# Back after (another) long hiatus.



## Sam1814 (Dec 24, 2014)

I doubt anyone keeps up with me or my story. But regardless. Diagnosed in 12/2014. Crippled me for several months. Was on here every day.

Solipsism, nihilism, feeling like I'm "In The Matrix", feeling like the "Truman Show"..... Cant remember the majority of my life, mainly my childhood. People ask me about things I did with them, and i simply can't remember it.... Its the saddest part of it all, to me.... Stanger in the mirror... *Existence* makes no damn sense to me; i guess they call that existential terror. Literally being "alive" and having a "conscious" feels strange, and impossible, and foreign.... Unfamiliarity of everything... My home, my car, my face, my friends, my parents; it all feels unfamiliar, like they are not "mine"... Fear of going insane... Feeling like I am going to suddenly wake up with full amnesia and forget my whole life.. Like I will be found wandering the street, with no recollection of my name or my address or any identifying information... Its terrifying... I could go on forever with my symptoms...

Staying on the forums every day makes me worse.. I will read about someone else symptoms and then immediately develop them. Smfh.

Anyways here is my update.

Between 2015- and 2018, I tried the following meds:

*Klonopin- 1mg per day, and 1mg as needed for panic attacks. STILL on that exact dosage, and it helps with the anxiety. *

*Remeron- 15mg- prescribed to help me sleep. *

*Those are the only "successful" drugs I've taken.*

Lexapro- no effects, positive or negative, that I noticed

Zoloft- no effects, positive or negative, that I noticed. Withdrawals were awful.
Effexor- no effects, positive or negative, *EXCEPT I GAINED 40 POUNDS*, and the withdrawals were CRIPPLING.
Lamotrigine- I had the reaction, had to quit
Abilify- makes me sleepy and gain weight, and other than that, no noticeable effects.
Cymbalta- no effects, positive or negative, that I noticed.
Trazodone- makes me feel like I'm tripping on acid, out of my mind until I finally panic attack in to unconsciousness. The side effects were too much and I begged to be taken off of it.

I am missing a few meds but I can't remember them.

*Therapy treatments-*

EMDR, CBT, DBT, TIR, and Neuro Feedback Brain Mapping- No improvements.

*TMS-*

Convinced my doc to diagnose me with Major Depressive Disorder, just so my insurance would cover TMS. Then INSTEAD of treating the parts of the brain for MDD, we secretly treated the parts of the brain that were treated in the TMS for DPDR clinical studies... Sadly, no improvements.

I am NOT cured. But I will say this... if you do ANYTHING for long enough, it starts to be part of your normal routine.. Even feeling crazy or lost or unfamiliar or out of body, or in the matrix... I've been feeling these things for 5 years... after a while, they started to feel normal-ish...

I am still aware that something is "off", and that I am not the "same" as i was before DPDR... Which brings me comfort that I can still distinguish the difference... But feeling like "this", is part of my normal every day routine for 5 years now.. so in a way, it feels "normal" to think and feel this way... Therefore, its not as crippling as it was 5 years ago.

Three weeks ago, I lacerated my leg pretty badly (18 stitches) when I was cooking a steak, drunk off my ass, lol.. Had to call 911.

The idiot doctor said it was a suicide attempt and Baker Acted me... OKAY, WHO TRIES TO KILL THEMSELVES BY CUTTING THEIR KNEECAP?!?!?! (face palm)

Regardless.. I wasn't even there for the full 72 hours, because i explained my story, and screamed "Habeas Corpus" and called an attorney, and Im assuming it scared them because they released me after only 57 hours.

I can honestly tell you, it was the scariest experience of my life.

They housed me with people who were mentally insane to a level that I didn't even know existed.. (Guess they were out of beds on the "not so crazy" floor of the mental hospital)...

These people scared the hell out of me... They were having VIVID, active hallucinations. Talking to walls, and to people who weren't there.. a woman who thought she was possessed by the devil and kept screaming that the (female) charge nurses ALL molested her... It was traumatizing. I basically had a 57 hour panic attack.. but I was told by a patient, "don't let them see you freak out, or they will keep you longer"...

My DPDR was SO bad- as bad as it was at the beginning of my diagnosis.. BUT I was still able to distinguish that I was NOT like those people, which brought me a great deal of comfort... EVERY nurse and case manager and doctor said I didn't belong on that floor, and tried to get me moved...

But for us DPDR's who always think we are "going crazy"- trust me, being around people who truly ARE very mentally ill, was a wake up call to how NOT crazy we are...

I am in the process of filing administrative complaints against every single person involved in that ordeal.. I still don't know how I had the strength to make it through, and wear a brave face.. Ive had nightmares every night since I got home..

The experience made me really scared.. and gave me the urge to try medications again...

I took ALL the above medications in 3 years.. Its awful.. You start taking a new medication, you deal with the side effects for two or three weeks, most of which make your DPDR WORSE, then you stay on the meds for 8-12 weeks, just to find out its not working, then you get off it, and have to go through withdrawals... I got sick of it. Playing Russian Roulette with medication.. Its exhausting.. The DPDR is bad enough, without medication making it worse... But again- being around those people gave me the PUSH to try again... So I talked to my shrink and next week I will be starting Pristiq. Feel free to comment your experiences with that drug... Always. Im still here. Still ready to talk, if anyone needs to.

And as always.. if anyone has ANY comments or suggestions on how to deal with ANY of my above mentioned symptoms, please reach out.. Hell, if you SHARE my exact symptoms, I would love to have someone to talk to about it all.. I am reallyyyyyyy behind in information about new meds, or treatments or trials, or developments about DPDR, so if anyone can get me up to speed, that would be great.

Praying for everyone to recover. Or praying that doctors suddenly give a crap about us, and find us a cure. Have a great day.

Sam


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## Chip1021 (Mar 24, 2018)

That's the problem with mental health diagnoses. Well, one of the problems at least. There is a phenomenon in medicine called "anchoring", especially prevalent in ER departments, where the doctors interpret new symptoms or behaviors in the context of prior diagnoses. Happened to me when I went to the ER for what turned out to be a c.diff infection and she tried to convince me it was my depression. In your case, she probably looked at your chart, saw a diagnosis of "depression" or something similar, and viewed your injury as self-inflicted. It goes against all common sense, of course, just like it made no sense that depression was causing my bloody stools.

Psych hospitals are awful places, I can't understand how anyone can recover from whatever they are dealing with in that environment and given how they "treat" you there.

By the way, the way you got insurance to cover your TMS, very smart of you. It took me over 10 years in the system to understand that in mental health, diagnosis doesn't inform treatment, but rather treatment informs diagnosis much of the time.

I'd like to discuss symptoms with you, but your post doesn't really mention much about them. You say "crazy, lost, unfamiliar, out of body, something is 'off'" but that's very vague and probably relatable to everyone on here. Could you provide us with more detail?


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