# Do i have DP?



## Ledge2012 (Jun 21, 2012)

Hi there,

i am new to this site. I have read many of your experiences and sympathise for all of you. i guess i just wanted to share my experience to trying and determine whats wrong with me and if i have DP.

I just woke up one morning feeling...'funny'. like something is wrong. i have been with my fiance for 4 and half years and have been in love with him the whole time. i woke up one morning about a week and half ago and felt nothing for him. i was madly in love, and now i feel nothing. and it scares the crap out of me.

i have suffered all my life from chronic anxiety. it comes and goes but its crippled me much of my life. but i have never had any anxieties about my relationship. always been very much in love. now i know in my head that i love him. but i cant feel it. i cant feel the emotion of love for him. and i just feel funny. like odd, and nervy inside. i feel like i just dont feel myself. like there is a wall between me and the emotions that i want so desperately to feel.

that is basically what i feel. does this seem like DP to you? please help!


----------



## sunflowersteve (Apr 24, 2012)

Ledge2012 said:


> Hi there,
> 
> i am new to this site. I have read many of your experiences and sympathise for all of you. i guess i just wanted to share my experience to trying and determine whats wrong with me and if i have DP.
> 
> ...


sounds like dp, are you feeling detached too? it's without a doubt a part of your anxiety though.


----------



## Ledge2012 (Jun 21, 2012)

yeah i feel very detached. i mean i can feel other things...like my sister is getting proposed to overseas next week and i am excited for her.

but i just feel numb. nothing for my partner...almost like i look at him differently. and he looks different. not physically different, but i feel like i look at him different as a person. and wait to feel what i felt a week ago but nothing comes, just worry and anxiety.

yeah i definitely think its a result of my anxiety. do you think chroic long term anxiety can lead to this? i just worry i'll never feel anything for him again, even though i know i love him. and we're getting married in 4 months!


----------



## Ledge2012 (Jun 21, 2012)

please can i get some more replies! thanks.


----------



## sunflowersteve (Apr 24, 2012)

Ledge2012 said:


> yeah i feel very detached. i mean i can feel other things...like my sister is getting proposed to overseas next week and i am excited for her.
> 
> but i just feel numb. nothing for my partner...almost like i look at him differently. and he looks different. not physically different, but i feel like i look at him different as a person. and wait to feel what i felt a week ago but nothing comes, just worry and anxiety.
> 
> yeah i definitely think its a result of my anxiety. do you think chroic long term anxiety can lead to this? i just worry i'll never feel anything for him again, even though i know i love him. and we're getting married in 4 months!


oh yeah, definitely dp then. just don't worry too much about your feelings, trust me it's only your mind playing tricks. you're still the same person as before and deep down you know that you love your fiancee

as for chronic long term anxiety- i definitely think that dp resulted from tha. your mind can only take so much stress and it has went into dp mode to protect itself and to heal. kind of like a computer restarting. but you have to know that in order for it to heal and go back to normal, you can NOT fear it as your mind will take that as further threat and it will keep maintaining in this state. just think of it as it is- a TEMPORARY state only brought on by your anxiety.

you WILL feel yourself again and your feelings for your SO and anybody else in your life will go back to normal. but you have to let your mind relax, these are only sensations, they can not hurt you and you will not go crazy or go into a state that you won't come out of.

i advise you talk to your partner about this, maybe leaving out the part that you feel nothing for him but just tell him how you feel.

this forum is a good support system but there's a lot of negativity which is bad for someone in a bad state of mind. so i'd try not to get addicted to it like the rest of us.

anyways, take it easy on yourself and i hope this gets better for you (which it will


----------



## Ledge2012 (Jun 21, 2012)

gosh what you said it exactly what i already trying to tell myself. not to be afraid of it. just to let the weird feelings pass over me and not over analyse them which will only make me more neurotic.

i am trying not to think about it which is hard. especially when you are constantly around your partner and used to feeling normal and in love, then to nothing. and looking at them differently. and when you feel like there is a ticking clock (the wedding in four months) to when i should feel in love again.

you are so right about not spending too much time on here. it definitely puts you in a negative state of mind and can be detrimental to recovery. i just see it as a positive way of identifying what i have, so i can fix it. the mind is a very ambiguous but powerful thing. as humans we seek definitive answers and i think i have mine. just wish i knew how long it till take to get better.

i have just started prozac. what is everyone's opinion on this, and whether it will offer me any help or improve my condition at all? are any of you on meds that have sucessfully helped?


----------



## sunflowersteve (Apr 24, 2012)

Ledge2012 said:


> gosh what you said it exactly what i already trying to tell myself. not to be afraid of it. just to let the weird feelings pass over me and not over analyse them which will only make me more neurotic.
> 
> i am trying not to think about it which is hard. especially when you are constantly around your partner and used to feeling normal and in love, then to nothing. and looking at them differently. and when you feel like there is a ticking clock (the wedding in four months) to when i should feel in love again.
> 
> ...


yeah not being scared of it or thinking about it are very hard to do but they are really what leads to recovery, the more you think about needing to get better (for the wedding) the longer it's going to last. so try really hard not to even think about the time and just focus on the fact that you will get better and you will enjoy the wedding. and if not you can always postpone it, unless you can't but even then you can't do anything so theres no need to worry. don't worry about how long it will take, because the less you worry about that the faster it will come. i know it's hard but you can do it.

as for meds, it's really for the person. i've been taking a very low dose of zoloft which i would say hasn't done much but it's 25mg so that's prob why.
for anxiety, i've heard benzo's work well to calm you down like xanax or klonopin but addiction and withdrawl is an issue.

if it gets really bad an anti-seizure med like lamictical plus an ssri has been shown to work.

alot of people on here get relief from meds but it won't recover you, YOU have to do that.


----------



## Ledge2012 (Jun 21, 2012)

thank you so much for all your advice! you seem to fairly knowledgable about it? do you have it, are you recovered?

prozac is both and anti depressant and anit anxiety...do you think this will benefit me?

i agree with you that my dp was brought on from excessive long term anxiety, i am an anxious person, so i guess my question to you is, after i recover from dp (an i know i will), i worry that as i have chronic anxiety that it will be quite easily brought back on. i.e. i recover, go back to worrying about the normal things i worry about chronically and then it comes back on.

i wonder if i would be benefit from continuing on anxiety meds long after to prevent my brain from shutting down to protect itself. if you get me?


----------



## sunflowersteve (Apr 24, 2012)

Ledge2012 said:


> thank you so much for all your advice! you seem to fairly knowledgable about it? do you have it, are you recovered?
> 
> prozac is both and anti depressant and anit anxiety...do you think this will benefit me?
> 
> ...


haha yes i've become rather obsessed with it, which is partly why i haven't recovered. i got it from a panic attack on weed and i guess my mind went into "safe mode" i have recovered twice but i didn't have the right knowledge to stay that way. i did do it by ignoring and just living. only 2 months straight so far this time and 4 months with it on and off.

i think the prozac could benefit you, i don't know what it would do for dp, might lessen it, might do nothing. but it will probably help with the anxiety.

i think that you need to deal with the anxiety as a whole in order to get rid of this stuff forever. and that is possible. that would also get rid of the needs for meds at all.


----------



## Ledge2012 (Jun 21, 2012)

what are your symptoms?

so you currently dont have it? how do you think it comes back for you?

i have had therapy to help me with the anxiety before going on the meds. helped marginally...but i lack the ability to put this into propper perspective. for me, little things to other people would be a massive deal to me. and i still havent mastered the ability to control my anxiety and get perspective. i fear i never will and i may slip in and out of dp for the rest of my life.

are you on any meds?


----------



## sunflowersteve (Apr 24, 2012)

Ledge2012 said:


> what are your symptoms?
> 
> so you currently dont have it? how do you think it comes back for you?
> 
> ...


well they change from time to time but it's usually a sense of being in a dream, a disconnect from my enviornment, a disconnect from myself like my body doesnt feel mine and i forget who i am for moments. i space out alot and sometimes i'll have a moment where i completely zone out and don't know whats going on around me. all dp/dr. i had other anxiety symptoms when this first started but now i only focus on dp/dr.

i currently have it, mostly because i havent been able to control my anxiety like you, and i just can't let go and let my mind heal.
i think it comes back with a panic attack (causes extreme stress) and then i'll obsess about it.

you can definitely control your anxiety, you have the ability you just need to understand it. try the linden method maybe? you can pirate it, i've looked at it but have been too lazy to use it

and i'm sorta on zoloft but not really


----------



## californian (Jul 24, 2006)

The first time I got DP the symptoms were almost exactly like yours (in miniature). I was madly in love with this girl and then, after pining away for her for years, she finally fell in love with me too and we had a couple of weeks of bliss.

And then, bam, nothing. I felt nothing for her. And then I realized I didn't feel much of anything towards anything. And then I started trying to get myself to feel things by telling myself, "look, this is real, this is really happening...why aren't you still so excited?" and that's when i realized that it wasn't just numbness, nothing felt real, and i suddenly had all of these crazy existential questions. both world and self had become utterly bizarre. a bunch of other classic DP symptoms hit then too.

as to your meds question: I've had very good success with Klonopin (Clonazepam). Typically people have better results with it than with SSRIs like Prozac. And like the above poster mentioned, some have had success (in a clinical study) with an SSRI + Lamotrigine (Lamictal) combo.

And, also as mentioned above, Clonazepam can cut your symptoms in about half, but you will have to work to reduce the rest through exercise, diet, disciplined thinking/distraction techniques and the like.

Clonazepam has been a huge life-saver by the way. One of the biggest things it helps in me is the ability to focus on tasks. It also gives me a bit of a deeper sense of embodiment. People worry about the dependency, but my neurologist says dependency is just as much an issue with SSRIs. The benefit of a benzo like Clonazepam vs an SSRI is that it can be taken on an "as needed" basis, instead of taking six weeks to figure out if it is working.

But you might want to just try out the Prozac and see if it works. Some people have benefited from SSRIs, though studies seem to show the main issues have little to do with the serotonin system. I think when it does help people it is probably because it gets rid of the depression that sets in due to DP and allows for some healing to take place (i.e. it breaks the vicious cycle.

Hope that helps!


----------

