# My Recovery Story



## Guest (Dec 14, 2004)

So I've been meaning to do this for a while now (years actually) but I really haven't had the time and quite frankly it's just kind of depressing to recall, but I am pretty sure I had DP (not DR) for about a year and a half before it went away and it has been gone for almost 4 years now. As when I initially did the whole forums thing (which wasn't this particular forum as I don?t think it existed then, but another site) there were absolutely no stories of recovery (which made things waaay worse for me as I thought it was something I would never get rid of) so I thought I would drop by and leave mine.

So I will start from the beginning. Forgive me if this is long...

While I have had a low grade depression since puberty and general social anxiety, I was basically feeling fine up until my sophomore year of college (apart from the mild depression and anxiety which I had gotten used to). However, I decided to smoke some pot with some friends of mine. I had smoked exactly 3 times (in my entire life) before this and the 1st time I felt nothing, while the other 2 times it was general giddiness. However this time I smoked waaaay more than I ever had before and I literally lost it and had my first ever panic attack (which was horrific, and while I have had them since none have ever been as bad as the first), I?m sure you all know the feeling but it was as if I couldn?t move and as if time was all messed up as I would say something and it would literally seem to come out like 30 seconds later. But anyway, my friends calmed me down and the worst of it was over in 3 hours or so, but the general feeling of being ?not there? persisted and was freaking me out all the next day until it just instantly disappeared like 24 hours later.

I swore it was spiked with something, but it really didn?t seem to affect any of the other people that smoked it in any different way, which I always thought was weird.

So I went back to school and basically did not think about it for like 2 months , even though every once and a while I would briefly get the weird ?not there? feelings again. Until, I suddenly started having panic attack after panic attack and totally freaked out. I had to drop out of school for a month, and started seeing a psychiatrist and a psychologist which really didn?t help much (I went through Paxil, Zoloft, Prozac throughout this period but none of them really helped, although I probably didn?t stay on any long enough to tell).

So while I was officially diagnosed as Major depression and Panic disorder, I stumbled upon DP on the internet and self-diagnosed myself. I have never really had DR except that 1st panic attack and 1 other time in the thick of my break down (but this was when I was doing the med carousel, so maybe it was due to that) But anyways these were my symptoms:

-The strange undescribable sort of being there and being in control, but not ?really? being there. It was kind of like while I was literally experiencing things, I wasn?t really ?feeling? them (if that makes any sense).

-this bizarre sort of ?mind fog? that would come and go, but was there most of the time.

-utter despair that I was going insane and there was no way of getting out of it.

-constant anxiety, and frequent panic attacks.

-but (perhaps the worse) I literally could not NOT obsessively think about my mental state. I would sit and do nothing but obsess over my every thought and feeling for hours sometimes without really realizing that time had gone by. Things that I had once ignored and taken for granted (i.e. my arms, hands, my face in the mirror) suddenly seemed horrifying and bizarre to me. I also became a HUGE hypochondriac and became addicted to taking those internet psych tests and was convinced that I was turning schizophrenic (although I was too horrified to tell my Psych any of this, because I thought he would have me committed so I basically stuck to the Anxiety/depression thing). Eventually reading about DP helped a little, but I was still horrified as it seemed like something that could never be fixed (and thus I never told my Psych about it either). I was in an utter panic that I had broken something that could never be fixed.

But anyway after a couple months of this I eventually got on Remeron, which while it did not necessarily help with the ?dreamy not there? feelings as it tends to make you VERY tired, it helped a lot with the anxiety and allowed me to sleep at night and finish the semester at school. (continued next post).


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## Guest (Dec 14, 2004)

Any ways this continued basically for about a 1.5 to 2 years (as I have a hard time pinpointing when it ended exactly for reasons I?ll explain). But as for how exactly it went away I?m not sure I have an answer. I can however say that it was very, very gradual and it was not something that I just woke up one morning without. But there are a few things that I think helped me and words of advice that I can offer (although none are quick fixes, and most are very personal so I?m not sure if they can benefit anyone else).

-first of all, I think we need to be VERY, VERY careful about how we self diagnose. DP is basically the hypochondriac?s dream disease as (1) there is not really a cure and (2) most Doctors don?t know about it so in my experience it is not something that they can assure you that you don?t have. To this day, even after the horror of living with DP for that long, I am not entirely sure if I had a thing called ?DP? or if it was just me reading my Depression /anxiety through the testimonies of others who defined themselves as suffering from DP. The mind can be very powerful in this way, and I often wondered if I might have recovered quicker had I not discovered ?DP,? as it ended up becoming this ?thing? that I had to get rid of somehow, but there really was no way that I knew of to do this (and unlike something common like anxiety/depression I knew of no one who could help me or guide me).

-which leads me to the 2nd thing which I think played a large role. My 1st visit to my Psychiatrist he told me that something had ?broken? in my brain and I just needed meds to fix it. While I?m sure he meant this to make me feel better, all it did was freak me out even more. My DP, Depression, Anxiety became this biological thing that I had to overcome in the same way that one overcomes cancer, and this scarred me to death simply because the only way I knew of to combat biology was meds. Since the meds weren?t working I basically assumed I would be like this forever. But anyways, I happened to enroll in a course on Psychological Anthropology the semester after all this was going on, and this really helped me to place the whole Psychology thing in perspective. For me just reading someone like Foucault?s take on psychology really helped me to distance myself from the diagnosis and reading other people in the class helped me to see how the diagnosis can often be powerful enough in itself to form the action of the ?disease? and it really helped me get over my terror that this was something biological that could never be fixed. Again this was by no means a quick fix, and I am not suggesting that by reading Foucault you will suddenly be cured or come to some epiphany, it didn?t work this way for me at all. I just see taking that class as a key element of my recovery when I look back on things, as it was the point when I stopped viewing psychology as the ?empirical,? ?infallible,? ?scientific,? ?truth? that it sometimes likes to present itself as. I?m not one of those ?anti-psych? people (I still have a psychologist); I just tend to take them more with a grain of salt now (which helped I think).

-I spent a lot of the time obsessing over ?how I behaved before? and how it was different ?than how I behave now.? I was constantly trying to get back to before, but getting better for me was just a gradual realization that I really do not act any differently now than I do before. This is hard to explain, but a good example of this was not recognizing myself in the mirror any more. At some point I just realized that normal people do not look into the mirror and wait for a magical moment of ?recognition? before going about their business, rather they look into the mirror for a specific purpose (i.e. fixing their hair, brushing teeth, checking their looks, etc.). This may seem obvious to you all, but at the time it was a big thing for me as I would sometimes sit in front of the mirror terrified for long periods of time because I didn?t ?recognize? myself. I guess my realization was that ?before? I never ?recognized? myself in the mirror because I never tried to. I would only look into the mirror for reasons other than ?recognizing? myself, so now my only problem was that I was consciously trying to recognize myself. I?m not sure if this makes sense to you? Ask me if it doesn?t and I?ll try to explain it better, but I think this was a metaphor for most of my experience of DP. (cont next post)


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## Guest (Dec 14, 2004)

-I guess the major part was just getting rid of the obsessive awareness of my every thought/emotion/movement at all times. So much so that I was never ?in the moment? (meaning I could never forget myself long enough to enjoy anything, even at movies which was annoying as I was always aware that I was watching a movie and could not loose myself in the narrative). I of course did most of this by thinking that I was crazy and unfixable (which terrified me more), but this gradually subsided, I eventually found that as time went on I would experience fewer symptoms of DP, until at some point I realized I hadn?t thought of it in a while. The mental fog came less and less as this subsided too. It?s difficult as I can?t pinpoint a definite end point or an actual reason why it went away (the stuff I cited may have helped some, but it also might have just gone away on its own?) But it seems to me that 50% of DP is thinking about (and being terrified by) the fact that you have DP. Once I got over this it helped a lot. Plus, trying to keep focused on something helps a lot too (I was in college at the time which helped keep me from obsessing 24-7).

Now I still get depressed and anxious (although I haven?t had a panic attack in 2 years), but most of the DP symptoms are gone. Sure when I?m depressed it sucks, but now I know that it is ME that is feeling the depression, and I no longer have the weird not there feeling (I get the weird mental fog once in a while, but it is rare and it really doesn?t scare me as I refer to it as part of my depression). But I?ve been off medication for roughly 3 years now, and I really hardly ever think of DP as it isn?t something that scares me anymore (I?ve slain that demon, and thus it is as if it is no longer real to me). I guess part of this includes the suspicion that I never had it to begin with and it was all in my head (although whatever I had it was hell), but at this point I really don?t care. I?ve moved on to other demons (which while they are bad, they are better than DP).

So anyway, I?m sorry I can?t offer any concrete, 12 step advice, I just wanted to tell my story to get it off my chest and to maybe give some other people hope that they can eventually get rid of this too. Just hang in there, stay focused on something, and don?t expect an overnight miracle (which I know might be terrible advice when you are in the middle of it, but it is the only advice I can give).


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## dreamcatcher (Sep 23, 2004)

thankyou for taking the time to post your story......it cant be easy looking back at the horror of dp.....but i have heard other people saying when it has gone its hard to believe it was ever there.....i hope this is true that way i know i will stand a chance in the real world


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## Guest (Dec 15, 2004)

Yeah, when the fog lifts temporarily in my head occasionally, its as if there was never a problem in the first place. Its really strange. Its good to see a recovery story on here, and hopefully within the next year, i'll have mine almost completely gone as well. I can feel it gradually getting better myself. Not sure if i'll ever get rid of the DR though...i'll just have to coexist with it.


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## Guest (Dec 16, 2004)

Thanks for replying both of you, and hang in there. I am sure things will get better. I know exactly how it is to feel the utter despair and to "know" for certain that things will never change, but they can and will.

Has anyone seen "Tarnation?"

It's a documentary about a guy with DP and his mom. I saw it a couple weeks ago and that is what got me thinking about things again. It is also kind of what brought home the fact that I hadn't thought about DP in such a long time, and just how far I'd come -i.e. I think that had I seen the movie while I was in the thick of things it probably would have been terrifying for me, but seeing it now didn't really affect me (although I thought it was a good film).


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## berlin (Aug 19, 2004)

I found this helpful, although it doesn't reveal anything different than than other tales of recovery and relief. This is not a critisicm its positive! Acceptance appears to be a big factor and that is so difficult. It cant be forced and as you say with no'quick fix' or guarantee you need trust to stop fighting against the negative existence.

I hope to be in your position one day, Im glad youve taken the tim eto share this. Do disapear and let us pick your brains!


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## Guest (Dec 21, 2004)

berlin said:


> Acceptance appears to be a big factor and that is so difficult. It cant be forced and as you say with no'quick fix' or guarantee you need trust to stop fighting against the negative existence.


It depends on what you mean about "acceptance."

A huge part of my recovery was realizing that DP wasn't a biological/innate part of my identity that had to be "discovered" and "cured," but rather a useful term to describe a set of experiences (the difference may seem slight at first, but it is huge) I think psychs need to be very careful with how they diagnose all "mental illness" just because alot of the time the "knowing" that you have a particular mental illness and the deffinition of that illness can be just as bad as experiencing what ever symptoms the Dr used to diagnose it.

I like forums just because I think they can offer people support when they are really down, but I think people need to be very, very, very careful about how they use them (and they should try to avoid self-diagnosis). I think the internet has the unfortunate side-effect of "breeding" mental illness, in that people will sit around reading symptoms of diseases and recognize them in themselves and then either self-diagnose or run to their doctor and be diagnosed. Plus I think that people can use them as a way to continually "enact" their diseases in a way that may actually increase their symptoms. Continually writing narratives of your illness and reading other people's narratives has the effect of making it more real and cementing it as a thing which is innately apart of your identity, it can also cause you to discover and experience new symptoms that you did not know about before (much like reading the side-effects of meds before hand can cause you to experience them simply because you are looking for them).

That's why, I think that for some people who have had difficulty dealing with a particular mental illness (particularly the ones involving anxiety) my recommendation would actually be to STAY AWAY from the forums for a while and to try conceptuallizing your "disease" in a different manner. Reading the symptoms of the disease over and over can make things way worse for someone with an anxious component to their condition.

OFten times Mental illnesses rise and fall in society like fads, and as people are exposed to more information about a particular illness more people will be diagnosed with that illness (look at Multiple Personality Disorder, which a few years ago was all the rage in the psych community, and it was diagnosed left and right. Now it has virtually dissappeared, and now the current fad seems to be dividing bi-polar disorder into different types, which, not surprisingly, has lead to an increase in bi-polar diagnosises.)

My point? I'm not sure. I'll have to get back to you.


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## Guest (Dec 21, 2004)

Jcar,

I agree with you completely. At the onset of my DP/DR experience, I spent hours looking it up on the internet which only led me to experience more symptoms each day and to be unable to think of anything BUT DP/DR. I think forums are great if you initially want to calm down about something like this and realize that others have it too and do recover. However, after a while, it's best to just "get on with your life". Is my DP/DR completely cured? No, not yet. However, now I can go for hours without thinking about it and experiencing it. When it does come back, I just tell myself that it's only anxiety and continue doing what I was doing.

I feel 100% better than I did last month but that change came from within myself. I'm not on any medication and I am not undergoing psychotherapy. I simply decided that I will do things that make me happy and live in this state for as long as it takes. I'm in grad school, I work, I go out and have fun. For the longest time I avoided people and social ocassions scared that they will just intensify my DP/DR. However, a month ago I decided to go to every party I could, to socialize and just say "f**ck DP/DR. I will go on with or without it". And it worked.

The more we look it up, search for answers and compare symptoms, the longer it will last. It's just anxiety. It will not kill us.


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## berlin (Aug 19, 2004)

I dont experience anxiety ( i posted this previously because anxiety appears to remain when other feelings have receeded with a lot of people posting) Anxiety stopped with all other 'feelings', thats when I went to the Drs. All that sort of torment had reached a crescendo before it all stopped... My Dr diagnosed deppression. Eventually it was identified that I was dissociating but information other than that was poor. I spent months talking to an intervention nurse but never felt as though I moved forward in understanding (was more confused even)until I searched the internet.
Because I have no anxiety to fuel, have little empathy or subjectivity I havent suffered the confusion of hypocondria . Instead I have pieced a picture of 'my' mental health which, if I ever regain lucidity, may help me control how I respond to stress, to feeling, to experiencing strong emotions (if Im lucky :? ).
I must admit to switching off very quickly if I dont identify with any aspect of a post or web site, but Im straight to the recovery posts. Im not distressed by my condition, but 24/7 awareness that Im not integrated or experiencing life the way I used to drives me to regain.
I function very well superficially but closer relationships do suffer(worse still is that I dont really care if they do) My concerns are very secular, I have pared down what I care about all else is surplus.
I intend sorting out just what is my story soon and perhaps I'll sound a little less disorganised when I try to explain! :roll:


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## Guest (Jan 2, 2005)

Jcar - thank you for writing all that you have. I relate so much to what you say.


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## Guest (Jan 2, 2005)

"f**ck DP/DR. I will go on with or without it"

I agree Tidal! I have times when I say that. I definitely recognise that when I feel mentally stronger the feelings are less and when I am having a wobbler I zoom in obsess about it. Then I freak .... etc etc as we all know.

I agree very much with what you and Jcar say - I have to be firm with myself but try to stop self diagnosing and also focus on the positive recovery stories.


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## stickdude (Aug 13, 2004)

did remeron have any help in recovery? did you experience any bad side effects?


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