# Hello, everyone..



## seerelated (Mar 16, 2015)

Hello all,

My name is Kelly, I'm 25 years old, and I have been suffering from this nonsense for maybe 2 years now. It started after a panic attack I had while trying to come off of heroin. I wasnt terribly addicted, but after stopping, I suddenly felt like I had no idea where I was. My home looked strange- my dad looked strange. Everything looked unfamiliar to me. I bawled my eyes out to my dad, and told him I was either dying or losing my mind. I thought it would get better, but it hasn't.

Now I can barely drive a car. I can't get on the highway. I feel like the outside world looks so bizarre to me. The sky looks strange, people look odd, everything seems surreal. I think about my mortality constantly. I sometimes have doubt that other people have a consciousness, which then prevents me from relating to others and possibly feeling better. I have no friends, only family. I don't want to speak to them about this though, because I sound pretty fucking crazy.

It scares me all the time. I feel like with each passing day, I lose more and more of my mind. I can't get a grasp on anything - life, death, my existence, my thoughts.

I can be distracted temporarily, and the amount of sleep I get per night is a HUGE factor in how I feel. If I lack sleep, it amplifies my problem tenfold.

I feel alone,, and scared, and lost. I'm a stranger in my own environment. I don't seem to be recognizing the things I used to know and love. I used to LOVE to drive.. absolutely love it. Now I dread it, fear it. It's a stranger to me.

I'm just looking for someone, anyone, to relate to. Someone to understand this hell I live in.

Thanks for your time,

Kelly


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## seerelated (Mar 16, 2015)

The best way I can put it currently is that it is as if I'm both too aware, and yet not at all aware, at the same time. I'm too aware that I'm alive, and yet I feel like I'm not awake or alive at all. I'm too aware of where I am at the moment, yet I feel like I'm not there at all.


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## ThoughtOnFire (Feb 10, 2015)

seerelated said:


> The best way I can put it currently is that it is as if I'm both too aware, and yet not at all aware, at the same time. I'm too aware that I'm alive, and yet I feel like I'm not awake or alive at all. I'm too aware of where I am at the moment, yet I feel like I'm not there at all.


This is something I relate too. I am so aware of not being aware. It's a mind fuck definitely.


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## seerelated (Mar 16, 2015)

Absolutely. There's no logic to it. But the feeling is so strong, that I can't help but think there must be some truth or validity to it.. So far, the greatest moment I've had in easing my discomfort, is a sudden realization that I came to at work, which was "Yes, this is all real." Although so obvious, it hadn't occurred to me. A sudden rush of relief overcame me, and for a period of time I felt really good. I just kept telling myself.. everything is real. Unfortunately the feeling faded, and now I'm back to where I was.


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## ThoughtOnFire (Feb 10, 2015)

A good friend of mine graffiti'd a wall

"Depersonalization is real"


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## seerelated (Mar 16, 2015)

Haha you should have him/her graffiti a wall here, that way I can pass it while I drive to work and maybe not have a massive meltdown every morning


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## ThoughtOnFire (Feb 10, 2015)

What I tell myself and others often is that any "normal" person would have just as much trouble as we do with depersonalization if they were DP'd.


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## seerelated (Mar 16, 2015)

Yeah that's true. I guess that's a good way to look at it. I just can't help but feel- why me? Why do I have to feel this way? I think that makes the gap between me and others even greater.. not only do I already feel disconnected, but I also have to deal with these very disturbing feelings that other people do not.


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## ThoughtOnFire (Feb 10, 2015)

Yes I know how that feels, I think that way all the time 

Not only do not many have it, those who don't actually cannot fathom what it's like to have DP

Even those who recover say they cannot really remember what it felt like!


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## seerelated (Mar 16, 2015)

Really? That's very interesting. You forget all about it.. just like a dream..


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## ThoughtOnFire (Feb 10, 2015)

That's the word on recovery, but it's not like waking from a coma, we'll still have our memories. Selig, one of the site owners, says DP/DR is a "State specific memory". As in, when you have it, you know what it's like. When you don't have it, you don't know what it's like.


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## seerelated (Mar 16, 2015)

Wow. So I could, so to speak, forget all about this. That would be fantastic.. though I guess the only way to get over something like this would HAVE to be to forget what it's like. Because I think what keeps bringing me back into it, is remembering how it feels. Hm. That's very very interesting.


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## STH (Mar 16, 2015)

I've had this problem for 10 years. I only found out it was called depersonalisation disorder last year. I thought I had a delusionless-schizophrenia for like 9 years! It was brought on my marijuana.

Basically the constant rattling around of thoughts does pass and things get better. Trust me that for a couple of years my life was fucking shit, and I could not shut my brain up, but then it slowly got better, and it's like, if someone had a life threatening illness they just get on with it. I just get on with it and I have learnt to accept it as part of daily life.. Fuck it!

I'm not sure I am the prime-example of someone to take advice from, but I would say make the most of the things about your current life which make you happy. And you will slowly begin to forget about depersonalisation disorder, or you will begin to accept it as part of your world. That's how my life is now. I know I have depersonalisation disorder, but I don't really care about it too much- it hasn't killed me, and it's not getting any worse, so life goes on.. type thing. But I feel your pain.


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## little star (Jun 28, 2013)

Hey 'ThoughtOnFire' ,



> Selig, one of the site owners, says DP/DR is a "State specific memory". As in, when you have it, you know what it's like. When you don't have it, you don't know what it's like.


So, this is really strange...

Oké ???

Greetings !


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## little star (Jun 28, 2013)

Hi 'STH' ,



> I've had this problem for 10 years.


Welcome ! I also have this stupid disorder for 10,5 years...

After 10 years I know my social anxiety comes from mine Asperger (ASD)

And anxiety = dp/dr ... So, I think it would be difficult to discover, because Asperger is chronic...

Now I ask myself:

- How can I think positive, after 10 years dp ?

- And how can I not think about dp, after 10 years ?

I am so afraid of the unreal feeling... so, it became a circle...

How about you, after 10 years dp ?

Greetings !


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## seerelated (Mar 16, 2015)

Guys, I have to tell you.. my DP has severely decreased since the day I posted on here. When ThoughtOnFire told me that people who recover from DP can't remember what it feels like anymore, that sort of set off a little lightbulb in my head. See, I know that I've actually been making an effort to keep my mind in that constant state of dreamlike, because I had a terrible fear that if it went away and I was, let's say, driving, and it suddenly came back, I wouldn't be able to handle it. What I mean to say is, I thought it was permanent, or something I would have to just learn to live with all the time, so I tried to make myself feel that way all the time, so that I could just get used to it. But I believe that that in itself was the problem. I was making it happen, because I thought thats how I was supposed to feeling, almost.

Anyway, I have gone two days now with NO attacks. I mean, I've had very slight moments where I felt it, but t was a distant feeling, not nearly as intense as what I've experienced the past 2 years.

I'm not saying I'm cured by any means. I haven't tested my BIG triggers, like driving on the highway, and the thought alone still scares me. But I feel my symptoms have drastically improved.

I hope they continue to stay this way. But it seems that just trying to forget that I ever had DP, and just not thinking about it, and knowing that it doesn't HAVE to be there, is somehow alleviating my symptoms.


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