# rewiring yourself.



## Juan (Jul 5, 2012)

I've posted many times, and I said I was going to have a last post, but there needs to be more hope and good information flowing through a place where you guys look for info. I've been recovered for many months now, and I want you guys to do the same.

Any of you who feel DP is are not calm and collected, and your mind is running at 100 mph 24/7. You feel detached from being worn down because the only time you brain has a rest from all your constant tense thoughts are in your sleep. Everyone no matter who they are feels anxiety, but if the mind keeps racing with those anxious thoughts the body will never calm down. All humans have the fight or flight response, and if your worrisome thoughts never stop, then your body never stops trying to use energy for you to stray away from danger.

The secret to recovering is being mentally calm no matter how your body reacts to uncomfortable situations. You can't prepare at home in the comfort of your own presence for this. Your brain establishes neural connections whenever you act in a specific way. If you do this many times, those neural connections grow stronger (your constant mental and physical tension in uncomfortable situations). You have to experience things that make you uncomfortable so that you can reassign your mental and physical reactions in a more positive way. Calm mind = calm body.

Many of you find the right direction to go for a while, but give up when the results are not instant. You have weaken the neural connections you have with associating uncomfortable situations or living life mentally tense. If you have felt DP for a long time, then you have reinforced these connections to be very strong or present. These connections weaken the longer they are not reinforced, so therefore the longer you remain calm the more these habits weaken. You have to strengthen your neural connections with acting mentally calm and collected in anything you do, no matter how uncomfortable your body feels. This reinforces being relaxed and not draining energy, so that you can collect and actually have energy to use.

I can expand on this by editing this post and by comments, so please feel free to argue.


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## Midnight (Jul 16, 2011)

Hi Juan, nice to see you posting again.

I wondered if you could give me some advice because I don't know how to apply this to myself. For me, it feels like my mind is not running at 100mph, it feels like it is stuck; like there is just a blank empty space where my mind once was before DP.

It feels like there is alot of thoughts underneath this blank feeling. Did you experience this?


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## Juan (Jul 5, 2012)

Yes I did for a while, and it was because I was suppressing my negative thoughts and emotions. I didn't want to feel negative so I tried to hide those negatives and accent the positives in my life. At the time I didn't know is that if you suppress one you really do suppress all (good and bad).

You have to be mentally willing to feel good and bad. You really do need to take a *calm* mind, and let those feelings whatever they may be flood your body and flow through. This is what took me the longest to learn. Every time after DP that my body felt anxiety, my mind went nuts because I thought I had to keep a handle on everything. It wasn't until I tried doing the opposite, and experiencing anxiety through my body with a calm mind did I realize that it always passes. I applied this to life, and every time I felt uncomfortable, I kept my mind calm and kept on with whatever I was doing, no matter what my body was trying to say.

I know that I repeat myself, but recovering anxiety really is that simple- the only dependent factor is time.


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## ParaSpeed (Apr 29, 2012)

Juan said:


> I've posted many times, and I said I was going to have a last post, but there needs to be more hope and good information flowing through a place where you guys look for info. I've been recovered for many months now, and I want you guys to do the same.
> 
> Any of you who feel DP is are not calm and collected, and your mind is running at 100 mph 24/7. You feel detached from being worn down because the only time you brain has a rest from all your constant tense thoughts are in your sleep. Everyone no matter who they are feels anxiety, but if the mind keeps racing with those anxious thoughts the body will never calm down. All humans have the fight or flight response, and if your worrisome thoughts never stop, then your body never stops trying to use energy for you to stray away from danger.
> 
> ...


Hi Juan

It's good to hear from you, great post as always.

I just wanted to ask a question:

I feel disconnected/distant from my surroundings 24/7 (as if I am not there). When I look at my surroundings I cannot feel what I "know" I should feel, everything feels a bit different to how it was before all this started. I also feel dazed all the time ( I have other symptoms but these two I find difficult to cope with)

I was just wondering what it is that gives rise to these sensations, and what I can do to get myself back or connect to my surroundings again.

Thanks


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## Midnight (Jul 16, 2011)

Juan said:


> Yes I did for a while, and it was because I was suppressing my negative thoughts and emotions. I didn't want to feel negative so I tried to hide those negatives and accent the positives in my life. At the time I didn't know is that if you suppress one you really do suppress all (good and bad).
> 
> You have to be mentally willing to feel good and bad. You really do need to take a *calm* mind, and let those feelings whatever they may be flood your body and flow through. This is what took me the longest to learn. Every time after DP that my body felt anxiety, my mind went nuts because I thought I had to keep a handle on everything. It wasn't until I tried doing the opposite, and experiencing anxiety through my body with a calm mind did I realize that it always passes. I applied this to life, and every time I felt uncomfortable, I kept my mind calm and kept on with whatever I was doing, no matter what my body was trying to say.
> 
> I know that I repeat myself, but recovering anxiety really is that simple- the only dependent factor is time.


Thanks Juan again.

I just have a very hard time accepting that what I'm experiencing is only anxiety - know what I mean? It feels too intense, and it feels like I have lost my entire world. I have mourned over the loss of myself many times. Is it really possible to get all that back? All the sensations and memories and identity?


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## Juan (Jul 5, 2012)

ParaSpeed said:


> Hi Juan
> 
> It's good to hear from you, great post as always.
> 
> ...


Once you start feeling every feeling that is dug deep into yourself, you can start feeling new feelings again. Does this make sense? When you hold feelings internally, they do not go away until you let them process through your mind and body. You have to *feel* every single feeling that is being held inside you ( good and bad). Don't hold on to memories as anchors, but look deep in yourself and let every single thought and feeling flow through you so that you can empty yourself and be stimulated by your immediate life ( not the past or future). I might have made this complicated, but if it was I can definitely try and make this easier to understand.


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## Juan (Jul 5, 2012)

Midnight said:


> Thanks Juan again.
> 
> I just have a very hard time accepting that what I'm experiencing is only anxiety - know what I mean? It feels too intense, and it feels like I have lost my entire world. I have mourned over the loss of myself many times. Is it really possible to get all that back? All the sensations and memories and identity?


Yes sir it is entirely possible! I know the feeling believe me. When you have feelings of DP at its most intense level, it feels like you could never get back to where you once were. If you feel DP, in my experience that means you are day-by-day bottling up your thoughts and emotions. It means you are trying to prevent yourself from feeling certain thoughts and emotions, but when you attempt to suppress any thoughts or negative feelings, then you create tension within yourself. When I had DP, I had intense amounts of stress that I tried to shake off, and never let myself process. I didn't want to feel the stress so I tried to keep it tame because I wanted to be only happy. One day I broke down after years of never even shedding a tear, and couldn't stop the tears from flowing. I began to feel relief, so I let it go on for as long as it needed to. I had my break through there where I realized feeling the bad made me feel good. By basically emptying myself from my feelings, I didn't feel empty, but was affected by what was going on in my life in the present ( not the past or future )


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## ParaSpeed (Apr 29, 2012)

Juan said:


> Once you start feeling every feeling that is dug deep into yourself, you can start feeling new feelings again. Does this make sense? When you hold feelings internally, they do not go away until you let them process through your mind and body. You have to *feel* every single feeling that is being held inside you ( good and bad). Don't hold on to memories as anchors, but look deep in yourself and let every single thought and feeling flow through you so that you can empty yourself and be stimulated by your immediate life ( not the past or future). I might have made this complicated, but if it was I can definitely try and make this easier to understand.


Thanks Juan

I don't think i am holding any feelings or emotions (for instance i cry all the time becuase of the dazed, disconnected/distant from myself and surroundings 24/7 feeling.

I just can't seem to defocus from these sensations. Could you explain what it is that makes me feel like this all the time please?


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## Midnight (Jul 16, 2011)

Juan said:


> Yes sir it is entirely possible! I know the feeling believe me. When you have feelings of DP at its most intense level, it feels like you could never get back to where you once were. If you feel DP, in my experience that means you are day-by-day bottling up your thoughts and emotions. It means you are trying to prevent yourself from feeling certain thoughts and emotions, but when you attempt to suppress any thoughts or negative feelings, then you create tension within yourself. When I had DP, I had intense amounts of stress that I tried to shake off, and never let myself process. I didn't want to feel the stress so I tried to keep it tame because I wanted to be only happy. One day I broke down after years of never even shedding a tear, and couldn't stop the tears from flowing. I began to feel relief, so I let it go on for as long as it needed to. I had my break through there where I realized feeling the bad made me feel good. By basically emptying myself from my feelings, I didn't feel empty, but was affected by what was going on in my life in the present ( not the past or future )


But I'm not consciously suppressing things. It's not like I am saying to myself 'that's a bad thought - I'll suppress it' - see?

I don't even know if I have anxiety. I just feel like I am in a void.

I can't feel any anxiety at all! I don't feel stress. I don't feel anything really except I can *kind of* feel emotions in subtle ways.

So when I follow your advice feel like I am trying to calm myself down, but I feel calm already - does that make sense?


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## Juan (Jul 5, 2012)

Midnight said:


> But I'm not consciously suppressing things. It's not like I am saying to myself 'that's a bad thought - I'll suppress it' - see?
> 
> I don't even know if I have anxiety. I just feel like I am in a void.
> 
> ...


I definitely follow you. I really did feel this way for a long time, which is why I went to doctors and therapists. These people did nothing more than try to put me on medication, but I knew in my heart that medication wasn't going to solve this.

In my view I feel you have deep layers of suppression, which you don't have to do consciously for it to happen; I'll explain. How often do you run into a situation where you felt awkward, and that awkward thought did not leave your mind, but rather be saved to the back of your mind for you to think about later? This was me. I thought I was letting everything go, but instead of letting myself fully experience these thoughts and emotions, I was just shoving them to the back of my mind for me to ponder about later, and see what I could have done differently for it to go better.

you don't have to feel anxious for you to feel dp. You don't necessarily have to feel depression either. DP is the mental stress you put on yourself from holding onto thoughts and emotions. When was the last time your mind truly felt empty? Sure, you can think about nothing for a short time, but tuning into the way your mind feels, i'm sure it hasn't felt relaxed and contempt for a long while.

I can use an example from my life: One day I went to a party, and given that I thought I was in a comfortable situation, I drank a lot that was past my limits of control. A slutty girl kissed me while I had a girlfriend, and the next day I didn't recall it. I was told about it later, and even though I told my girlfriend what had happened immediately, I shoved it to the depths of my body so I didn't have to experience what I had sworn to myself would never happen. I didn't want to experience what betrayal I felt I committed, so I tried to push it away so I could continue living my happy life. This was before I felt dp. Things like this began to happen such as I failed a college course, and I didn't want to feel like a failure, so I pushed it away from my mind and continued on, rather than experiencing it head on. After I began this DP feeling, I tried for many months to keep it together until one day I crashed. I cried for quite a while, and it seemed to come out of nowhere. All the emotions I had pushed away came shooting out like a volcano.

What I really feel will help you the most is to look deep inside your heart and try to pull out any emotion or thought that resides in you. I really feel that you need to experience everything until you feel empty. this is where the present will affect you, rather than the past or future. It sounds spiritual, and it kind of is, but I believe there are ways you can learn to be yourself again without the guidance of religion.


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## Juan (Jul 5, 2012)

ParaSpeed said:


> Hi Juan
> 
> It's good to hear from you, great post as always.
> 
> ...


Hi paraspeed- while I recommend reading 'at last a life' by paul david, as it explains this all in a reasonably brief book, I can make my attempts at this to you. As I said to midnight, this is a build up of suppression within yourself. suppressed thoughts and emotions, so you don't have to feel them.

It is very natural for a person who is already anxious or depressed to try to push intense thoughts or emotions out of the way so they can be stable. Well, pushing these thoughts and emotions away could actually make you much more unstable. Like I said before, you must go deep within yourself and experience every thought and emotion that you have stuck into the depths of your mind and body. It will not be until you feel empty till you can feel the full potential of your emotions again by the present, and not the past or future.


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## Juan (Jul 5, 2012)

Susto said:


> THIS IS THE SOLUTION ! it's actually so simple and difficult at the same time, to just calm down and simply BEEEEEEEE. I see it like the mind is so noisy that a person cannot listen what is already within. Also, always when I try to calm down, fear arises and I start to come up with many "obstacle thoughts" like "this is stupid, I have some mysterious rare illness, I'm gonna die, bla bla bla.."
> 
> "The Secret" is really silence to the mind and simply being mindful at the same time, like Zen meditation


While I do absolutely agree that silence of the mind is what anything with DP needs, that is the end result of what we need to happen not the process.


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## Shapiro (Nov 7, 2011)

Awesome posts Juan! A great book along the lines of rewirring yourself is "You are Not Your Brain" by Jeffrey Schwartz M. D and Rebbeca Gladding M. D. Well it doesn't apply to dp directly, it's a helpful guide to rewirring the less than helpful parts of your brain. I still struggle with occassional episodes of dp, but in retrospect this book was a cornerstone in breaking the dp of being a 24/7 thing. Best wishes to everyone. And special thanks to Juan for all the amazing advice.


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## Juan (Jul 5, 2012)

your welcome! Honestly, I think that post above is all one really needs to know what they need to do. People constantly look for that 'cure', when they have all the control from the start.


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## chazhe (Nov 12, 2012)

I can really relate to Susto.....


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## fonzie (Apr 6, 2013)

Mentally calm no matter what, thanks Juan!


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## soul (Mar 25, 2013)

hello nice post juan, i think i have recoved <idk> if i have because i dont no what the reakilty was b4 dp idk can any one help


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## Juan (Jul 5, 2012)

sean111 said:


> hello nice post juan, i think i have recoved <idk> if i have because i dont no what the reakilty was b4 dp idk can any one help


I think you shouldn't have the goal in mind of 'recovering', because that puts pressure on you to make serious efforts, which are mentally straining. The goal should be to feel better, and to engage in silence so you can let whatever left over thoughts and emotions process through you *without *your mind introducing new ones.


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## sb87 (Apr 16, 2013)

great thread Juan. Thanks a lot. i've actually shed some tears and released a lot while reading the comments on here. i started to write bullet points of some things that came to mind that i've suppressed that I would fully flesh out later, then i came across something that I did not know I supressed as much and it made me sad and and I allowed the sadness to take over. I'm a funny guy, so i laugh sooooooooo much things off, never realized that. No wonder a lot of comedians are depressed.

"*You have to be mentally willing to feel good and bad*". YES SIR. and I finally understand.


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