# Work is making it worse



## York (Feb 26, 2008)

I'm 35 and I've had dp for 6 years. I've had some good months where I haven't had to think that much about dp, although it's always in the back of my mind.

I honestly felt ready to start working again, I've come so far, I feel like I've faced a lot of what made me dissociate etc. I don't have those perception disturbances or anything like that anymore. No flash-backs or weirdness. I thought I was ok.

Obviously I was wrong, as every freaking day after I started working again has been dissociation hell!!

I don't know what really triggers it or what to do about it. I want to go back to being on my own, writing and taking it slow. Having to face so many people every day makes it very obvious I'm an empty shell. I have no self. I have at the best of times a changing sense of self and identity. I'm scared to death by this. I can't even tell what's wrong, my mind is just.. fucked up.

Help? Where did my self go? I can't stand feeling like this every day, I feel like jumping off a bridge.

I've spent 6 years getting better and work is making it all come back!


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## 35467 (Dec 31, 2010)

I think, it is like migraine. If you have migraine activity will make it worse -because migraine is basically a parasympatic state that will put you down so. DP is also a parasymptic stress response so when the brain register stress it go back to DP shut it down.

My theory on DP comes from 2.persons who also are friends: Peter Levine and Steven Porges. They have work with stress for a lifetime and say the worst stress response there is an most difficult to come out of again is the "shut down" or DP response . It is the most old response in evolution and is related to the vagus nerves (parasymptic nerves). Human got 2. vagus nerves. The ventral vagus that is the relaxed vagus we are in when we are social, safe, reproductive, relaxed, open. The other vagus is the old vagus that reptiles also have. The dorsal vagus. it is the vagus that you use when you can´t mobilize fight or flight response to danger or stress. You can´t run so it shut down and closes the limbic system so you don´t feel anything. Many humans will feel unlike animals this response as alienated a experience of death or loss of control -and will begin to fight the state. The dorsal vagus will register that as a danger is still there and will continue to be there. Because of this the ventral vagus will become weakened and in the background. Normally you will be in the ventral vagus when you sleep, are relaxed and safe, have sex, are creative. The dorsal vagus has become the new normal to you and - when you fight it you keep it.

I have got DP for 30 years and I realized in 2007 that i had DP so it has been many years of keeping this state present. Right know I am exercising the ventral vagus though a biofeedback so I can come out of the dorsal vagus state.

There is an interaction between heart rate and breath and the ventral vagus. If one can coordinate this the ventral vagus will be stimulated and the dorsal vagus inhibitet. I use a biofeedback machine that tells my heart rate and when to exhale so the ventral vagus is stimulated. ( The machine that can do that is called a Stresseraser or

Emwave (1 or 2) Emwave is more expensive but has an ear sensor and other settings)

I have used it since january for 2.hours a day. I can feel a more normal state now when i go to sleep, I dream a lot more ; so I think the ventral vagus is becoming more responsive now.

Vagus nerve stimulation is also used in refractory depression where a stimulator is operated in. In depressed is has to work for nearly a year -most has to have it on for at least 7.mounth to see effect. So it is very slow systems at work.

I have had some glimpse of the ventral vagus state now and I will now try to employ acceptance and CBT. I can begin to do that because I now have a fysiological basis -ventral vagus- to work from. I think it is impossible to work with acceptance if you can´t get access to the ventral vagus (relaxed safe state) and you only have the dorsal vagus ( relaxed unsafe "shut down")

Here is my point- you DP is coming back when you work because the ventral vagus nerve is still very weak. You have to do things that can stimulate ventral vagus. DP comes from a very old an primitive center of the brain; It is not a center you can gets access to with cognition or thoughts. You can only talk to it though the anatomic nervous system and tell you are safe and it has to go with what you do and how you fell. You feel unsafe and threaten by the DP state you are asking it to stay there. DP is no controlling you -you are controlling it. I make a small progression every week and as long I do I stay with it. This is systems that are very slow so give it time.


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## York (Feb 26, 2008)

Thank you, it is definitly stress-related, just wondering what kind of stress. It is probably feeling insecure, I'm very hard on myself. 
Denmark: That is very interesting! Thank you for the insight. The nerd in me loves hearing about the biology, I wish psychiatry became more biology-oriented really fast, it's the answer for sure.

I feel a lot better when I write and do creative stuff, cooking, crafts, just focusing on creating something. Probably what I'm meant to do, unfortunately not what I do at work.. I am realizing I might look for a different job really soon.


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## 35467 (Dec 31, 2010)

My approach to DP is very biological because the disorder is chronic -there is however many cognitive components in it as obsessiveness, anxiety and self-focus -an almost hypnotic state what it probably is in some aspects . But I think that the anxiety levels I had when this developed also made some physiological changes in the anatomic nervous system. I think the changes in the vagus is the problem.

A recent publication for the depersonalization research unit also questions if DP is related to as deregulation in the vagus system towards the dorsal vagus .See in the discussion section on page 323. Here;

http://www.lorentzcenter.nl/lc/web/2013/556/ThemePapers/SchoenbergLWS.pdf

So to treat DP you need to stimulate ventral vagus. To tell you anatomic nervous system that you are safe-without cognition or thoughts -The CNS can´t hear that -but action and behavior.

I will make a larger post later in the coming mouth under "medical explanations" were I will include other things as quotes by Peter Levine about this state. Peter Levine and Steven Porges are friends . Levine is clinician while S.Porges is the researcher but they both say that the "shut down" state is very difficult to treat because the system are slow and humans becomes very frightened -unlike animals -when they inter this state - and it is actually prolonging it when you try to fright it -an I think this fright also has made a shift in the vagus nerves so you can´t be in the good, safe, social vagus - but you are permanently in the dorsal vagus.

I have posted it on another thread -but here is a short lecture by Steven Porges about the two vagus nerves. DP is the immobilization with fear response -dorsal vagus. DPs can´t come back to the normal social safe Ventral vagus because is been weakened.


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## 99880 (Mar 17, 2016)

Mayer-Gross said:


> I think, it is like migraine. If you have migraine activity will make it worse -because migraine is basically a parasympatic state that will put you down so. DP is also a parasymptic stress response so when the brain register stress it go back to DP shut it down.
> 
> My theory on DP comes from 2.persons who also are friends: Peter Levine and Steven Porges. They have work with stress for a lifetime and say the worst stress response there is an most difficult to come out of again is the "shut down" or DP response . It is the most old response in evolution and is related to the vagus nerves (parasymptic nerves). Human got 2. vagus nerves. The ventral vagus that is the relaxed vagus we are in when we are social, safe, reproductive, relaxed, open. The other vagus is the old vagus that reptiles also have. The dorsal vagus. it is the vagus that you use when you can´t mobilize fight or flight response to danger or stress. You can´t run so it shut down and closes the limbic system so you don´t feel anything. Many humans will feel unlike animals this response as alienated a experience of death or loss of control -and will begin to fight the state. The dorsal vagus will register that as a danger is still there and will continue to be there. Because of this the ventral vagus will become weakened and in the background. Normally you will be in the ventral vagus when you sleep, are relaxed and safe, have sex, are creative. The dorsal vagus has become the new normal to you and - when you fight it you keep it.
> 
> ...


Was there anything in particular ithat occured in 2007 that caused you to realise that you had Dp?


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## Pondererer (May 18, 2016)

Im glad im not the only one reacting to work like this. Ive Been trying different types of work and ive almost always reacted like this.

Im saying this because it annoys me when People say things like Just get a job, Just do this and that. Its not that easy when those things only puts you a step back.


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## HopingCat36 (Jun 17, 2017)

York said:


> I'm 35 and I've had dp for 6 years. I've had some good months where I haven't had to think that much about dp, although it's always in the back of my mind.
> I honestly felt ready to start working again, I've come so far, I feel like I've faced a lot of what made me dissociate etc. I don't have those perception disturbances or anything like that anymore. No flash-backs or weirdness. I thought I was ok.
> Obviously I was wrong, as every freaking day after I started working again has been dissociation hell!!
> I don't know what really triggers it or what to do about it. I want to go back to being on my own, writing and taking it slow. Having to face so many people every day makes it very obvious I'm an empty shell. I have no self. I have at the best of times a changing sense of self and identity. I'm scared to death by this. I can't even tell what's wrong, my mind is just.. fucked up.
> ...


Is your Dp because of anxiety and stress? I can see how your job can be triggering this hell. Maybe it's too stressful. Maybe you need some other job.


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