# Recovered and want to help



## York (Feb 26, 2008)

Hi everyone!

This is really hard, just being on this forum makes my heart pound. But I really want to help, I know how hard and just hellish going through dp is, so if I can give even one person in here a tiny bit of hope it's worth a bit of discomfort on my part.

First of all, English isn't my native language so please excuse weirdness of grammar









How can I start? First of all, I "recovered". By that I mean I'm no longer dp'd, and it's been years.

1: You can get out of this, and you probably will.

I say "recover", because it's my belief that dp isn't a disorder, but an extreme state of stress. You are not damaged, or diseased, you are a person with a biology that uses dp as a defense mechanism, or "play dead". It will pass if you help yourself a little.

2: You need to be your own best friend. If anything or anyone makes you very scared and stressed, put all your efforts into getting out of that situation.

Dp is biological. It means your brain has some tricks you never knew about, like this awesome/horrible survival mode, which it will keep you in as long as it sees nessecary. Your brain literally disconnects wires, leaving a very fast thinking intellect with little emotion and physical sensation. That's all it is, but the effect of this for you, living in this mode, is very scary, and fear keeps this mode turned "on".

3: Start taking care of your basic needs, like sleep, routine, nutrition, nature, etc. Really pay attention to what you crave, eat what you want, relax if you can manage, just do what feels good to you. Clue: COMFORT. No diets, only add things at this point, like folic acid, chocolate, or anything you think helps.

4: Find what ever it is you need to overcome what keeps you scared. Therapy, a friend, your mom.. Goal: reframe the scary thoughts and memories, they keep re-activating dp.

Dp is common with childhood trauma, especially emotional abuse and neglect. It's very imortant to understand how trauma works, how it will put a red flag on way too many things in your everyday life, like colors, words, smells, streets, people... Find someone who can help you untangle the mess. Brings me to my next point..

5: Keep a journal. If only in your mind. Or just a piece of paper in your pocket. Write down every situation that makes you feel a little worse. What triggered you? These are the things you need to find the source of. And then de-sensitise your brain to them. This process will be much easier than you fear now.

6: What makes you even a little less dp'd? Even if it's almost no improvement, I promise there are something, and you should take notice and do more of those things. Use them to get to know yourself better. Your life from now on is about giving yourself love!

7: Make life very regular, smooth, routine driven. Get up in the morning, get to bed at night at a reasonable time. Streamline what you can. Make lists, follow them. When you get better, you can relax the routines but right now you need them.

8: ASK FOR HELP. Help with school, work, picking up kids, making dinner, or whatever. Not so you can just lay around, but to eliminate stress. If you love making dinner, or going to work keeps you floating, keep doing it. When you make conscious choices about it, it will eliminate stress.

9: Be in charge of your own recovery. Recovery is your life now. Don't read about it, live it. This info here is really all you need. If you have trauma, then read about it from a positive source. Anything makes you feel scared, stop doing it!

10: Emotional release! May be THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP TO RECOVERY. Whenever even a flicker of emotion wells up: Anger, sadness, disappointment.. Get it out of your system! Stored emotions cloggs up your energy. Cry into pillows, make showing emotion in conversations a sport. Don't be so effing polite! You are allowed to FEEL, and EXPRESS.

11: GIVE IT TIME. Your brain literally needs to re-grow connections. It will take time, sometimes a lot of time, sometimes just days or hours. Be patient, you are re-booting the system, and you will be fine and feel like yourself again!

Just an image I used a lot when dp'd: Imagine your brain having all these connections lighting up pathways to memories and functions. These lights all have different colors, like pixels, and they makes a mood or an atmosphere in your mind and body. Now that you are in survival mode, your brain has disconnected so many pathways you are familiar with, and it has lit up new patways with new colors you never knew you had. The atmosphere of your inner being is totally changed. Even the connection to what makes you feel like "YOU" are laid dark. But you know what? All the familiar pathways will be lit again, the brain and body has a "normal mode" and it remembers what the optimal state of being is. You don't even have to try, it will revert to that state when the stress goes away.

Whenever a new and weird state of mind kicks in, just think of these little lighted roads. Did that make sense?

That's my best insights and advice, I hope you can find a little comfort and hope in the fact that I was really deep into this, I'd say as bad as one can be, for 4 years, and now I'm balanced again, and have even become a better person I'd say. I never took care of my own needs, I had so much trauma and so many ideas about how life "should" be, what I should've accomplished and so on... Be your own best friend, pat your own cheek and sob about the injustice of what life has dealt you. It's ok!! You will feel again, and have a life!

Wish you the best, A.


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## MichiganMade (Sep 26, 2018)

What a phenomenal, motivating and gripping write up. I'm sure many of us here will come to appreciate something like this over time.

Thanks for coming back by and sharing these awesome details.

May you have 1000 years of peace.

Mm


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## mana_war (Jul 3, 2014)

What did you mean by your brain literally disconnects wires? I haven't heard of that but it makes sense. I actually feel "slower" than before despite having the racing thoughts, things don't click as quickly as I used to. (ex. joke punchlines don't make sense as instantly as before)

Like MichinganMade, thank you for your post! It's always great to see positivity on here.

I can relate to the "should be(s)." That is changing though. It's good to accept that the past is the past, honor what it meant to you, and also realize that there can be so much waiting for us on the other side if we just care to peek and let go of the pain we couldn't control.


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## York (Feb 26, 2008)

After reading tons and tons about dp over the course of the 4 years I was stuck with it, I really came to the conclusion that it's not that well understood. The best help I had was from people who have dealt with patients with severe mental illness/trauma and also autism, especially nurses and therapists who had broken away from the norm, those gave me the most hope and belief in my own ability to heal. So what I say about the disconnecting of wires is really a conclusion based on anecdotal evidence and living dp from the inside and through recovery. What it seemed like to me was that the limbic system (??) was disconeccted very abruptly, and what I was left with was very similar to autism. As I healed I could feel connections starting to work again. First, I started getting sensation back in my neck area, then my abdomen, then my legs, then my sense of smell came back, my tastebuds started to function right. All of these things I didn't even realise were that shut down.. I too felt like you, like my thoughts were so slow but the mind chatter was intense and fast. I also lost my ability to visualize. At one point I could sense an electric pulse fiering inside my brain and then dying off before reaching it's destination, I was that locked into my mind. Sorry if this was a bit all over the place  I hope everyone who reads this will at least do one thing for themselves, find help that makes you feel hopeful and motivated, the people and help you need is out there, don't settle for "help" that makes you feel worse.


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## mana_war (Jul 3, 2014)

No, it makes a lot of sense. Given that you came up with it from you experience explains why it made sense to me.

I think in the beginning phases I actually felt like the left and right side of my brain separated. I used to feel so much pressure in the front of my head, and random tingling everywhere.

In the past used to have the most amazing memory. Like I could keep a shopping list just in my head for a week. If I told my brain I needed to wake up at six, i'd set the alarm to six and I'd wake up without fail 5 minutes before the alarm. Now I try to remember something from 5 minutes ago and forget. I can sleep all day and not notice what time it is ever. It's like certain systems aren't working correctly, because I've never been that person, that forgets so easily, before dp anyway.

Sometimes I get moments where my vision becomes vivid for a second and that's when I realize it's been so dull for so long. I think it would be accurate to say that similar to DID sufferers, dissociation is about a type of fragmentation of the self... (and so of the brain) where the things that we couldn't deal with are somewhere away from our consciousness atm.

electric pulse firing yet not reaching the destination...interesting


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## hopeful123 (Sep 11, 2018)

Dear York, great to hear! Congratulations. I hope you will live in peace forever! Tell me, what was the trigger for you to get DPDR? Hope to hear from you!


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