# 35 years DP/DR



## dannyJD (Dec 27, 2005)

Hi,

I've had DP/DR since 1970. It's not depression or anxiety-related. Mine is what you would call 'pure' DR, initiated by meditation, with no comorbidity. You get used to this sort. It fades into the background of your life, only to come to the fore when you think about it. Like a ticking clock, or a wart on the end of your nose. Months can go by without thinking about it at all.

[I don't know why there hasn't been an extensive MRI, PET, or functional-scan study of pure DP. A sample of 50 to 100 people might identify the regions of the brain that show differences from normal. Perhaps direct or magnetic-pulse stimulation, or suppression might illuminate what is going on in those (conjectured) areas. There is a preoccupation with antidepressants.]

Then there is a wistfulness for the years before: what's it like for the world to be real? It's been so long, I can't remember. If there were a drug that would recapture what I had in my childhood and teens, even for a few minutes, I would take it.

Vancouver, Canada


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## Guest_ (Sep 17, 2005)

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## Manic D (Jun 29, 2005)

initiated by meditation?


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## dannyJD (Dec 27, 2005)

Hello Poon and Manic,

I found out years later, picking up a psychiatric journal by chance, and finding the description and its name. I didn't know it had a name. DP was an obscure thing in those days sitting in thin, dusty, unread books in University library stacks.

Initiated by Tibetan Yoga and Zen. I consider 'enlightenment' and 'satori' fancy names for depersonalization/-realization. 'It's not a bug, but a feature', as the old software joke goes.


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## freesong (Dec 26, 2005)

Danny, Your idea to study more people with this in those ways is the most rational and /or intelligent thing I have heard lately. Why aren't there more studies of this nature with many conditions? I have often wondered why more doctors and psychiatrists don't take that kind of approach rather than to just guess and throw drugs at us. I guess it comes down to money which would be needed to fund that kind of study. If you ever hear of one being done, please let me know. In the meantime, I am sorry that you have had to endure this so long. For me it has just been two years and it is a nightmare. I do barely remember what it was like to have those feelings like I did as a child and up until two years ago. I miss normalcy so much that I can't even imagine living like this much longer. I am learning after reading some of these stories to go on and get busy. I froze for the first year because I thought that I was the only one to ever experience this inablity to experience. Now that I know there are others I can at least take some solace in that. I hope that we all can find our solutions so that we may regain our former realities soon. Until that time, all we can do is try to comfort each other and share what we are trying to do to get better. Good luck, freesong


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## dannyJD (Dec 27, 2005)

Hi Freesong,

I'm sort of odd-man-out in that DP causally associated with depression and/or anxiety is usually the norm. Attempting to treat it with antidepressants or tranquillizers, then, is not unreasonable; yet encroaches on the larger issue of SSRI dangers. I wish there was one pill that I could take once, just to feel real again. But if I had depression/anxiety-caused DP, I would never go on SSRI's or tranquillizers chronically.

In your case brain-imaging studies should be available because the root-cause appears to be in the well-studied pathologies of dep/anx. If you google MRI with depression, you'll see what I mean. MRI's may even help depression.

A recent study shows that women seek relationships out of the internet, men seek data. It's the difference between wanting warmth, and wanting light. We need both; men and women, e-mailers and googlers have to exchange roles, and gain each others strengths.


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