# I am so afraid



## Guest (Jan 10, 2010)

I promise that 99.9% of my time lately I do not allow myself to even think about dp. So this isn't me obsessing. This is just something that came on today.
I am so afraid. I was driving home tonight, through the city that I grew up in, and just started getting flashes of experiences I had growing up, seeing the same streets my whole life, and what it felt like to be in that place and be normal. Then all of a sudden I was like "When did it all change? How did this happen to me? Is it EVER going to go away?" It sort of blows my mind that suddenly your entire reality and experience of life can just shift and everything is the same yet different. I was a normal person before. A normal, witty, talented, loving, dedicated, social butterfly kind of a person. Then one morning I woke up and all of that was gone and it has been gone ever since. HOW DOES THAT JUST HAPPEN? I am so afraid. Afraid because the past 4 months feels like its erased my entire life before it. I feel like there has never been any other life than dp. I honestly do not remember what reality feels like. I'm afraid of experiencing life, for the rest of my life, with dp and I am so terrified of reality. Yes, I have been "getting better" in the functional sense. I leave the house, go to school, go to the bank, go to the grocery store, drive my own car but all of it feels like I'm doing it in a dream. I am never really completely sure if I'm awake or not. It's like licking an ice cream cone with a sock on your tongue. I can smell the ice cream, I can feel the cone in my hand, but I can't taste the ice cream. I know reality and life are there but I am not experiencing it. 
One of the things that terrifies me the most is spending the rest of my life with this disorder. I am so afraid to die never having fully experienced life. The thing that kills me is that I could go out and do everything I would ever want to do and see everything I would ever want to see and it would all be completely wasted because of my stupid numb brain. 
On the other hand, I am so scared of reality. I know it makes no sense but it's what I'm going through. I think maybe it is because of how terrifying the change into dp was, I fear the change out of it. I honestly don't know what I'm expecting to be so scary but I guess it's just like I said, my life with dp has made my old life feel like it never existed. All I know and understand is this and I'm just.....afraid. I guess that's it. I'm just afraid.


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## bigpmcd (Nov 16, 2009)

Although I still struggle with sp/dr, and probably having some of the worst bouts at the moment, I am becoming more use to it in a sense, well it has been nearly 5 months. When I say use to it, that doesn't mean I'm just going to sit back and let it be, I am going to get better and feel reality no matter what. But I can relate to what you are saying 100% it is horrible, you look at your old life, and it seems so so far away, a complete different person, you have no idea how you will get that person back. I think of the things I use to do, the areas I visited, and it is all so hazy and distant, It is like I am a complete new person now. I hardly know myself. I can relate to you a lot though. I guess it is all part of dp. Going back in to reality and enjoying life is the key, but I am also worried about what it will feel like in a sense, I guess it should be natural and you should not even notice it. The expression you said about the ice-cream cone, I couldn't have said it better. You seem to be doing better though so keep pushing forward. I have been having a hellish time, I'm going to my doctors tomorrow and demanding help I've had enough of living like this, I can hardly walk from one room to another without feeling like a ghost in another dimension, or like my entire existence is about to collapse. Good luck.

Paul


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## bigpmcd (Nov 16, 2009)

And I have also been the same, I refuse to sit in my house all day dwelling, I force myself to go out and try take my mind of things, it's hard but has to be done.


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## jbee (Dec 21, 2009)

Yeah, 
this one really got to me.
That's exactly how I feel.

Are you taking meds to get relief?


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## Guest (Jan 10, 2010)

Paul it is good to hear (and oh how I wish that no one else ever had to experience this) that you understand just what I'm going through. You are also right about reality coming back. You see, my body gave me a little trial run of dp before I got chronic dp. I just woke up one morning from a bad dream and had dp for a week and a half. The BAD part of it lasted like 4 days and the rest of the time I slowly just came out of it more and more each day until one day, it was gone and I was back to normal. It was so strange because the day I woke up normal the entire dp experience just felt like some weird bad trip I went through. I was like "woah, I don't know what that was but I'm glad it's gone and over" and I just went back to my normal life. I was the same normal person with all of the same memories and it just felt like dp never happened. Then about two weeks later I started getting small periods of dp during the day and I would shake them off. Then one night I went to bed really stressed out and woke up again with dp and have had it since. 
So I guess the entire point I am trying to make is that I have been in and out of it once before and should fix my hope on the fact that it will be like that again. That reality will just slip back in without me even really noticing it, until I am better. I'm just afraid because there has been a seperation in my mind from reality for so long that I don't think coming out of it will be like it was the first time. My brain could remember reality that time because it was only disconnected for a week and a half. I have gone months this time. I am scared of what I am going to "wake up" to find. I'm pretty sure that the girl I was before is gone. I wonder if my emotional experiences will be the same. Will smell flowers I love or seeing my favorite band give me the same feeling that it did before? Am I ever actually going to feel the same again? Ever? Just some incredibly unhelpful worries.

Paul, I wanted to suggest that you look into klonopin for your anxiety and have you vitamin d and b12 levels check. If you keep your b12 and D level in check, you will not get the depression that feeds the anxiety. I was in your shoes, begging the doctor for anything that might help me. I went through hell trying out new medications and every new medication I added just gave me bad and lasting side effects. I know that some people can take SSRIs while they have dp but, for me, they only made them worse. So please just be very cautious with what you go on. Do research on any medication and the side effects before you take them.

Jbee, I am on klonopin and Sublingual B 12 complex. My doctor wanted me to get weekly B12 shots, which I have done before but I moved out of state and just haven't switched doctors yet. I honestly am not completely sure that the Klonopin helps. I think it is more of a placebo effect than anything else. I take 1/8th of a mg at a time, anywhere around 3 to probably 5 times a day. I usually do not take it for anxiety symptoms as much as for the derealization symptoms. Something about it just makes me not notice them as much and allows me to get the stuff done that I need to. Though, having been on 1/8th a mg at a time for like months now, I know that I have built a tollerance and that it is very unlikely that a dose that small is doing anything for me. I think that somewhere in my subconcious that taking a pill is a comfort to me and I believe that it will work, so it does. There are cases where I have anxiety and have to take 1/4 a mg at a time and that does actually sedate me. But anyway, I have tried Lamictal, Prozac, Effexor, Buspar, Neurontin, Ativan, and Abilify. The Lamictal really did help for like a week but then causes serious neurologcial side effects so I stopped taking it. The klonopin and getting my depression under control with the b12 is what has really helped. It is true that removing the underlying depression and anxeity takes away what dp feeds off of until it finally has nothing to feed from and goes away.


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## Garjon (Apr 4, 2009)

not to discourage anyone, but i am coming up on a year of going though this and i still relate to what you say about the old person feeling distant and how can i live with this stuff. However, I have to say that aside from the occasional lapse (which incidentally I happen to be going through right now) I have grown to pretty much have my life back with dp and just keep pushing on. Life isn't as real or as good as it used to be but i have learned to enjoy where i am and I hold on to the moments where i briefly forget about dp and am able to just appreciate life for a period of time. That's all you can do really. I sincerely hope that all of you see better days.

Michael


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