# Living with Dp for 17 years now...Help!



## liz (Sep 18, 2008)

Hi, 
I'm Liz. I have been living with Dp and Dr for 17 years now. I am looking for help and others around me that I can talk to or help that have this same problem. I have tried therapy, every medication on the market, DBT...nothing seems to help. Maybe we can help each other. I never meet anyone who knows what i am talking about. I feel isolated and alone and DEsperate. 
My intital episode happened when i was 15. It happened suddenly and without provocation. It catapulated me into a foreign existence and terror that I never knew was possible. It felt as if the movie that i had been living in suddenly stopped and I no longer knew my part or where i was...even though i intellectually knew where i was..it just felt entirely different. My body felt seperate and i didnt know who i was anymore. My voice sounded as if it was speaking for me and i was a tiny lost being in the dark listening to it.
My life has been a never ending struggle to maintain sanity and to find a solution to this fear that runs my life.
I am powerless over Depersonalization and my life is completely unmanagable....
I am seeking help and direction...
Does anyone know of somewhere in Portland Oregon that i can go...or others that i can talk to?
Thanks,
Liz


----------



## Mark (Jul 21, 2008)

Yes we can help.
Specifically Portland I do not know.
This is just the right place to land at this point.
If you read through the site you will find many people like you.

The important thing is to get involved and make friends.
Make lots of posts and answer lots of posts.

In the mean time keep you life as "in control" as possible.

If you get involved you will no longer feel "isolated and alone and DEsperate."


----------



## Mark (Jul 21, 2008)

For some reason I read your post over and over again.


> My life has been a never ending struggle to maintain sanity and to find a solution to this fear that runs my life.


This is one of the reasons why.
After 31 years I finally got over the fear when I joined this site, a couple of month ago.
I am now finally on the road to recovery. With the fear in the way it was not possible.
The world and my life are more real. My emotions run deeper. My confidence is way up.
I hope this happens to you.


----------



## Goldfinger (Dec 3, 2007)

Very ecouraging post Mark. I really feel for liz. Her experience must mirror what you went through when noone understood or had any empathy for what you were going through.

To liz - i hope you keep in touch with Mark and the DP Support Group. I feel sure that sharing your experiences and fears will help you. gf


----------



## Mark (Jul 21, 2008)

Goldfinger said:


> Very ecouraging post Mark. I really feel for liz. Her experience must mirror what you went through when noone understood or had any empathy for what you were going through.
> 
> To liz - i hope you keep in touch with Mark and the DP Support Group. I feel sure that sharing your experiences and fears will help you. gf


Ya I hope Liz sticks around.
Now Goldmember .. I mean finger, are you sure "empathy" is the right word in my case? I just don't want you to think, that I thought, that there was a lack of caring. 
I could not put how I felt into words that could be understood.
Unless you where confronted with 10 people saying the same thing it would not sound all that serious.

Are you still in touch with Pussy Galore?


----------



## pagirl (Jun 9, 2008)

Hi Liz,

the way you describe your experience sounds very similar to mine - I'd like to hear more about your story - email me and we can talk some more - [email protected]


----------



## liz (Sep 18, 2008)

Thanks everyone SO MUCH for reading and replying to my message. It is so good to know that I am not alone. I spoke with my psychiatrist and my counselor this week and neither of them knew really anything about this condition. It is so strange that only fairly recently this "disorder" has come into view in the mental health world. When I was 15...17 years ago NOBODY knew what was wrong with me...I went to countless shrinks, therapists, doctors, etc who were entirely baffled by my problems. I would get discharged from counselors when they would throw up their arms in frustration after 15 sessions of going nowhere. Granted in some cases they helped a bit, encouraging me to do art and pursuing things that i was still mildly able to enjoy. Mildly being the operative word here. 
These past few days I have felt a bit better. Keeping as busy as humanly possible is very helpful. I CAN NOT AFFORD to be alone in my head. Helping other people is very helpful, anything to keep me engaged with others. Even though I still get intense SHOCKS of terror every so often. I try to let them wash over me and then let them fade. They tend to arise when I think certain thoughts... such as What is This?? What am I ? I feel as if I am losing myself? Things like that keep me in a constant state of panic and fear.
Check out this Quote from Spiritual teacher Adayshanti....Pardon me for my poor spelling....

Call Off the Struggle
Most people are in a constant state of struggle with themselves. Tremendously burdened by the past and in constant anticipation of the future, most human beings are rarely able to be fully present for more than very brief moments. The tremendous openness and intimacy that is required to be fully present is beyond most people's ability to sustain for more than a few moments before they habitually contract back into the familiar condition of separateness and struggle that so characterizes the human condition. This constant state of struggle manifests as a compulsive and addictive relationship to the movement of thought, emotion, and time.

There is great reluctance to stop struggling because in the absence of struggle you suddenly begin to lose your boundaries and definitions of who you are. For many people this causes fear to arise as they experience the loss of their familiar sense of self. Struggling is how the ego-personality maintains its existence. When you cease to struggle, identification with the personality begins to break down and you become aware of your emptiness and lack of boundaries.

The most difficult thing for spiritual seekers to do is to stop struggling, striving, seeking, and searching. Why? Because in the absence of struggle you don't know who you are; you lose your boundaries, you lose your separateness, you lose your specialness, you lose the dream you have lived all your life. Eventually you lose everything that your mind has created and awaken to who you truly are: the fullness of freedom, unbound by any identifications, identities, or boundaries.

It is this locationless freedom of being that spiritual people are seeking, and at the same time are running away from because its faceless nature gives no fixed reference point for the personality to hold onto or to seek security in. As long as you remain identified with the personality, you will always be seeking security to the exclusion of the Truth, and will remain in a constant state of struggle. It is only when your love and desire for Truth outweigh the personality's compulsive need for security that you can begin to stop struggling and be swept up into the arms of an ever-unfolding revelation of the Truth and Freedom of Being.

? 1998 Adyashanti. All rights reserved.

Print this page


----------



## Mark (Jul 21, 2008)

I feel like we are friends already.
I am glad you are feeling better.
I totally know about the thoughts and questions that can bring on terror.
Like I said before they are gone.
I can't get dp related terror if I spent all day trying.

Thanks for the quote.
I has some important things to tell us about life dp or not.
However what he is talking about is not what we have or have experienced.



> The most difficult thing for spiritual seekers to do is to stop struggling, striving, seeking, and searching. Why? Because in the absence of struggle you don't know who you are; you lose your boundaries, you lose your separateness, you lose your specialness, you lose the dream you have lived all your life. Eventually you lose everything that your mind has created and awaken to who you truly are: the fullness of freedom, unbound by any identifications, identities, or boundaries.


Take this for example and multiply it by 100 000.
That causes terror for 17 years in a dp person and discomfort in a normal person.


----------



## recover (Aug 9, 2008)

Welcome aboard Liz. There is one big commanality between us. I got my DP at 15 as well and it has lasted for 16 long years and counting.... But luckily (or God's grace whatever you call it), I have adapted well to this funky thing. You will see lots of materials in the website and will make some good friends to talk to, who will really understand you. Knowing that this is just your mind playing it is half success. Read on Road to recovery and Regaining reality, there are a few very good posts. I hope you start on the road for the recovery really soon. Good luck and welcome again...


----------



## liz (Sep 18, 2008)

Thanks, I am having a really hard time today. I am running out of hope. My medication doesn't seem to be working.I have been on Effexor and Neurontin for a while and I don't feel any better. I feel hopeless and alone.


----------



## Mark (Jul 21, 2008)

Oh no.
What can we say?
I have a Happy then Crash cycle.
Do you think you might have that too?
Once you recognise it, then the crashes get shorter because you know that you will get out of it.
Keep strong.


----------

