the peripheral vision.


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## rob35235 (Feb 21, 2009)

Root4 said:


> The only real symptom for me now is the vision. Sometimes I wonder how I can ever know if its gone away or not, or if I've just gotten used to it. I used to have severe paranoia (horrible) but thankfully that's one of the symptoms that gets better fairly quickly in comparison to some of the other things. I still get anxious especially at night but no where near as bad as I used to. I seem to bounce between 20% for a couple of hours (or minutes, it all feels the same!) then suddenly up to 95%, ie feeling completely normal apart from the peripheral vision.


I have also experienced a bit of paranoia myself. But ask a psychiatrist and they will probably tell you paranoia in their schizophrenic patients, they actually believe things are against them, but mine was more like just this creepy feeling that followed me around, like someone was waiting on me around the corner, or something was following me around like that feeling you get when you watched your first horror movie or something. But I don't have that all the time, and I suppose comparatively mine was pretty mild.


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## Claymore (Jun 13, 2009)

35-50% only i'm really paranoid about the dp. And paranoid about going to work today of course cause for some reason what I dreamt about last night made me wake up unusually diccossiated today. The Dp is what scares me.


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## Opus131 (Mar 23, 2010)

20%-35% without the paranoia, mainly because my memory is so bad that even when i do get paranoid, after a while i forget i ever did or what it was i was paranoid about. Its like i have nothing in my head. No memories, no perception of reality, no imagination. From the outside i appear completely normal but inside its like i have no consciousness. I suppose this is what its like being a robot. You act on impulses but you have no individual ego, no sense of self.


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## codeblue213 (Feb 15, 2010)

5%-15%, no paranoia though. Too DP'd to even get anxious anymore. no crying, after 18 years you learn to handle the anxiety.


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## insaticiable (Feb 23, 2010)

Opus131 said:


> 20%-35% without the paranoia, mainly because my memory is so bad that even when i do get paranoid, after a while i forget i ever did or what it was i was paranoid about. Its like i have nothing in my head. No memories, no perception of reality, no imagination. From the outside i appear completely normal but inside its like i have no consciousness. I suppose this is what its like being a robot. You act on impulses but you have no individual ego, no sense of self.


*sigh* As sad as it makes me reading this, I can resonate with it so well. You're right. It is like being a robot, having no consciousness, acting on impulses. It is like going through the motions with your subconscious mind, instead of your conscious one. I feel this most when I'm washing my hands. I don't feel it, it's just an impulse. Gahh..


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## PositiveThinking! (Mar 5, 2010)

20-35% , replace the couch with a chair in front of a computer though.

I can't feel like a robot though, because I torture myself the whole day with such thoughts as "Oh shit I'm feeling so DR'd at the moment" , instead of just going with the feeling.


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## Opus131 (Mar 23, 2010)

insaticiable said:


> *sigh* As sad as it makes me reading this, I can resonate with it so well. You're right. It is like being a robot, having no consciousness, acting on impulses. It is like going through the motions with your subconscious mind, instead of your conscious one. I feel this most when I'm washing my hands. I don't feel it, it's just an impulse. Gahh..


I suppose you suffer from depersonalization. I don't get that. As profound as my problem is, its all about my experiences and memories. My perception of reality per-se is fine, particularly when it comes with my body. Its simply that my head is just completely empty, like i have both total retrograde and anterograte amnesia, even though i can remember a lot of things. Its like this guy, who still plays the piano but doesn't even remember that he is playing while he's doing it:






Except in my case i DO remember, because unlike this man i have no structural brain damage, but the memory is so feeble it might not even be there.


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## nix (Feb 27, 2010)

5% - the worst so far in last 2 months, probably because of Seroxat or too much stress. I don't feel like I am at my own home... it's awful.


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## pancake (Nov 26, 2009)

Guest013 said:


> Rating Scale:
> 
> 100-95%: Means you are completely normal 95-100% of the time. You have small times when you get DP (usually by yourself). The DP is usually very mild (80-95% range) and you can talk yourself out of DP.
> 85-95%: Majority of DP/DR symptoms are gone, brain fog and occasionally losing train of thought are your only remaining symptoms.
> ...


I don't fit any of the categories.

I found this scale quite interesting: http://www.dpselfhelp.com/forum/index.php?/topic/21750-analysis-of-pschopathology-in-clusters-of-depersonalization-types/
IMO I have fitted the top 3 (as in link) at different times in my life. Symptom domains fluctuate for me over time as does severity.

For instance from being a kid I remember DP involved frequent of out of body experiences (autoscopy), oodles of Who am I? Am I at all? How can the universe be infinite? Am I an imposter? circular thinking/obsessing about unanswerable questions and a sensation like I was wrapped in cotton wool.

As a teen all my symptoms got more severe but here are the bits that affected me most: 
Chatter/constant LOUD quarrelous inner dialog gave me the fear of psychosis & mind emptiness petrified me. Brain fog was pretty dense. My perceptions were heavily distorted - perspective out of whack, lollipop heads & enlarged hands, everything was distorted. I thought I was going crazy. I was going out of my skull being afraid of the crazy. I was petrified of losing control of my own actions and felt like I was slipping already (lack of agency fears) Eventually I thought I'd forgotten who I was. That scared me even more than the rest.

Nowadays I'll still get most the symptoms - usually not all at the same time - sometimes just one type of thing, other times more - little patterns







However while my actions still appear automated to me at times I don't fear losing control anymore. That particular dread hasn't returned. I have never felt that I have lost a part of myself either since recovering from my teenage years. So it rings true to me that this *perceived forgetting/losing of your very self and perceived imminent loss of control* is a mark of severity in DP.

Severity/frequency appears to be dictated mainly by current events in my life (emotional/physical).


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## Brando2600 (Apr 22, 2010)

65%


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## PositiveThinking! (Mar 5, 2010)

About 30% since yesterday I guess


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## Rogue Bullies (Jun 1, 2010)

Maybe around 65-85% to 50-65% depending on the day. Hope to get 100% soon!


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## BlueTank (Jun 2, 2010)

I suppose somewheres in the *55 *range.

I'm basically doing the minimum. I tell myself i'm going to change but then end up spending the weekend on the couch, bed, computer. My house is a mess even though i've had all the time in the world to clean it and used to keep it really clean in the past. so some things are probably more of a 30% and some things may be more like 65%.

Oh, i've had crazy paranoia before. You don't even want to know. Right down to people being about people on this site.. "plants"!!







. neighbors spying on me, surveillance style.


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## Guest (Jul 19, 2010)

I don't fit the criteria here either and DR is worse than the DP now -- outdoors is really flat/dim/2 dimensional most of the time, but I still drive my car and go out -- it's only when it's terrible that I can't go out at all, and again *I feel this when I am not anxious.* I can be having a panic attack and the DP/DR won't get worse. I have a different scale as well. I have never been above a 65 ... well, some times in my childhood I know I was 100% in reality. And I know what normality is. But I realize most of the time I was "less than here"

I have been so "gone" I have literally FELT, but not BELIEVED that I was *only a thought, and the only thought in existence.* If someone threw me down a flight of stairs it wouldn't matter. I have used this analogy, or someone else did once, I feel like I am only a candle flame, one breath and I'm gone, but it's worse than being dead as I am conscious I am alive.

*Triggers these days are more likely to be hormonal, caffeine, being physically ill, always when I'm tired/exhausted, when I haven't slept properly during the night, and sometimes a bad wave will come over me out of no where. Jump from anxiety straight to DP.*

The correlation to me is there -- I am extremely anxious, yes -- but the DP/DR as I remember from childhood I believe was there first, at least in one or two episodes where I felt no anxiety.

There were years where I was incapacitated. Times I couldn't drive my car. I'm much better since age 28 when I got Klonopin.

*The concept of "paranoia" -- I don't understand that at all, and haven't really heard it in reference to DP/DR. I'm not paranoid about anything. Never have been.* I think the word paranoid here may be being used in the wrong context. One is paranoid if one has a psychotic disorder. (Which one could have along WITH DP/DR symptoms).

I have many different analogies and a scale on my website ... http://www.dreamchild.net ... under My DP/DR Symptoms, or whatever it's called.

I am calm right now, I am about 60% "here" -- my my definition is not exactly like your scale, when I just went outside to take out the garbage, I feel more "odd" and disconnected, I have to just deal with the DR which makes things so uncomfortable. This takes the joy out of my life, I am not "part of life." I also don't know what it means to really be "relaxed" really having fun, really "at peace." Main thing, always at the typewriter, pisses me off, is the DP part is my arms feel disconnected or feel like phantom arms. I just have "gotten used to that." Nothing can "make" that go away.

Naps can also make we wake up very DP/DR and disoriented and sometimes I'm waking WITH panic, shaking hands, disorientation. Lot of sleep related stuff.

As always for me the chronicity has really dragged me down. So many years, since childhood, with SOME improvement, yes. I would like 100% clarity, feel 100% alive, and outdoors be able to enjoy the beauty, and also, feel closer to people/pets ... I feel distant from everything, 24/7.


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## PositiveThinking! (Mar 5, 2010)

Dreamer* said:


> The concept of "paranoia" -- I don't understand that at all, and haven't really heard it in reference to DP/DR.


I am very paranoid, like OCD people are, and I thought that was normal among people with DP

Quote from wikipedia:

"Paranoia is a thought process heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion"

Im very paranoid about existence and other stuff


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## Miles (Jun 17, 2010)

PositiveThinking! said:


> I am very paranoid, like OCD people are, and I thought that was normal among people with DP
> 
> Quote from wikipedia:
> 
> ...


"OCD people" aren't paranoid, they're obsessive








I think it's important to specify what quality of paranoia we are talking about. If it's that constant fear of losing your mind and losing (control of) your consciousness, or that feeling like after a bad dream I say these can be symptoms of DP. If you're convinced you're being followed AND YOU'RE NOT or you constantly think people are planning to kill you (in other words, if your paranoia gets very specific) that could be a sign of another psychiatric disorder.


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## TheHollowMan (Jul 9, 2010)

35-50% I'm not paranoid just totally detached. Lost in my own brain as it were.


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## Guest (Jul 19, 2010)

PositiveThinking! said:


> I am very paranoid, like OCD people are, and I thought that was normal among people with DP
> 
> Quote from wikipedia:
> 
> ...


I'm truly stumped. Individuals with OCD are not considered "paranoid" ... the quotation from Wikipedia cannot be read "literally", I just don't know how to explain. Paranoia would more specifically be the last words, irrationality and delusion. My cousin is bipolar/schizoaffective and truly PARANOID much of the time, and he can tell me about it. He feels people are always watching him and talking about him. If he and I are having a conversation in a restaurant, he will look around and say "See that couple over there looking at me?" Well they aren't. And I will ignore it. He has been so paranoid he has believed the police were spying on him. That is the true definition of paranoia.

I think people here are confusing definitions.

A person who does not have a psychotic disorder has INSIGHT. Those of us with DP/DR KNOW something odd is happening to us, but we know it SHOULDN'T BE. When I feel AS IF I have disappeared, I KNOW I have not, I KNOW it is a perceptual distortion. When I don't feel my arms ... such as now, I KNOW my arms are there, and I shouldn't be feeling that, and it is a perceptual distortion, like a phantom limb.

I honestly believe the true definition of paranoia is being misused here.

IMHO.

There is neurosis (old fashioned term) and psychosis. Those of us with anxiety disorders, Dp/DR, etc. are in the neurotic category, WE HAVE INSIGHT. Someone in the psychotic category loses a COGNITIVE ABILITY to UNDERSTAND that something odd is "not right."

If I started feeling that green squirrels (and I'm exaggerrating on purpose here) was spying on me, I would be losing insight. It is a completely illogical thought I would BELIEVE to be true when it is not possible for it to be true. Someone with extreme and serious OCD can have psychotic episodes, but this is when the illness is extreme. Say someone with fear of eating bad food starts believing his or her food is BEING POISONED by someone.


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## PositiveThinking! (Mar 5, 2010)

Dreamer* said:


> I'm truly stumped. Individuals with OCD are not considered "paranoid" ... the quotation from Wikipedia cannot be read "literally", I just don't know how to explain. Paranoia would more specifically be the last words, irrationality and delusion. My cousin is bipolar/schizoaffective and truly PARANOID much of the time, and he can tell me about it. He feels people are always watching him and talking about him. If he and I are having a conversation in a restaurant, he will look around and say "See that couple over there looking at me?" Well they aren't. And I will ignore it. He has been so paranoid he has believed the police were spying on him. That is the true definition of paranoia.
> 
> I think people here are confusing definitions.
> 
> ...


Yeah I guess that people exagerate on words sometimes but lets say, in my case, I often believe that people are talking about me and laughing at me (even if I dont know them, like in a restaurant as you said) , I obsess about existence questions, I feel uber anxious as soon as I get a new weird symptom (which happens a lot) , I feel like I cant leave anything out of place, because if I do, I will feel anxious about it the whole day (let me explain it a bit better, if I leave a book out of place, for the rest of the day I will probably obsess over it and think that I am going to get some sort of curse for it) , yeah these ridiculous and scary obsessions


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## Guest (Jul 19, 2010)

PositiveThinking! said:


> Yeah I guess that people exagerate on words sometimes but lets say, in my case, I often believe that people are talking about me and laughing at me (even if I dont know them, like in a restaurant as you said) , I obsess about existence questions, I feel uber anxious as soon as I get a new weird symptom (which happens a lot) , I feel like I cant leave anything out of place, because if I do, I will feel anxious about it the whole day (let me explain it a bit better, if I leave a book out of place, for the rest of the day I will probably obsess over it and think that I am going to get some sort of curse for it) , yeah these ridiculous and scary obsessions


OK, this is interesting, you have several things going on here.

Also, you write beautifully in English though you are from Portugal. I don't know if any of this is a problem of translation. It seems you speak/write fluent English, so I don't think that's a problem.

1. If you truly believe people are talking about you and laughing at you when they aren't say in a restaurant -- OK, that sounds like true paranoia. *But * I could say (and I don't know you), some shy people will be so self-conscious they are concerned that people are looking at them ... and they know really they aren't, yet feel so uncomfortable socially they think that. That's an important distinction. But if you really believe people are laughing and talking about you, strangers, that does sound like real paranoia.

2. OK, having a book out of place and obsessive about it sounds like OCD. If you feel you might be cursed for leaving the book out of place, again, that could be an obsessive ILLOGICAL thought, or it could me more psychotic. That is a tough one.

3. Obsessing about existence .. that fits more with DP/DR. And I don't do that much now, but I did as a child and young adult.

So, your case is complicated, but the question is are we all talking about the same definitions here? And is there a language problem.
Also, was going to say that YEARS ago, someone tried some of the older antipsychotics on me to see if it would help the DP/DR. And I am not psychotic and never have been. Stellazine I think ... that stuff made my DP/DR get HORRIBLE, UNBEARABLE. So your reaction to it is interesting.

I'll be honest, it is difficult enough communicating these things to a doctor. Things really get lost in translation on the internet.

I'm still confused, but a little more clear, but I have no idea what your diagnosis is. But it does sound like you have DP/DR and anxiety. That's all I can figure.

Gotta go. I'm distracted enough to move on to what I've been procratinating about, LOL.
Best,
D


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## pancake (Nov 26, 2009)

Replaced my original answer on page 1. It was of the lunchbreak variety - rather fuzzy and pointless
**
I don't fit any of the categories.

I found this scale quite interesting: http://www.dpselfhel...lization-types/
IMO I have fitted the top 3 (as in link) at different times in my life. Symptom domains fluctuate for me over time as does severity.

For instance from being a kid I remember DP involved frequent of out of body experiences (autoscopy), oodles of Who am I? Am I at all? How can the universe be infinite? Am I an imposter? circular thinking/obsessing about unanswerable questions and a sensation like I was wrapped in cotton wool.

As a teen all my symptoms got more severe but here are the bits that affected me most:
Chatter/constant LOUD quarrelous inner dialog gave me the fear of psychosis & mind emptiness petrified me. Brain fog was pretty dense. My perceptions were heavily distorted - perspective out of whack, lollipop heads & enlarged hands, everything was distorted. I thought I was going crazy. I was going out of my skull being afraid of the crazy. I was petrified of losing control of my own actions and felt like I was slipping already (lack of agency fears) Eventually I thought I'd forgotten who I was. That scared me even more than the rest.

Nowadays I'll still get most the symptoms - usually not all at the same time - sometimes just one type of thing, other times more - little patterns







However while my actions still appear automated to me at times I rarely fear losing control anymore. That particular dread has only made few brief appearances after recovering from my teenage years. I have never felt that I have lost a part of myself since. So it rings true to me that this perceived forgetting/losing of your very self and perceived imminent loss of control is a mark of severity in DP.

Severity/frequency appears to be dictated mainly by current events in my life (emotional/physical).


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## PositiveThinking! (Mar 5, 2010)

Dreamer* said:


> OK, this is interesting, you have several things going on here.
> 
> Also, you write beautifully in English though you are from Portugal. I don't know if any of this is a problem of translation. It seems you speak/write fluent English, so I don't think that's a problem.
> 
> ...


Well I have to say it's my fault on this one, because my DP makes it really hard to comprehend what people write/say , I can't concentrate well enough when reading, and I usually misunderstand everything.

But yeah I can't really say I'm shy I guess.. it's just weird because after all this time, I'm starting to remember crazy stuff I used to obsess about when I was a kid. I remember I had to carry some pills for stomach aches with me all the time or else I'd be sick, along with other crazy crap


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## pancake (Nov 26, 2009)

PositiveThinking! said:


> it's just weird because after all this time, I'm starting to remember crazy stuff I used to obsess about when I was a kid. I remember I had to carry some pills for stomach aches with me all the time or else I'd be sick, along with other crazy crap


Childhood is the time for rituals & obsessions







. If you swivel one way you have to swivel the other,etc. I had tons of these - I did have DP back then but I have heard the same from lots of ppl without psychiatric issues.

I can relate to most of what you described in your post above with the limitatons Dreamer mentioned. 
But the cursed bit I don't know about. I've never really felt anything to be cursed.

Language is a pain sometimes


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## Tommygunz (Sep 7, 2009)

95-100%


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## PositiveThinking! (Mar 5, 2010)

Tommygunz said:


> 95-100%


I wish I could say the same







I hope I can someday


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## Tommygunz (Sep 7, 2009)

PositiveThinking! said:


> I wish I could say the same
> 
> 
> 
> ...


You Will!!!


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## BlueTank (Jun 2, 2010)

My situation is usually run through a binary system. Yay, or Nay. 0 or 1 if you want to get nerdy with it.

0 - off
1 - on

so 1-99% is a 1. 100% is 0.

I'm having a good day today. probably the klonopin.... so lets see that makes a 55 or a 64... a 1.


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