# Feeling lost please help



## Mitch (Nov 21, 2013)

Hi, my name is Jon. 2 years ago my dad found out he had cancer. The news sent me into a spiral of anxiety that ended in me breaking down and spending a week in hospital. I had a year of stability then the stress of starting therapy and coming off my medication triggered a setback. The last year has felt increasingly unreal.

I feel disconnected from myself and scared that I am losing my mind. Part of me feels like an observer of my own mind and I am terrified that I will be stuck outside myself forever.

At times I feel numb and fake, when nothing seems real and as if anything might happen.

I am scared of my body, thoughts, physical sensations - everything reinforces how strange I feel and isolated in my own fragmented mind.

Sometimes thoughts come of letting go and becoming mad. At other times my body and mind feel as though they are fighting to hold onto sanity.

I get strange feelings about what it is to be me and I lose touch with the reality of my self. I talk and then I hear myself talk as if a part of me separates inwards and listens as the other self talks. It feels horrible and mad. Even as I look around I have the same separation, as though there is a me looking and another me looking at me looking.

After each sensation I feel I have gone mad, almost as though I can't believe that anyone could feel like this and not be mad, and then I want to be me in the world as I knew it and I try to get back to some kind of comfort.

It's been so long since I thought about anything other than how I am feeling. I obsess constantly even though it makes everything worse

It's so hard to describe exactly how I feel. Putting these words out doesn't feel very real so I can only hope that some kind of sense gets through anyhow. If anyone has similar feelings please let me know.

Best wishes


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## dill0529 (Feb 19, 2014)

I experience the same things at times. For some reason I think I am almost cured but then there are days I feel like I am losing my mind. I think my DP/DR was caused by pot and my friend unexpectedly dying in a car wreck.


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## Mitch (Nov 21, 2013)

Everything you explained sounds like incredibly common symptoms of derealization/depersonalization. You're most certainly not mad; dissociation is a perspective caused by underlying problems - you're not losing your mind, you're just dealing with some difficulties that will most certainly be overcome.

Thanks for the reassuring words Solomon and the link which is very helpful.


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## Mitch (Nov 21, 2013)

I hope I don't offend anyone with my use of the word mad. It's just that the horror film idea of "mad" is most precisely what I am terrified of.


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## Mitch (Nov 21, 2013)

I experience the same things at times. For some reason I think I am almost cured but then there are days I feel like I am losing my mind. I think my DP/DR was caused by pot and my friend unexpectedly dying in a car wreck

Thanks for your reply

I'm so sorry for your loss. When I think about about my dad it just seems an unreal time as if the trauma of the new reality was too much for me. Was it the same for you?

Also, some time ago I had some DP/DR after a bad mushroom trip. it lifted after about 6 months.


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