# Right after surgery...



## julie13 (Oct 6, 2005)

Hey everyone...

I am new to this site, but just finding all of you here with the exact same thoughts and fears as me is so comforting, even though im not sure if any of you are real, or if this website is real, or what is real??? those are the questions i ponder every day. However, I never had this until a few months ago. Strangely it all started after i had a knee surgery. Prior to that, I led a great life, had tons of friends, a loving (although broken) family, and had just received my masters degree. Strangely, a few days after this surgery, nothing seemed real to me. I started wondering if maybe I really died during the surgery and this is some sort of hell im stuck in. I then started to wonder if i ever existed or if anybody around me is real. The thing that keeps me going though, is the hope that i will be normal again one day. See the thing is, even if nothing was real before the surgery, I had no concept of these things, and i led a great life. So If i have no concept again of it one day, then that will be just fine with me, and if you believe that things are real, they will be real. That is what im hoping for one day. For the time being, I will think of this as an educational experience, and one day, when i am normal again, life will be better than it ever has been before, i will be stronger and more appreciative of the things around me. I hope this helps, and again, its great to know that im not alone.


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## Guest (Oct 6, 2005)

*Hola,
You're not alone here. I would venture that the drugs administered before or durning your sugery set off your DP. One thing you will find here is that there are many (but certainly not all) that first noticed the DP after some sort of drug usage. One thing that you should know is that if you really believe you have DP...prepare for an odd journey that will indeed challenge your very sense of logic, reason, and reality. At times it will be very difficult, but with some individualized coping and "grounding" skills, you can continue to achiece success in your life. The trick here is to remember that YOU WILL BE O.K., and yes sometimes..."tis' darkest before the dawn", but life is a series of challenges and learning experiences anyway. Be BRAVE and know that there are others who have been where you are, and are here to try to help. If I/we can be of any help please either "post it" or feel free to e-mail.

Regards,

Tony *


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## julie13 (Oct 6, 2005)

Thank you,

Just knowing you guys are here is extremely comforting. I was so excited to finally find a way to describe my feelings that i called my mother and told her to check out this site. When she did, she said, OH my God, I experienced this same thing when I was...23...same age as me! She said it passed so hopefully the same will happen for me. I look forward to meeting everyone in here and helping people, as well as gaining help for myself. Thanks again.


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## Martinelv (Aug 10, 2004)

Julie - you might care to read a book by Peter Carey, called 'Bliss'. It's about a bloke who goes into hospital and wakes up after surgery thinking he is in hell. Not in the fire and brimstone way, but in the way that he has 'woken up' to all the spitefulness and vitriol in life.


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## LISA NICHOLS (Sep 3, 2005)

hi julie

yeah i have had dp/dr since i were 6/7 and its only recently i too have found this site im now 27!!!!

all them years of hell i went through were unreal (litrally!! lol dp/dr)

im happy you found this site hope things improve for you
take care
xxx
lisa
xxx


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## murderroutine (Oct 22, 2005)

I think I had derealization for like a week when I was like fifteen but it really got me after I had a major surgery, when I was eighteen. I'm twenty one now, so, what's that? like..three years.

So, we're kind of in the same boat


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## Guest (Oct 28, 2005)

A strange thing happened to my son after he had general anesthetic. He was put under for a short time in order to have a fracture set (no surgery) and when he came to he had two or three shots of morphine while I was present. Then I took him home. Afterward, he was sick for four months, which nobody could explain - migraines, vomiting after eating anything, lethargy, weakness, he couldn't even go on our trip to Disneyworld 3 months after the anesthetic. He missed four months of school. Everyone asked me if it was psychological, which I don't believe it was. As he started to get better, he sat entrance exams for a private school for gifted kids and immediately skipped two grades (gr. 6 to gr. eight). He slowly revived though he had a couple of relapses. None of the doctors would believe me about his symptoms, so getting answers from them was out of the question. I tried some alternate therapists, but should have tried harder. He's fine now, but has always been sensitive to things and I am very sensitive to all drugs, I can't even drink alcohol now or have any in a dessert - I act and feel drunk from the tiniest amount. So I think some people are way too sensitive to brain chemistry-altering substances.


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## LISA NICHOLS (Sep 3, 2005)

that is soooooooooooooooo true!!

i amm petrified of being put under as i know it will effect me big time


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## timdha (Jun 21, 2006)

julie13 said:


> though im not sure if any of you are real, or if this website is real, or what is real??? those are the questions i ponder every day.


Ditto with me! I ponder these questions pretty much every waking minute, and can't stop thinking about it, though these days, it's more in the background of my thoughts than it previously was.



> Strangely it all started after i had a knee surgery.


Hello, sister! I had dp/dr following a surgery too, though mine seemed to be at its most intense weeks after the surgery. But there might be something with the surgery related drugs that has not yet been discovered or at least acknowledged. Maybe because there's so few people who respond to them the way you and I presumably did.

Anyway, I did reply to one of you other posts. I just wanted to reply to this one because I jumped and someone stating they went through dp/dr post-surgery. Good luck with everything!


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## Xu (May 6, 2006)

Interesting, I never really thought much about my hospitalization because I'd had problems before it too. (for essentially my whole life)

When I was 16 I was in a coma for a couple weeks and had one of my jugular veins surgically removed to halt my disease. When I woke up I didn't know I had been unconscious for 2 weeks, I thought I woke up the day after surgery. I also didn't know how intense my surgery was. Apparently I was also in a drug induced coma after I had woken up. I was awake for some time that I have no memory of, during which I tried to rip out my surgery drainage tube and IVs, as well as physically attacked my aunt and nurses. Many doctors were needed to hold me down, and they ended up stitching my arm to a board to hold my IVs in. I do have one visual memory of that part.

I have no idea why I did that. I wish I could remember.

When I woke up for real in the hospital, my first moments after the dreamy ones felt incredibly CLEAR. I felt like I was floating around the whole time. Everything was clear, and I was just floating around mentally watching things. For a while afterward, everything felt weird and rushed. Like I could feel time physically pulling me foreward. Like wind. It wasn't actually bad, but now a few years after the surgery & illness I wonder if my brain suffered irrepairable damage. I had blood clots in my brain and well..everywhere. And what with all the drugs and the coma. This happened at the same time I withdrew cold turkey from paxil and trazodone.

I started to wonder a while after this if it was causing me to change, like I couldn't go back to how I was before because it was becoming impossible. But most of the time I just completely ignore it and don't even remember the experience itself.


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