# Major discovery - Research



## lostsoul (Aug 25, 2006)

To support my last question I'm doing research now..

I bet that DP/DR didn't happen before the creation of personal computers. So I need to know if there are any DP/DR sufferers that got it before the creation of PC's.

Thanks.


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## B_J (Jun 25, 2007)

I also think abusing computers and fluorescent light (like LCD display) cause more anxiety/depression and derealisation symptom.


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## ihavemessedupdreams (Apr 19, 2007)

i abused the pc as soon as i first used this thing i was drawn to it for some reason it was just awesome andwhen i droped out of high school grade 9 i spent almost 1 year on this thing straight it was an escape from everything it was a drug for me so to speak i wouldint be surprised if its what caused me dp/dr i still love the pc and im on it more then I should
maybe


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## Guest (Jul 30, 2007)

Has this been posted before?
I spend most of my day on pc and did before dp/dr. I find it helps me take my mind off the dp/dr.
I know there are some members on here who have had dp/dr for 20 yrs. I very much doubt there were that many pc addicts back then.


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## Dreamer (Aug 9, 2004)

lostsoul said:


> To support my last question I'm doing research now..
> 
> I bet that DP/DR didn't happen before the creation of personal computers. So I need to know if there are any DP/DR sufferers that got it before the creation of PC's.
> 
> Thanks.


Well, if that is your thesis you'll have to fight me to defend it 8)

*I'm 48. I've had DP/DR most if not all of my life. I didn't have a personal computer until I was around 40 -- though I saw the evolution of the large computers, starting with the key punch machine we had in 8th grade! It was the size of a truck. LOL. I was diagnosed w/DP (result of mixture of predisposition/abuse and neglect - who knows anymore) in 1975.*

I always say this, but I will never again use a typewriter unless someone pays me a huge sum of money. Also of all the stupid gadgets invented since my childhood, the one I CAN'T live without is my cellphone and the internet. I love to research.

At any rate, a few tidbits. One of the first accounts in modern time of DP was called "Journal Intime" by this Frenchman Amiel who NAMED his own disorder. HE called it depersonalization. He felt that is what was wrong with him. Before anyone talked about it or called it anything.

Subsequently a famous French doctor *Ludovic Dugas who was researching all sorts of altered states of consciousness such as deja-vu, jamais-vu, etc. used Amiel's term to officially coin the diagnosis/name of the symptom in around ... I always forget! About the end of the 1800s.*

IMHO, there is no mental illness that hasn't existed since the dawn of man, since consciousness. And there are also animals who have emotional problems. Even dogs!

Mental illnesses of all kinds were discussed by the Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, etc. (The Four Humours -- Melancholy, Sanguine, Choleric and Phlegmatic.) I am clearly Melancholy.

My guess is that if an archaeologist came across an account of a 1500 B.C. year old DP journal he/she wouldn't know what it was about. But mental illness is depicted and noted in the Bible and other ancient writings from many other countries.

Freud himself experienced a wave of DP at the Acropolis in his later years. He was very familiar with it. Again, 1800s this was being recognized/studied. Freud attributed his experience to some psychoanalytic conflict re: his father. I attribute it to lack of sleep! OY. (Perhaps he had jet lag 8) ) He was fully aware of DP, and I don't believe Freud had a PC either. Sorry, I don't mean to be so silly.

Ah, you are young. But continue your research. It is the only way to learn. But you have to start at the beginning of abnormal psych and the history of psych, before you get to the history of PSYCHIATRY which is actually rather young.

I recommend an amazing book *A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness by V.S. Ramachandran, M.D., Ph.D.* probably one of the greatest neurologists of our time. He looks into many altered states of consciousness and makes mention of DP and other related disorders (or symptoms he feels may be related to certain innate human responses.)

See my website/links/resources/info section for more good reading.

Cheers,
Dreamer
http://www.dreamchild.net

PS, I know quite a few personally who had DP before computers. Some are better, some are not. Most of my friends were born around 1960 or therabouts, but I know folks much older with mental illness, doing well or not so well.


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## LOSTONE (Jul 9, 2005)

> I bet that DP/DR didn't happen before the creation of personal computers. So I need to know if there are any DP/DR sufferers that got it before the creation of PC's.


 :?:

Before wasting your time on that, you maybe should just read up a little more about what we already know about DP/DR.

For example the word depersonalization was first used in 1880 long before computers were around.

The word depersonalization itself was first used by Henri Fr?d?ric Amiel in The Journal Intime. The July 8, 1880 entry reads: "I find myself regarding existence as though from beyond the tomb, from another world; all is strange to me; I am, as it were, outside my own body and individuality; I am depersonalized, detached, cut adrift. Is this madness?

Although the first time the word depersonalization was used was in 1880, I have even read scriptures in the bible where some of the bible writers are talking about what seems to be depersonalization. So I think the illness goes way back to the beginning of human history.


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## LOSTONE (Jul 9, 2005)

I didn't see your post Dreamer.

LOL.

There is all kinds of evidence out there to show us that DP/DR has been around for a long time.

People like Dreamer are part of that evidence. 
I think it would be hard to convince Dreamer that she got her illness from computers.

Same with me since the internet was not around and I almost never used computers when I got my DP/DR.
I am sure I did not get it form being on the computer for to long.

LOL. :lol:


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## Dreamer (Aug 9, 2004)

LOSTONE has all the dates! I should know the exact dates and I forget. I'm putting them up on my computer.

Also, the effect of the computer is multifold and they are investigating what it does. The bright screen can mess with your circadian rhythms (when to sleep and when to stay awake), the "flicker" it has is similar to the "flicker" of fluourescent lights which we find so irritating. Reason? My theory is overstimulation -- too much input we aren't capable of processing properly, and that would possibly be the DR part of it.

I have an awful time outdoors -- too much input. Malls, grocery stores, etc.

Here are some early articles on DP. Oh, one could also say that watching TV doesn't help for the same reason. Also as a young person going to the movies was often Hell. It was a "treat" to go to the movies, but there again was too much input/stimulation.

Some very early journal articles, w/Dugas as being "the father of DP" having coined the term officially. Amiel's book predated this term as noted by LOSTONE. So, as this irritates me all the time, someone had DP before a doctor "labeled" them.

This is true of all mental illness, and hence the great stigma we face every day, everywhere.

These articles and tons more can be found on the IoP site. Link here. I'm thinking I'll write a brief blurb about how long DP has been around, or at least the fact about Dugas, unless it's on the front ... forgot again, lol.

Pre - 1900

*Dugas L (1898) 
Un cas de depersonalization. 
Revue Philosophique 45:500-506.*

1930 - 1939

Schilder P (1939). 
The treatment of depersonalization. 
Bull NY Acad Med 15:258-272

Guttmann E, Maclay WS (1936). 
Mescalin and depersonalization. 
Journal of Neurology and Psychopathology l6:193-212.

[Note the connection between a drug and DP back in 1936!]

Mayer-Gross W (1935) 
On depersonalization. 
Br J Med Psychol 15:103-126.

Cheers,
D
These misconceptions are very unfortunate. Also, Dugas ... EDIT: I believe he was a neurologist, or the equivalent in his day. I have to check that out. *No he was a psychiatrist. Sorry.*


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## Dreamer (Aug 9, 2004)

*History of Psychiatry, Vol. 8, No. 30, 213-229 (1997)
DOI: 10.1177/0957154X9700803002
? 1997 SAGE Publications
Depersonalization: a conceptual history

M. Sierra
G.E. Berrios*

[Both currently work at the IoP]

"As with other clinical phenomena, the historical analysis of the term, concepts and behaviours involved in the construction of 'depersonalization' should provide researchers with an essential frame for its empirical study.

* Before the term was coined in 1898, and under a variety of names, behaviours typical of 'depersonalization' were reported by Esquirol, Zeller, Billod, and Griesinger.*

* The word d?personnalisation derived from a usage in Amiel's Journal intime, was first used in a technical sense by Ludovic Dugas. The new disorder has since been explained as resulting from pathological changes in the sensory system, memory, affect, body image and self-experience.*

During the 1930s, evolutionary views became popular, particularly in the work of Mayer-Gross. The unclear conceptual boundaries of depersonalization still invite confusion and often enough fragments of what used to be its core-behaviour are used to diagnose the disorder.

Depersonalization has of late become subsumed under the dissociative disorders. The definitional instability of the latter, however, has caused further complications to the study of depersonalization.

* It is recommended that the term is used to refer only to the original core-behaviour as this has shown adequate stability."*


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## LOSTONE (Jul 9, 2005)

> My theory is overstimulation -- too much input we aren't capable of processing properly, and that would possibly be the DR part of it.


I agree.

Overstimulation for an overactive mind.

I personally feel like the natural filter that operates on everyones mind has been taken away from me. It is like my brain does not filter out all the needless information and so I get overwhelmed very quickly.

To many lights and noises/conversations and I get really tripped up. I can't just focus on what I should be focusing on because my mind is overwhelmed with all kinds of information that seems to be just as useful or pointless as the information that I should be focusing on.

I have read about this in some books about brainwashing. There is a real filter that is always working with our minds that helps us to make quick decisions and helps our mind keep from getting overwhelmed. 
I think that our DP/DRed brains have a problem filtering out needless information. Or even worse it actually confuses the information and makes the pointless info seem like useful info and vise versa. My mind also tricks me all the time and it is like my brain misfires or something and all my senses get crossed a little and even get mixed in with my feelings and my thought process. Thats probably due to my LSD abuse, I don't know.

I personally always try to limit the amount of stimulation that is coming into my mind because I can get overwhelmed very easy. Going to a bar or a nightclub would be a total nightmare for me. It's just way to much for my mind to handle.


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## Synapse (Aug 15, 2004)

If it helps your research, I got DP around 1992 when PC's were just making it big time in the UK.

I would also like to use computers before this time with the old commodore 64's etc.

But now I have been medicated for such a long time since then that I feel emotioness throughout the years living in a lost soul so to speak.

Good luck with the research.


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## LISA NICHOLS (Sep 3, 2005)

lostsoul said:


> To support my last question I'm doing research now..
> 
> I bet that DP/DR didn't happen before the creation of personal computers. So I need to know if there are any DP/DR sufferers that got it before the creation of PC's.
> 
> Thanks.


YES YES YES YES AND A VERY BIG YEAAAAAAAAAAAHS

i started having dp/dr aged 10 and there wasnt a computer in sight infact ive had it all these years now , im 29 !!!
i only got a computer 2 years ago !!!! 
so in my views its not about the computers for me that has started me off


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