# Feeling better... somewhat.



## nytesprite (Dec 3, 2005)

As the subject states, I've been feeling a little bit better the last few days. I'm not gripped with panic the way I was last week at this time, but I do still feel a lot of anxiety. Yesterday I'd been sitting playing a computer game for a couple of hours (I get drawn into those things sometimes) and I started feeling strange. I can't adequately describe it, just that things felt... off. I figured I just needed a break and got up and started doing things. It took a bit, but I started to feel better. Then again today, I just felt off most of the day. I'm starting to wonder if I'm getting depressed now. I've been taking 25mg of Zoloft a day for 8 days now, and I'm wondering if it's working so hard to battle the anxiety that it's starting to swing things in the opposite direction. I still feel strange inside my own body at times, but I don't know if I can call it DP or DR -- it feels a little different than before. Before, I had this detachment that was almost a physical feeling in my head. I'm not really getting that anymore, but I do still ask myself all the big questions like what the point of life is and all the big existential type stuff. I've been to two therapists so far (trying to test a couple of them out) that were about two opposite ends of the spectrum. The first was a social worker who mentioned that she thought it wasn't really important what had caused my anxiety in the first place (I disagree -- I think it's very important to find the cause), and suggested lots of alternative healing methods like hypnotism, acupuncture, vitamins, yoga, and "tapping on medians," whatever that means. Honestly, I'm trying to be open-minded, but I don't want to go to a guru who's just going to tell me to meditate and eat funky roots until I feel better. I want to really talk my problems out with someone who's going to have active input and train me how to start thinking differently.

The second therapist was a psychologist with a very, very bare office. I think it's because she works out of a couple of different locations depending on the day of the week, but I was sitting in a hard chair and she was sitting behind a desk. It wasn't the usual therapist's office with carpet and couches and armchairs and the like. The atmosphere just didn't feel very relaxed. Also, when I admitted to still having unresolved feelings for my ex (we broke up three years ago and have both since relocated to opposite ends of the country but still keep in touch via phone and email), she started talking about obsessions and fatal attraction. So part of the day today I started thinking about my ex, wondering if I actually was obsessed with him, and that started freaking me out. I've noticed that I have an obsessive thought pattern, so to speak. I don't become obsessed with people or things (I don't watch the same movie or read the same book over and over again, and I only talk to the aforementioned ex once a week or so on the phone, and while I miss him, it's not crippling for me if I don't talk to him), but when I get a thought in my head that bothers me or worries me for any reason, I tend to withdraw into myself and think about nothing else for a few hours, to the point where I get myself all worked up with worry about it. (Now I'm obsessing over my obsessive thoughts, see?) The whole thing makes me dizzy and I do still get scared that I'm just going insane.

I made a second appointment with each therapist, although I'm not crazy about either of them. I can't afford to see both (my insurance only allows 33 visits per year, and that's going to run out fast if I see both of them), but I don't know if I should just pick one and stick with it or go back to the drawing board and choose yet another therapist to start all over with again. I'm starting to feel hopeless, like I'm never going to feel truly like myself again.


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## coffeecup (Jun 29, 2008)

ignore the docs and the social workers.. basicly they havent got a clue about our illness

try and find a decent doc , phone round if necessary and find someone who has at least a bit of expereince in this illness

the main drugs that seem to work for some people are a mix of :

cipramil (celexa in the states i think)
clonazepam 
lamotrigine (250mg or over)

thye doses of cipramil and clonaz seem to differ from person to person, but the lamotrigine dosage seems to be the minimum before people respond

if you want backup tell the docs to get papers by sachdev and sierra of kings college london ... after all you pay em enough! 

best of luck!


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## nytesprite (Dec 3, 2005)

Thanks for your reply. Honestly, the last few weeks seem to have gone by so fast, and yet, New Year's feels like forever ago. I'm feeling so much better these days. The Zoloft has been working wonders on me, and I take the clonazepam every now and then. It's strange the way these feelings crop up suddenly for me, and somehow they seem to vanish almost as quickly as they came. I wish I could share the "strategy" of how I started to get better with everyone, but I'm not sure it'd do any good. My DP/DR has always seemed to come in short spurts, although when it happens, it's awfully severe. For me, anyway, I think the biggest key is acceptance. I've tried to accept it as part of who I am. It's happened to me many times before, and I'm sure it'll happen again, but this time I've recovered much, much faster than I have in the past. It gives me hope that the next time around, I'll be able to chase it away rather quickly. Thumbing my nose at DP and refusing to do battle with it has taken away all of its power over me. In my case, anyway, ignorance truly is bliss.


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## invisible.ink (Feb 2, 2007)

nytesprite-
I'm on a combo of Zoloft and clonazepam and it is working well for me. I'm not DP free but it is manageable. I'll also be starting lamictal (lamotrigine) soon so I'll see how that works out.
I'm glad you're feel a tad better.


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## Matt210 (Aug 15, 2004)

Really glad to hear you are doing better! I was actually going to PM you to day since I had not heard from you in a while. Wish I could say the same about doing better, but hopefully soon enough.

Regarding ignorance being bliss: this is absolutely the truth when it comes to DP and anxiety. When we get into these self-monitoring states we try and make ourselves and our world feel certain ways that they could never feel.

I also did nothing of particular relevance when I got better other than just live my life. The questions of "Does this feel real" became less and less important. I just became involved in "reality" again. At first when I would still answer no to the question "Does this feel real" - but I would ask myself less and less. Suddenly one day I stopped asking and things were back to normal. There was never any moment of snapping back to reality - because I was never outside of reality.

DP/DR is an illusion. That's not to say it doesn't exist - we all have a condition. But the condition involves nothing more than a change in perception due to become too self-aware.

Enjoy life!! Hope you keep getting better and better.


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## nytesprite (Dec 3, 2005)

I think you're absolutely right about all of it. When I first started coming here, I swore up and down that if I ever got better, I'd come back and help other people out of it, because I know what it is to be stuck in the hell that is DP, and how badly I wanted to be out of it. The unfortunate thing is, we all come from different places in life. Our experiences are different, our struggles are different, our body chemistries are different. So no drug, therapy, or frame of mind is going to work for everyone. With the few people I trusted with this awful "secret" (I figured most people would think I was just going crazy), their advice was always the same: forget it, ignore it, get over it. In a manner of speaking, they were completely right. But that very simple advice tends to fall on deaf ears to someone who's embroiled in it. How in the world can you forget something that consumes your every thought and feeling? To a person in the depths of DP/DR, it's about as easy as a blind person simply "convincing" themselves to see again.

It didn't happen overnight. There was no one moment that everything "snapped" back into focus for me. When I was feeling at my worst, I always wondered how I'd even know when "reality" crept back in. But I think what I've come to realize is that DP/DR isn't the loss of reality, despite how it may make us feel. It's more of a film that lays over reality, making it impossible to see. And from what I've found, the only way to get past it is to relax the stranglehold we attempt to grip on reality, almost the way you let your eyes slide out of focus when you're just staring off into space.

I know it's not the same for everyone. For me, this thing has always been temporary, but I know that so many people live with it day in and day out for years. If I could even try to give advice to any of those people, I'd recommend that you try not to let this thing become part of your identity. The more you consider this thing as part of who you are, the harder it's going to be to get it to leave. Search however long it takes until you find the thing that works for you, no matter how ridiculous it may sound. I would have chewed glass if someone told me it would make me better. In the end, I'm sure most of us would agree that the most important thing is to feel like ourselves again, no matter what it takes to get there.

So I'm back in my own skin again. I don't know how long it'll last, but I don't concern myself with that. At this point, I'm just trying to live life as I always have and be appreciative of every moment that I still feel "normal." I don't pretend to know what anyone else is going through, but I remain convinced that most, if not all of us, are capable of getting back to that place. I'm not sure if I can help, but I'm extending an open invitation to anyone who'd like to share their experiences, ask for feedback or advice, or just have someone to relate to. I'd like to make good on the promise I made myself years ago.


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## Matt210 (Aug 15, 2004)

I always wanted to come back with the 'secret' for everyone else too. But you are right - there isn't one. And while support and reassurance are so important and helpful, getting better is something we have to do on our own.

But it sounds like you've gotten things sorted out for yourself and I am glad. Particularly glad it was a short episode for you. I don't even feel like i've hit rock bottom yet let alone started the climb back up.

But you made some very good points there, points that everyone should read.


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