# My story/DPDR from weed



## psychs (Nov 17, 2015)

On December 21, 2014, I smoked marijuana. I had done it once or twice before with no effect, and I guess I felt pressured by my friends to enjoy it and join the stoner culture or something along those lines. My boyfriend was with me, and we took a few hits and then laid down. I don't know when exactly the panic set in, but I think it was when I first realized that something was different than before. I noticed that my thoughts were drifting strangely and I couldn't think properly, and then realized that I kept forgetting things and losing my train of thought. I tried to shake myself out of the cloud that I felt I was trapped in, and that was when all hell broke lose. I felt like I was being slammed in and out of reality, everything coming in waves; emotion, color, sensations of touch, smell, taste, all hitting me in these horrible pulses. I remember standing up and jumping around because I felt like if I could just keep moving, maybe I would be able to hold onto that feeling of reality, that anchor. When I laid down, I completely lost myself amid the pulses of sensation and fear. My heart was beating at what must have been 160 beats per minute, I was panting and shaking uncontrollably, and my words didn't make sense. Laying down next to my boyfriend, N, I felt that our bodies were the same material, that everything (the bed, the walls, even the freaking air) was the same rolling sheet of pulsing colors and sounds. Our bodies were not our bodies. They were just things, things touching and echoing. I completely lost my sense of self, and found it very uncomfortable to move my body because it felt so numb. Any feeling of touch echoed across my skin, amplified in the same rhythm as the flashing colors. Voices were the worst, though. N tried to talk to me while this was happening, obviously. He whispered softly in what I assume to be a soothing voice, but to me it was the most horrible thing yet. He kept saying "hey, hey" trying to ground me and keep me focused on his voice, but it just echoed and pulsed like everything else and the sharp sound of the whispers felt like a dagger stabbing me. It sounded like when you are first waking up, that brief second between sleep and waking where everything is loud and uncomfortable and doesn't make sense. Sounds swirled around my head and sounded like they were coming from right next to my ear even though I knew they weren't. The sound of his voice made me realize just how disconnected from reality I really was. I felt so removed from my body, from reality, locked in the far corner of my mind and beaten by pulse after pulse. It was by far the most terrifying experience of my life, and I cannot even explain how deeply it affected me. It was more frightening than any threat to my life, because to me, it was worse; it was a threat to my reality. I had never really questioned reality before then. Sure, I'd dabbled in some existential questions "Who am I? Why do I exist?" etc. but I'd never felt so threatened, so lost and disconnected, from every single thing I had assumed to be true. After two hours panic and fear, my horror trip faded away and I tried to brush it off. I decided that I'd be more careful next time (STUPID STUPID STUPID) and I would only take maybe one or two hits. This had just been a bad reaction, I told myself, something that happened sometimes and wouldn't happen in the future (I was so naive, so stupid. If only I could go back and stop myself.)

A few weeks later, I tried smoking again. It was fine, uncomfortable and not the least bit relaxing, but it was nothing compared to the previous episode. I wanted so badly not to look weak. I didn't want to be the big baby that couldn't handle a little weed. Of course, I had never heard of DPDR. Then, it happened again. January 16, 2015. This time, when I felt the first bit of panic, I knew what was coming. It hit full force, but this time I was not safe and warm on a bed with N. I was outside in the cold in an unfamiliar and uncomfortable place. I laid on the ground and shook violently for about two hours, convinced I was dying, dead, in hell. I remember holding my breath and feeling no urgency to breathe at all. I wanted to die so badly, and in a sense, I did. Again I couldn't hold onto what I felt was reality, and I was terrified and numb. It was horrible. For the rest of the day, I felt zoned-out and lost. I couldn't keep a train of thought and I had great difficulty holding a conversation. This time, I decided that it wasn't worth it to try smoking again.

A few weeks after the second horror trip, I was talking to someone at school and everything started to feel unreal. Their voice began to echo and become sharper, and the words didn't make sense. I began to hyperventilate and felt the familiar fear and panic of my horror trips. I had no idea what was happening or why. To me, it felt like being high (I still have no idea what being high feels like to everyone else) but I knew that wasn't it. This happened many more times, usually when I was talking to people face-to-face, and especially if they were whispering. I learned that what I was experiencing were panic attacks, and that my horror trips were basically two-hour-long extreme panic attacks. This was why I felt "high" while having a panic attack; I simply thought that was what it felt like to be high. Around this time, I stopped feeling real. Before I knew anything about DPDR, before I understood what had happened to me, I began to tell N that things weren't real and that I was dead. People stopped feeling like people, in the normal sense of the word. I knew that something was seriously wrong, but it was clearly only wrong in my head. I didn't feel connected to N, to my family. I usually got very upset when my father yelled at me, but now I felt only numb indifference. After all, he wasn't real. I became extremely irritable and moody. I got angry at N and lashed out for stupid reasons (I'm so, so sorry N.). I felt like I wanted to hurt someone, anyone. I wanted to prove to myself that the outside world was REAL and that my actions had consequences. I was going crazy, going crazy and begging for help but no one heard. I began to self-harm, and I felt that nothing mattered anymore. As a result, my grades began to slip (I was previously a straight-A student and top of my class). I went to the school guidance counselor as a last resort, convinced I was going insane and I was about to lose it completely. She was of ABSOLUTELY NO HELP. In fact, I spent the next hour sobbing incoherently into N's chest, feeling worse than ever before. She told me "You're okay" to which I replied "NO, I'm not!" It felt like the most minimizing and maddening thing anyone could say to me. She tried to come up with a "plan" for me whenever I feel suicidal, and made it seem like the most childish and stupid thing, like this was all a joke or I was looking for attention. I felt like screaming CAN'T YOU SEE THAT I'M GOING CRAZY, I NEED HELP, PLEASE HELP ME. My very REALITY is falling apart, I can't feel things anymore, I'm going crazy help meeeeee. The only good thing that came out of our talk was that I became involved in the Student Assistance Program, and this led me to the only adult who has ever helped me feel better, my therapist. She wasn't really my therapist, but we met at school on Wednesdays and I told her everything that had happened and was happening. She made me feel safe and told me what no one else had, that my feelings were valid and it was okay to react the way I did. She focused on managing feelings of depression and suicidal urges and never mentioned DPDR, because I think I mostly kept the feelings of unreality to myself. It just felt impossible to explain.

Gradually, I began to feel better. As winter became spring, I tried to leave behind the terrible experiences and feelings that I had become so acquainted with. I got a job working on a farm over the summer. I biked to work every day, ate healthy, and spent all day doing physical jobs in the sun. It was definitely good for my mental health, and I tried to forget about the winter and leave it behind. The disconnected feeling never fully went away, but things were great with N and work and I could finally laugh and enjoy things again.

Then the days began to get shorter and colder. School started up again. It was great for the first few weeks, and then DPDR hit hard. I began to dissociate while talking to people, I was irritable again, I contemplated suicide. I no longer had panic attacks, but instead descended into a permanently derealized state where people didn't feel like people and I no longer enjoyed anything. I finally found a DPDR support forum online, and found that many people had the same experience as me. It was such a great relief, but I also began to lose hope. Getting better required so much work, and I barely even wanted to get better. It was hard to think of my feelings of unreality as separate from my self, something intrusive and foreign. I just wanted to die. And I was only less than a year into this hell. Some people spent the rest of their lives permanently DP'd.

This is where I am now. I've managed to keep my grades up this year, and I no longer feel violent urges to prove my own reality. I haven't self-harmed in a while, thanks to the constant unwavering support of N. I fluctuate constantly between hopeless, obsessively suicidal thoughts and a strange, happy optimism. I want to become a psychologist and study/help people like myself; that is, if I don't kill myself first. I feel a strange sense of understanding and empathy towards everyone that has been similarly afflicted with DPDR, depression, anxiety, etc.

I hope that reading through my experience helps you to not feel so alone, as I did. Because you aren't alone, no matter how much it feels like you are. If anyone would like to talk to me or share their experiences, feel free. My email is [email protected], and my tumblr is also junolivi. Sorry this thing is so long, it all just kinda came out. I've never written about this stuff before and I've only ever told N and my therapist about what happened to me. Thanks for listening.


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