# A brief history of my DP/DR experience



## Ludwig (Dec 14, 2015)

Excuse the perhaps lack of context, I'm pasting this straight from a document I wrote a little while back. This is the only way I can think of properly introducing myself on this forum so here you go:

A few years ago, when I was just starting high school and throughout a great portion of my early teenage life, I began to worry rather heavily over something that was bothering me-I constantly felt a strange and alien sensation that nothing seemed quite normal anymore, unreal. Now I don't mean unreal in the sense that everything looked like it was made of cheap plastic or was fabricated as part of a set, I knew perfectly well that I was living, moving, breathing and doing in reality and that It was not a dream state, only a dream-like state. I didn't feel as though it was anxiety, as far as I can or could remember I didn't experience any advanced or psychologically damaging trauma at any point in my life besides perhaps the death of my dog, and even then that wasn't a hugely life-changing moment in my history. At the time I was convinced it was a physical issue, something wrong with my eyes, it was either that or I was going utterly insane and had no idea what it was. To describe it to the best of my ability:

My eyes felt slightly laggy, as if everything I scanned over I knew what I saw, but it didn't quite register as significant in any way. (That might sound normal but to me it felt completely wrong.) My memories, both in the short and long terms were foggy, I remembered them, but they seemed as though they were fake, unreal, that I had just imagined them or that I never really felt them. More so, in the present; regardless of the fact that I had absolutely normal control of my body, my mind only took snapshots. In conversation, people's voices flew past my head; I could still hear them and could still respond but it felt as though I was absent. I felt real nowhere. People describe the feeling as though they are looking down upon themselves in a kind of similar outer-body experience, the issue is that even if it were like that for me, I wouldn't feel real even In my head. During this experience, the reality in which I live feels as though it is a more vivid and physical version of my mental enigma.

I was able to wear a mask, to behave and respond normally in almost every situation, but I just wasn't there.

It doesn't feel to me that this was a state induced by depression, it was more likely to be anxiety of some sort and perhaps that's all it was and that's all it ever is, in fact what seems most suspicious is the fact that shortly before or the first symptom that I get (based on the few times I've gone through this entire mental state) is moderate-severe eyestrain and pains behind the eyes which I assume are headaches. As a result of this feeling I have seen several different specialists to both evaluate and assist my mental health and eventually I realised (only after it had happened) that it sort of just faded, not completely of course, it was always there and always is there and always will be there, sometimes I hardly notice it, sometimes It's the only thing I can notice. To this day I'm not exactly sure how or why 'it' left or when I actually began to feel normal again, to not think about it anymore. This isn't the kind of person I am, I've lived with this and I've lived without it so I don't doubt there is something wrong, I guess in a few weeks if it's gone I can likely rule it down to a stressful point in my life. In the end I'm still not quite sure what it is, I haven't even ruled out physical issues yet but I guess for everyone the most likely case is a psychological issue exerting and creating physical symptoms.

PS: This post is in a crappy state and the tenses are all over the place, tl;dr as of very recently I've fallen back into a state of detachment in which I had experienced previously and suffered for a few years (which is probably the only reason I'm not going insane over it).


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