# My story with DP and what I've learned about myself.



## daftfl4m3 (May 21, 2017)

Hey everybody,

first of all I want to make a huge shoutout to all the people who take the time to write in this forum and give other people the possibility to identify. DP is a serious a topic and when it made it to this forum you might have a long way of confusion behind you. DP is a really abstract Disorder. It's creeps silently in to your mind and freaks you out in the moments where you need to be focused the most.

2011

In that time I was in the middle of my study at the univeristy. It was a challenging time, apart from family and the shelter that comes along with it. It's not an easy task to figure out what to do with your life. But I was convinced it will turn out good for me. I always was a person who was living in the future. While I was studying and was convinced to be a great graphic designer already. Which was misleading. It was a kind of fear in me to be really honest to myself and to accept that I have still to learn and try and error to become this someone that I wanted to be. Not knowing how to become that person filled me literary up with fear. I became negative to all kinds of options which could contain the slightest chance of failure. And yes, it's important to make failures to become better, but this was something I've never really accepted.

In this state of instability about my life a felt in in love with a girl. I saw in her the answers to all my fear and I thought she could rescue me from all that negativity.

We went out one night and drank a lot. The next day we were hangovered. In the evening the went out again. It was around 9 PM. I was still tired and dizzy from the night before. We drank a beer and thought, after a couple more, we would appreciate the party around us even more. We went out to the streets of Berlin, where a friend of this girl was smoking a joint. I was never a real smoker. I did it maybe 5-10 times before in small doses. But as she was beginning to smoke I've felt challenged. So smoked even more than her. And after a few moments, it kicked in like a hammer.

At this time, DP became such a real thing for me. I was heavily isolated and feared. I didn't know what was happing to me and my body. I couldn't talk. I needed to move or to leave the situation. Absurd thoughts were rushing into my mind in the speed of light. I've tried to calm myself down, but I wasn't unable to do so. I felt haunted by an undefined power. My perception was heavily damaged at this moment. I walked along a street, turned a round and forgot what have been behind me. It freaked me out and I became intensely scared. I tried to call a friend, while I left the girl behind to become clear again. But I was unable to. As I reached my friend, he felt so much away. A dull voice from somewhere. All the time, I tried to convince my self, that I had to much weed and it will just take some time to leave my body. And so it was. After 3 hours the nightmare came to an end.

I regathered with the girl, who was in the mean time at the party. She was a bit drunk, angry and dissapointed. So she has pulled the same joint as me, and didnt feel the same way I did. She couldn't understand what was happing to me.

The next day I drove back to Hamburg, knowing that I would never see her again. This made me even more upset.

After this night I felt quite unstable in every thing I did after that. Three months later I began my internship at a huge agency. I didn't feel capable of doing it. There was a inner force (DP) which held me down and obfuscated my perception. I got worse.

DP and the life-challenging fear I've mentoined earlier, ally together and put me in a state of panic attacks, depression and total confusion.

After a while of suffering, I wen't to the hospital. I started a program there, which included medication. They gave me Mirtazapin in 30mg. And over time, thing got a lot better for me. A took quite a while to work. But the condition changed.

I completed the internship and went back to university. I've realize, that this one time weed experience was not the trigger of a psychosis illness. More than that, it was the last missing peace of self-destruction and escaping from the things, which where really important in my life at this time.

This intense part of self-reflection, I went trough that time, helped me a lot later on. I finished my study as best in class. Of what I am really proud of today. I took all the shit in me and turned it to something good.

2017

Now a couple of years later I am back. DP had found a way back in to my mind. For my understanding, DP is a self-protection mechanism of the mind. When you are struggling with something, whether having trouble finding a job, problems within the family or someone broke up with you. For me, it is always insuperable stress, things I can't change in the short run.

Since a couple of months now, I am back in DP. It's terrifying. Especially, when you have been to that point earlier. You lose your complete passion for everything what is important to you to this day. Friends and family are feeling like strangers, although your minds tries to calm you down and help you realize that nothing has really changed. You hardly try to find meaning in all kind of things. You feel disconnected and overwhelmed by things such as showering for example. Places have an obscure taste and you feel as you would enter them for the very first time, while your mind tries to convince that you are wrong. This all leads to a big chunk of confusion. I became scared of my one thoughts. You wish yourself a bit of silence but you are unable to. More and more you become more disconnected and develop fears, which you never had before. You become more and more disappointed from yourself. It feels like you have no save place to go and the world keeps on going while you try to clear yourself again.

You lose your complete self-confidence and start to doubt on things, which felt crystal clear before. But this is biggest mistake you can do. DP somehow invites you to journey of your own mind, which doesn't mean that you have to change completely and that you will never enjoy the things the way you did before.

I went back to same hospital again. They put me back on Mirtazapin 30mg. And I must say: It's slowly starts to work.

The first doctor gave me just 15mg, which is good, but is more aimed on people who have problems falling a sleep or have winter blues. The next doctor told me, that only at a dose of 30mg triggers anti-drepressive effect.

So my recovery story is ongoing. But I thought it would be interesting for you to see, that you can be healed. Live life to the fullest and see that behind DP is mostly a different fight you don't want to conquer.

I hope that helped a bit. I am glad to hear your response.

Cheers,

daft

Ps.: You gonna be fly until you die!


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