# Part of me I've never really shared here



## Surfingisfun001 (Sep 25, 2007)

First of all here is a quick update. For the past three months I thought I was doing better. I guess I have in a sense, I have moved out of my parents house and live on my own with a bunch of friends. I have the perfect job I work at a sandwich deli and only work during lunch hours so it's not too stressful. I also work on a boat and am going sailing on a 14 sail tallship in August. I started a supplement regimen and am going on a diet for 90 days because I found out I have severe adrenal fatigue and also allergies to wheat, dairy, sugar, eggs, and 32 other foods believe it or not. I still take suboxone which helps me get through the days and haven't used drugs or been drinking for about 3 months (albeit an all out binge on july 4th).

I am seeing a nutritionist as well as a psychiatrist who treats patients naturally as well as with drugs if that's what they prefer. He is more like a holistic doctor than a psychiatrist but that's what he majored in. I was talking to him the other day and decided to try therapy with him. I have come along way in the past 6 months, I use to sit in my room on the computer all day and rot. Now I keep myself busy constantly despite still having DP. Even though it's still there. I hate it and it's so frustrating. I feel like I have taken every recommendation on here and do feel better except the DP is still here.

I'm starting to think that I might have severe inner issues. When i got DP sum 3 years ago it just happened one night. No prior drug use, no panic attack, it just happened. Since that ill fated February 14th evening in 2007 I have searched high and low day and night for the reason but have found nothing. The doctors think it was a result of a head injury 3 months prior but there is no proof and to me deep down it feels like it's deeper than that. The only thing I can think of is that 2 weeks before the DP happened I made a pretty radical change that I haven't really shared on here much.

During high school I was a christian and was really involved in the church. I went on mission trips numerous times to Mexico and the Ukraine. When I first went to the Ukraine I fell in love with it. I went with a group and we worked with street kids. I saw some of the gnarliest things over there I have ever seen in my life. I went from living in Orange fucking County to living with kids who slept underground beneath manholes to sleep on hot water pipes to survive. One kid had a chunk missing from his ear that a rat bit out. I saw people being tortured in front of me, I saw kids die, it was gnarly. I fell in love with these kids though and wanted nothing more in life than to help them.

When i got home I couldn't handle it. I went to a high school that was next to a wealthy community. Kids drove hummers and BMWs to school, complained about their food, wore $300 jeans. It killed me inside to see this. I literally packed up everything in my room except some clothes and got rid of it. Sometimes I would even go out on my own and sleep under bridges because it made me feel more comfortable than sleeping in a bed. All I could think about was doing something so that my new friends in Ukraine didn't die. I started staying after lunch and recycling cans. I made about $20-$50 a day and over $2,500 in one year just from recycling. It caught on, people started helping me, I was well known around the school as the long haired hippie kid who dug through trash cans to help kids in Ukraine. I was kind of a celebrity in a sense, not really but there was this "ego" I had attached to me.

I ended up going to a christian college. When I was coming back from my 4th trip to Ukraine I came to this realization on the airplane. I came to the realization that I didn't really genuinely believe in God. I felt like a ffake and said "god I don't even know you." After that I felt a huge wave of freedom come over me and felt tremendous inner peace for the first time ever I felt like I had connected to the true me. The following two weeks I remember feeling the best I had ever felt in life.  I felt a lot more confident, courageous, smart, and free. I had an inner peace surround me I never knew existed. I had grown up in the church and was always afraid of going to hell I guess, or not being a good person. I had a low self esteem and low confidence because I had this view that I was a sinner and a weak person. Having come to the realization that I didn't think there was really a god freed me of all that.

Life was beautiful, I was studying, surfing alot, I had an awesome girlfriend, friends, and then 2 weeks later BAM, DP hits me one night out of nowhere and I've been stuck with it ever since. I don't know why I haven't posted any of this about me until now but I'm trying to figure out if this inner change has something to do with the onset of DP. Thanks for reading my story, if you have any advice or comments please post.


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## Tommygunz (Sep 7, 2009)

wow dude, thats was a great story. my hats off to you for being one of the few people in the world that got off your ass and did something for those who need it. from what i can see, it doesn't seem like the change in heart would have brought about a response like DP considering this change was liberating and uplifting rather than stressful and traumatic. of course we could always say something like "oooooooh, god is punishing you for turning your back on him". but thats a load of crap. god doesn't punish the children he loves for turning away. he would much rather regain our faith and loyalty. that and anthing we do to upset or hurt his feelings is going to be paid for in death, he said it himself, "for the wages of sin, is death". not "the wages of sin is death, and DP". i can't tell you with any real certainty that this change in your life was or wasn't related to your DP. but i think it's safe to rule out trauma or punishment in relation to the change of heart.


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## Bosko (Nov 9, 2007)

This is taken from a critique of Ruldoph Bultmann a Liberation Theologian who is often described as the greatest of the 19th century.

"For Bultmann, to be "saved" is not a matter of sacraments and creedal formulas so much as it is to base our existence on God, more so it is by actions we undertake in this world. True Christian freedom means following one's inner conscience, rather than conforming to oppressive or corrupt social order."

Imo I think Bultmann is trying to say here that God exists within us and not inside the walls of a church. If we want to avoid hell and be "saved" ultimatley it lies within ourselves, and as long as we have an awareness of the concepts of good and evil (which im sure you do Kenny!)
there is nothing to worry about. do not worry mate about God and going to hell, The grace of god is at work through your own hands, through your very ACTIONS, you are doing so much good with your life and you are worried about things like this! its Madness! kane.


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## Guest (Jul 17, 2010)

Dear Kenny,

I am crying like a maniac after reading that. Amazing. Amazing were you've been, where you've gone, what you've done. Fascinating as well, but well, I'm really crying.

Life is so ... absurd sometimes ... I am amazed we do as well as we do.

All I can say is, that you for sharing this, for some reason it gives me some sort of perspective and strength I need right now.

<3
D


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## Surfingisfun001 (Sep 25, 2007)

dancingwobbler said:


> If we want to avoid hell and be "saved" ultimatley it lies within ourselves, and as long as we have an awareness of the concepts of good and evil (which im sure you do Kenny!)
> there is nothing to worry about.


First of all thanks for your post. I agree with the above also. I've come to believe that hell is ultimately a state of mind and heaven is inner peace. No one can say what lies on the other side of death as no one has been there. I think God is in us as well as opposed to some concept we create in our minds. Those are just my beliefs though. Whatever works for a person, were all unique and different.


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## ValleyGirl (Nov 10, 2017)

It sounds to me like the things that you witnessed in the Ukraine may have been traumatic for you. I have dealt with death my entire life. I had a very large family as a child. I had 14 sets of aunts and uncles total. By the time I was an adult, I had 1 uncle and 2 aunts left. All of my grandparents and some cousins are dead as well. I sat in a room with my uncle's corpse for hours. Not because I wanted to be there but because I was paralyzed and couldn't move. I was the only person my friend would talk to as she went through a pregnancy with a terminally ill baby, who died 3 hours after birth. I dealt with her going off her rocker and refusing to surrender the baby's body for 5 days after he died and only did when he started to decompose. I sat and watched my grandmother slowly die from congestive heart failure (one of your heart valves doesn't pump correctly and the extra blood pools in your lungs and you suffocate to death). I had to sit with her while she screamed at the invisible people in the middle of the night and then watch as she laid swollen in a coma. I've lost a baby of my own.

I've also gone through 7 1/2 years of verbal, mental and emotional trauma. I lived through being assulted and then leaving my husband, only to be used by another guy and then shamed massively for my actions by my husband.

All of that before I got dp. I can guarantee you that all of those things each ate away at me and traumatized me. It sounds like your experiences did too. It's weird because my dp hit at a happier time in my life too. I got back together with my husband, we were working out our marriage problems, we were all loving. Actually, the night before dp hit, we decided to move to the East coast. Good things were happening in my life and then it hit, after all of those years, after all of that crap.

I think that there is some merit in working through past issues. In the beginning, I though that this would be my freedom from dp. So I talked about it, I blogged about it, I wrote it all out on paper. I did everything I could to work through it and expel it and it has long since been gone over but I still have dp. I think the key at this point is not so much to dwell on the why and how you got it (after you talk about any experiences that may have been traumatic and why)but to try to just accept it and move forward. You really do have to get to a point where you realize that dp is here to stay and you are going to live despite it. I think in that mindset, where we just honestly don't give dp the time of day, is where our freedom lies.


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## Surfingisfun001 (Sep 25, 2007)

Wow I didn't know that, thanks for sharing.


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## voidvoid (Sep 5, 2008)

I usually dont reply to your threads Kenny because I (maybe foolishly) think you already know what I´m gonna say or I feel that I dont have anything good enough to say. But seeing all this put together really emphasizes why I have been saying that you are a rolemodel and inspiration ever since I joined the forum.


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## Thunderlordcid (Feb 2, 2010)

surfingisfun001 said:


> First of all here is a quick update. For the past three months I thought I was doing better. I guess I have in a sense, I have moved out of my parents house and live on my own with a bunch of friends. I have the perfect job I work at a sandwich deli and only work during lunch hours so it's not too stressful. I also work on a boat and am going sailing on a 14 sail tallship in August. I started a supplement regimen and am going on a diet for 90 days because I found out I have severe adrenal fatigue and also allergies to wheat, dairy, sugar, eggs, and 32 other foods believe it or not. I still take suboxone which helps me get through the days and haven't used drugs or been drinking for about 3 months (albeit an all out binge on july 4th).
> 
> I am seeing a nutritionist as well as a psychiatrist who treats patients naturally as well as with drugs if that's what they prefer. He is more like a holistic doctor than a psychiatrist but that's what he majored in. I was talking to him the other day and decided to try therapy with him. I have come along way in the past 6 months, I use to sit in my room on the computer all day and rot. Now I keep myself busy constantly despite still having DP. Even though it's still there. I hate it and it's so frustrating. I feel like I have taken every recommendation on here and do feel better except the DP is still here.
> 
> ...


Wow man, I can really relate to what you're saying. I had a calling like yours and realized that I didn't believe in god too, but it happened after I got DP. Um, yeah, it goes way back from now. It was about 3 or 4 months ago, I had a realization that I didn't believe in god. I'm not going to go into deep detail on that because I don't want to upset anyone, but it just hit me like a brick one day. It was when I was having just back-breaking anxiety. I thought that no joke everyday I was going to just drop dead from a cardiac arrest. I seriously thought that I was going to have an arrythmia and just drop dead somewhere on the spot. It was about a month of just some of the worst anxiety I have ever had in my life. I had to start going to therapy because of it and it was there that I discovered what it might have been. I was probably stressing over the fact that my half-brother died over in Iraq. It's going to be 6 years this year, but she said that was probably the reason I had all of this death anxiety. Let's just say that I've come to terms with it and it has gotten a lot better, but it leaves a feeling in your gut that you're never going to get rid of. It's like a sore that never heals, and it's probably never going to. I really took the next month reflecting on this, and how it made me feel. My therapist told me that I should look inside and find a voice and what it's saying. I honestly thought that it was really retarded because I'm not spiritual at all, but one day it just hit me like a freight train, I want to save lives. Even though he died in a different manner, he still died, and I still have that feeling. I want to try and prevent other people from having that feeling, that fucking sense that never dies. I thought how I wanted to go about doing it, reflected on the type of person I am, then realized that I wanted to go into Bio-Medical Engineering. I want to make an application that can save numerous lives, even though I don't really have an idea what that is right now, but I want to do it. Nothing has ever overwhelmed me so much as wanting to do this. It's honestly where I want to see myself in 20 years from now, in a lab somewhere doing research on the application I want to make. I've never felt this inspired to do something, it's world shaking almost. So that's what I'm doing now, I'm volunteering at a local hospital to get an idea on what needs to be changed in the medical environment, then start planning to do something.

But yeah, I can really relate on how something can really impact a person on a level that nothing else has. But the interesting thing is that you found your calling right before you had DP and I found mine after DP. Still I can relate to that story in a sense.

Anything really stressful or personal happened to you before? It might be linked to something like that. But in all honesty I wouldn't worry about it. I think of it like this, I would rather have DP than MS or Parkinson's Disease. And don't let it stop you from doing what you want to do, please don't.


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## dpsince2002 (Oct 26, 2008)

Thanks a lot. I can relate to dp starting after a life change that didn't seem like a traumatic one, and not being sure how much that impacted it, or not. Mine seemed to start after a breakup, but it was with a girl I'd only been dating for about 4 months, and I didn't feel that invested in the relationship. But a few days after the breakup, the dp kicked in, and has been going ever since. I've dated since I got dp, and it hasn't seemed to have any effect.

The therapist I'm seeing right now thinks that maybe it has to do with some kind of attachment issue, which is one of roughly a bazillion different opinions that I've gotten from different therapists now, but it seems possible--I got divorced in 2001, and the trauma from that may have had an effect on me such that this minor breakup was the straw that broke the camel's back, or a way to not get hurt like I had gotten hurt anymore.

Also, I know Daphne and Jeff talk in Feeling Unreal about how dp can start with seemingly minor triggers, and I wonder sometimes if it is a straw-that-broke-the-camel's-back kind of thing: I sail through a bunch of big changes, but it's this one that strains me just past the point where I can handle it, and then I'm in the fog, where I can handle it because it's not real, and I'm not real.


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## EverDream (Dec 15, 2006)

surfingisfun001 said:


> First of all here is a quick update. For the past three months I thought I was doing better. I guess I have in a sense, I have moved out of my parents house and live on my own with a bunch of friends. I have the perfect job I work at a sandwich deli and only work during lunch hours so it's not too stressful. I also work on a boat and am going sailing on a 14 sail tallship in August. I started a supplement regimen and am going on a diet for 90 days because I found out I have severe adrenal fatigue and also allergies to wheat, dairy, sugar, eggs, and 32 other foods believe it or not. I still take suboxone which helps me get through the days and haven't used drugs or been drinking for about 3 months (albeit an all out binge on july 4th).
> 
> I am seeing a nutritionist as well as a psychiatrist who treats patients naturally as well as with drugs if that's what they prefer. He is more like a holistic doctor than a psychiatrist but that's what he majored in. I was talking to him the other day and decided to try therapy with him. I have come along way in the past 6 months, I use to sit in my room on the computer all day and rot. Now I keep myself busy constantly despite still having DP. Even though it's still there. I hate it and it's so frustrating. I feel like I have taken every recommendation on here and do feel better except the DP is still here.
> 
> ...


Wow, I can't believe how many things you went thorugh. Yours stories are insane lol
I understand what you mean by- "After that I felt a huge wave of freedom come over me and felt tremendous inner peace for the first time ever I felt like I had connected to the true me". I myself stopped being religious (kind of different religion lol) at the time my DP started. I don't think its the reason of my DP but it was part of it I guess. My panic attack that led to my chronic DP state was in a religous place. Once again, it's not the main reason for my DP, but it made me feel like I'm faking the real me, that I have no freedom and I don't belong there, an outsider.

All of this probably affected you and it was two weeks before your DP started so...

Thanks for sharing. You are truly an amazing guy (look how many people here likes you







).


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## Surfingisfun001 (Sep 25, 2007)

Thanks guys the comments are really encouraging.


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## Minerva8979 (Jan 30, 2010)

So..I don't feel quite worthy to respond to this thread. I surely can't relate to the circustances many of you have been though, thankfully. I want to say though...that in my opinion, you guys and gals are really good examples of what people should strive to be like, especially in the wake of such depressing adversity. I mean that too. I know we are brave because really we have to be at some point, but I'm proud to know you guys. Even if it's just via internet.

Kenny, I really think the enormous epiphany you had could be a factor in your DP. Maybe divulging this will help you in the long run, I only hope. I think regardless of whether someone experiences an enlightenment or horrifying realization, it has a big impact on at least their brain chemistry if not their psyche, Ego, sense of self, etc. I can relate to the concept of experiencing this, but I definitely didn't get my hands dirty like you did. However, you are not alone.

One thing is true. This disorder really blurs the lines between biology and psychology more entwined than any of us can imagine.


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## Surfingisfun001 (Sep 25, 2007)

Minerva8979 said:


> One thing is true. This disorder really blurs the lines between biology and psychology more entwined than any of us can imagine.


Hah you said it!


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## match_stick_1 (Jun 9, 2010)

YOU ARE AN AWESOME PERSON!!


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## guest1234 (Mar 23, 2010)

Minerva8979 said:


> One thing is true. This disorder really blurs the lines between biology and psychology more entwined than any of us can imagine.


I have never really considered there to be a line personally, they are so intricately interlinked it would be impossible to seperate them, imo anyway,
psychological issues can cause physical symptoms and physical issues can cause psychological or mental symptoms. The phrase 'it's all in your head' can in fact be very true, although people seem to take it as a derogatory phrase :/


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