# A recovery story - and some advice.



## Matt210 (Aug 15, 2004)

hey everyone,

i'm not sure if any of you remember me, but i posted here a lot last year and i've come back partly because i am experiecing some relapse and partly because I wanted to see how everyone was doing and offer some advice.

Let me start off by recapping my story. I always had weird anxieties as a child, sat up all night worrrying someone would break into my home, worrying about something happening to my family members etc - irrational fears. But I never considered there to be anything wrong with me.. until about three years ago, where I had what I believe to be a panic attack out of nowhere. I'm sitting seeing some play, and I start freaking out - convinced i'm about to die.. I think i'm having an allergic reaction or heart failure or something.. This was followed by several more similar out of the blue ones.

I started worrying constantly about my health, and developed full blown hypochondria and anxiety - and the rest is history, Slowly but surely I started losing myself and feeling more and more unreal.

If I tried to list my symptoms when I had it, I don't even think i could - it's all a blur and something I have to be experiencing to even be able to describe. Let me assure you, it was TERRIBLE and It was ALWAYS changing. As soon as I got comfortable with one perception of reality it would change again. I would feel like I wasnt where i was, like the present wasnt really the present, like I didnt know who I was, like the past never happened, like I was watching a movie and wasnt part of my life, like i was going crazy, like I was losing my memory.

Here goes my message to everyone: I survived.

I cried, and I paced, and I fretted, and I curled into a little ball and shook - and i'm still here today. I was positive, and i mean absolutely positive at certain points that I would go crazy within the next minutes - or maybe I already was crazy. I was positive my memory was deteriorating slowly, that I had some awful brain disease, that I was done for.

That was a year ago. Today I still worry about these things, and although DP has hardly affected my life as of late, my point is - wouldn't it have been comforting to know last year that I had another entire year of sanity? Another year to L I V E. And oh boy did I ever live. And it's so bizarre, but looking back on the last year of my life, it's not the moments where I was curled in a ball bawling my eyes out that I remember. I remember falling in love, I remember my friends and the insane things we got up too. My last year of high school, and all the incredible memories - the goodbyes. My first year of university and the experience it was, living on my own.

and I did it all, while POSITIVE I would go crazy in the next minute. Life still doesn't make any sense to me, I don't get why we are here, why this is happening. I'm still a scared, lost, fucked up kid. But I'm coping, and I'm surviving.

Write down the days you feel terrible, maybe a thought you have such as "I am going to go crazy any time now" .. then in a week, a month.. go back next time you are worrying. Look at that week, look at that month. Realize you DIDNT go crazy.. and then look at all the incredible things you've done in that week or month - and there is ALWAYS something worthwhile to look at in your past - you just have to find it.

Anyone who suffers from this, and copes - you are the strongest people I know. But now it's time to be even stronger, and walk out that door - and live life. The 'live life to the fullest" and "carpe diem" sayings are probably the most cliche around, but hold the most truth and are so often forgotten.

DP has been both a curse and a gift for me. I now longer live life on the surface, I understand so much more about myself, and the world - yet at the same time understand so much less. Questioning is never a bad thing, but it has to be controlled.

Lastly I want to thank all the amazing people here that helped me - this is far from over for me.. which is partly the reason I'm back. I have been extremely over tired lately and have felt slightly crazy. But instead of posting another panicked message I decided to be helpful, hopefully generate some discussion. That's what makes me feel best. Thanks especially to Janine, your kind words, your understanding, your comforting, your advice, and your book were key parts in helping me move on.

Good luck to everyone.

Matt


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## Guest (May 17, 2005)

Of course I remember you, and I deeply appreciate hearing from you again - and being told that I was helpful to you in recovery. Just warms my heart.

First, CONGRATULATIONS, Matt, on doing what is probably the hardest thing you will ever do in this life - FORCE yourself to move on and through these awful experiences - you did exactly what you needed to do in order to start rebuilding your life.

And this is NOT as good as it will get. You're on the fast track now to really gaining some freedom from this horror show - in fact, feeling like you're about to have some kind of relapse is (oddly enough) a GOOD sign - it can be like a "last hurrah" of the symptoms, trying to rear their scary heads and freak you out one last time.

VERY common to suddenly feel like you're falling all the way back down the rabbit hole again shortly before TRULY climbing all the way out.

Keep posting and yes, you're so right - keep offering help to others - keep your eyes on what you've achieved so far, and keep PROUD of it...and keep your eyes on tomorrow. Whatever horror you might feel again right now is TEMPORARY....feel it, and move through it. Even if it 
"gets" you - even if it sends you to your bed again...sleep and then get up. 
Keep fighting.

You're almost there.

Love ya,
Janine


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## Matt210 (Aug 15, 2004)

Thank you Janine, and obviously I can assure you I am not the first you have helped - you have been to hell and back and yet you stick around here and help people, and I think it's absolutely brilliant - i could never say enough good things about you. As soon as I started to feel better I wanted to get ou of here - get away and just forget DP ever happened. I wish I could be half as helpful as you.

I hope that this is my 'last hurrah' as you say. I think a lot of it has to do with my starting a full time job for the summer, working 8.5 hour days 6 days a week, beginning at 5am, and doing physical work. I am absolutely exhasuted - and being tired has always been a trigger for my DP.

I sleep in weird patterns, and I don't know if you recall this at all - but when I get overtired and then begin having weird sleeping patterns, I experience bizarre episodes in the night in which I am half awake, half asleep .. and remember the twisted reality I have been existing in when I wake up in the morning - so this is one thing that has been bothering me. On top of this, my thoughts have been bizarre, and constantly drifting. Finally, my judgement of reality is off again, as I can never quite me sure of what actually happened & what I just dreamed up.

But. as always I will be okay. It's like my hypochondria in which I went through every illness I knew about and convinced myself I had it.. then I just ran out of illnesses and even then I sitll went back to illnesses I had already been scared of - and then there just wasnt anything else to be scared of anymore so I moved on to DP. It feels like my mind realizes DP no longer scares me.. yet it is having one last effort to try and frighten me with it. God only knows what is next for me..

I cleaned up my lifestyle a bunch though, I know exercise, use the computer much less, gave up drinking.. and feeel better about myself physically which has helped mentally.

Hope all is well with you as well Janine, nice talking to you again.

Matt.


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## Matt210 (Aug 15, 2004)

I just wanted to bump this wayyyy up to the top.

People here say there are not enough recovery stories - but here is my own. I am almost scared reading it again because I hardly remember writing it -- It doesn't feel like me.

I may be back down in the furnaces of hell again, but I promise you I got better -- I need to see this, and so does everyone here.

Take it for what it's worth.


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## Revelation_old (Aug 9, 2004)

Moved to: " Depersonalization & Derealization Recovery Stories! "


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## Matt210 (Aug 15, 2004)

Revelation said:


> Moved to: " Depersonalization & Derealization Recovery Stories! "


Wow, a whole new section just for my post, aren't I special  haha.


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## Revelation_old (Aug 9, 2004)

Matt210 said:


> Revelation said:
> 
> 
> > Moved to: " Depersonalization & Derealization Recovery Stories! "
> ...


It was long overdue


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## brettomax (Mar 13, 2005)

im looking forward to seeing recovery stories i myself think im on the road to recovery after suffering dr for 14 years . i have checked this site for the last year and noticed a lot of people are getting better and that is very good to see


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## Guest (Apr 10, 2006)

It's great to hear about those who get out of this hell, and finds heaven again...
I'm sure that if we all work together we'll find a "cure" for this "illness" or what it should be called...
I ge really sad when I hear about people having this like 30years, I feel so sad for them, "losing" 30(!) years of their lives...
I'm somewhat better, but not fully recoverd I get relapses, and like if I've felt somewhat "normal" for 3-4days and get relapse it feels so intense and I'm like: "OK NOW I'M REALLY GOING CRAZY, THIS TIME YOUR F'D UP!"
Anyway how you doing Matt?


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## Matt210 (Aug 15, 2004)

MentallyIll said:


> It's great to hear about those who get out of this hell, and finds heaven again...
> I'm sure that if we all work together we'll find a "cure" for this "illness" or what it should be called...
> I ge really sad when I hear about people having this like 30years, I feel so sad for them, "losing" 30(!) years of their lives...
> I'm somewhat better, but not fully recoverd I get relapses, and like if I've felt somewhat "normal" for 3-4days and get relapse it feels so intense and I'm like: "OK NOW I'M REALLY GOING CRAZY, THIS TIME YOUR F'D UP!"
> Anyway how you doing Matt?


I'm doing alright thanks. Surviving anyways - I suppose I've been a bit better these past few days, although I always feel so hesitant to admit that which is strange.

I really hope to have a full recovery again this summer - I have yet to experience DP fully throughout a single a summer, I usually am so distracted by the mix of work and good times plus no added stress from school or anything that I feel great.

We will see I suppose.


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