# Hi everyone.



## JayB (Apr 6, 2015)

Hello,

I am a 20 years old student from Canada (Quebec). Probably like 99% of the people here, i'm introvert, empathic, analytic, very smart and used to enjoy life at his fullest.

I've been living with anxiety and symptoms of depersonalization since early January. It all started after a panic attack one week after my grand mother's death, so you can say the cause is a small ''trauma'' and all the stress that comes with it. For about one month and a half, i was completely emotionless and i felt like i was a robot going trough the days without any purpose. All i could feel was anxiety and sadness. No anger, no joy, no love. I was given Cipralex to deal with anxiety and depression symptoms and i still take it to this day. It helps a bit but not as much as i want. I had extreme anxiety. Everything was inducing fear. Now the ''derealization'' part is over, but i'm stuck with depersonalization, which i find WORSE than derealization. Here are my symptoms:

- Feeling like human anatomy and appearance is weird. When i look at others, i know their body is totally normal but it feels wrong at the same time. Sometimes i look at my hands, arms, legs and i just feel so weird. I don't feel separated from my body, i just feel like an alien in a human body, analyzing his own human shell.

- *I DONT HAVE BIG EXISTENTIAL QUESTIONS* like ''where do we come from?'', ''what is the universe''. I don't feel spaced-out when i think about stars, planets, how small we are in the universe... My *questions are all about the way humans live and function*. For me, it feels weird that we can speak and understand each others, that we can walk without even knowing how we do it, that we can create bonds between each others when we are just flesh and bones, that we digest food everyday and that we need it to survive, that we can process tons of information in our head, that we are emotional beings,* that we even have a mind and can talk to ourselves in our head*. And it goes on and on...

- *The worst symptom*: feeling trapped in my own mind, because the act of thinking feels weird. Then i think that i can't escape myself and that i'm stuck, alone with myself in my own head forever. It's like i'm way too conscious of my consciousness. Then i think that the only one that can stop this is myself, because psychologists can't see exactly what is happening in my mind. It's not something physical that you can fix with a medical surgery. All that creates *a lot *of anxiety, even though i know that thinking is perfectly normal. It's like i don't understand how i can have a consciousness that can judge my body and my environment from inside. This is the most terrifying feeling that i ever experienced;

- Feeling stuck in first-person view;

- Looking at others and being jealous that they live with the flow of life (in the present without worries)/Wondering why and how they don't have the same questions and feelings i have. I think: ''How can you not think about how fucked up we are as living creatures?'';

- Feeling overhelmed by the complexity of life;

- I can't fully ''relax'' because of my symptoms. My muscles are almost always tense. My fists are closed most of the time. I have serious headaches (from all the inward thinking maybe);

- Feeling anxious for no reason/feeling of impending doom;

- Fear that it might be something more than just anxiety (but at the same time i know that it's probably just anxiety, even though it is now minimal). Need to be reassured everyday;

Other fears:

- Going crazy (when i'm experiencing high anxiety and rumination). For me, going crazy woud be to feel so strange to myself and others that i loose my common sense;

- To hurt emotionally my family;

- To stay in this state forever;

- Not be able to succeed at school and professionally (sometimes);

- To lose everything i love.

I often ask myself if i just create all these feeling with my imagination and that there is no such thing as ''depersonalization''. Why can't i have normal fears like everyone else? The fears that a young adult should have. Why do i have to be scared of *MYSELF*?? Every night, i take a walk outside and i start crying, not only because i think about my grand-mother, but also because i'm tired of all this. I just want to live normally like my friends do.

All my symptoms slowly developped, it didn't come all at the same time. Now i know that it is all in my head because when i play video games with my friends i don't think about all that stuff. Sometimes i even start laughing out loud because i feel IN the game. I don't think about how i can understand the words my friends say and how i can easily move my character around and think about the game. I am just IN the moment. That's how i'm looking to feel 24/7. I don't understand why it is so hard to do.

I don't have panic attacks, just feeling anxious most of the time.


----------



## Surgeon21 (Apr 3, 2015)

Hi Jay,



JayB said:


> Hello,
> 
> I am a 20 years old student from Canada (Quebec). Probably like 99% of the people here, i'm introvert, empathic, analytic, very smart and used to enjoy life at his fullest.
> 
> ...


Hi Jay, can i ask you how much time do you usually spend with videogames?


----------



## JayB (Apr 6, 2015)

A few hours a day, it is my passion since i'm a kid. My brothers introduced me to it.


----------



## Surgeon21 (Apr 3, 2015)

Yes but, maybe, you shouldn't play it everyday especially in this period.. Maybe you should distract yourself with more physical activities like doing some sports, running, or having sex (i'm sure there are a lot of nice girls in Quebec  ). I said "maybe" because i'm not a doctor, but these things make me feel a little better, so take it just as an advice..


----------



## sunshinita (Aug 13, 2013)

I get why you wrote that you don't have existential questions in capital letters. I am also tired of hearing '' stop asking questions, there is no answer, just let it go'' well... existential fear/depression is not questions, it's a feeling, life is just weird, people are weird, consciousness is weird and feels unnatural, there are no big questions..


----------



## Jodie (Oct 14, 2014)

i can relate to all points of your experience up there, don't worry you are going to be just fine


----------



## JayB (Apr 6, 2015)

Hey, thank you for your replies.

Do you think i just have depersonalization with anxiety? What i hate the most is that i still experience weird thoughts and feelings about how i look and how my body/mind work even if i don't feel in a dream state anymore. I don't think my environment looks strange, i recognize everything: my house, my school, my personal stuff, my family and my friends (but they look a bit odd like i can't stop myself thinking they are only flesh and bones, focusing on their arms and legs make me feel weird). It's like if i can't consider people as a WHOLE and i have to analyze everything separately.

When i had symptoms that looked like derealization, i was feeling empty inside myself (no emotions and very difficult to have clear thoughts). My attention and memory were almost at 0%. I didn't have as many questions concerning my existence as now. I don't get it why people say DR is worse. I would prefer feeling nothing and be a zombie than freaking out being too aware of myself.

But this consciousness of my consciousness is the worst. It's like i became so used to be in my head and to think about every freaking things that this natural ability became weird and unnatural. It is really a feeling of being too aware of myself that makes me feel trapped because i know that it will follow me anywhere. Funny thing is that i was not feeling scared by my own mind a few weeks ago (even though i was feeling more anxious).

Sometimes i will lose myself in my thoughts (like planning what i will do this weekend) for a minute. Then, i will realize that i was lost in my thoughts and it will scare me for some reason. This is just so stupid. I even feel like laughing about it right now.

Like now i am in class and I feel amazed at how i can understand my teacher and can integrate and process all the information in my head.

I also feel angry that i have all this, even though i didn't smoke weed or take drugs. I feel angry that i can't live a ''normal'' bereavement. Bereavement should not be a BIG TRAUMA like child abuse for years or seeing a good friend die in a car accident in front of us. It really makes me feel like i will stay in this state forever. I feel like ''i know something now'' that i won't ever be able to forget or to be fine with. It's like ''now that i experienced being too aware of myself and being a stranger to my own thoughts and mental processes, i can't go back and just live a normal life free of stupid perceptions and worries''. I want to live like a dog, free of it's mind and living each second at it's fullest, absorbed in it's own feelings and direct perceptions of the world.

I hope it will fade soon. I know it will one day but i have been dealing with dr/dp for 4 months now and it makes me think i'm losing it every day...


----------

