# Depersonalization and Psychosis



## zenloops (Jan 31, 2017)

Hello all, I am a 20 year old male, and I am really desperate for help and clarification. 
I have never felt this dead before, as if the most basic aspects of your existence have been taken away from you. 
Prior to depersonalization, I was one of the happiest, most enthusiastic people about life. I used to spend my days contemplating physics and astronomy, psychology, technology, big ideas, big ambitions, enjoying my time to its fullest for real. A year ago, I started using LSD, and a whole new paradigm of understanding opened up inside my head. Everything I used to think about, experience, feel, and imagine became ultra-charged in the most beautiful ways, ways I cannot start describing as they are so surreal. I fucked myself over in a bad trip on the 4th time, which caused my OCD to become 1 million times worse. This lead to my psychological destruction, along with dropping my semester, isolating myself, and taking responsibility for my actions. I spent 4 total months thinking, analyzing, introspecting, and building a new framework of life and existence, which subsequently led to my complete recovery and riddance of any obsessive compulsive element in my life. I could not believe that I did not just get well again, I got better. I suffered from pure obsessional ever since I was 14, and to make that tic disappear was a miracle in my eyes. The disappearance of the obsessive compulsive brought forth a new achievement, and that was enlightenment. It is quiet a complicated pursuit to explain, but I feel it is integral to understanding what I am going through right now. I always dreaded time passing and always wondered how I can make the best out of every single second I have, and experiencing that state of enlightenment on acid made me understand how being in that state is the best solution for the problem I was posing. So i started picking up hints from the state on acid, then reintegrating them into my daily life by using imagery and experiential memory I had from that state of mind. I pursued that for over 6 months, and finally became content with were I was. For 2 months, I experienced life in the most beautiful ways, in the most peaceful manner, and in the most creative and self-fulfilling ways. I am not claiming I had attained enlightenment, but I did certainly arrive at an answer of my own. However, last week I decided to trip with my friend, and we took tabs that turned out to not be LSD, but something bizarre that I still cannot find online. Now this is where things get psychotic. The tabs were not LSD, but they were certainly a strong psychedelic substance that completely destroys your ego. Everything was there except for ourselves. At the time of the trip, I completely submitted to the notion that this is what I have been after for the past year, and I had never seen it so gloriously and beautifully before. But the downside was that, unlike acid, this substance did not grant me access to my ego in the experience. I became a complete animal **** sapien, a **** sapien that is ignorant to any concepts and notions, completely devoid of an inner sense of self-hood. When my friend left and I went back home, I started thinking that I should completely transition into this state of mind, and i trusted myself on this action given all the things that confirmed the magnificence of it over the past year. However, I quickly became anxious and started wanting to be myself again, I started trying to recall myself and try to experience myself as an ego, but it would all turn out with nothing. I would only feel my actual existence in the actual space, devoid completely of an "inner space" in which thoughts, feelings, self-hood, experiences, and memories exist. This started an evening of panic, horror, and terror. Every minute, I would relapse back into the anxiety of losing myself forever. I also started rejecting being enlightened, thinking things like "If this is enlightenment, I do not want it, I no longer want to be enlightened". I eventually went to sleep that night, but since then I have never been the same. For the past 7 days, I wake up everyday trying to spot if I am back, but I would get nothing. Prior to the experience, I habituated myself on feeling the nothing in between the thoughts that arise, and whenever I did that I would feel overwhelming feelings of peace, presence, and health, so I assumed that it will all be alright and I will simply be here and now and my brain will fix itself. But the nothing that I feel now is different than that nothing. This nothing is void, and it is not just between thoughts, it is sort of a background for them. Even when I am thinking, I feel the thoughts are void. As I knew what depersonalization was, I quickly made the connection. But I am very concerned for myself because I am not even sure if what I am experiencing is psychosis or depersonalization or god knows what. What I need is help, urgent help, in identifying my symptoms, understanding better, and calming myself down. (No access to a psychiatrist this week.) Anyways, here is what I am experiencing:
1) The Visual Aspect: When I look at the world, I no longer feel a presence inside my head or body that stands before it. I only feel an outwardly experience, an open space in front of me. When I did notice this, I quickly identified with the depersonalized ego and started wondering if I fucked myself up for good and caused myself to be enlightened. Now I no longer spiral down into it, as I have decided to completely forget about this whole matter (After processing it of course, trying not to repress any emotions or ideas) due to the painstaking stuckness and agitation that comes with it. But the aspect has not changed. Even when I look at people, I no longer feel like I'm seeing them the same way as before. 
2) The Experiential Aspect: My experience is no longer an internal one, I can no longer feel an inner space in which things happen. The space in which your self lives, thinks, and interacts with the world. I spend my whole day in a first person perspective, straight out of my eyes and body, exactly like self ipseity in psychotic disorders. When I read about people feeling like they are somewhere else, stuck inside, fogged out, detached from the whole thing, I relate 100%. But i am not understanding if it is the same thing or not, which is causing me to panic.

3) Cognitive: I no longer feel like I can grasp on to a thought, or a trail of thoughts, except if they are depersonalization thoughts. I can no longer create an inner work space that everybody has, a space in which you see things from other people's perspectives, a space in which you see an image of yourself, a space in which trails of thought and images pass constantly. It is more like a void of clouds. This is making me very depressed as I can see my potential and my intelligence but feel blocked from using it by my own mind.

4) Short term memory: My short term memory has been destroyed. I can no longer form an ego that lasts more than 5 seconds because I cannot feel the emotions I used to before and I cannot hold on to the ideas. From my experience, ego trips are charged with emotion, and sometimes I used to hold on to a certain "ego plan" or goals or ideas for an entire day. Now I cannot even formulate a personality or an image of myself, because it feels like the fire that brings it about is no longer a fire. In addition to that, when I let go and try to forget the whole thing, I start re-experiencing life and everything, but as if someone has turned down the volume. I would be listening to music, and I would get a certain experience in my head, and I would identify it and know that this is how I used to experience the world, but I cannot grasp to it, I cannot bring it to life. It stays toned down. The worst thing of all is that over the past couple of days, I remembered lots of things which assured me that I am not suffering from amnesia. It is as if my whole paradigm and space of experience is there, and I know it, and I spot it, and I yearn to experience it fully, but I cannot retrieve the full memories of the sensations, I can only feel the subtle sensations inside that remind me of how I used to think. It is like I am experiencing sneak peaks of life, but I cannot grasp on to them.

5)Social: I no longer feel my personality, nor other people's personalities. Prior, I used to have a mental map of every single being, including myself. If I would meet Diana for example, my mind would automatically run Diana's software, how I am with her, Who she is, How we interact, her motives, ideas, incentives, emotions. It all feels dead, as if I am looking at just her on the outside, with no idea whatsoever on what Diana means. With the loss of my inner space in which I exist in, I lost all sense of people's inner spaces as well. But this is sort of the same problem as before with the music, which is that I still have the sense of that but I cannot grasp it or bring it to life. I can still sense it in me, but i cannot put it into use with my mind.

In relation to these aspects, I have questions that are torturing me on the inside:

1) Could this be psychosis or permanent damage, and not depersonalization? The fact that I can still remember all and sense all, and the fact that I know deep down in my heart that there is something terribly wrong, a very wrong blockage to these experiences, makes me disregard psychosis. The simple reason for that is because I can sense that there is something terribly wrong, in all the faculties of my brain, but feel stuck with that wrongness. But I do not have a clue, and I really need opinions on this one. I included the whole enlightenment story to put the whole thing into better frame, with the possibility of all that being simply psychotic. Can you attribute any of my symptoms to psychosis rather than depersonalization?

2) In the case of depersonalization, will I ever be able to retrieve the self that I am minimally experiencing day to day? Will these sensations ever blossom again into their full force as before? The strategy I am following for that is to live my days the same way I was living them prior to the experience (which i remember more and more of every day). Pretending as if I do not know what depersonalization is or what is going on. Instead of waking up in the morning and spotting if I am back, I am pretending as if there was nothing lost to retrieve. Same with memories and experiences, whenever I sense them and identify with them but not be able to do so like before, I simply let go of that in hopes of it growing back again, as if there was nothing wrong to begin with. But pretending is making me go insane, because I know that this is not how it is, not how things are, and I honestly cannot bear with this anymore. I cannot even handle the thought of bearing with this for another week or a month or a year. This thought simply destroys me, because I really cannot anymore. I know I sound like a cry baby and I haven't even finished a week, and some of you here have been with this for a lifetime, but I do not feel like I can do it all, I cannot live like this.

All opinions and insights into the matter are appreciated. Thank you for reading.


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## dreamedm (Feb 1, 2015)

You've described very eloquently what some of us are going through here. We call it "blank mind dp." From what I understand, this condition can happen as a result of either a panic attack, severe stress/trauma, weed, or psychedelic drugs. I've been going through it already for nearly 2 months and can relate to everything you've written. Some people here have had this for years.

It is possible to recover from. One person whom I've corresponded with recovered after a year via grounding techniques such as yoga, body scan meditations, energy healing, and participating in activities he enjoyed.


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## seizedbydivine (Jan 27, 2017)

Does anyone here actually enjoy their blank mind?

I find it actually relieving.


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## TDX (Jul 12, 2014)

Your post shows quite well why illegal drugs like LSD should never be legalized for recreational use. They are not safe. You played russian roulette with your brain... until you lost. 

One important thing would be to find out what drug finally messed you up. Your description reminds me a little bit to experiences I read on the internet about Salvia, but I think it's usually smoked.


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## zenloops (Jan 31, 2017)

I am now considering taking MDMA in a low dose in order to be able to just have a pleasant experience. I am ignoring my dp as strong as possible, but I am not having normal and pleasant day to day experiences that would overwrite this loop I am stuck in. I am pretty experienced with drugs, due to past use. I used MDMA for about 3 months last year, each usage separated by 2 weeks or so. And the obsessive compulsive problems I was having were so diminished that they disappeared a month after an MDMA trip, for the simple reason that it gave me an opportunity to just breath and enjoy my time, and then remember that this is how things need to be and not the way I am currently seeing them. What do you guys think? I know MDMA caused some people's DP/DR, but my mind is telling me a low dose will be healing and therapeutic for me, maybe even overwrite all of this bullshit.


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## dreamedm (Feb 1, 2015)

If MDMA overwrites this devastating state, please let us know. I would be cautious about using it, though - not sure if it would help or make matters worse.


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## TDX (Jul 12, 2014)

> What do you guys think? I know MDMA caused some people's DP/DR, but my mind is telling me a low dose will be healing and therapeutic for me, maybe even overwrite all of this bullshit.


Seems like you didn't learn anything.


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## andcrew (Dec 8, 2016)

Zenloops, I dont think it is psychosis because I have had the same experience as you just not from psychedelics and when I went to the hospital they said i had psychosis but going over it afterwards I was aware of what was happening and I knew everything was real I just didnt perceive it as real which relates to DP. I have all of your symptoms and have been like this for the past 7 months.


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## Chicane (Oct 8, 2015)

Unless you are experiencing hallucinations, hearing voices, or losing touch with who you are or where you are to any meaningful degree then I also don't think you are experiencing psychosis. I believe those are some of the most defining characteristics of it, and without them, you are probably going through what many of us are. I once dated a girl who had schizophrenia and psychosis, and she would literally see other people who weren't there in the room with us.

The problem is, there's so little usable information on dissociation, and so few doctors and psychiatrists are trained to know about it, that it can feel like you are literally losing your mind, even though I don't believe you are. That is why so many of us struggled in the earliest stages of DPDR - grappling with the symptoms, but most distressingly, the unknown. I also think it's a terrible idea to take any other drugs, even if you feel it might mitigate the effects of what you're feeling now. It would be like telling an alcoholic who is struggling due to withdrawal to have a beer to feel a little better. I think that whenever possible, we should try to strip all the chemicals and active ingredients that may have caused us to feel this way in the first place, and start with a clean slate. Good luck to you.


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## devin44 (Nov 19, 2014)

zenloops said:


> I am now considering taking MDMA in a low dose in order to be able to just have a pleasant experience. I am ignoring my dp as strong as possible, but I am not having normal and pleasant day to day experiences that would overwrite this loop I am stuck in. I am pretty experienced with drugs, due to past use. I used MDMA for about 3 months last year, each usage separated by 2 weeks or so. And the obsessive compulsive problems I was having were so diminished that they disappeared a month after an MDMA trip, for the simple reason that it gave me an opportunity to just breath and enjoy my time, and then remember that this is how things need to be and not the way I am currently seeing them. What do you guys think? I know MDMA caused some people's DP/DR, but my mind is telling me a low dose will be healing and therapeutic for me, maybe even overwrite all of this bullshit.


Zenloops! I've been where you are man. Do NOT do MDMA. Don't. I thought I'd hit rock bottom with DP and I had nothing to lose.

MDMA has left me very concerned that I'm on the verge of schizophrenia. After a brief boost for a couple of weeks, every single facet of DP has got much worse since I did it and I'm in a constantly shifting hellscape now. My memory, perception & concentration are fucked absolutely. Please don't try, it's not a subtle medication but instead it's giving your wonky brain a big kick. Try prescription meds before you try MDMA, it is irreversible.


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## derrrr (Dec 7, 2016)

Brother, that sounds unimaginably trying. A very thorough and disturbing account of the ravages of this condition.

I don't know if there's much I can offer, but as someone who's flirted with those symptoms, albeit much milder, just know that if you need an "ear", shoot me a PM . Hopefully you'll get over this with patience and get back to how you were before.


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## devin44 (Nov 19, 2014)

Thanks dude, you too!


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## 106473 (Feb 7, 2017)

NZRecovery said:


> Wow im thinking the exact same. Have blank mind for 8 months


8 months and you are willing to add more fuel and very random fuel to the fire... MDMA releases serotonin in huge amounts, pure (which unless you test it, you won't know + street MDMA is cut, fact) causes a healthy brain to pour these chemicals in great amounts, leaving your brain without enough serotonin, hence why MDMA heads roll once a month and use 5-HTP after it to attempt to get back what they have lost. That's in ideal land where you have a perfectly healthy brain to start with and it's pure. IF OP MDMA made you feel better i'd be researching more it's mechanisms, as MDMA is depleting not increasing, so it's use for a medication to me rather seems a bit invalid. It's a bit like I feel better drunk, does not mean drinking 7 days a week for 6 months is going to act like medication...

If you think you need more Serotonin, you'd be better regulating it with an antidepressant if you think it's that simple... this way you have it regulating and upping this chemical long term, not realising it in huge amounts and depleting, can you understand that this is reverse logic...... I do get it can alter your state, but is that really what you need. Then there is all the other negatives, which you have been warned.

Many blank mind threads on here, you aren't alone... Some Lamotrigine stories, mine was Mirtazapine that helped, some ADHD medication, list goes on, everyone reacts different, but no MDMA cured my DP stories unless I am mistaken, only heartache.


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## dreamedm (Feb 1, 2015)

CK1, Mirtazipine reversed your blank mind?


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## 106473 (Feb 7, 2017)

Complicated, sorry this comes with a story.

1-3 Months - Nothing. Spaced out hated the drug but kept going as it was all I had. Had tried Zoloft with no results.

3 Month mark - Bang, got use to it, felt more in the moment and then it kicked in, I was in the shower and listening to music and my mind asked me a question and started you know being an inner monologue, just a few thoughts and such... (it's hard because when you haven't had one for a while, how often does a normal monologue talk? my mum says hers isn't constant or anything like it, I remember mine being constant) anyway, this moment was a WTF moment with joy, I felt emotions rush round me and feelings in my brain, positive ones, I swear I could feel it working, like it was kicking in. So for me this was what seemed like the start of it starting to not be blank. Also come to think about it, you don't hear these thoughts as such but internally you like have a question in your head? sorry it's weird when you forget how your brain works...But as i said, when these questions/thoughts were coming, I could feel happiness, not because I was happy it was happening, it just came with emotions, which to me or in my case suggests it's closely related to depression.

Problem: around that time I couldn't sleep, only medication I was on was Mirtazapine, so I went off it, now my blank mind goes on, it's been 8 odd months since and I still can't sleep, we have tried Bipolar meds including Lithium and every sleeping tablet going, found out it is probably hormones as I failed a Cortisol test, so adrenaline is what my doctor thinks, makes sense, trying to sleep with adrenaline would sum up how I feel.

My new p doc refuses to take things into consideration and just this week I got lamotrigine after giving my P Doc medications I want to try. He thinks this + Kings College like it, will work, i'll only know in 3/4 months as this seems to be how long it takes to even dent my depression. Sorry for essay, felt it was needed. As I question myself if Mirtazapine was working why I am not on it, but if it can be done once, it can be done again.

TLDR: Yes.


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## dreamedm (Feb 1, 2015)

Thank you for the lengthy reply, I appreciate that. May I ask how your blank mind originally came about, and how it came about the 2nd time around? Was it a gradual thing or a sudden moment that you can recall? Because for me, my mind went blank/silent when I had strong negative thoughts and emotions one morning. The negative emotions were strong, and as a result my mind suddently went blank/silent.

My blankness was also preceded by a pretty deep depression, as I was getting more and more flat and anhedonic.


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## 106473 (Feb 7, 2017)

http://www.dpselfhelp.com/forum/index.php?/topic/67410-do-you-enjoy-music-activities-etc/#entry458162 - some of this conversation is here for people following this conversation on Mirtazapine between me and dreamedm (I can see you guys and girls reading below lol)

Okay, so first time I believe it to be within the first 6 months of having DP, i don't think it was a moment, i think it was like someone turning the volume down until nothing, then one day I realised I was living in blankness... I didn't just wake up one day and ask where did it go, i knew when it had gone but not when day 1 started.

2nd time, as i said 3 months on Mirtazapine, it started to come back, soon after I went cold turkey, was on 15mg just, it went away again but I had only started to get moments of it back so it was no surprise that progress did not keep up, as I did not get rid of the depression totally or anything, they always say with them types of drugs that you need to get to 100% then take it 8-12 months to implicate the changes, at least that's what I was told and makes perfect sense to me.

Interesting, i've read both ways round, I wouldn't worry too much on the fact it happened all of a sudden, typical overload. It's protection mechanism at a very high level it seems. The member i mentioned in the other thread, his blank mind went like yours, just all of a sudden blank, he knew the moment it happened.

Anhedonia for me is my number 1 problem, as I know with emotions and feelings my mind would kick in and life would be better. How long and what MG mirtazapine were you having? strange on the breathing problems with it, was that just during sleep?


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## dreamedm (Feb 1, 2015)

I wasn't on Mirtazapine for long, but I think at around 20 mg or so I was having breathing problems upon waking up. Do you know anyone that recovered from blank mind where it occurred in a similar fashion to mine (suddenly, perhaps from strong negative thoughts, for example)?


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## donkeybrains (May 27, 2017)

I've had drug induced psychosis before after taking a large amount of NBOME without knowing what it was. The psychosis only lasted for as long as the trip did but it was distinctly different from a bad trip or DP/DR. I can't really even describe it too well because even though I was mentally present for all of it, unlike a blackout, it's really hard to explain what it was like because I basically wasn't at the wheel of my experience. If i were to sum it up I'd say I was very confused, acted very very erratically, and just felt like I wasn't in control the whole time.



NZRecovery said:


> Wow im thinking the exact same. Have blank mind for 8 months





zenloops said:


> I am now considering taking MDMA in a low dose in order to be able to just have a pleasant experience. I am ignoring my dp as strong as possible, but I am not having normal and pleasant day to day experiences that would overwrite this loop I am stuck in. I am pretty experienced with drugs, due to past use. I used MDMA for about 3 months last year, each usage separated by 2 weeks or so. And the obsessive compulsive problems I was having were so diminished that they disappeared a month after an MDMA trip, for the simple reason that it gave me an opportunity to just breath and enjoy my time, and then remember that this is how things need to be and not the way I am currently seeing them. What do you guys think? I know MDMA caused some people's DP/DR, but my mind is telling me a low dose will be healing and therapeutic for me, maybe even overwrite all of this bullshit.


Definitely don't take any more psychedelics or stimulants. Also keep in mind that MDMA is a psychedelic and not just a feel good switch, a bad experience can leave you in anxiety/depression hell. When I abused psychedelics and stims no matter how much enlightenment/mind expansion/delusion I experienced one thing always did change at a constant rate, my long term mental health got worse.


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## 106473 (Feb 7, 2017)

dreamedm said:


> I wasn't on Mirtazapine for long, but I think at around 20 mg or so I was having breathing problems upon waking up. Do you know anyone that recovered from blank mind where it occurred in a similar fashion to mine (suddenly, perhaps from strong negative thoughts, for example)?


yeah I have no examples of the top of my head, but yes, blank mind is a blank mind sudden or not sudden. Dopamine related if you ask me, but that's just my theory / what works for me. It's on the DP scale, one of the questions is about blank mind, so common with this disorder. I think you are going to speed up the process hugely finding the right medication, but a few have reported over time they got it back without medication but takes years it seems


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