# This house is not a home (I don't recognize my own parents)



## fingertingle (Sep 29, 2005)

Parents of the kids with dp/dr probably shouldn't read this.

I moved out of my parents house last January.

Lately, I think it's days before I remember I HAVE parents.

I was home for about a month in the summer after I got out of the intensive care unit to "get used to my diabetes" and the entire time I felt so fucking strange... like I was living with people who merely provide a service for me... cook me meals, shove vitamins down my throat, tell me to do things, ask me how my health is, etc... Normal parental things that at that point just seemed extraordinary behavior for strangers. I was grateful for these strangers but I wanted to get the Hell out.

My apartment feels strange also, but it's a comfortable strange. I think I take out everything on my best friend because she's the ONLY person I feel vaguely connected to. If she lets go of me, I will drown in this. I can't be told otherwise. Of this I am SURE. I might go live in a dorm with her next year at a different school [and give up my cats ] because I am SO fucking scared of living without her and without any anchor to the real world.

It just keeps getting worse with everyone.
My dad was helping me with statistics homework yesterday and I just kept watching him, picking out the resemblences in us (of which there are many), not so much to reassure myself that he is my dad but to distract myself from the disturbing feeling that I was sitting in a room with a complete stranger. It's terrifying.

My mom will call my cell and I'll pick up and talk to her and it's like the distance between us couldn't be further. I was never close to my parents, but that feeling was attached to them and that always should be, has faded away. I love them, but this has nothing to do with love, it's something so scary - I can't explain it at all.

My parents are old. I'm afraid they'll die and then the bond that should've been there will implant itself falsely into my mind and the guilt will be unbearable. It's already so bad.

I only live 20 minutes away, so it's not like I don't see them. I see them all the time. It's not like when they call I'm like "WOAHHH WHO THE FUCK ARE THESE PEOPLE?" It's just like, "Oh, that's mom." Mom being a name that could easily be replaced with 'Joe' or 'Emily,' whatever.

I feel like I'm the worst person for letting this happen. Could it have been avoided? I feel like it could have been if I would've been paying more attention.

 This is just so fucking ridiculous.


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## maria (Oct 28, 2004)

I feel VERY detached from my family too. My parents and my sister are strangers to me, but I too have a best friend whom I feel much more connected to. Maybe this is just because my family is so different than me and my friend and I are very similar. So she doesn't seem to be a million lightyears away even in this condition.


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## livinginhell333 (Feb 19, 2005)

yea i feel the same exact way too. its scary. my mom isn't old but she has been sick recently and what not. i think there is something wrong with her kidneys. so i want to be normal before anything can happen. i don't want to live with this much longer. its forbiding me from feeling life, feeling happy, feeling connected to anything or anyone. horrible.


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## Scattered (Mar 8, 2005)

I feel vaguely connected to my parents. I rely on them for my financial and, in most cases, emotional survival. If I had any real friends I'd probably be in the same situation, extremely dependent on them. I'm able to talk to my parents about certain things, and interact with them enough to maintain a sense of normalcy, even if its distanced normalcy. I feel guilty about taking them for granted, not getting to know them, and generally being unappreciative. I think I could have made an effort earlier on to have a better relationship. But I let my social withdrawal get to the point that I didn't really establish a substantive relationship.

If you can make an effort to bridge the gap now, then I don't think you should be freaking out about this. Unfortunately with DP connection is very difficult.


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## fingertingle (Sep 29, 2005)

maria said:


> I feel VERY detached from my family too. My parents and my sister are strangers to me, but I too have a best friend whom I feel much more connected to. Maybe this is just because my family is so different than me and my friend and I are very similar. So she doesn't seem to be a million lightyears away even in this condition.


Good, everyone with DP should have one person like this.


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## fingertingle (Sep 29, 2005)

Scattered said:


> If you can make an effort to bridge the gap now, then I don't think you should be freaking out about this. Unfortunately with DP connection is very difficult.


I've pretty much screwed things up in that respect. It's mutual, of course... but if things were to suddenly clear up and become normal, it wouldn't be my doing.


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## Guest (Dec 6, 2005)

Sorry, I wanted to bump this post up because I'm so relieved to find someone else who is experiencing the same thing as me. It's been impossible for me to convince even my psychologists of the severity of this. "I mean, I DON'T talk to them! At all! I can't even look them in the eye!" I just feel so uncomfortable, it's like I've lost the entire concept of what "family" is. I can't really explain it any better, my mind is pretty stretched at the moment.

I definitely identify with the guilt you are feeling. I can't imagine what I'll feel (or not feel that scares me) when they're gone. Not to mention that I've never really had to really on myself for anything...But, I wonder what I did, or what they did for it to get to this point. Could I have stopped it? I have an inkling that the atmosphere in our house growing up must have been quite stoic and non-expressive.

In any case, there's no way things will ever turn into a loving parent-child (well, I'm 20) relationship. You can't just wake up one day with a big smile on your face and be like, "how was _your _day dad??"


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## livinginhell333 (Feb 19, 2005)

w/oathought.voice.soul. said:


> Sorry, I wanted to bump this post up because I'm so relieved to find someone else who is experiencing the same thing as me. It's been impossible for me to convince even my psychologists of the severity of this. "I mean, I DON'T talk to them! At all! I can't even look them in the eye!" I just feel so uncomfortable, it's like I've lost the entire concept of what "family" is. I can't really explain it any better, my mind is pretty stretched at the moment.
> 
> I definitely identify with the guilt you are feeling. I can't imagine what I'll feel (or not feel that scares me) when they're gone. Not to mention that I've never really had to really on myself for anything...But, I wonder what I did, or what they did for it to get to this point. Could I have stopped it? I have an inkling that the atmosphere in our house growing up must have been quite stoic and non-expressive.
> 
> In any case, there's no way things will ever turn into a loving parent-child (well, I'm 20) relationship. You can't just wake up one day with a big smile on your face and be like, "how was _your _day dad??"


yea i know what you mean. exactly what you mean. i'm scared i won't feel anything if something really bad happens to any of my family members. and i feel guilty and that makes me come off as selfish, but i'm not selfish, its this stupid dp/dr that is taking away everything i loved espiacially myself and just life in general. i mean my mom was in the hospital twice with i think a blockage and i felt nothing at all. not a single bit, and i guess that scares me. i don't even know what being scared is like. i just feel so dead. i wish i can get out of this, i pray every night, take vitamins fish oil, whatever and nothing works. i'm tired of not feeling my body parts, not knowing what is real and not having feeling or emotions or whatever. i hate not feeling like a human being.i feel so alone in this and i know i have your guys support. i personally don't know anyone with dp/dr.


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## Guest (Dec 6, 2005)

I'm crying for you lih333--I'm on every vitamin under the sun and I take so much fish oil that if it were possible, I would overdose. My dad wants to believe that I have a "fish oil deficiency." He's in denial. It doesn't help. In fact, I've never felt worse.


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## Guest (Dec 9, 2005)

I used to think it was my fault that I don't 'love' my parents, but when I read all the stories on the board a while ago I was relieved. Guys it's part of dp, just try to make the best of it.


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## Guest (Dec 9, 2005)

sword said:


> I used to think it was my fault that I don't 'love' my parents, but when I read all the stories on the board a while ago I was relieved. Guys it's part of dp, just try to make the best of it.


It's not necessarily a part of dp. It's very easy for me to feel love for certain people in my life.
I don't love my mother because she never had any for me, and I have never experienced that from her. I feel something more toward my father, but it's like sympathy, not really love. He only demonstrated love or understanding toward me a few times in my life. My siblings, raised by the same parents, have never shown me any love or understanding, just stony tolerance or wanting something from me. But eventually I learned from other people what deep respect and attachment felt like and dp has not blocked that.


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## 1A (Aug 12, 2004)

fingertingle said:


> I've pretty much screwed things up in that respect. It's mutual, of course... but if things were to suddenly clear up and become normal, it wouldn't be my doing.


You can make yourself feel normal again, trust me. I've had DP/DR for more than 11 years and on November 18 of this year (three Fridays ago) I felt completely normal from 3:30 in the afternoon until about 8PM.

I didn't know what to do. It's bizarre when, after 11 years, you all of a sudden feel like your old self again. Everything came into focus. There was no depression, no anxiety, no feeling of disconnectedness or detachment. It was so wonderful.

However, it wasn't very long until I started thinking "How did I do this and will it last? Uh oh, what if I can't hold onto this feeling and/or state of clarity and the DP/DR comes back?"

And sure enough, the DP/DR did come back, in full force. I don't know how, after such a long time, one can successfully bridge the gap, especially when, for me, I've had but one experience since October 1994 where I've completely and truly felt like myself again.

Following November 18, I have had some glimpses of reality, not unlike the ones which Claire Weekes speaks of in her excellent texts on nervous illness.

My guess is that we subconsciously construct protectionist walls inside of our minds, of which the ongoing symptoms from doing so generates and sustains long-standing, seemingly forever unrelenting DP/DR. And these invisible walls are built and subsequently programmed to the most rigid vigilance imaginable, following some sort of profoundly impacting trauma.

When we truly "let go" ( I have no idea how to truly let go, even though it appeared to happen to me personally on November 18 ) the symptoms subside totally, completely. The wall comes down briefly, only to quickly be reconstructed.

And of course frustration immediately follows. Nonetheless, I am terribly fortunate to have experienced a brief reintroduction with reality. This reintroduction of reality reinstates confidence and optimism for recovery.

Reconnecting with reality is a wonderful, beautiful thing. I just wish I knew how I reconnected with myself, so I can recreate that experience once again, and eventually have that experience become my new (old) reality.

Warm Regards,

Jeff


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## derangedred (Apr 13, 2005)

i find myself really attached to my boyfriend
but not at all to my friends or parents
its only him


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## sunflower (Jun 7, 2005)

I don`t think there is something wrong with your feelings towards your parents, fingertingle. Psychologically, we acknowledge the filial love after we reach maturity(after 21-23), I personally felt I loved my parents at about 25 and made them active part of my life when they begun to need my help and I could provide it, at 32-33.
I mean there is some kind of love, more like dependency, all along childhood, than there is the adolescence when we need to be independent and bond with people our age(and dependency is contested. We don`t love our parents more at that age but they are still present on a familiar manner in our life.), than we need to follow and consolidate a separate path in life. According to the stage in our life our perspective on our parents is changing. If we constantly analyze our perspective on them we get scared, anxious and question our feelings that are not the same? Of course there is always a strong connection between us and our parents but like any other connection it evolves and needs to be sustained (by shared interests, ideas, and way of living). When the connection is not sustained in a familiar way (living in same house, knowing what they think and do all the time) a gap is created, that needs to be filed with different type of connections. The connections come by themselves.?If not, gradually they seem like strangers - if we think about it on an analytic, concerned manner (and that makes us feel anxious.)-. They say in ``Age Psychology`` that during first ten years of maturity of the individual, the relation between him and his parents evolve to be adult to adult type and actually the initial family bonds are reinforced only when a child/nephew is born.
Think for a sec., if they would need your help and you could provide it, wouldn`t you be happy to do it(in a different manner than if they would have been strangers or just good friends)?
That`s the way I think?I don`t know if I explained myself clearly since I derealize badly today?


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## Guest (Dec 14, 2005)

Hi Sunflower--

I appreciate your insight. It really made me feel a bit better about the way things are in my family...perhaps even a little hopeful that things can get better, and that it's not completely my fault. Thank you!

(And you made perfect sense to me)


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