# Lately I can't leave my house and am faking everything I do and say...



## GoneInSpace (Apr 14, 2008)

Anybody else get DP/DR so bad that they can not even set foot outside of their house or leave their bed.Too much fear that you aren't really in your body and will not know where you are and what you are doing and who you are. It is simply far too disturbing. Like walking and feeling like you aren't there or seeing yourself from above or other angles while a car is coming in your direction. It is way too weird and scary.

It's been like this for some months now. Being in a car is even worse. Feeling unreal while moving and watching the background scenery is horrifying.

Also, everything I do or every conversation I have, I am faking and simply pretending that things are real. I really don't know if they are. It certainly doesn't feel like it anymore.

I have had chronic DP for ten years. The last few months it has been really bad. I have had months or years even where it was all manageable. Hoping to get back to that point.


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## mrt (Dec 10, 2011)

Exactly the same boat. I've had DR for twenty something years, I'd gotten to the point it was very manageable and didn't play much of a part of my everyday life most of the time, the past few years have been pretty good. But the past couple of months have been extremely severe, and quite horrific. I just want to get back to how things were, this is all too much.

Hang in there.


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## Pondererer (May 18, 2016)

It has been this bad for me, yes.


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## RedSky (Jan 11, 2017)

Same here man, I try to go on walks to get out of my apartment/head but like 80% of the time the walk will trigger a more intense DR and I'll become super frustrated and my girlfriend will try to ask me whats wrong... most of the time she is walking with me but if I go on a walk myself it get's even worse. I wish I could slap some sense into my brain "wake up you stupid idiot! we have been on 1000's of walks why are you freaking out!?"


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## Msanchioli (May 13, 2017)

Yes that's how I feel right now and it's been the hardest symptom to deal with. It makes me sad that I fake everything.


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## lexylove777 (May 13, 2017)

I started to leave my house again after a whole two months of not. I recently stopped because I started thinking way too much and now I'm back where I used to be. Even when I was leaving the house I'd get this at the food store and everyone around me didn't look real. I had to quit both of my jobs. I REALLY feel what you mean right now.


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## LauraP (Jun 10, 2017)

If you've beaten it before to a point where it's become manageable, then I have faith that you can again. I feel like mine in getting worse again, hence why I joined this site. If you can, access any therapy or CBT services that you've had before, or return to/ start on medication. You'll be okay, It will get better.


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## Carl_34_m_UK (May 3, 2016)

This is one of the strangest sensations. Where you are just out and about. as everyone else is but you just look around in some trance like state and feel like nothing is real, or what is reality? What is all this around me and all these people just wandering around without a care in the world? Their only concern is which bananas are cheapest! But they are living day in day out without questioning what is going on around them or anything existential. I know because I used to be one of them. It really makes you realise how different life is now, to have such things as relationship troubles or financial troubles etc are a thing of the past. All those types of issues are irrelevant now...with the dp\dr existential stuff, you've got to get over the hurdle of the fact you exist before any issues WITHIN life. Life itself is an issue so how the heck to you try to mingle in with the rest of the world. Every conversation is just fake, trying to act like there is nothing wrong. I'd actually rather not engage in conversation as I don't have to find words to pretend. It's quite sad as I used to be the complete opposite and a fun outgoing person. It's quite a reality check on how much this literally robs you of the person you once were. I'm just appreciating that this happened at the age of 34 - so I had 34 normal years on this earth. I feel for people who are suffering at a much younger age and may never recover (sorry but not everyone comes out of this)


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## dope (Aug 31, 2016)

Same.

These last weeks have been horrifying.
Anyway, we have to ask ourselves what we did to get to the point where it was manageable, and doing it all over again.

Best of Luck to all of you, message me if you need anything at all!


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## Pondererer (May 18, 2016)

Carl_34_m_UK said:


> This is one of the strangest sensations. Where you are just out and about. as everyone else is but you just look around in some trance like state and feel like nothing is real, or what is reality? What is all this around me and all these people just wandering around without a care in the world? Their only concern is which bananas are cheapest! But they are living day in day out without questioning what is going on around them or anything existential. I know because I used to be one of them. It really makes you realise how different life is now, to have such things as relationship troubles or financial troubles etc are a thing of the past. All those types of issues are irrelevant now...with the dp\dr existential stuff, you've got to get over the hurdle of the fact you exist before any issues WITHIN life. Life itself is an issue so how the heck to you try to mingle in with the rest of the world. Every conversation is just fake, trying to act like there is nothing wrong. I'd actually rather not engage in conversation as I don't have to find words to pretend. It's quite sad as I used to be the complete opposite and a fun outgoing person. It's quite a reality check on how much this literally robs you of the person you once were. I'm just appreciating that this happened at the age of 34 - so I had 34 normal years on this earth. I feel for people who are suffering at a much younger age and may never recover (sorry but not everyone comes out of this)


What happened at age 34?


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## HopingCat36 (Jun 17, 2017)

Carl_34_m_UK said:


> This is one of the strangest sensations. Where you are just out and about. as everyone else is but you just look around in some trance like state and feel like nothing is real, or what is reality? What is all this around me and all these people just wandering around without a care in the world? Their only concern is which bananas are cheapest! But they are living day in day out without questioning what is going on around them or anything existential. I know because I used to be one of them. It really makes you realise how different life is now, to have such things as relationship troubles or financial troubles etc are a thing of the past. All those types of issues are irrelevant now...with the dp\dr existential stuff, you've got to get over the hurdle of the fact you exist before any issues WITHIN life. Life itself is an issue so how the heck to you try to mingle in with the rest of the world. Every conversation is just fake, trying to act like there is nothing wrong. I'd actually rather not engage in conversation as I don't have to find words to pretend. It's quite sad as I used to be the complete opposite and a fun outgoing person. It's quite a reality check on how much this literally robs you of the person you once were. I'm just appreciating that this happened at the age of 34 - so I had 34 normal years on this earth. I feel for people who are suffering at a much younger age and may never recover (sorry but not everyone comes out of this)


What triggered it for you now? Or did t just come out the blue?


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## forestx5 (Aug 29, 2008)

I was agoraphobic for a month or so after having a session of temporal lobe seizures when I was 17. I didn't have an explanation for what happened to me until 40 years later. It happened the 1st time I got intoxicated on cannabis, so it was very confusing. I found a case history in a British neurological journal that matched my experience in every detail.

I seized every 5 seconds for over 2 and a half minutes. I figure that is about 30 successive seizures. Post-Ictal psychosis can occur in correlation to the severity of the seizures. I could not sleep for 2 weeks. I had horrible anxiety. The worse time was the hour before daylight. I felt like I was dying. The journal stated the worst case scenario was the development

of an affective disorder. I acquired recurring major depression. I suffered an episode on average every decade. Each was an epic struggle for survival with long periods of insomnia and intense anxiety. I survived 4 episodes. The key to my understanding of what occurred to me at age 17, that which made me mentally ill, was the prodromal seizure that took place

before I began to have the temporal lobe seizures. That seizure is called an abdominal or epigastric aura. It is unique and odd and it could never be mistaken for anything else, once you know how it presents. 50% of epileptics requiring surgery for refractive seizures have their seizures begin with epigastric aura. Once I realized what my history was, I had an EEG

and an MRI with epilepsy protocol. My EEG showed significant pathology in my temporal lobe, consistent with a history of seizures. I underwent ECT in 2013 for a major depressive episode, and the results were amazing. I'm 62 now, and am really just beginning to live. I remember having to take several steps away from my home, then retracing my steps back to safety.

I increased the number of steps until I made it to the corner, where I used to hang with my friends. Slowly I increased the time I might spend away from home. I had difficulty driving very far from home. I had severe anxiety driving through tunnels, because my seizures caused "dolly zoom vision" hallucinations which cause tunneling of vision. It took years....decades, for

my symptoms to remit. I had hundreds of panic attack like spells which were no doubt lesser temporal lobe seizures. Not sure how I did it, but somehow I completed an enlistment in the military and managed a career as an electronic technician, while keeping my illness secret. But, if I had to it again, I'm not sure I would.


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