# My Story So Far



## ggkade (Mar 19, 2014)

Hello everyone, my name is Garson and I'd like to share my experiences with Depersonalization to see if anyone has had similar experiences.

I had my first panic attack when I was 16, I stayed up for a long period of time and drank alot of Red Bull and Coffee. It was my birthday so we were in town getting a weight bench and eating at a sushi restraunt when I suddenly felt my heart "drop" and then I freaked out, causing an extremely rapid heart rate. It was so intense I was saying prayers, positive I was going to die. I took some Klonopin and an hour later I felt fine.

Luckily my mom has had panic attacks for most of her life so she told me that that's what had happened to me and they didn't really bother me too much for a period of time after that. Months went by, I would have "mild" panic episodes but fixed it primarily by ignoring it or smoking pot.

Eventually my panic completely went away and I felt normal again, hanging out with my friends, making music etc. It was shortly after I "normalized" that my depersonalization started.

It started with "floaters" and swirling clear dots in the sky. Now I've seen these my whole life and used to just ignore them, but this time it was a massive amount of them in the sky and anything reflective or bright. The more I saw the floaters the more I focused on my vision, and then I started to see blue and purple flashes of light when I would turn my head or look down, rarely. This part really freaked me out so I began to research all the things that cause these visual symptoms. I had surgery on my nose to fix my deviated septum and chronic scinicitus, thinking this would fix my visual problems. At this point I still wasn't convinced that I had "depersonilazation". The surgery helped my breathing tremendously but did nothing for my vision. I should note before the surgery I also had an MRI thinking I had Multiple Sclerosis, which again came back fine.

As time went by with my vision being "weird" I began to spiral into a weird state of depression. I became detached from my feelings, friends and family. I stopped socializing almost entirely. The music I made went from happy techno type music to dark, depressive and generally sad. I stopped recognizing myself in the mirror, going to the store and seeing other people was like hell because I felt completely detached from them and any situation I was in. Everything looked and felt unreal. I felt like an automaton just going through motions. This went on for a very long time until I turned 18 and decided to go to school for Audio Production. I met alot of people, made alot of friends, girls etc. My depression slowly went away and I felt excited to do things again. However even upon joining the "real world" and doing things that I loved my vision remained a constant. I no longer felt like I was on auto mode but the world still appeared strange to me. I eventually started ignoring this too (note that even when I don't pay attention to it, it's there). Everything was fine, I passed my first quarter of school and was loving it, but out of nowhere I had another panic attack, thinking I was going to have a heart attack. I went to the ER, they prescribed me Xanax, took this for awhile but it made me a little bit psycho so I quit taking it shortly after. Panic attacks went away again... But shortly after came right back.

Now initially I thought Depersonalization was a defense mechanism for Panic Attacks or something. Like detaching yourself from reality so you don't have constant fear or worry, until I had a panic attack while "depersonalized". Now I'm out of school, unable to focus on almost anything, my grammatical ability as well as my overall intelligence has suffered from this disorder. The world still looks unreal, I have odd pyshical sensations all the time, panic attacks etc. I've recently started trying to get help from proffessionals but they've prescribed me Zoloft and I'm scared to take it.

Now I've researched Depersonilzation for more than a year and I know the biggest self help tip is to "stop worrying" or to ignore it, but I'm simply not at the phase to do that right now. If anyone has a similar story or experience with this disorder please post. I'd love to hear someone tell me they got through it or atleast find some commonalities with my symptoms. Especially the visual aspect of it. Thank you!


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