# Preparing for a future breakdown



## Scattered (Mar 8, 2005)

I feel relatively ok. The problem is that from time to time DP/DR and depression/anxiety tend to peek their head through and make me realize that I'm not ok. I understand that it won't take alot for me to go into another series of panic attacks followed by depression. Now that my first year of college is over I have 4 months off. I have no idea what I'm going to do other than to continue to isolate myself and ruminate on my lack of connection or identity. How far can this go before I am permanently affected mentally? Is there a way to handle this?

This post doesn't make much sense. I suppose what I really want is some sort of reassurance that others have gone through the same or much worse and have gotten through it. I know this intellectually and yet I still fear that at some point over the next 4 months I'll have an episode that will send me over the edge. Even if it doesn't make me psychotic, a state of constant panic/anxiety/dp/dr would be just too much for me to handle.


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## bat (Aug 18, 2004)

scattered

you've got 4 months off and it sounds like the lack of routine and purpose is scaring you. i think you need to sort out something thats important to you and do it. i don't know you or your financial situation so here's some blind ideas:

if you need money get a job in a busy bar. 
if you're ok cash wise contact vso (voluntary service overseas) as you can offer your help building or digging or whatever.

if you're in europe go interrailing and work your way around.

get a cheap flight to greece and work as an english speaker in a bar (i did this and stayed for a year)

whatever you do don't stay in your room thinking


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## terri* (Aug 17, 2004)

Oh Scattered, this makes perfect sense to me and pretty much everyone dealing with this disorder. If we do manage to survive some major obstacle, we sit and obsess about when the other shoe is going to fall off. This is a fear based, obsessive disorder and we feed it by falling right into a pattern that keeps it going. You can save yourself from what you perceive as dp/dr's ability to permantly affect you.

Don't stay in your place and ruminate over the how, whens and whys. Don't stay on the computer searching for an answer and finding information that scares you. There is not a miracle pill or vooodoo magic that is going to cure your ills. If there was one, we would know it and share it worldwide.

Do find something to do this summer. Take a fluff class. Get a fluff job. Volunteer for something that gets you out of yourself and in to others. Identify yourself with something. Do the baby steps thing until you find a groove you can work with. Instead of helping yourself get psychotic, help yourself find an identity. If you put as much work in to something positive like that, it will far outweigh the outcomes of negative thinking.

Yes, it's easy to type these words and harder to put them into action. But I think we all can say this is pretty much what always helps keeps us from taking that plunge into the depths of despair. You will probably still have some bad days, but hopefully not as dark when you have a sense of being involved in something or somebody.

Scattered...Prepare for your future breakthru, not your future breakdown. Get thru these next 4 months with your eyes on the thought of heading back to college in the fall.

You do know it intellectually and that is a point in your favor.

Really wishing you success.
terri*


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## Guest (May 1, 2005)

> have no idea what I'm going to do other than to continue to isolate myself and ruminate on my lack of connection or identity. How far can this go before I am permanently affected mentally?


Here's a little Shock Therapy for you. WHile you will never literally become permanently irreversibably damaged, after enough time, it won't matter. You might as WELL be brain damaged because the prospect of change will become so terrifying and so seemingly impossible that the only thing to do is to hide more and self-monitor more until you die of old age.

Don't ruminate over it.

Don't test it.

Don't ask youself how long you can "get away" with isolation and self-obsession. The answer is "Your entire life" but the bad news is that it's very very easy to do it ...for your entire life.

PUSH yourself, no matter how hard. PUsh.

Peace,
Janine


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## Scattered (Mar 8, 2005)

Thanks alot. I appreciate the replies. The traveling overseas thing, etc is way too much for me. I'm going back home for the next few months then I might visit some of my family. The baby steps thing makes sense to me. Even if I accomplish very small things it might help. I was also thinking about getting back into therapy since my CBT here at college ended.

The truth is I might be much better off then some here. I don't have DP 24/7 only with my bouts of anxiety which are USUALLY few and far between (but they have the capability of being crippling IF I obssess). The thing is since my DP is usually mild and not constant I'm actually not used to the feeling like some are. When I do actually experience it bad, my thoughts are automatically about losing myself or going insane. Its hard to understand or guage my feelings and I tend to wonder how damaging they are when I get them since I simply don't know or understand their source or what effect they will have. I'm rambling again, but I know its going to be hard for me at some point. Whether thats a day from now or weeks from now something bad is going to happen and I hope I can cope.

Its a battle between my natural instincts to isolate myself and prevent any perceived "threats" and the intellectual understanding that I have to go out and connect or I'll just get worse.


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## g-funk (Aug 20, 2004)

I only briefly read all the above, just wanted to say that I think I know how you feel.

This happened to me when I left university. On the day I actually finished, I had my final exhibition of work and presentations etc, so there was obviously build up, concentration and purpose for months preceeding that day. On that same day, my boyfriend's father died and the whole family spent the night in the same room. And I mean ALL of us if you know what I mean. Very very difficult day. But not much time to think about dp as such, just literally getting through it and things died down to normality a few days later. Then I sat in my back garden and it hit me that I had nothing. I drew further and further into myself, avoiding any kind of interaction that might trigger the feeling, and would go out of my way to get 'outside' of myself. But, like all obsessive issues, the more you feed them by acting on response of them, you set the threshold for the next painful though to set in. Had I known what I know now, I could have forced myself or steered myself away.

You know what you have to do, which makes it marginally easier to do, since you know you're not ignoring the problem (which always kept me self vigilant) you are just helping yourself get better.


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## enngirl5 (Aug 10, 2004)

I'm in your situation too. I'm off of school for the Summer too and I love not having to go to school but when I have all this free time on my hands I always start the obsessive worrying cycle again. I'm gonna take a class this Summer and get a job, either and internship or a graduate assistanship. Nothing too stressful but just something to keep me relatively busy. You need to find something to do. Maybe a parttime job or volunteering, or better yet go to Summer school and knock some of your classes out. For me it's a total double edge sword. I hate school and all the stress it brings and literally count down the days till I'm out, and then when I'm out I'm left sitting around thinking, "ok, what do I do now?" :? ...


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