# My story, progress, and concerns...



## Guest (May 29, 2011)

hey everybody, ive had dp/dr for a little over two months now. been lurking these forums off and on since then. my dp/dr started a day or two after a bad panic attack from weed. that fateful day i went to hang out with my best friend and one of his friends. now, at the time, i had only smoked weed a handful of times and only got relatively high. i believe what caused me to have the initial panic attack was getting far too high for what i was used too. after we finished the weed off we walked into a mall and thats when i began to notice my vision started to blur or slow-down, almost like it was skipping. my hearing would slow down as well, almost seemed like i was hearing my friends inside of a tunnel or something. idk what caused me to panic first, these strange visual/audible disturbances, or my rapid heart rate. either way, my heart rate jumped up to insane speeds. what made it worse was that i had to shake my head around or grab my arm to keep me from loosing consciousness. i seriously thought i was having a heart attack. it was a truly frightening experience.

i had my friend drop me off at home, and i could no longer handle the panic so i told my dad and had him and my sister, who is staying with us, drive me to the ER. they told me it was probably just anxiety or the weed could've been laced with something. now that i think about it, the shit probably wasn't laced, and i was just panicking over my racing heart. the next day or two i started to have this dreamy/sleepy-like feeling that bothered me. before i found what DP was i got this irrational fear that none of what i was experiencing was real. that i was in some sort of coma induced dream, or this was some form of purgatory/afterlife. and i still have this awful feeling from time to time. silly i know, but to a Depersonalization sufferer, especially a new one, someone having these thoughts doesn't seem so silly.

those feelings left a day or two after my initial panic attack, but the anxiety didn't. i began having horrid anxiety over my heart. for no reason whatsoever, my heart would start to beat faster at random times of the day. at the time i considered it to be anxiety(which i now know it was). but the what-if's and frightening thoughts eventually caused another panic attack when i was getting ready to go visit my friend. in the car with him i had him take me up to the ER. they said about the same things, that i was probably having some anxiety, and said they couldn't do much for me. i know it was anxiety because shortly after hearing the doctors tell me it was nothing serious while in my ER room, my heart rate returned to normal. after this little experience with the ER, they hooked me up to a 24 hour holter monitor so to monitor my heart beat for any irregularities. of course the doctor giving me my results at the local free clinic said she didn't find anything out of ordinary with my results. that it was probably just anxiety. that relieved me greatly. and shortly after that within a matter of days, i stopped having these rapid heart beats out of nowhere. however, the time between waiting for my heart results was horrid. i remember, just lying in bed all day, literally feeling the tension in my nerves and the hot and cold flashes, the loss of appetite, and the start of my now nearly 24/7 constant fatigue. i literally felt weak in my legs as if i couldn't move. one of those nights after an all-day anxiety session, i woke up to fairly bad DP, at least thats around the time i remember my symptoms starting to get significant.

at first my DP fluctuated between decent and fairly bad. but as time's gone on it seems like now my symptoms are constantly worse now, with the occasional "being on the verge of panic" feeling here and there. here is a summarized list of my symptoms.

- life feels like a dream, surreal and unreal.

- feels like all i am seeing is a movie at times.

- once familiar places, situations, and people now seem strange, foreign and different, like everything has changed since getting dp.

- emotional numbing. lack of interest in things i used to enjoy/care about.

-constant fatigue, even with a full nights sleep. (though my new job is 3rd shift...however the fatigue started right before the DP which started before this new job so i dont think the 3rd shift aspect is causing it....)

- eyes sensitive to light.

-concentration/thinking problems.

- feel like a robot not feeling connected to limbs body as much as i normally would.

- perception of time is altered. ill look back on a period of time, EX: 5 minutes, 1 hour, and it will feel alot longer upon reflection.

-there's probably more symptoms but i cant seem to think of any more at the moment....

in addition it seems like newer symptoms over the past few days which may only have been brought on by worrying and feeding this fucking DP monster are, problems with memory. like, i can remember a certain event out of these last few weeks/months of DP. but i have problems with mentally piecing together all of my events and how they connect. also i can remember old memories but things that lead up to right before that day like that period in my life right before the initial panic and DP set in seem to be lost to me at the moment.

there have been days where i felt considerably better. a few weeks back i went with my mom and visited my sister at her apartment. i was feeling DP'd pretty bad. but for whatever reason while listening to some music and thinking positively i started to instantly feel a lot better. i watched a movie with them that night and went to bed feeling better. that next morning i woke up feeling almost out of the DP, enough so that i convinced myself that it would soon dissipate entirely. however for whatever reason, i eventually had the DP gradually build back to intolerable levels. i did have another two/three day period where the DP felt like it was slowly starting to get better around a week and a half ago. that too faded. but i think that if i would have built upon that improvement, stopped looking DP shit up online and distracted myself long enough, i may have climbed out of it. who knows though...

i was a simple guy before this DP/anxiety/hell/whatever. i enjoyed screwing around on the net, watching movies, listening to music, reading, writing(before i started putting it off....) just enjoying the little moments in life with my best friend and family. now, at a time where i really need to get shit together and progress in my life, get my GED, look into starting something at my local college, get my own place, finally get my licence and save up for a car at the age of 20(this one is long overdue, lol), possibly find a girlfriend for the first time in my life and meet some more friends. now, now when i really need to get things moving in my life, i get struck with this curse from the farthest depths of hell, that's left me not able to enjoy the things i used to, not even able to enjoy the small things in life anymore. got me wanting to just lay in bed all day, and almost has me ready to quit my new job that i started right after i got my DP. overall i feel trapped, i feel hopeless and full of despair, feel like the world and everything about it and my life has changed and will never be back to how it used to be, feel that soon i wont even be able to recognize how i was before this all started.

but i do have hope. it is a brief light but it still shines somewhere out there in all of this darkness. upon scouring this forum and reading several recovery stories. i have come to the conclusion that one of the only possible ways out of this living nightmare, is to first accept it, stop fighting it and letting it get to you, and then to distract yourself enough to slowly get back to your old habits and activities. i believe that it feeds off of fear,worry, and stress. which makes sense due to the fact that the times i began to feel better where after i had positive thinking, and the times when i didnt focus on it as much. i will say that whole "dont focus on it" is very, very hard. i have been experimenting with that theory over the past day or two and the times where i start to get into a book or song, or tv show. even if i manage to get my mind off of the DP for a few seconds or maybe even a minute or two, it still lies there in wait and once i do focus back on it the time i wasn't focusing on it feels like my thought process stopped entirely during those brief moments. which unnerves me even more and almost cancels out the positive effects of me distracting myself. so i guess i still need to work on that.

my theory on it all is that my DP is caused by all the accumulated trauma and stress from my initial panic attack and the anxiety based stress i also went through. hopefully this DP shit is only temporary and will pass when i stop focusing on my DP enough to let my brain rest and heal, and a complete recovery is something in the foreseeable future, not years and years away. i think there is a trend in those who recover from DP, whether it be a long time sufferer, or a beginner in DP. once they discovered of their condition and learned to stop worrying/fearing it and slowly get on with their life, they began to recover. at this point to me that seems like the only formula for true, complete recovery. at least if you got DP like how i got it...

sorry for the mouthful lol, i just have alot on my mind and alot of worries. can anybody who started their DP with a similar story like mine and managed to recover please give me some tips or pointers? lol. also, if you do recover, can you handle stress and certain triggers without getting DP all over again? or do you always have to be on your guard for the remainder of your life. i hope that isnt the case...


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## Guest (May 30, 2011)

just got off work 3rd shift, gonna lay down but i thought i'd update you all on how im feelin. it seems like ive made vast improvements over the past day or so. it feels like im gonna be completely out of DP in the next few days /week or so. i attribute it to no longer letting the DP symptoms give me fear or worry. and knowing the remaining feelings will pass soon. i will say it's been quite the experience haha. the past two plus months have been hell. but now that im coming out of it slowly its feels great. will update you guys in a couple of days on how my progress is going..


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## Guest (Jun 1, 2011)

well, here's another update. woke up about an hour ago. dont have any work tonight so thats a positive. still a little groggy and tired after about 8 hrs of sleep. can anybody who was/is in recovery or maybe like on a good day, can anyone relate to the feeling of major fatigue slowly going away while distracting yourself or doing things you enjoy & not worrying about the DP? i have been feeling alot better less DP'd over the past few days. i attribute it to not letting myself worry or stress out or become fearful over the symptoms that i experience.i cant say for sure whether or not i will be out of my DP 100% anytime soon. but i can say it's getting alot better just by slowly doing things i used to and not worrying. i get this weird feeling that even once i recover completely, i will still have a period of time where reality and getting back to reality, will feel strange to me as i was out of reality for a few months. has anybody who recovered noticed this at all during or after their recovery?


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## Guest (Aug 9, 2011)

hmmm, its weird how this whole period has felt like its lasted alot longer then it has


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