# I dont give a damn about dpdr anymore



## nicejourney (Feb 13, 2018)

I used to dream about this day, writing my recovery story..cant believe i actually made it. This is my first post but i can assure you this isnt the first time i came here, this forum was an obsession lol

English is not my 1st language so i apologize before even making errors cause this is gonna be a long post lol

Before telling my story i want to make a very important assumption: i am (was, maybe) *really *hypocondriac,and i think this has a big responsability in what happened to me.

hypoconSo, i am a 20yo male, i smoked a lot of weed since 16-17 (Only weed, never took any other type of drugs), but near june 2017 i started feeling weird after smoking (too high bpm, headache) so i kinda stopped smoking or anyway reduced a lot.

The 1st of July i went on a boat trip (a very small boat) with some of my friends, and i knew that some of them would have brought weed (can someone please tell me the right verb form for this period PLEASE), so i started thinking 'what if i smoke and start to feel bad on a boat in the middle of the sea? What if i faint there?'.

I actually didnt really smoke so much, i wasnt high, i didnt had like that 'incredible powerful weed overdose' some here talk about, i just smoked a little (very little) from a normal joint (not an enormous one, a blunt or i dont know a bong), i wasnt high at all, thats why i can hardly say that i had dpdr from weed.

My thoughts started to became real when my heart rate raised (probably because of my thoughts lol) and this lead to my first terrific panic attack (i actually didnt know it was a panic attack that day), i felt like i was really going to die, my heart went crazy, i remember that i was sure to faint in seconds. They brought me to land and like for ANY (remember this, any) panic attack, nothing really happened to me.

I did the routine controls, heart exams and bla bla bla and obviously i didnt have nothing, maybe just ANXIETY (i was like whaaaat im not anxious lol), i laugh at this so much now.

Probably, if i didnt think 'when will this happen again' nothing would have happened and this story wouldn't continue. But i did, and i developed a very sever panic disorder that, and this is important, completely changed my thought pattern.

From 'lets go to this party' i went to 'what if i get a panic attack in the club', 'what if i get a panic attack in the restaurant', 'in my friend's house', i started to do things only if i had a way to escape. Now, i realize that a person that thinks in that way is not me, so depersonalization is actually the most logical thing.

I started to have the first symptoms 1/2 weeks after the first panic attack, i will list all of the symptoms i had here with a 1 to 10 scale.

-Feeling of unreality (9/10)

-Vision problem (2d-ish) (5/10)

-Loss of emotional attachement to memories, i remembered things, but it didnt felt like i did them (10/10)

-Loss of sense of selse, related to the previous one i think (9/10)

-Existentialism, convinction that life is senseless, solipsism(9/10)

-Suicidal thoughts related to existentialism, feeling that life is 'too long' (9/10).

-Complete fear of being about to lose control over myself (10/10)

About the suicidal things, i just want to say that i probably wasnt really suicidal, it was just a reaction to the existential shit, i am really sure i couldnt do anything like that for real,

I cant name the hardest thing to deal with,maybe the existentialism/solipsism but im not really sure, the scariest one on the other side surely was the suicidal thoughts, i really loved life before this and i couldnt believe i was actually thinking about something like that.

*WHAT DID I DO?*

I started therapy for the panic disorder 1st of august (one month after), i started escitalopram 10mg (i think you call it like this) the 1st of september, i was also prescribed xanax but it didnt do anything special to me, so i took it like only 3-4 times.

I think escitalopram helped a bit, i dont know how much but it surely isnt the thing that cured me.

The things i think helped the most:

-Therapy, speaking your mind REALLY helps, some things lose power on you as soon they go from your mind to your mouth.

-Deal with existentialism, sometimes i read 'ignore it', i didnt find that good for me. My major problem was the absolute security that death makes life completely senseless and not worth living, i literally walked in my home like a zombie fighting this war inside me against this thoughts, i couldnt even lie down because of how much anxiety i had in my body and mind. But eventually i came to the conclusion that yes, life is meaningless, no one has a real higher purpose, but this isnt in any way a reason to end, it just doesnt make sense, What tells you that death is better?

Im gonna stop it here for the existentialism cause i would write too much lol

-Meditation

-TIME, give yourself time. Time is the best cure

-Go out, stay with your friend,act like you have nothing (actually you do have nothing), it is completely impossible that you freak out or that you die for a panic attack.

Deeply understanding this i think was the most important thing, i was told lots of time 'panic attacks will never kill you, damage your brain or anything like that', but i continued to fear them and my thoughts. After 5-6 months i started to slow down my reactions to panic and dpdr thoughts, accepting them, understand that after 6 months they still didnt do nothing to me even if i went in really dark places with my mind.

Now, after nearly a year im like this:

-Feeling of unreality (1/10)

-Vision problem (2d-ish) (1/10)

-Loss of emotional attachement to memories, i remembered things, but it didnt felt like i did them (0/10)

-Loss of sense of selse, related to the previous one i think (0/10)

-Existentialism, convinction that life is senseless, solipsism(0/10)

-Suicidal thoughts related to existentialism, feeling that life is 'too long' (0/10).

-Complete fear of being about to lose control over myself (0/10)

The 1/10 for the first two is more like moments, but i dont really give a damn anymore about them, i think i still have moments cause i still think about what i went through sometimes.

But GUYS, i couldnt take a train, a plane, i couldnt come back to my university cause the thought of living far from my home and my parents freaked the hell out of me, i was a complete slave of the panic attacks fear,i lived 6 months (september-february) in my hometown nearly alone,all of my friend went back to university, and now i am writing this from my university house, 1000km away from home, which i reached in train without having problems.

About this forum, i only want to say to all of you obsessed symptom googler like me, just check recovery stories PLEASE, just think about it, why a recovered person should come here and be an active user? Obviously its more likely that you'll find more people that are in the middle of it.

I also found something that really made me sad few days ago, cause i still casually check this forum as i like to read recovery stories. Under a recovery story there was a user, that i wont name, that seemed to like spreading negativity, saying things like 'yeah lol accepting it what a bullshit' and just talking like this is permanent and a death sentence. I dont know what kind of problems these people have but DONT LISTEN TO THEM.

The one thing they're not doing is accepting, deeply understading that panic and all dpdr thoughts are harmless, and they're still fighting it like a self inflicted torture.

I described my symptoms in a shallow way as i dont really remember how i felt while dpdr, its like when i didnt had emotions for my memories, now i know what i got through, which the symptoms were, but i cant remember how it felt to have them, and i actually cant believe how i let them have so much power on me.

Weeeell, this was it, sorry if its too long ahah, im really busy with uni so i wont check this thread very often, but i would be really really happy to answer questions and help someone, i think you can send me a PM here in someway.


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## Broken (Jan 1, 2017)

Congrats! Very happy for you. What type of meditation did you do?


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## nicejourney (Feb 13, 2018)

Broken said:


> Congrats! Very happy for you. What type of meditation did you do?


Thank you.

I started with mindfulness like for 10 minutes a day, but that was some sort of a duty at the beginning.

After a month i understood and fell in love with the whole mindfulness philosophy, and i tried to bring it in my everyday life.

One thing that was very powerful for me its this:

Imagine you're on a bus heading somewhere and in the seat in front of you theres a couple fighting, you listen to them,understand what they say, but you dont have emotional reactions. That's how you should deal with your thoughts, i think the 'non judgemental' part you always read in meditation is very important.


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## Allineedishope (Jan 20, 2018)

I really hope that I can recover to. I have been suffering of dr for almost a year and I am so scared be in this state forever or I I have forget how to feel normal again. I'm so glad for you, congratulations ????


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## Pondererer (May 18, 2016)

nicejourney said:


> -Deal with existentialism, sometimes i read 'ignore it', i didnt find that good for me. My major problem was the absolute security that death makes life completely senseless and not worth living, i literally walked in my home like a zombie fighting this war inside me against this thoughts, i couldnt even lie down because of how much anxiety i had in my body and mind. But eventually i came to the conclusion that yes, life is meaningless, no one has a real higher purpose, but this isnt in any way a reason to end, it just doesnt make sense, What tells you that death is better?


I think that's an important note.


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## nicejourney (Feb 13, 2018)

Allineedishope said:


> I really hope that I can recover to. I have been suffering of dr for almost a year and I am so scared be in this state forever or I I have forget how to feel normal again. I'm so glad for you, congratulations


Eventually you will understand that you're creating all the fears, and with that you'll also realize how insignificant and unreal they are. Maybe you're thinking 'oh this guy what a dumbass thinking this is insignificant he doesnt know what im going through', well i thought that too reading recovery stories sometimes lol, but now i think back and laugh. And you will too.

About the 'feeling normal', thinking that you forgot that its quite common, and nope you didnt its just covered under layers and layers of anxiety.

I also want to tell you that when you'll recover you wont feel the same as before dpdr, you'll be better, more conscious, trust me, i would get lost another million times to find myself again


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## Cosmic.loser (Jan 8, 2018)

How did you overcome the slopsism?


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## Allineedishope (Jan 20, 2018)

Thank you so much for your answer it means so much to me ????


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## nicejourney (Feb 13, 2018)

Cosmic.loser said:


> How did you overcome the slopsism?


Again, you will probably find stupid or superficial what i am about to say, but trust me one day you'll understand.

You don't 'overscome' solipsism, you just suddenly understand how stupid it is and you'll also be surprised of how you tortured yourself for all the time you were thinking about it. This happens when the level of anxiety in your body starts to get lower.


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## sabmon (Jan 10, 2018)

Hi ! i check your post from time to time to read it ! u know why  haha anyway i just wanted to ask u how u dealt with ur negative existential-weird-scary thoughts u reason with them or just ignore them or what technique exactly ! thank you


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## nicejourney (Feb 13, 2018)

sabmon said:


> Hi ! i check your post from time to time to read it ! u know why  haha anyway i just wanted to ask u how u dealt with ur negative existential-weird-scary thoughts u reason with them or just ignore them or what technique exactly ! thank you


Do not ever ignore them because even if after ignoring them for a while it'll seem like they do not have power on you anymore it isn't so, they will be on the background forever as an unsolved question and eventually will come out again.

Face existantialism, finding answers ('theres no answer' is an answer to) to existential questions its one of the best thing of recovery. I dont think i can solve this for you because it is pretty unique for anyone of us, our own answers to those questions are the result of the recovery path. If you want you can text me some of your 'existential questions' and i can give some hint of what worked in my mind FOR ME. I will probably answer 'there's no answer' to a lot of them though, and trust me if you think that's not enough, it only means you still have too much anxiety in you. Anxiety makes us give importance to those questions, normally we dont give a f**k about them. I could help you on 'life is meaningless' stuff maybe as i found some pretty good answers to those things (you can also read above), but i cannot tell you what is your purpose for example (obviously).

P.S: English is not my 1st language so i'm sorry if something wasn't clear


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## sabmon (Jan 10, 2018)

nicejourney said:


> Do not ever ignore them because even if after ignoring them for a while it'll seem like they do not have power on you anymore it isn't so, they will be on the background forever as an unsolved question and eventually will come out again.
> 
> Face existantialism, finding answers ('theres no answer' is an answer to) to existential questions its one of the best thing of recovery. I dont think i can solve this for you because it is pretty unique for anyone of us, our own answers to those questions are the result of the recovery path. If you want you can text me some of your 'existential questions' and i can give some hint of what worked in my mind FOR ME. I will probably answer 'there's no answer' to a lot of them though, and trust me if you think that's not enough, it only means you still have too much anxiety in you. Anxiety makes us give importance to those questions, normally we dont give a f**k about them. I could help you on 'life is meaningless' stuff maybe as i found some pretty good answers to those things (you can also read above), but i cannot tell you what is your purpose for example (obviously).
> 
> P.S: English is not my 1st language so i'm sorry if something wasn't clear


Yes indeed ! i was born and raised Muslim and iwas really happy about it ! as u said even tho u want to ignore them they always seem in the background and they come back thats why this time i decided to face it ! find answers and believe in those answers ! im watching this show on youtube about islam and aspects of life and stuff about history..etc i used to get realy anxious and fearful while watching the firsts eps ! but now i made it to ep 13 and it seems like the more i face them the less scary they get im trying to find an answer for every question and questions that i wont have answers for the answer will be only GOD know ! heeh !


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## Cosmic.loser (Jan 8, 2018)

Thank you


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## ElectricalDirt (Mar 3, 2018)

Wow thank you for this. I feel like I am almost there. Every day the feelings of dread and anxiety get weaker, more short-lived. All existential thoughts are swatted away and I don't do my mental checks and rituals anymore. Although when it does strike I sometimes feel hopelessness but each time its weaker and weaker.


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