# Please read



## Barb2013 (Aug 24, 2009)

Hi, my name is Barbara. I am eighteen and I go to college in the U.S. I found this site at the beginning of the summer but this is the first time I have posted something of my own. Ok so here is my story. As best I can tell from the journals I have kept since this nightmare began, I first started to experience symptoms of Dp and DR in eighth grade, five years ago. Before this however, starting in sixth grade, maybe late fifth grade, I began experiencing anxiety. I was mostly afraid of death, death from disease, from terrorist attacks because it was right after nine eleven, and just accidental death from something like food poisoning. I also started experiencing really bad stage fright even though I had been acting in community theatre since I was nine. Later I began to have episodes of anxiety attacks or Dp/Dr attacks, maybe a little of both. During the attack everything would seem unfamiliar. My parents didn't seem like they were really my parents and my house didn't seem like my house, and I would feel very panicky. When this happened I would have to go lay down with my eyes closed until it was over. Sometimes I would fall asleep. But when I got up or woke up things would feel normal again. I would also occasionally be over come with the feeling/thought that existence in general seemed strange, and unreal, and impossible. In addition I would feel like my existence seemed impossible and would be confused by the idea of consciousness of self and struggle with what part of my consciousness was myself. Eventually my parents took me to my doctor where I was only able to put a few of my troubling symptoms into words and I was diagnosed with anxiety attacks and put on buspirone and sent to see a therapist at the end of eighth grade. Since then the feeling that things and people are unfamiliar has become constant and I have completely disconnected from myself. I don't feel like myself anymore, or like anyone. I like to describe it as feeling like I was just dropped into the place of Barbara and I have all of the knowledge to carry out her role but none of the emotional attachment to herself or people and places she knows, nor any of her experiences and I am not her. I feel like I am no one. I also almost constantly feel like I am inside my body and that is not part of me rather than feeling like I am my body. By the end of Senior year I was feeling like my symptoms were getting worse and I became very depressed and suicidal. When I told my doctor I thought my symptoms were getting worse he put me on citalopram in addition to the buspirone. However I just got more depressed. My doctor took me off of the citalopram and put me on lorazopam with the buspirone. I also started seeing a therapist again, which I hadn't done since ninth grade. Currently I am wondering whether or not I have a brain tumor or some neurological disease that could be causing all of this. I know you will probably tell me that I don't but in the last few years my right eye lid and eye brow have started to droop lower than my left and my right pupil is now slightly smaller than my left. And no I am not imagining it because my eye doctor brought up the eyelid drooping thing before I did. Any way, I asked my regular doctor about it and she said that it was probably nothing but that didn't exactly reassure me since I had been telling my eye doctor for a couple years that I thought my right pupil was smaller than my left and she wasn't able to tell that it was smaller until this year. This not only makes me lose trust in my doctors but makes me think whatever is wrong with me could be getting worse since my doctor finally notices it. In addition it is really hard for me to bring up the same medical concern more than once because I don't want people treating me and looking at me like I just have anxiety and am imagining things being wrong with me so I keep my concerns to myself and I'm terrified that because of it I won't get diagnosed with something and I'm going to die. Ha suicidal and terrified to die I'm really screwed up. Do any of you experience the same symptoms as me particularly the symptoms of my drooping eyelid/brow/small pupil? Also do any of you know whether brain tumors or diseases cause dp/dr? Any other advice or help your willing to offer is appreciated. I just want this to be over.


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## Surfingisfun001 (Sep 25, 2007)

I've never heard of anyone on here with physical eye problems. There are certain diseases known to cause symptoms of DP such as Lyme and Celiac (look under the medical explorations section).

I like the way you explained this part, this is exactly how I feel only as a "Kenny" not a "Barbara". 


BJ2013 said:


> I like to describe it as feeling like I was just dropped into the place of Barbara and I have all of the knowledge to carry out her role but none of the emotional attachment to herself or people and places she knows, nor any of her experiences and I am not her. I feel like I am no one.


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## Ethan (Sep 1, 2009)

I have been the same way since my DP started 7 years ago. Always fearing death but suicidal. Thinking i had a tumor in my brain or reticular cancer because my vision isnt the same. I think us with DP try to put answers to it because its so frightening for a doctor not to understand and have an answer either. Everyone cant relate to you or experience what your going through unless its another person with DP. All your feelings are similar to my own and i think you found the right place to express them but when it comes to answers. Thats when we are blind


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## York (Feb 26, 2008)

> . Since then the feeling that things and people are unfamiliar has become constant and I have completely disconnected from myself. I don't feel like myself anymore, or like anyone. I like to describe it as feeling like I was just dropped into the place of Barbara and I have all of the knowledge to carry out her role but none of the emotional attachment to herself or people and places she knows, nor any of her experiences and I am not her. I feel like I am no one. I also almost constantly feel like I am inside my body and that is not part of me rather than feeling like I am my body.


Praise the Lord, I'm not alone!

I know EXACTLY how you feel! It's so scary! I constantly hum _"oh yes, I'm the great pretender..."_ in my head...
It's classic symptoms of dp though, but not everyone has them (well not the humming of Elvis). 
To me, they are what makes dp a true hell. 
I did recover from this once when I was eighteen (I'm 30 now) and when I was recovered, I couldn't remember what it'd been like. That's what keeps my hopes up. Every time one has dp, it seems like you can never be yourself again, but you can. 
Don't really know how to get there though, sorry.


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## Barb2013 (Aug 24, 2009)

Thank you so much to all of you who responded to my post. It really helps to know that other people feel the same things that I do. York, do you have any idea as to how or what caused your DP to start?


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## rtisdell (Sep 25, 2009)

Hey just wanted to let you know that I have the same thing, not the droopy eye but one of my pupils is noticeably larger than the other, to put your mind at ease I had a CAT scan about 3 years ago and there was nothing noticeably wrong. I also recently saw a neurologist and I did mention my pupil to him, I had an MRI done 4 days ago, so if he mentions any reason for it to be happening when I see him for my follow up app. I'll let you know


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## York (Feb 26, 2008)

BJ2013 said:


> Thank you so much to all of you who responded to my post. It really helps to know that other people feel the same things that I do. York, do you have any idea as to how or what caused your DP to start?


It always starts with stress and then panic attacks (that's the dp-button, even hyperventilating will set it off).
The three times I've had it it's been a lot of stressful things happening in my life.

The first time I was living with my mom who was an alcoholic. Second time, over ten years later, it was partly her death that made my anxiety come back. Then after having recovered, I got pregnant, and a month before I was due my stepdad had a stroke and I got really scared he'd die, or that my baby would die or that I die.. You get the pic.
And last two years I've also been in a very difficult relationship which has had me walking on egg-shells 24/7.
It's just been too much. I'm trying to remove stressors one by one now but it's not easy. I'm thinking if I ever get well, nothing will scare me again though, as this is the worst I've ever dealt with.

Sorry if that got too personal..


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## falga183 (Sep 28, 2009)

Hi, my name is Amanda. I am a 22yr. old Nursing Student from the Louisiana, US. I have been dealing with this disorder since I have been in 6th grade. I wasn't quite sure what was happening and could not explain it either. In the seventh grade i began missing school because i was scared of the attacks. And for myself laying down and closing my eyes would help it dissapear. They put me on multiple seizure medicines thinking i was having some sort of seizures. I began having horrible headaches so they took me off it. For the next couple of years i was medicine free and dealt with my symptoms on my own because i was too scrared to get help because i feared people would just think im crazy. My senior year of high school as me and my best friend were walking to class she noticed that one of my pupils were the size of half my eye and the orther about the size of a tip of a needle. The school nurse told me this was an emergency and i was taken to the hospital. I had multiple brain scans done and nothing was found and still till today we have no idea what caused the my pupils to change into different sizes. If im not mistaken your eye is still this way?? After one day mine was normal and it never happened again. But my episodes of DP continued. For years I knew something was wrong with me but i could not explain it to friends, doctors, or family without feeling crazy. I didn't know other people in the world actually felt what i was feeling.I have an attack usually every day. My attacks tend to happen when I am put in an uncomfortable situation. Other times i find it happening when i am in a crowd of people. I have an out of body experience. My mind blanks out and my senses are distored. I feel like i am in a dream and it's very frightening. The worst part is when i am with a group of people and it starts happening and trying to stay as focused as i can to avoid anyone from noticing anything is happening to me. I never really thought about DP being a protective mechanism until i read your post. It seems as though with myself this may very well be the case. Many people describe it as anxiety but the difference with DP and anxiety is the distorted senses, and out of body feeling.


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## swedishfish (Oct 4, 2009)

Very good description. Exactly what I experience. I am 20 and experiencing much of the same symptoms of playing the role and i know how terrifying it can be. I try my best to stay present and focus on things one at a time. Letting your mind scatter and run its subconscious course is what causes this mostly. In my research I've learned that its about resetting your normal patterns. I have yet to accomplish this but im working on it. I know how hard it is to be so young and feel helpless. How do you cope with this? Do you feel connected to people at all? Have you tried cognitive behavioral therapy?


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