# Levels of Depersonalisation / Derealisation



## misteralex (Nov 11, 2015)

Hello all! My name is Alex, and what a wonderful community we appear to have here! I have been living with DP / DR for 4 years now, and only just discovered what it was about 6 weeks ago. My story is what I would imagine to be rather typical, yet I've not heard of anyone actually experiencing it like this....and I think I've discovered the next level down of this awful brain 'surge protection' syndrome.

So...where to start.....well, I was a massive workaholic and worked for a theatre company and was an actor, teacher, workshop leader, composer etc and I was working 80 hour weeks. I took literally NO time for myself at all, and one day after a particularly energetic (I was constantly pushing my energy levels beyond my own mental means) and tough job with a lot riding on it, I had this bizarre funny turn in the reception of the school I was working in that day. My eyes crossed of their own volition for like 30 seconds, and I felt like I was going to fall over.... After this I noticed that I felt really kind of spacey, but just thought it was because I was tired. Now, I'd already listened to ASMR (they weren't called that then) / whisper videos for relaxation for sleep for a very long time, and on the night of my almost what felt like a stroke of sorts, I put in my usual earphones to listen to soothing whispers....and that was when I knew something was wrong. All of a sudden, my hearing was...almost spacey. Like I could hear the words and everything, but I couldn't LISTEN to them like I previously naturally had, and it sounded like it was very far away for some reason. I thought maybe, it's because I was extremely tired, and I left it at that, and then kept going for about a week, before having a day off work, and time to myself and realising that something really was NOT right. I thought I had had some form of stroke and gone literally brain dead! I just couldn't think or feel or anything anymore. I felt like I was living my life from down the bottom of a well. I thought my eyes were broken too. Like they weren't focused properly and everything just looked...wrong. It felt like maybe if I crossed my eyes again slightly (but not too far), life would look slightly sharper...but not really. I had an aversion to bright lights, like I remember going into the supermarket and just HATING the over bearing artificial light, and it made me really panic!!! I went to the doctors about this, and I described my symptoms as feeling functionally brain dead and dizzy.... but to no avail. Little did I know at the time, but I didn't actually feel 'dizzy' but it was the only way I could describe my severe feeling of unreality. Over a period of 3 months, of which I didn't go to work, I stared at a wall and basically lived a real primitive life waiting between appointments.... I had an MRI scan, they put me on anti-depressants, I went to get my eyes checked out, I even at one point had such a panic attack that I thought I was having a heart attack and went to the emergency room!

NO-ONE knew what was wrong with me, and I just thought 'Oh crap, this is it! I've broken myself for good...'

THEN....I discovered co-codamol; 2 x 30mg Codeine / 500mg Paracetamol 3 times a day (6 a day, which I never went over) which gave me a little lift, and eventually through will power and drug use, I decided to go back to work....powered by a painkiller addiction. A year later, I discovered tramadol (2 x 50mg tablets 3 times a day - I never upped the dose), which made me feel like I'd got my life back together again.....Two years passed of me just killing myself AGAIN doing far too many hours and running off energy from 6 cocodamol and 6 tramadol and a day that I didn't have (energy, not tablets!) and still feeling ridiculously unreal, and me thinking that it was probably just the tablets...that was until about 7 months ago, when my body and mind made a FURTHER intervention.... Little did I know, but there is a DEEPER level of DP / DR and let me tell you, it makes the initial stages seem like an absolute picnic....

I will tell you, I'd given up on myself as a functioning individual and a member of society. I spent what felt like my entire life just 'pretending' to be a person, and working so hard and never introspecting because of the tablets. I would walk to work on my own most days feeling a sense of motivation and life from the tablets, that would last an hour...the rest of my day was a living nightmare. Only the first dose of the day seemed to do anything, - everything else just didn't even seem to touch me to tell you the truth...

So...back to the story....I felt constantly agitated, and in an almost unlivable state in between doses and I figured that this was because of the fact that I wasn't upping the dosage of the tablets I was taking, and I'd got used to them, so I decided to slowly taper, and then I just stopped both of them cold turkey, and had about 1 week of horrendous withdrawal from two separate drugs, and then a further 2 weeks of hardly sleeping, I was finally out of the woods.....Or so I would like to have thought.... I STILL felt this constant discomfort and agitation and lack of focus that was DEBILITATING AS HELL. I took one of each of the drugs to test if it was still withdrawal, and it really wasn't, - they didn't get rid of the physical agitation, they just made me feel....well, slightly high, but there was literally NO ESCAPE. This devastated me beyond words, and I went back to the doctors and told them that I just couldn't live how I'm living anymore, and you need to do something about this....which was met with a look of indifference and a reference to a mental hospital.

In these dark weeks, I researched and researched and researched brain deadness, and finally came across something that sounded like it could possibly be the affliction that I had been suffering for for 4 years - Depersonalisation and Derealisation. Finally, an answer!

But here is where we are right now....I STILL have DP / DR, but the unreality thing is not an actual entity, so I've gotten grips with that. After my initial 'stroke' like moment (my brain's been checked with an MRI - it's fine - and it wasn't a stroke, it's just I don't know what you would call an attack like that) I could sit and stare at nothing for hours, and was frustrated at my lack of functionality, but was happy to sit and stare....

NOW what happens to me is this:

*I have a constant tremor in my jaw if I let it relax, and in my hands.

*I have a constant physical anxiety that doesn't show itself as panic attacks, but rather as a feeling of utter discomfort - I have CONSTANT chest tightness (had my chest and heart checked out and it's all fine) It doesn't get better as such (it's less noticeable when I'm REALLY tired...which is early...I'll explain that in a second), it doesn't get (too much) worse, it just stays there ALL THE TIME. When I wake up it's the absolute worst, almost like the act of being awake is too much for my mind. I can lie there for an hour watching Impractical Jokers on my iPad to escape the feeling (by absolutely forcing myself) and then I just have to get out of bed, and from that point on, I just can't focus on a damn thing in my life. I make tea, I put on a TV show, I call up my parents to tell them how I feel, I walk (with someone else - I just can't do it alone.)

*I CANNOT MAKE ANY FORM OF DECISION! Right now, after finishing this, I will panic because I just don't know what to do next to keep the discomfort and sense of my own heart beat away.

*I pace backwards and forwards for up to an hour at a time throughout the day.

*I try various escapism, but the ONLY thing I can seem to focus anything on is researching my illness...

*I have the propensity and mental cognitive functioning to sit around and do nothing, however physically, my body and mind just won't let me do this. I feel like my life is one big torture chamber! Every day is like an actual physical challenge to get through....and if I'm honest, I don't know how I'm still alive.

* I have no wants or needs at all. I try to play a video game and I can't focus on it, I go to the cinema - same story - I try to talk to friends and people and I can't even follow the conversation anymore. I'm living a life where I can't watch anything, read anything, talk to anyone and I can't stay bloody still either - I just don't know what to do with my days EVER, so I just follow my Mom and Dad around, and jump from forcing myself to do one thing for 30 minutes, and then forcing myself to do something else!!!

*I get tired stupidly easily...although this is currently my best friend. By 4 o clock every day, I start to feel so depersonalised and derealised (it never goes away, it just gets worse when tired) that it's almost a comfort to me to be in that position as my physical anxiety doesn't lessen, but it is less pronounced.

*I'm 27 and I live with my parents. If I did not, I would have definitely killed myself by now because of this horrendous state of living...

*If I don't articulate, it feels like my speech should naturally be very VERY slurry

Has anyone else ever gotten to this deeper stage of DP / DR? What the hell is it!?!??! Has anyone ever heard of anyone getting to this stage? I've been prescribed an SNRI anti depressant by a general NHS psychiatrist - Mirtazapine - and my first night taking it is tonight. A few weeks ago, I tried to go back onto citalopram (from a selection I had BEFORE I slipped into this new stage of DP / DR), but after one 20mg tablet, I was just pacing backwards and forwards in my house at 20 miles per hour for almost 8 hours none stop. I couldn't sit still - I just went running around my block lots.

I can't find ANYTHING ANYWHERE about what is happening to me, and I simply can't live in this state! Don't worry, I'm not ACTUALLY going to kill myself or anything anymore....not yet anyway - I need to know I've tried EVERYTHING to get rid of it. Apparently the best way to heal from this is to live you life and not ruminate on your illness, but I am in such a bad way that no matter WHAT I try, I can't get out of this.... I've even tried going back to work and FORCING myself to act like I'm fine like I did, and I even tried to convince myself I was, but it just doesn't seem to do for me what it did.......I am well and truly screwed... I'm currently trying mindfulness exercises, but it just feels like trying to will away a runny nose - what do I do? Has anyone heard of this before?

DP / DR happened when my brain went 'too much stress, I'm switching off' - I then carried on feeding it stress for 4 years until my body FORCED me to stop...and now I have, I'm living through a waking nightmare! Any ideas would be so appreciated, so much so that you might even save a life....

I can't even tell you how thankful I would be for responses and suggestions to this.

Love and light xxx


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## montrealcanadiens1996 (Sep 18, 2015)

Hi I've been living through extremely similar circumstances as you. I feel as if my cognitive abilities have been diminished and that I can stare into space and feel extremely comfortable and peaceful. I also understand the struggle of not being able to concentrate and escape,through movies due to my lack of ability to concentrate. The feeling of being brain dead and having no will are extremely difficult. What I do to stay afloat is spend time around people I love and try to do things that make me feel a bit better even though the experience is nowhere as good and intense as it used to be. I try and cherish every moment and every little positive emotion. I am also going to start going to cognitive behavioral therapy which might help me. I really believe that this has happened to us because of a surplus of emotion and stimuli we have had in our lives and our mind is protecting itself to give our mind a rest. I think that when your are prone to DP/DR you drugs and medications can make it worse which could have happened to you with the meds you took. Finding a way out is very difficult but attainable, I will never lose hope and I really hope that you won't either. There is always light at the end of the tunnel.


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## inferentialpolice (Nov 26, 2012)

Contact one of these two UK places to arrange for an assessment of your dissociation:

http://clinicds.co.uk/

http://www.dissociation.co.uk/

If I were you, I would consider only those two places, or perhaps someplace that one of those two places referred you to.

Also, consider what this UK organization has to say:

http://www.pods-online.org.uk/index.php


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