# My Story of recovery *repost*



## 13erger (Jun 11, 2007)

My original post of this has received almost 5000 views, as well as earned me dozens of IM conversations and new buddies on my buddy list ( i need a section that just says DP/DR lol ). people still PM me about this every now and then, and im not often on the forums anymore. But basically , I just wanted to repost this in a different section so some people aren't missing it. I've seemed to of been able to help more then a handful of people out just chatting on aim. Again, if anyone needs to talk to me about this my screen name is x5h4n3grla, or you can email me at [email protected]. Heres hoping I reach more people and make difference in their lives...

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Hello, my name is Shane and im 18, and I'm here to tell you about how I seemingly conquered my DP/DR. I've decided to post this on the " start here" forum because so many who are new to the disorder come to this board by panic. I look through the threads and see topics with simple greetings as titles or " HELP!", usually followed on the inside by a person's desperation and confusion to this new and life altering feeling. My DP/DR ( like so many) was induced my smoking Marijuana. I was 16 when I was first afflicted with the disorder. I had been pretty new to smoking marijuana, Probably for about a month I smoked it quite a bit. The DP/DR didn't set in until about a week without smoking. I remember I slept over a friend's house that night. I woke up and felt very strange. I felt as if I was in a waking dream. I immediately went home from the panic. And I just remember crying and feeling really confused as to what was going on. From that moment forward I would suffer with severe anxiety and panic for about the next 3 months( after those 3 months I began to calm down and just sort of suffered "normally", I felt very afflicted by the disorder for about a year and 8 months). I barely ate, I questioned my sanity nearly every second of the day, but sleep came very easy to me. Sleep was almost an escape my brain had from the terrible feeling. The minute i got the opportunity to sleep, i would near instantly fall into a deep slumber. I remember what really set off my panic about the feeling was searching on the internet my symptoms, and coming up with " marijuana induced psychosis". I didn't find out about what this disorder really was for almost a month. Then I stumbled upon this forum and felt very relieved. The assurance from hundreds of people that i WAS NOT GOING CRAZY, and so many others felt the same feelings as I did. Thats the most important thing to remember, you WILL NOT go crazy. A crazy person cannot watch them self go mad, a crazy person doesn't know they're crazy.
For me personally, I found that my derealization was a vicious behavior of thought, more so than it was an uncontrollable affliction. I suffered mostly from derealization than depersonalization. I remember with derealization, i would just be going around town to places I'd been in the past over a hundred times and could only concentrate on how " different" they felt. I felt as though nothing had the same FEELING as it did before. It's the strangest thing to describe. For me, every environment I'm in has a distinct feeling about it. And I found with Derealization these feelings were getting sort of mis matched and crossed over. I would feel feelings about places I had had in the past. Say being in the grocery store, I would have the grocery store FEELING I had when i was like 11 and I would recognize this at my present age thinking " why am I feeling like that?". This is all a mouthful to really describe. Nearly everything I suffered from was of an obsessive nature. When watching TV i wouldn't know where to focus my eyes. When walking i wouldn't know what to do with my arms. Alot of little things were blown out of proportion and made big things. I felt like I couldn't stop paying attention to these little things. I remember once i had a cell phone in the dark and it was lighting up and then i moved it and got scared that the " trail" of the cell phone lasted too long and that i was going crazy. Any kind of little nit picky thing to be worried about you could imagine, I probably had it.
After a while though, I realized that my reason for all these terrible feelings and thoughts were attributed to my own way of thinking. I had basically trained myself to think REALLY REALLY deep into everything because i thought I was going crazy. The reasons places felt different to me, was because I was always trying to make sure they didn't feel different! These feelings about your environment aren't supposed to be THOUGHT of, they are just supposed to be felt! If you spend your days " testing" to see if your still feeling DR/DP then you will! It's when you stop thinking about the disorder and these horrible feelings that you finally began to realize that it has been a vicious cycle your brain has put itself in. I'm not saying DP/DR is " all in your head" because my friends used to tell me that and it used to really piss me off. I know that its a real affliction, and then thousands of people suffer from it. But it's main source is Anxiety. Anxiety CAUSES DP/DR, and obsessive thoughts cause Anxiety. the whole ordeal is a circle of confusion and suffering. People say you can get to the end of a road. It's a straight line. But a circle is continuous, always looping and looping and looping. The same cycles of waking up in the morning looking around your room hoping " Oh maybe today is the day!" then after a few seconds you say " no I guess not..". Then you go to the bathroom to brush your teeth and look into the mirror, and you look at yourself and think " how could I have been so stupid ( angry at myself for smoking marijuanna). and going about your day questioning your sanity, always entranced in your own thoughts letting the days pass by you. A circle looks infinite. But thats what you need to over come. Breaking that circle. And its more of a " chipping" motion than one giant swing of a hammer. I remember one of my first moments of progression was when I was supposed to go with a friend out of state for a trip or something of the sort. And instead of waking up thinking " am i still have DR" it was " OH CRAP IM LATE!". My friend and his parents were to be at my house in about 10 minutes and I had just woken up. I was so focused on brushing my teeth and showering and everything really quick that I didn't even think of DR/DP! not until I got in the car at least, and then went on with the daily routine of my DR. But the lesson is, you need to engulf yourself with things to do in your life. You need to keep busy. Once you can break that terrible way of thinking by concentrating on other things then your near cured! I'm not saying im DP/DR FREE. I still have it at times, when im stressed out or really over tired. But it seems to appear now at more appropirate times in my life. You will never get past this disorder if you are constantly thinking about how you think, and thinking about your brain as if it is a seperate being from yourself. We are our brains! And by you the brain thinking you arn't your brain trying to think about what your brain is thinking even though your thinking it because your your brain is going to drive someone mad with confusion! Now for those of you new to this thinking " oh no i can't stop thinking about it, I'll never be cured", just relax. It's not about forcing yourself to stop thinking about it, it's about engaging yourself in your life again. The anxiety will be extreme at times, and you need to cope with that anyway ( in reason) you can to find alleviation. I found that being around friends often was a good way to take my mind off of it. Even if you arn't thinking about it for even 2 minutes, thats still a step forward! That 2 minute break works wonders for yourself. and more and more that 2 minutes will be 4 minutes. and then 8 minutes. and it will just keep climbing up in its duration until you realize " Hey! I feel great! I have DR sometimes, but who cares! its nothing i can't handle!".
This was my way of finding salvation from this terrible disorder, If anyone ever needs someone to talk to about this or ask any questions feel free to Instant Messeage me. x5h4n3grla is my screen name. I hope this has been a help to some of you.


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## samling (Apr 7, 2008)

Well-written post, and I agree with everything you say in it. Essentially it becomes habitual to check in on your surroundings to make sure everything's ship-shape. However, when you really sit there and look at your hand or a magazine on the table and try to think about how it's really right there in front of you, you are only entrenching yourself further in the endless cycle of self-checks, which really only makes it worse. I do agree that things are supposed to be felt, and that we're not meant to ruminate over how real that pencil is on the desk, but rather to simply know that it is. I'm beginning to wonder if some of the famous philosophers throughout history were afflicted with DP/DR in some way, as a lot of the thoughts are fairly existential in nature.

I'm glad you've made a lengthy recovery. However, I'm not sure it's fair to yourself to say that you _have_ DP/DR and that it's hanging around all the time - rather, you may experience those symptoms now in short periods, perhaps when you suddenly remember that you were experiencing it more a while ago and begin to get anxious about it, but it seems that now you've learned on your own to control that anxiety and to not fear the symptoms it brings on.

Very inspiring!


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## 13erger (Jun 11, 2007)

" I'm not sure it's fair to yourself to say that you have DP/DR and that it's hanging around all the time "

is that in there? I typed this up months and months ago. i didnt go through it a second time. I should probably edit that, thats not what i meant to convey...

thanks for the feedback!


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## samling (Apr 7, 2008)

Bergman said:


> " I'm not sure it's fair to yourself to say that you have DP/DR and that it's hanging around all the time "
> 
> is that in there? I typed this up months and months ago. i didnt go through it a second time. I should probably edit that, thats not what i meant to convey...
> 
> thanks for the feedback!


Well, not in those words precisely, but the sentence "Hey! I feel great! I have DR sometimes, but who cares! its nothing i can't handle!" seemed at first as though you were implying that DR would never leave, but that you could just get through the day by not worrying about it - on re-reading that section though, I realize that you meant for people to be able to say that while in the recovery stages, not after it's gone. My bad. 

Anyway, I thought I'd post again and say that your story is remarkably similar to mine, although mine was not marijuana-induced, but rather just the build-up of a lot of stress that showed itself once I got back to school after Spring break (the worries were school-related, mostly about grades and doing well in general and such). It's also been about exactly 5 weeks from the onset to what now appears to be my almost complete recovery. The methodology you described in your own recovery versus mine is almost exactly the same, though. I eventually just learned to stop worrying about it, engaging myself in other things and hanging out with my friends and just accepting that it's an anxiety defense mechanism. Never had DP too bad, just DR really, and once you realize you're not alone and that other people are having the same darn irrational thoughts, it becomes easier to not believe those thoughts.

Also, to anyone else reading this still stuck in the vicious circle of self-perpetuating anxiety-fueled thoughts, one thing that really helped me was thinking the word "STOP" very loudly when a thought I knew was irrational came to my head. It's sort of like practicing cognitive behavioral therapy on yourself, and if you get into the habit of just stopping the thoughts when they come, rather than acknowledging the thoughts and getting into a habit of checking everything, things get easier.

Great post man. I really feel as though we're two prime examples of how everyone here can beat these awful symptoms.


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## MasterMind. (May 9, 2008)

OMG. =( You described me 99%! I couldn't have said it better.


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## utterlyadrift23 (Feb 7, 2009)

I have intense derealization. And my problem with this is, for as long as I am awake I am constantly reminded of the problems that I have. I don't believe it's a mindset (although I could be wrong) but everything looks different in a way. It doesn't look normal. Not that it has changed in shape or form but I just don't understand how you're supposed to forget about it or avoid since you will see it so long as you are awake....

So how are you supposed to forget about it?


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## Cathal_08 (Apr 7, 2008)

Bergman said:


> My DP/DR ( like so many) was induced my smoking Marijuana. I was 16 when I was first afflicted with the disorder. I had been pretty new to smoking marijuana, Probably for about a month I smoked it quite a bit. The DP/DR didn't set in until about a week without smoking. From that moment forward I would suffer with severe anxiety and panic for about the next 3 months( after those 3 months I began to calm down and just sort of suffered "normally", I felt very afflicted by the disorder for about a year and 8 months).


almost identical to how i got it, started smokin a bit of weed for about two months then stopped completely and then about 2 week later got DP(of course didnt knw what it was at the time). i was 16 and now im 17 and had it 1 year and 5 months.

but am glad your better now man, im doin pretty good myself and understand the condition and am doing good and gettin lots of days of feeling back in reality and normal, its only matter of time before i recover, but i have patience.


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