# The Last Time I was Happy



## ValleyGirl (Nov 10, 2017)

I was just thinking and realized that I remember the last time I was happy. I mean truly happy and part of that being happy was not having dp. It was actually about 3 weeks before I got dp. It was my birthday. That summer was incredibly hot. I remember waking up and having that joyful feeling when you wake up on a warm summer morning and it feels like life is running right through you. I remember that the morning sun had a golden glow to it. I woke up to find out that my long time good friend had given birth to her baby on my birthday. I remember being so excited and thinking it was the perfect birthday present. I remember how it felt to feel life, to feel whole, to feel healthy and to feel happy. That was the last time I can remember being truly happy and that was July 29, 2009.

Do you guys remember the last time you were truly happy?


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## Tree_of_Life2001 (Jan 6, 2011)

I do remember the last time that I was truly happy, even though I could not with everything within me feel everything completely that comes along with being totally in love(because of the DP), but with everything that was left in me I did! It was 10/2009 when I met my husband. I had been battling DP since 05/2008, but I had come a very long way and started to regain hope. I was also still on medication(Lexapro)which caused the panic attacks(which after a panic attack was how I originally developed the feelings of DP) to go away, but the feelings of detachment were still there(maybe a little worse). In spite of that, I was so overjoyed that God was faithful to what he promised me, and it made me feel like there was hope for the future...a future...



ustabetinyfairypeople said:


> I was just thinking and realized that I remember the last time I was happy. I mean truly happy and part of that being happy was not having dp. It was actually about 3 weeks before I got dp. It was my birthday. That summer was incredibly hot. I remember waking up and having that joyful feeling when you wake up on a warm summer morning and it feels like life is running right through you. I remember that the morning sun had a golden glow to it. I woke up to find out that my long time good friend had given birth to her baby on my birthday. I remember being so excited and thinking it was the perfect birthday present. I remember how it felt to feel life, to feel whole, to feel healthy and to feel happy. That was the last time I can remember being truly happy and that was July 29, 2009.
> 
> Do you guys remember the last time you were truly happy?


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## Visual (Oct 13, 2010)

*Do you guys remember the last time you were truly happy?*

It is really strange for me. There are many happy moments to remember. Perhaps falling in love is the best.

But being truly happy is different. Having life long DP there has always been a dark cloud inside. Have always managed by little crumbs of hope and keeping busy.

Now that I'm partway into 'emotional' work, I experience very strong moments of happiness for 3 months now. Through ups and downs there is always thread that stays attached.

This is odd because there are so many serious problems right now - effectively disabled without a timeline to plan by, seeing the future of losing home, feeling the pain of the 'dark cloud' face to face, abandoned by so called friends, largely relying on myself when being so weak. It feels like standing on a railroad track at midnight, watching the train approaching with horn blowing. And just standing there smiling.

But I feel levels of happiness that are new to me. Emotions that pop-up and the mind says, "So that is what all that great literature was about!" Perhaps it is death euphoria. But I don't think so. It is recovery. It is also a lot to process. Have to watch thoughts and feeling because they are so strong and it feels so strange. It is tiring just to type this. But it is good.

So somewhere around now are the best moments of happy. http://simplythebest.net/sounds/WAV/sound_effects_WAV/sound_effect_WAV_files/train.wav


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## BusyBee (Aug 7, 2010)

Thats a lovely image, I so wish I could get that back and i know you do too. Because my DP was brought on by the stress of a two year relationship, I hadnt felt happy for two years before it came on. So in a way I feel happier now that Im ill, but at the same time extremly sorry for myself!

Ooh my happiest times.. walking over 200 miles on Dartmoor. We were knackered but we couldnt stop laughing! Except that we had to drink river water with chlorine tablets and I collapsed with heat stroke. But it was all good. Excersise is good if you can handle it.

Pony club camp. It makes me cry thinking about them still. In a good way.

I guess after childhood I became ungrateful and disgruntled about everything. I always felt hard done by and I guess thats what contributed to this.


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## York (Feb 26, 2008)

I have a couple of memories that I'd never even remembered probably if it wasn't for dp.

Being pregnant, sitting with my best friend in the garden on holiday, and feeling the tiniest first kick from my baby..

Sitting at a cafe late in the evening, outside, in downtown of Eindhoven, drinking tea, looking at the beautiful church across the road, feeling like the air was full of magic. Stuffing my pockets with free cookies as I knew I'd get hungry on the way home (pregnant still).

Being on a train with my boyfriend, talking to some strangers with a baby, giggling secretly with him over the crazy name they had chosen. Feeling like me and him belonged together, that the world were ours, our life was about to begin, like everything were possible and we were about to become the best mum and dad in the world.


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## dpsince2002 (Oct 26, 2008)

Thanks for that question, and your thought; I was talking to a friend about a memory this weekend that might fit, and it was funny to be describing to my friend with all of this seeming emotion in my face and voice that didn't seem to belong to me. It was in late summer or early fall of 2002, maybe half a year before my dp started, and I was with the girl whose breakup seemed like the trigger for the dp. We were with some of our mutual friends, at two of their parents' farm, sometimes sitting on the porch, sometimes standing by the highway that we didn't need just then, sometimes walking through the long grass in the field, to the woods that bordered it on one side. I was smiling into my girlfriend's eyes, and she was smiling into mine. The wind was the least still thing out there, but even it moved smoothly and sweetly through the grass and us. None of the tangled things that had led us there, or the wild unknowns we were moving into, were there. But I was.

One of the first therapists I saw for dp, who didn't know what I was talking about, but did talk to me about anxiety, recommended that activity where you find, in your mind, a place you've been to where you felt some peace, and imagine it when the anxiety kicks in. My mind was too clogged with the dp rumination at that time to do anything close to that, after one or two attempts; it was like trying to build a sandcastle twenty feet into the ocean. It would help me to keep trying, though. Thanks for helping me to today!


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## ValleyGirl (Nov 10, 2017)

These memories are all so beautiful. I can feel your peace and joy and excitement as I read them. Keep them coming. Maybe we can do as dpsince2002 said, maybe we can pick out these memories and go to them when we feel anxiety. Not to look at these memories with despair as things we no longer have but as a special secret place of peace that we can go to when we need it.


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## Surfingisfun001 (Sep 25, 2007)

The happiest time of my life oddly enough was right before I started experiencing DP. I was in my first year of college, it was the second semester. I had just returned from a month long trip to the Ukraine. I felt truly at peace with myself and life. I remember waking up early in the mornings when it was still dark and getting up to go surf when everyone else was still asleep and felt excited to be alive. Life was beautiful. A girl and I who I was very attracted to started dating. I had close friends and for once in my life felt like I truly belonged. I remember feeling whole, confident, and content. Simply content and at peace.

It's almost as if I am still there. Like I left my soul there.


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## flipwilson (Aug 19, 2006)

My experience is similar surfingisfun. I was the happiest and most optimistic I had ever been a month prior to dp. I was a year out of college working on my art, I had just quit my job and was newly single. Life was wide open. I had just gotten back from a trip with my bro and my cousin which was beyond fun and relaxing, and I had overcome my OCD symptoms fully. Life was so fucking wide open and just waiting to be lived. Like u tinyfairy I remember waking up during that july of 06 and every warm summer day was in my veins. It was a brilliant time, which made it all the more crushing a month later when I smoked a joint for no good reason and it all vanished like a fart in the wind. good grief...sigh.


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## BusyBee (Aug 7, 2010)

flipwilson said:


> My experience is similar surfingisfun. I was the happiest and most optimistic I had ever been a month prior to dp. I was a year out of college working on my art, I had just quit my job and was newly single. Life was wide open. I had just gotten back from a trip with my bro and my cousin which was beyond fun and relaxing, and I had overcome my OCD symptoms fully. Life was so fucking wide open and just waiting to be lived. Like u tinyfairy I remember waking up during that july of 06 and every warm summer day was in my veins. It was a brilliant time, which made it all the more crushing a month later when I smoked a joint for no good reason and it all vanished like a fart in the wind. good grief...sigh.


This is strange how two posts on here were so content just before DP... this shouldnt be right! Why, id like to know?

My two year relationship was horrid, and before that I had two years at college which I hated. Just before I got DP, something lifted inside me. Id just been offered a promotion and I thought, 'You know what, next time that awful man cheats on me then tries to hurt himself when I leave let him! I dont need him, I dont give a toss anymore!'

A few weeks later, DP. Doctors said, 'Well havnt you heard of POST-STRESS?' Is this what it is? Did anyone else have stress before these great memories? Or were they both caused my cannibis alone?


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## somachinaski87 (Jan 15, 2011)

With me it is bizarre because there are so many times where I go out somewhere and spend most of the time worrying about if I am gonna get DR or have an attack so it is hard to enjoy the moment. However when I think back to lots of those times, I realise that some of them were actually brilliant times and that I wish I could relive them. I also find that several months ago I was happy but thought my DR/Anxiety was bad, but I would give anything to return to that period because I was much happier. However I have had DR since I was 14 and I have had some of the best times of my life within this time when it wasnt so bad etc.


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