# DP and irritability???



## prodigyqb (Nov 18, 2006)

Hi everyone, im new to the site and have had this feeling for years but could never descibe it fully to anyone, especially to doctors. Like many I do not have DP constantly; thank god, but everytime I do, i have bad irritability and mild to medium loss of concentration. I was put on Effexor XR 37.5 (low dose) to combat this feeling that today found out to be DP. It helps but I do not want to be on a med just for the hell of it. Thus is why I am posting on this site.

I wanted to know if anyone has irritability strictly correlated with their DP? Because I do. If so, can you tell me what u did to help with this. Its getting to the point where i know im being snappy over stupid stuff before im even finished being a grumpy bastard...lol any help would be greatly appreciated

Disclaimer- I searched for "irritability" before posting and didnt find anything so exuse if this question has been asked


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## flowingly (Aug 28, 2005)

hmm, i never thought that perhaps there was a relationship between the two, which is odd considering i feel like i've thought about just about everything since i've felt like this, haha.

it IS hard to talk about it, to anyone-- especially those we love and are in our lives. come to think of it, i do remember being snappish and harsh with people. once i "came out" and told my family and friends about it, it got easier to just tell them "i'm sorry, i'm not feeling too well..." they might not understand what you're going through, but they realize that your actions and words might be coming from a different place sometimes...that given normal circumstances, you'd be peachy instead of snappish. most people would become more understanding. if this makes any sense. like...if a female in your life has PMS, haha...if you knew it was just a conditon or whatever that was causing a change in mood, you might not take their off moods to heart, and might be able to help them. egh, crappy example, but i think you know what i mean, lol


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## USpacebreaker (Oct 23, 2006)

I think, and I may generate negative reations from this, that most of us are indifferent toward most things. We are objecive. IMO, your irritability may not be caused by DP, but maybe a result of DP. When I first experienced it, I was very pissed. There is no way to exaggerate how pissed I was. In the end, they are two seperate things.

Side note... I did take effexor for a while and had some positive results from it. Let us know how it goes.


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## peacedove (Aug 15, 2004)

Well I am definitely irritable. But my DP is chronic and I think the irritability may come from my depression which came from my DP...


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## chiendeguerre (Nov 12, 2006)

Is this where you all hide?

Its difficult to get a post answered here. I've left some posts on the introduction thread and at a few others.

My perspective is that this is really not as bad a thing as it seems.

I've stated it a lot through the forum but I'll do it again so youdon't have to go searching. My feeling is that DP as it is known is, to put it simply, a natural phenomenen that occurs when a person becomes self aware and doesn't like what they find. In a sense, its a kind of self loathing fed by fear(of the condition) that endlessly spirals into terrifying feelings of anxiety and neurosis.

The trick, for me anyhow, is to recognise that this altered perception is actually quite a good thing. I compare it to our bifocal vision in that, like our vision, it allows us greater detail and depth in our perception. I feel like I am receiving simultaneous yet somehow contradictory sets of information but what they actually seem to be are just slightly different, like when you close one eye at a time, what you see changes slightly. It's the same with this perception.

The information can be interpreted in two ways. I guess in a way you could say its what you think about the subject and what you feel about the subject coming together to give you a more accurate overall understanding. The deeply unpleasant sensation of zooming in and out and disorientation is merely your senses "snapping" into gear, so to speak. I don't know about you but I haven't experienced anything like that for a while. It happens occasionally but very infrequently.

The key, for me seems to be getting a grip of my fear. Fear is the primary emotion that we respond to in an irrational way. It is the one that most easily takes control of our actions, thoughts, mood and temperament. Control your fear and you control your DP.

I have never taken drugs. My mother had scyzophrenia and my memory of the Mental Health system is awful. I recognised it for what it is and steered well clear.

Thats enough to be going on with. What do you think?


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## Methusala (Dec 22, 2005)

Yes, this is probably the most popular forum. I take it by 'not bad' what you mean is that you believe DP is less intractable than commonly believed. I found your statement pretty interesting:



> My feeling is that DP as it is known is, to put it simply, a natural phenomenen that occurs when a person becomes self aware and doesn't like what they find. In a sense, its a kind of self loathing fed by fear(of the condition) that endlessly spirals into terrifying feelings of anxiety and neurosis.


 You also made another very interesting statement on another post:



> I'm totally convinced there's nothing "wrong" with us. What we all seem to have in common is a difficult and traumatic period in our childhood that we dealt with by stopping being ourselves and tried desperately to be the person our parent or loved one wanted us to be in order ot offset the loss of security the truth would highlight.


 These two ideas fit in perfectly with Professor Jenifer Freyd's theory about dissociation, trauma and mental illness in her book 'Betrayal Trauma.' Her theory is that children have a primal biological imperative to emotionaly bond with their parents, and thus inherently interpret threats to that bond as overwhelming threats to their life and very sense of self. So threats to this bond must be minimized at any cost, including ignoring the truth of experiences in life if necessary. Thus when a child is abused by a parent, the child will have a strong natural tendency to ignore the fact that this was abuse in order to maintain a bonded feeling state towards the parent. If the abuse is severe or repetitious enough, the resulting induced mental act of ignoring the abuse will cause strong irrational mental habits to be formed, thus giving rise to various possible symptoms known as mental illness.

Your second statement to me sounds just like Freyd's theory. Your first statement sounds like a way to apply Freyd's theory to the question of how DP is formed. Namely that during those times when a child is discovering and forming his sense of self/identity in interactions with the parent, if the parent acts loathing or rejecting towards the child, the child will incorporate the act of self rejection in his self identity. Thus the child's self becomes 'the self that does various things but that will also engage in frequently repeated acts of not being fully aware of oneself.'

In addition, your statements about distorted visual perceptions reminded me of something my friend said about his infant duaghter. That soon after she was born, her eyes were moving in two different directions, and she had to learn how to make them move and focus together. The fact that dp/dr is often associated with visual distortion of object sizes and focus, and the basic fact that dp is a state of none awareness of ones self, further makes me think that dp could (insome cases) be associated with early and repeated emotional neglect by the parents-the equivalent of rejecting the childs self. I think this emotional neglect would look like a parent looking into a childs face and eyes, and either not reacting emotionaly to/with the child or acting with disgust or antipathy towards the child.

So perhaps this is one way DP/DR can develop, and perhaps your saying that if this is how it develops, the way to heal it is to work on addressing that original type of fear damage of emotional neglect and antipathy towards self awareness development.

This way of trying to heal goes right along with the approach of Dr Ross: http://www.rossinst.com

He suggests a psychotherapy focused on 'locus of control' and 'attachment to the perpetrator' leading to 'grieving the loss of the parents one never had.' Thus the fear and rejection of self is part of 'attachment ot the perperator' and the constant repetition of the fear and rejection of self is part of a 'locus of control' attempt to both avoid the abuse from happening again and to maintain the fantasy bond with the parent(s). So a Dr Ross trauma Model therapy for DP would look like experiential therapy of unfreezing the feeling states of disgust/rejection of the self/self awareness; and cognitive therapy for challenging the logic of fear and rejection repetition.

Wow, I think I see a way out of it in working with a therapist on these issues, even for cases like mine were the dp is a very deep and automatic part of personality and mental functioning. Thanks C.

M


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## chiendeguerre (Nov 12, 2006)

I am humbled in so many ways!

Your confirmation of my posts is heartening but I have to admit to getting lost in your reply somewhat. I do have a tendency to simplify things but I figure that if I understand what I mean then I have a chance of making progress. What you wrote seemed a bit academic to me and I am a bit confused. It seems to me that the key to understanding ones own mental condition doesn't lie in being able to understand the dynamics of our subconsciousness, rather from simply accepting that certain things we hold to "true" may in fact be fallacies.

The love of our parents for instance. This pattern for love which we learn as children gets carried through to our adult life and is the reason so many people make bad partner choices.

You are clearly more academically qualified than me. Do you really think I may have helped you to make progress with your DP? If this is the case I will feel genuinely pleased with myself and grateful, I'm sure you know what I mean when I say I can use all the Affirmation of my worth I can get.


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## chris51 (Mar 21, 2005)

All I have to say is WOW, and wipe away my tears. In all my years of therapy (on and off for 5 years) NO ONE has ever pin pointed what was "troubling me". You hit it right on the head. I read your post over and over because I felt like I was reading what my mind wanted to say but didn't have the capabilty to do. You wrote what my childhood was like exactly. I was 6 months old when my 9 year old brother died. Apparnelty my parents were unable to provide me support or expression of their love. It was borderline neglect. There was no type of emotional bond bewteen me and my mother NONE. But I tried and ignored that fact that she never truly "saw" me. Up until recently I said my childhood was fine. COMPLETELY ignoring that my mother and I never had an emotinal bond. I tried so hard for them to love me, to be good, blaming my self as such a young age that I was the cause of their sad stoic moods (basically depression) I lost "myself" at such a young age to become what I thought my parents wanted.

Thank you for posting this. TRULY. I am sittting here in bewilderment but yet feel so connected now. THe question is now how do you find your true self. THe child that could not show her identity that hid behind this false self. THat was full of self-rejection that she rejected her own self. Is this possible to do? I think this happened to me when I was really young. I wonder if inner child work would do? I am going to print this up and show this to a therapist when I find one :roll: Again thank you for posting this. Idon't know why I never heard it put into words.


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## birdie (Aug 23, 2004)

USpacebreaker said:


> I think, and I may generate negative reations from this, that most of us are indifferent toward most things. We are objecive. IMO, your irritability may not be caused by DP, but maybe a result of DP. When I first experienced it, I was very pissed. There is no way to exaggerate how pissed I was. In the end, they are two seperate things.
> 
> Side note... I did take effexor for a while and had some positive results from it. Let us know how it goes.


Irritability and DP to be two separate things?
Its like saying what came first,the chicken or the egg.
God knows.
And God be with all of us.
Birdie


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