# My Experience



## nick_london (Sep 4, 2006)

Hi, glad I've found this site - it's been helpful.

I've had Panic Disorder since teens - undiagnosed until age 31 (I'm now 36) - and have had three or four experiences of severe anxiety/depression with depersonalization. Each time I made a complete recovery and merely had panic attacks when stressed or hungover. 
Since the beginning of the year a lot of stress has built up in my life - I was unemployed for a long time - and, though I can see it now, I didn't notice the symptoms building up: irrational fears, no longer getting pleasure from things I used to, lots of worry and anger outbursts and drinking more heavily. 
Anyway, in mid-June during a stressful period I awoke at about 4am with a severe panic attack, the worst I've had for many years; one of the worst I've ever had. I was paralysed with fear in bed for two hours then, massively light-headed and dizzy, I managed to get out of bed. I followed this with a fortnight of intense anxiety and obsession that I had a some sort of brain disease. It was a textbook obsession: it was all I could think about. The panic attacks and anxiety became worse - I would sit at the computer and shake uncontrollably. I went to the doctor and he put me on chlorpromazine which dampens the anxiety.
Somehow, during this period, and as it had three times before, aged 23, 26 and 31, the obsessive anxiety state deepened to a sort of fear of being alive and thinking. I became obsessed with my thoughts and thought processes, felt cut off from reality and alternated between severe depression, severe anxiety and an ongoing state of worry about the state I was in. Everything became incredibly difficult; little pleasure in anything; distrubing thoughts tumbling through my mind; overwhelming existential obsessions; feeling unreal; cut off from reality; obsession with thought itself; death ideas; fears and worries about my future; tears; exhaustion; fear of being alone; of killing time; of what I would think next; panic attacks, anxiety; more obsessions with life issues; feeling unusual when I spoke, wondering how I was managing speak when speaking; obsession with when and if I'll improve. Christ, it's been the most awful episode of the lot, or it seems so. It's still going on. On Friday I discovered this site and it brought some relief as I recognized symptoms; then on Saturday and Sunday it all seemed to come back with a vengeance.


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## nick_london (Sep 4, 2006)

[quote name="nick_london"]Hi, glad I've found this site - it's been helpful.

Plus I forgot to say - good to see you all and I'd love to discuss.


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## missjiller (Sep 8, 2006)

I know how you feel so much it's not even funny.. dp/dr seems to be a slight between ocd & intense fears. it's almost as though I am afraid of being alive as well... I always work myself into thought processes & circles of horrible thoughts that all I will ever be is this person and it scares me because it doesn't seem like enough. It's the weirdest thing ever... I look at the sky and it looks totally fake... I obsess about things that might make my dp worse... deaths in the family... situations.. etc. Odly enough they say that people with dp/dr are technically considered TOO sane... odd huh? I think they say this because we have such a hightened perception of the world and the idea of life & creation. Some might say this is extrordinary... I try to believe that .. but I'm still convinced it's a f.u*ck.in.g curse... Ignorence is bliss.


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