# Lingering Feelings - Final Stages of Recovery?



## Caseybrklynn (Apr 25, 2017)

For those who have fully recovered, I am looking for some reassurance that what these lingering feelings/experiences will go away as I continue to heal.

To give you a little background info, I am a 26 year old University graduate and proffesional, I believe this all started about a year ago when I took a hit of oil and had a 2 hour long panic attack. I don;t know if I depersonalized at the time, but it was truly terrifying and the first time I had ever had any kind of bad trip in my life (I had been smoking for nearly ten years before this). I totally recovered from this incident, but a few months later my boyfriend and I got into smoking shatter, and I started having anxiety while high. One time I experienced a few minutes of DP, but it went away when the high weakened.

Fast forward 6 or so months, and I started having anxiety every time I smoked, even just herb. I didn;t really notice, but along with this I also started having health anxiety. I went through a stressful period in the late fall of last year, and started getting this pressure in my head I could not explain. Christmas day I had my first random panic attack. It lasted only a few seconds but I honestly thought I was having a stroke. I brushed it off, and didn't give it much thought. A week later, after what I think was a night of drinking, I woke up feeling funny and in a bit of a haze. Everything was hazy and felt different. When a few days had passed and it continued to worsen I got incredibly anxious about it and went into a full blown nervous breakdown. Through the course of about a month I lost nearly 50 lbs, could not be alone, and walked around in a constant state of disassociation. I did not recognize my office at work or my boyfriend or family and I was terrified. I saw a psychiatrist and he prescribed me ativan which I think helped me break the anxiety cycle, and I finally started feeling my anxiety level lessen.

4 months later, I do feel that I am about 60% recovered. I don't think I am fully depersonalized anymore, what I am left with are the existential thoughts (mostly just freaked out by the nature of my own existence), some fleeting feelings of depersonalization (sometimes a weird pressure in my head, changes in perception when outside in the daylight) and still a lingering sense of disconnection. I feel as though I have opened a door to a different way of seeing life, and I am afraid I can never go back now. I carry on with my daily life, but still feel like a bit of a shell of my former self. Do you ever really go back to feeling like yourself, and being a *comfortable * with your life, your thoughts, etc.

I am doing my best to ignore my anxiety and DP, and they have definitely both improved with the help of CBT and benzos, but I am just trying to remain hopeful that this is all part of the recovery process that things will continue to get better until I am back to my old, confident self.

Thanks in advance for any feedback you can provide


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