# My DP/DR Story - Misdiagnosed?



## natecbc (May 25, 2016)

I'm glad to have found this website. It's been truly surreal to read other people's stories that sound so similar to mine. I'm in the process of reading, Feeling Unreal by Daphne Simeon, MD and another book Stop Unreality by Kevin Klix.

My story starts about 5 years ago. I grew up a devout Christian my entire life and was really sheltered. Both of my parents were pastors and so my worldview didn't have any exposure to or understanding of drugs or alcohol. I didn't take my first drink till right before my 21st birthday and not one time in my life had I ever physically present around drugs.

About 5 years ago I'm down by a lake at dusk, in my car, with a friend from college who pulls out what looks to be a self rolled cigarette. He starts smoking it and asks me if I want some. I said no. A few minutes later he asks me again and curiously I decided to try it. I really only breathed it into my mouth, some got in my lungs, and then breathed it out. I took two puffs and gave it back to him. A few minutes later he asked me if I felt anything and I said, "No, am I supposed to feel something?" - to which he replied - "You should feel something, its Spice". All of the sudden he gets nervous and says he thinks a cop is coming and to drive. I turned on my car and began to drive. As we're crossing a bridge over the lake the headlights of a car passing the other direction hits my eyes and it was like I was electricity shooting through a tube and BAM! - I come back to consciousness, its pitch black out, I'm driving, and I come to this sudden realization that I have no idea where I am, what I'm doing, or why I'm driving. I began to freak out and look all around me trying to figure out where I was. My friend grabbed me and recited off a list of symptoms I was about to feel and that everything was OK. Just like he said everything happened in order. I calmed down and we had a bit of a laugh about it. As the night went on I experienced symptoms of derealization that were not alarming but were introspectively interesting (note derealization is a term I can only use in retrospect). I had memory deficiency while I was high but somehow my friend had found a way to guide me through the experience and make me feel like everything was cool.

We smoked again about the same amount a week later and were chilling in my car listening to some music. I lost myself in this trance with the music and came in and out of it as I pleased. It was a crazy experience that I somehow enjoyed but I mistakenly believed, due to a lack of experience and exposure to drugs, that I could control being high. Having never been drunk at this time in my life failed to realize that was as ridiculous an idea as being able to control your body normally when you're totally drunk.

So a week later we're out on a nature trail and we walk into a dry creek bed and my friend has some more spice so we smoke it. This time my friend taught me how to truly breathe into my lungs and "hold" my hits. Combine that with having enjoyed a high (unknown to me at the time to be extremely mild) and mistakenly believing that I could control being high I figured more smoke meant a better experience. So I took about 5 or 6 deep hits which I held for about 5-7 seconds each.

Within about a minute I all of the sudden felt like I lost complete control of my body. I was frozen in this echo chamber of cricket noises trying to turn my head and realizing with great fright that I couldn't control the high and I was higher than I could possibly have imagined. The temporal distortions were instantaneously setting in. It felt like I was trapped trying to turn my head for an eternity - BAM!!! - "Hey do you want any more of this" - "uhh....what?....no...no I'm good". I looked around with the strongest of derealization symptoms and back into the echo chamber I went except this time things moved but really slowly. I felt trapped and unable to - sober up - but I was too inexperienced to know sobering up was what I needed. My friend began talking to me and I came out of the slow echo chamber. "Let's get going" - "uhhh...I don't feel so good." - "You'll be fine let's go."

As we began to walk through this dry creek bed it was like I was walking through a pastel painting from an early animated winnie the pooh cartoon. I told my friend I felt really bad and wanted to sit down. So we stopped and sat down (in hindsight this was a big mistake). As I looked down the creek bed it seemed infinite and endless and the intensity of the cricket noises took over and panic set in. I began to bob and rock back and forth in a drug induced panic. As my friend tried to talk to me it felt as though each time I looked at him I was living the same moment over and over and over again. Like I was looking a VCR tape. I felt completely trapped. It was the middle of fall and there were red, yellow, and orange leaves on the ground and it looked like it was on fire. I remember saying to my friend that "We're dead. We've gone to Hell and God is punishing us. I asked my friend to pray for me and he did." I remember trying to remember my family and being totally unable. I remember thinking that I must have had parents but for whatever the reason I couldn't remember their names. The high caused me to feel as though the 21 years of life I had lived were like a mere second and I was living in what felt like an eternity. All of the sudden my pants began to vibrate. I had gotten a text message. I pulled out my phone and saw the date and time and asked my friend "What's Verizon?" He laughed and said "You've gotta be kidding me..." I started to notice the sound of cars driving by and that time was passing by looking at my phone.

My friend had had enough of sitting down and so we began to walk. As we got to the trail I looked back at where we had been seated for what felt like a million years and somehow it felt as if we had been there seconds. As we walked the pastel painting sensations continued but once I saw my car I began to feel grounded. We sat in my car for about an hour and 15 minutes till I felt like I could drive. As I came out of it later that evening I was unable to keep myself calm. I lived in a dorm at the time and I went to a good friend, told him what happened, and asked if I could sleep on his floor. I woke the next morning in what felt like a dream. I tried to go to class but things felt so wrong. I couldn't put words to it but it was like a dream state. I went back to my friends dorm and went back to sleep. When I woke up it was like a jolt out of a dream. I was in a pool of sweat, I was clammy, and 3 of my friends were there staring at me. They asked me how I was doing and I was like, "I feel like I just woke up out of a nightmare". My friend Josiah told me that I'd had a bad drug trip and that I was going to be OK. I believed him felt ok after that...until I'd tried to go to bed that night. I woke up to a thunderstorm and began having, what I didn't know at the time was, a panic attack. I had a friend take me to the hospital cause I thought there was something wrong with my heart. I told the ER doc what had happened and he told me I was having anxiety from drug usage but that I was going to be OK.

Over the next 3 years I had transient experiences of depersonalization or derealization that caused anxiety. At that time I didn't know that's what it was. I was a philosophy minor so I thought I was just having some metaphysical/existential crisis. I would often feel that somehow things weren't real or that something wasn't right. Usually the sensations passed but every once in a while I would have what I didn't know was a panic attack. About a year into I started taking Celexa for depression and anxiety. I was on again off again for about 2 years.

I eventually got back to what I would call normal after 3 years but I would say I functioned at about 90% throughout that period while experiencing intermittent episodes of DP/DR. I swore to myself I'd never do drugs again.

In November of 2015 I was faced with the tough choice of letting go or committing to a relationship I had been in and out of for about 4 years. My girlfriend felt the Remeron I was taking was making me indifferent and so I worked with a doctor to come off of it. In September I had changed jobs, left California, moved to Oregon, and lived alone. I was battling seasonal depression, was highly isolated, and my job was high pressure. In December I moved in with a friend who moved up from California to work with me. He smoked weed regularly and always offered but I resisted his offers and told him about my past and that I didn't want to go there. He persisted as he saw my depression and anxiety from life weigh me down. He was able to convince me that what I smoked and Marijuana were super different and that this would help me to chill.

I gave in and took a hit of some weed he had and just did one. I felt sort of floaty but mostly just chill like he had said. I was excited that maybe I had found something that could chill me out. So one night I said lets smoke some more weed. He was at the end of this blunt he wanted to finish but it was really harsh and after 3 hits I said I didn't feel anything. We started a new one and I took 2 more hits which I held. I really wanted to just relax. Combine the same mixture of inexperience with misunderstanding and I got lit up. My friend had failed to realize what he was smoking was a really high THC form of marijuana.

We ironically were listening to Brian McKnight's "Never Felt This Way Before". All of the sudden its like I sunk down into my chair, the lights got oddly bright, and I felt like I was trapped in a room. I told my friend I was feeling some of the same anxieties I felt the last time I got high. He tried to reassure me and talk to me but it got worse and worse until I was in full panic mode. He tried to get me to breathe, I tried holding his dog, and finally I felt like I was in serious danger. I called 911 and went to the ER. I remember thinking to myself that this is going to be a really really long process and that its almost not worth calling because I'm going to suffer so much before it gets here. I believed that I needed it though to protect myself from hurting myself or others. Even though this eternity was going to suck that some how I was going to benefit from the paramedics and the hospital. Somehow I was going to eventually be safe. The paramedics showed up I explained what was happening and they got me in the ambulance. I remember thinking as they went through their process that I was desperate for them to hurry up. My heart was beating a lot faster than it should have been, I do have a cardiac condition so they monitored me on the way. The anxiety and panic truly kicked up on the way as I got lost in a cycle of thoughts that are best describe as pure despair. It was the longest ambulance ride in history (realistically it was 12 minutes). I remember thinking "OMG...I've finally made it they're going to treat me with something and I'll be fine." As they wheeled me in to the ER the panic was just as bad internally. The derealization was so strong that the hospital was no comfort. They took my vitals and all I could think was "Hurry Hurry Hurry". I was waiting for this moment when they were going to give me something to sober up. That moment didn't come until 3 hours later.

Knowing what I knew from before I knew that my body and brain was going to struggle to adjust. The doctor said to take any anti-anxiety medication I had and the effects would wear off. He really didn't do much to treat me or investigate it because in Oregon marijuana is legal and they get people coming in all the time with this issue that they are indifferent to it. I knew the next day would be hell and it was. I went back to the ER the next night and got more Ativan. I walked out with a prescription for 8 more pills and packed a suitcase for NY because I had a work trip. I had moderate anxiety during my work trip and when I got back I saw a doctor who got me on Lexapro. As soon as I took it I felt 100% better. It was like a miracle. I was so happy.

Three weeks later I'm on a work trip in Scottsdale and I get black out drunk twice, I'm exhausted and I have to fly cross country to Boston for a 2 hour meeting before flying back to Portland. I remember getting to Boston and feeling anxious. The next morning in the meeting I started to feel weird. I was wondering why everyone sounded weird, why things seemed to be just slightly off, and then BAM!!! - adrenalin rush I was having the beginnings of a panic attack. All I could think was that I was sitting with 5 of the most important people from this bank I was meeting with and I couldn't afford to freak out. I interjected myself much more actively in the meeting and the panic subsided rather quickly. Over the next 3 days I experienced pretty intense symptoms of derealization and had several panic attacks.

I told my boss, crying in her office, that I was having some serious psychiatric issues and needed to take an extended sabbatical. I flew home impromptu to California where I told my family what was happening. I started seeing a Cognitive Behavioral Therapist 3 times a week and suffered many panic attacks for days and days the first few weeks of February. The CBT told me I was dealing with classic panic disorder and we needed to work through my traumas. Over the next 4 weeks I made improvements but suffered daily from high anxiety. I was taking ativan when attacks would come. The CBT told me I had to stop using Ativan to abort the attacks. She told me I needed to survive them to prove to myself that my thoughts and fears were illogical. She said the more times you overcome your fear the more you'll improve.

That had been more or less true and I saw marked improvement. Unknown to me at the time was that the primary anxiety symptom I had daily was derealization. After about 10 weeks of therapy things took a turn for the worst. I all of the sudden began experiencing DP/DR with obcessive thoughts about existence and and reality. I regularly had these feelings that I exist but I shouldn't exist. I wondered why anything at all and a variety of other things that I obsessionally cycled on. A psychiatrist saw me and put me on Clonazapam and Remeron with my Lexapro. It was like another miracle. I came straight out of that hell.

I've been on that regiment for about 4 weeks now and what I'm left with is this persistent DP/DR that happens daily or for days on end but I don't panic because of how heavily I'm medicated. I feel trapped and stuck in this never ending cycle of days. Its like I'm living but I'm not sure why. I do everything purely from a place of intellectual understanding that I'm supposed to. All my days feel disconnected. I feel a purposeless, meaningless, and my deeply held religious convictions all of the sudden don't make sense (not for intellectual reasons but because some how all the stuff in my brain doesn't seem connected anymore to reality). If you reality tested me I'd pass. I'm not psychotic. I know I'm experiencing a disorder and anxiety. I know I was born, where babies come from, I remember my life before I did drugs, etc.

Yet I've lost all sense of normalcy. So currently I'm suffering DP/DR as I'm writing this hoping and praying that things will improve. Some days are better than others but there was 1 day a month ago where all of the sudden I felt like me 100% and I couldn't believe it. It was like I had never suffered at all. I was shocked and loved it. Slowly over the next few days the DP/DR set back in.

I found the books I mentioned above and began to feel utter shock at how multiple people and stories sounded like mine. The exact thoughts, feelings, detachment etc. I've began to wonder if a Panic Disorder diagnosis is right. DPD seems to fit like a glove. I've gone weeks without having any real depressive or anxious triggers and the DP/DR persists.

I'm just hoping with time things get better. My psychiatrist upped my meds today to 45mg/day of Remeron with 10mg/day of Lexapro and 2x a day of Clonazepam. We'll see how that goes.

Sorry this post was so long but it was theraputic to share the whole thing like I did. I've yet to really do that in this way.


----------



## Guest (May 25, 2016)

I had a similar experience on Spice... Particularly the part where you said you felt like you had died and gone to hell.

Worst drug ever!!


----------



## microspect (May 24, 2016)

Autonomic Space Monkey said:


> If it's a test you're after to confirm DPD, then The Cambridge Depersonalisation Scale (CDS) is the main diagnostic test for DP. You can find a pdf version here. Your score is obtained by adding up all the numbers you circled. Quote this post & let me know what you score is.
> 
> Welcome to the forum!


Space monkey, here are my tabulated scores, what do you think?

Frequency

Duration

4

6

4

6

0

0

2

6

2

6

4

6

3

6

0

0

4

6

4

6

0

0

4

6

2

6

0

0

0

0

0

0

4

6

0

0

0

0

4

6

0

0

0

0

4

6

4

6

4

6

4

6

4

6

4

6

Total

65

108


----------

