# hoping to wake up one day...



## uncomfortably numb (Apr 9, 2013)

Hey guys,

Never tried using a forum before so thought I'd give it a shot.. not sure what I should be posting but I thought Id give some background to the situation incase anyone else out there is on the same boat, maybe we can put our heads together to try come up with some sort of solution if there is any.

Ive had DP for 7 years (since age 15). Ive seen countless therpists who automatically point the finger at depression/anxiety/bipolar etc but i don't think alot of them are actually trained in what DP is. So as a result, i got put on a whole bunch of medication thats probably making it worse if anything so I'm hoping to come off it all if i can. I eventually found a therapist that specialised in DP and he seemed to know alot about it but basically told me there wasn't much he could do but work through the anxiety and depression that often comes with it.

So basically, the sap story goes -

-little girl gets left alone time after time with old man who likes little kids abit too much to put it lightly

-at age 15, first kiss with a boy triggers DP and gets worse and worse over the years.

-gets into drugs and alcohol to try to relieve the symptoms, makes them 1000X worse (if anyone out there thinks drugs (especially pot) will make it better even as a temporary fix, it makes it so much worse in the long run, please PLEASE try to stay away from them, you'll really regret it

-currently 22 years old - 24/7 DP, NEVER goes away, to the point i can hardly understand people when they talk, sounds like people are speaking a foreign language sometimes, absolutely no concentration, feels like im dreaming constantly and cant wake up, everything seems fake or 2D, feel no joy or hardly any emotions at all and just numb all round all the time.

If anyone knows of ANYTHING that will help, PLEASE share, im really running out of options here.

I read a post on here earlier today by missjess saying how she recovered using Ayahuasca? does anyone else know about this or have recovered using other methods/treatments/anything???? im willing to try ANYTHING!

thanks for reading, sorry for blabbering on!


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## DP boy (Mar 20, 2012)

its the meds at this point


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## Surfingisfun001 (Sep 25, 2007)

Sorry to hear you went through all that. If you are interested in ayahuasca you may also want to check out Iboga. It is the bark of a root from a tree in Africa said to cure addiction and mental illness. A few members from here have been cured after taking it. You can order it online. I am hoping to try it soon. All the best.


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## missjess (Jun 1, 2012)

Deffinately give ayahuasca a go!! It won't be fun tho because these feelings and sensations are going to come up and whatever is inside you is amplified 20 times more .... I had one fucking horrible journey it was insanity but I made it through and it was well worth it...

I don't know how many times you would need to drink ayahuasca but I have done it 8 times so far, I'm still not perfect and I'm still choosing to work with it again at the end of the year but I am by far out of DP hell and can live a normal life now and continue to work on less sever things plus I have my spirit back


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## uncomfortably numb (Apr 9, 2013)

thanks so much for your replies guys, it helps alot to know people have come out the other side, because at this point it feels like this is it and i have to live this half assed existance.. Fearless, I'll defienatly check out that link, cheers for that. also, does anyone know if ayahuasca can be bought online and would it be the same as the stuff in peru or do u actually have to go to peru for the real stuff? I'll see if Iboga can be shipped to australia..

Thanks again for all your help everyone, if anyone else has other suggestions, please add to the list!


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## dianamichelle33 (Apr 26, 2013)

I suggest vitamins, this post gives a large list and explanation http://www.dpselfhelp.com/forum/index.php?/topic/18746-read-this-if-you-want-to-recover-new-edits-check-em-out/

I haven't followed the entire list, I ended up buying some B vitamins and fish oil, which seems to be helping and I've only been taking them for 2 days


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## Aerin (Nov 1, 2012)

Personally, I think chemistry and physics are more a part of DP than specific experiences. I think the experience of DP can be so anxiety inducing, exhausting and ultimately depressing that all one has the energy to dwell on are all the negative and frightening things. After so long, one simply can not amplify positive thoughts when they are all dragged down by an experience that can be this frightening and near incomprehensible.

Psychiatrists may try to come up with explanations, but when it comes down to it they are usually trying to explain the cause of something they themselves have never experienced. So they come up with something that seems plausible from their perspective. This imo is really not all that helpful though: Imagine a world where 99.99% of people were deaf. Imagine further that maybe the first people to experience 'sound' weren't always born that way, rather that you didn't start picking up 'sound' until later in adolescence when the brain makes a ton of new neural connections. It would probably be very frightening (and mentally exhausting) to suddenly have all this input that you were not used to, to not really understand what the hell it even was, and no way to explain to others what you were experiencing. Now, that 99.99% probably just thinks you have gone loopy in some way. The idea that you were actually perceiving things in a way that was different than they do probably would not be seriously considered, and you yourself would probably seriously consider the idea that you really could be going nuts. If one of those 99.99% of people with a professional degree theorized that the reason you were under all this new stress was because of XYZ, then you'd tend to listen to them. After all, you are frightened and desperate and feeling like your life is being unraveled, and they are successful professionals, probably super smart to get the degree they have, have dealt with lots of things that you know nothing about but, certified to help patients....but....ultimately have no idea what you are describing because they are f*cking deaf. And it's easy to blame some traumatic experience because, hell, almost everyone has quite a few horror stories. Some are FAR FAR worse than others but I'm pretty sure none of them are solely responsible for neural network 1 deciding to shake hands with neural network 2.

At least, you will never convince me that I got DP because other children used to call me a dog and throw stones at me while my roommate in college, whose boyfriend routinely woke her up by shaking her violently while holding a shotgun to her head, who told her in broken english that he had aids and hadn't said anything before because he wanted her to die with him...didn't get DP and never understood my descriptions of it (and yes clearly there were 'issues' there).

Now, certain chemicals ARE going to help (and others are going to make things worse ) - but they help because of the way they change propagation and conductivity of electrical impulses in the brain. Some people's brains are just slightly different and because of THAT (not because they were called fat in grade school), they have different perceptual experiences and different chemical tolerances. I absolutely can not smoke pot without feeling like a giant floating head (and potentially continuing to feel this way for weeks). Alcohol does nothing but make me very sick and completely deregulates my cycle. If I take a few puffs off a cigarette I feel dizzy to the point that I worry I could pass out.

And yes I went though the entire doctor gauntlet myself when I was in college because at the time I was SURE I was dying.

I was SURE I had a brain tumor or had had a stroke or something, or was having seizures. When the psychiatrist suggested that it was depression or post traumatic stress I believed him (after all he is supposed to know all this) and had the outlook of 'I'll believe anything you say just please f*cking make it go away'. I got suckered into a zoloft study which made things 10X worse. I agreed to try prozac because I was desperate enough to try anything (this did help somewhat with my >DP< induced depression (NOT my depression induced DP). I was prescribed xanax just to be able to sleep. When I did sleep I was so stressed that I had dreams of people dismembering themselves. I got Percocet from my brother's friends because I was otherwise afraid I'd do something to myself if I could not shake this feeling.

Six months into this I happened across a GOOD doctor who took one look at me, asked me a few general questions about fatigue, cold, ordered some blood tests and let me know I had an hgb count of like 8 and zero iron stores. I ran through that psychiatrist gauntlet and damn near ruined my life because of an experience brought about by severe iron deficiency. NOW, it's getting to be common knowledge that low iron is linked with severe anxiety and DP - THEN, it wasn't in The Great Literature. THEN, it was 'probably because your mother didn't breast feed you and had mild postpartum depression while your dad wasn't involved in your life much. Also, your experience when you were 4 of being there with your mom when you both walked in to find a dead relative has probably dwelled in your subconscious for the last 15 years and is now it's all causing DP!' oh, btw, your brain has like no oxygen.

I'm ABSOLUTELY not saying 'it's iron' - I AM saying there is probably an associated neurological / metabolic cause.

Personally if I make sure my iron is fine I don't uncontrollably dissociate (I can still space myself out in the mirror IF I CHOOSE to but there isn't an anxiety link). B vitamins, omega/fish-oil and 250mg inositol also help my general mood but since my body isn't anyone else's body there is no way for me to say with any kind of certainty 'this will help'. I just really do want to stress the importance of trusting your own intuition - you HAVE to trust your SELF more than the guy with the psych degree (especially if it's someone with no PERSONAL experience of DP) or you will get dragged around in circles indefinitely.


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