# I can't handle this



## feministcat (May 4, 2010)

I'm so obsessive I can't handle taking meds. I started Lamictal on Monday and I've been so scared of getting worse or possible side effects that I've worked myself into terror. I'm worried about everything and I keep thinking what if this what if that.. If Lamictal was a 100 percent cure for DP I would keep taking it, but it doesn't seem like that many people have really recovered by taking Lamictal. Well, at least not here or if they have they just don't post anymore. I've only been taking it for 3 days, but I have headaches and weird feelings in my head which could all be from anxiety. I keep thinking what if this med freaks me out more? What if I have to quit taking it and I have worse symptoms or some kind of withdrawal from it? I just can't handle anything getting worse. I feel safer with what I'm used to feeling even though it sucks than making myself go through this. So screw it. I'm not going to take these pills anymore. Now I'm going to be freaked that I'm going to have some weird symptoms from stopping it even though I've only been on it for 3 days. I'm such a mess. Someone please tell me they understand... I feel like such a freak sometimes.


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## insaticiable (Feb 23, 2010)

feministcat said:


> I'm so obsessive I can't handle taking meds. I started Lamictal on Monday and I've been so scared of getting worse or possible side effects that I've worked myself into terror. I'm worried about everything and I keep thinking what if this what if that.. If Lamictal was a 100 percent cure for DP I would keep taking it, but it doesn't seem like that many people have really recovered by taking Lamictal. Well, at least not here or if they have they just don't post anymore. I've only been taking it for 3 days, but I have headaches and weird feelings in my head which could all be from anxiety. I keep thinking what if this med freaks me out more? What if I have to quit taking it and I have worse symptoms or some kind of withdrawal from it? I just can't handle anything getting worse. I feel safer with what I'm used to feeling even though it sucks than making myself go through this. So screw it. I'm not going to take these pills anymore. Now I'm going to be freaked that I'm going to have some weird symptoms from stopping it even though I've only been on it for 3 days. I'm such a mess. Someone please tell me they understand... I feel like such a freak sometimes.


Feministcat, you are definitely NOT a freak!! Only expressing valid concerns which is totally understandable. I had a similar response to Anafranil which I took for 2 days about 3 weeks ago. Had to stop it as it made me feel weird to say the least, and also made my arms and legs feel stiff...like I had to think about how I was going to stand up or walk. If Lamictal is making things worse, then you as a patient, ALWAYS have the option to stop it. Take that in consideration. Best of luck, my friend.


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## feministcat (May 4, 2010)

insaticiable said:


> Feministcat, you are definitely NOT a freak!! Only expressing valid concerns which is totally understandable. I had a similar response to Anafranil which I took for 2 days about 3 weeks ago. Had to stop it as it made me feel weird to say the least, and also made my arms and legs feel stiff...like I had to think about how I was going to stand up or walk. If Lamictal is making things worse, then you as a patient, ALWAYS have the option to stop it. Take that in consideration. Best of luck, my friend.


Thanks insaticiable.. I have decided I'm not going to keep taking it and that if I want to I can always give it another go. It's so hard to deal with medication issues, and I hate passing up the chance of feeling better, but sometimes what is familiar is so much safer feeling because I know what to expect. Thanks for affirming my option to stop it.


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## Kpanic (Sep 12, 2010)

feministcat said:


> Thanks insaticiable.. I have decided I'm not going to keep taking it and that if I want to I can always give it another go. It's so hard to deal with medication issues, and I hate passing up the chance of feeling better, but sometimes what is familiar is so much safer feeling because I know what to expect. Thanks for affirming my option to stop it.


Did you start taking Lamictal for the DP/DR benefit, or do you really need a mood stabilizer? Big difference in the afore mentioned as to stopping it.


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## ValleyGirl (Nov 10, 2017)

I will tell you a truth that I've learned over the year I've had dp and a long stint where I thought medication would help (I took lamictal too). Medication won't heal dp because dp is not an illness. There is NOTHING to heal. It's a natural defense mechanism and you cannot heal a natural defense mechanism. Period. Dp is like a sneeze. A sneeze is our body's way of expelling a potential threat from our bodies. Dp acts exactly the same way. Our brains sensed a threat and went into protect mode. DP is a natural body process and healing comes when you learn to change your view of dp from fear to positive. Dp is a good thing. It's protection for your mind. Yes, it causes very uncomfortable sensations but the truth of the matter is that you are not sick, you are not crazy, and you are safe. If you keep believing that you are sick or in danger or crazy, you are feeding the signal in the brain that says their is a threat and so the dp will just continue to stay. You have to learn to accept it. You have to say "Ok, I have this. There is nothing I can do about it. NO ONE in the history of the world has ever died, been physically harmed, gotten physically sick or lost their mind from having dp. I won't either. I am fine and one day I WILL wake up and be back to normal". That is the whole truth. I hope you can find somewhere in yourself to understand this as truth and stop treating it as an illness. You're not sick. Your mind is just tired and scared. So give it a rest and stop stressing it our more. Relax, keep your mind distracted. Every time you start to obsess and freak out, stop, remind youself that it's just a sensation, that it isn't true, that you are well and safe, and then refocus on a book or tv or a project.

Another thing that I think you need to understand about dp is that when it kicks in, there is an overall imbalance of brain function and brain chemicals. I've seen PET scans of dp'd brains and they are not normal compared to people without dp. Certain areas of the brain are over active while others are under active. Being that it's an overal imbalance, flooding your brain with one chemical, which is exactly what antidepressants and antipsychotics do, just serves to further unabalance the chemicals in your brain. Trying to flood it to correct one chemical still isn't going to correct the over all imbalance. This is also why medications do not work to cure dp.

I want you to know that I know this because I'm living it. I've had dp for a year and a month now and I'm about 80% recovered with the dp and 90-100% (100 % on some days) with the dr. The most beneficial thing I've found to do is take herbal supplements. They are naturally occuring chemicals in your brain that just get out of balance when the dp kicks in. I take DMAE, Sublingual Vitamin B Complex, Vitamin D, and Fish oil. All of those things have great assisted me in making progress toward recovery. As I said, most days I get periods where my dr is completely gone. The world is real again, which is an amazing feeling. I keep myself distracted to keep my mind busy and I take the suppliments to boost my mood and aid in my recovery. I think that if you took these steps you'd be pleasantsly surprised. There is no magic overnight cure for dp. You've just got to relax and live life and let your mind know that you're safe. Reality isn't some lost city of Atlantis. It's all around you. You've been living in it this entire time. It's your natural state of existence and you will be surprised how easily it slips in around you when your dp finally decides to slip away. Slowly but surely it will.


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## Melissa_Z (Sep 29, 2010)

ustabetinyfairypeople said:


> I will tell you a truth that I've learned over the year I've had dp and a long stint where I thought medication would help (I took lamictal too). Medication won't heal dp because dp is not an illness. There is NOTHING to heal. It's a natural defense mechanism and you cannot heal a natural defense mechanism. Period. Dp is like a sneeze. A sneeze if our body's way or expelling a potential threat from our bodies. Dp acts exactly the same way. Our brains sensed a threat and went into protect mode. DP is a natural body process and healing comes when you learn to change your view of dp from fear to positive. Dp is a good thing. It's protection for your mind. Yes, it causes very uncomfortable sensations but the truth of the matter is that you are not sick, you are not crazy, and you are safe. If you keep believing that you are sick or in danger or crazy, you are feeding the signal in the brain that says their is a threat and so the dp will just continue to stay. You have to learn to accept it. You have to say "Ok, I have this. There is nothing I can do about it. NO ONE in the history of the world has ever died, been physically harmed, gotten physically sick or lost their mind from having dp. I won't either. I am fine and one day I WILL wake up and be back to normal". That is the whole truth. I hope you can find somewhere in yourself to understand this as truth and stop treating it as an illness. You're not sick. Your mind is just tired and scared. So give it a rest and stop stressing it our more. Relax, keep your mind distracted. Every time you start to obsess and freak out, stop, remind youself that it's just a sensation, that it isn't true, that you are well and safe, and then refocus on a book or tv or a project.
> 
> Another thing that I think you need to understand about dp is that when it kicks in, there is an overall imbalance of brain function and brain chemicals. I've seen PET scans of dp'd brains and they are not normal compared to people without dp. Certain areas of the brain are over active while others are under active. Being that it's an overal imbalance, flooding your brain with one chemical, which is exactly what antidepressants and antipsychotics do, just serves to further unabalance the chemicals in your brain. Trying to flood it to correct one chemical still isn't going to correct the over all imbalance. This is also why medications do not work to cure dp.
> 
> I want you to know that I know this because I'm living it. I've had dp for a year and a month now and I'm about 80% recovered with the dp and 90-100% (100 % on some days) with the dr. The most beneficial thing I've found to do is take herbal supplements. They are naturally occuring chemicals in your brain that just get out of balance when the dp kicks in. I take DMAE, Sublingual Vitamin B Complex, Vitamin D, and Fish oil. All of those things have great assisted me in making progress toward recovery. As I said, most days I get periods where my dr is completely gone. The world is real again, which is an amazing feeling. I keep myself distracted to keep my mind busy and I take the suppliments to boost my mood and aid in my recovery. I think that if you took these steps you'd be pleasantsly surprised. There is no magic overnight cure for dp. You've just got to relax and live life and let your mind know that you're safe. Reality isn't some lost city of Atlantis. It's all around you. You've been living in it this entire time. It's your natural state of existence and you will be surprised how easily it slips in around you when your dp finally decides to slip away. Slowly but surely it will.


It's posts like these that give me more hope. This is probably one of the most honest and most inspiring things I've read in a while. It makes so much sense. I'm still on meds but I will be off them in 3 weeks. I'm basically flooding my brain with chemicals that it DOES NOT need. EVERYTHING you said makes perfect sense. This is not an illness and should not be treated as one. My DR has been quite unbearable lately, much more intense it seems. I'm thinking that it could be the meds that are intensifying it. I want to tell myself, I NEED to tell myself to accept this but it is so hard.


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## ValleyGirl (Nov 10, 2017)

Melissa_Z said:


> It's posts like these that give me more hope. This is probably one of the most honest and most inspiring things I've read in a while. It makes so much sense. I'm still on meds but I will be off them in 3 weeks. I'm basically flooding my brain with chemicals that it DOES NOT need. EVERYTHING you said makes perfect sense. This is not an illness and should not be treated as one. My DR has been quite unbearable lately, much more intense it seems. I'm thinking that it could be the meds that are intensifying it. I want to tell myself, I NEED to tell myself to accept this but it is so hard.


Honestly, I'm thankful that my suffering is serving a greater purpose. You can ask ThoughtonFire or Tommygunz or Inzom and they will tell you that for about the first 8ish months of having dp I was a mess. I posted here all of the time going "omg I feel so unreal, I have a brain tumor I'm going to die. I want to kill myself I'll never get better. I don't know who I am". Seriously. I did that for 8 months. And when I wasn't on here freaking out I was sitting in a dark room in my house repeating to myself how bad I felt, how weird everything was, that I wasn't real, that the world wasn't real, etc. I just kept the anxiety going and two things helped me. The first was when Tommygunz gave me a stern talking to. He basically told me that I was the one causing all of my own problems. Which I've come to realize is completely true. We feel these dp sensations and try to project them onto the world but the truth is that the world hasn't changed and everyone around us sees that we are completely normal. It's a completely internal experience.
The other thing that helped was having that moment of revelation where I finally understood there was nothing I could do about it. I wish that I could tell you how to do that but it's just something that you have to find your own way. For me, I was in the bath trying to work myself into another panic attack about how I felt and I realized that I just couldn't even panic about it anymore. Then in rapid succession I also realized that I could have my panic attack but when the attack was over, dp would still be there. When I woke up the next morning, dp would still be there. Fighting against it for 8 months did nothing and wouldn't ever do anything. Acceptance is the key.

I understand how you feel. Every single morning I wake up and immediately am like "oh no. I have to wake up into dp land again". I'd say at least twice, if not more times a day, I do go "wow I feel unreal/disoriented/things looks weird" but I've also learned how to stop my mind and those thoughts only last a few seconds. I take a deep breath, push it aside, and keep trugging on. No doubt that this life is hard and I am not an optimistic person by nature but the single biggest lesson I've learned with dp is that you have to keep trying to get back on your feet and keep a positive mindset. Otherwise you will just get swallowed in the abyss. So reject the bad and the stress and embrace the calm and seek out peace.


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