# Anyone experience dp like this?



## whatthehell (Jul 27, 2010)

Here is my story in detail, forgive me for the length.

First, I am a philosophy major. The reason is, I had a major freak out at age 18, on pot, realized I was going to die someday, and since then I have been looking for the "whys". 
Now I am 24. I think I experienced/am experiencing some major DP or something similar to it.

I tried SSRI's a while back for anxiety, which caused me to tune into myself in new way. I was constantly checking in, seeing how these affected me, and if they did at all. 
I ended up checking in so much that it gave me anxiety/ (I also read all the side effects of the medication, which freaked me out). I ended up obsessing over whether 
these meds would make me suicidal or not, since it was a side effect and I started having some weird thoughts about the suicide which caused more anxiety. So pretty much
i just started obsessing. Eventually though, I worked through this anxiety and suicidal feeling, and was ok for like 2 months. During those 2 months I did have one night
when i woke up completely confused as to how I got there. My past and present was jumbled a bit, like i knew why I was in this certain house in this certain city, but it
felt like i was just born with a bunch of memories at that moment. A lot of anxiety was happening too. Weird.

Then out of no where, one night, I was jamming out, and the oddest sensation came over me, which reminded me of when i smoked pot and realized I was going to die, 
kind of a weird depressed/dread feeling that was fleeting. I said to myself, oh man that feeling again? I also realized that everything just looked more vivid at the time,
almost just MORE real. I let it go though, and had no idea about DP or DR at the time. I then had the feeling again while competing in a short film. I was looking at the
cast, and everything just looked like a movie....almost like i was high, but not. I tried to not think about it, and it went away. Eventually, this movie kind of look
was more present, but without any real anxiety attached to it.

Then I moved to a new city. And started a new job. AND BAM!

I was driving and had this awful anxiety after two weeks or my new habitat, and everything felt awful, i felt like i was too aware of being aware (sounds weird right). I also
felt like i was observing myself through myself, instead of just being me. Every moment was a new horror, and I could not believe that I was even alive. It was like I realized
how weird it was to exist and be doing anything or something along those lines.

The earth looked smaller, the sky was lower, and I felt too big. I couldnt understand how people were alive, and although I knew that reality is normal,
it just looked so frightening and terrible. I felt like I was locked into this weird existence and that everything was just sinister, and somehow i woke up
to the "real" reality behind the reality we live in. It was AWFUL. People looked more robot like, and I was thinking about how people are put together etc?
I couldnt understand life. I had all these weird existential thoughts:

Where is the earth?
Why is the earth?
Why do people look the way they do?
What happens when I die?
Why does time feel the way it does?
Where is my concept of time?

Everything was, to be blunt, FUCKED.

I thought I had lost my soul. I thought I had a kundalini awakening. I thought I was going to kill myself if I felt like this any longer.

Now, I am feeling relatively ok now, after about 2 months or horror. I still feel whacked, and my existential thoughts are still around.

Are all these things part of DP? Even the people looking weird like robots, not understanding how anything is alive and the sky and time feeling so abstract and weird?

THANKS for the replies if I get any!


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## Daniel C (Jun 24, 2010)

Yes, sir.

I too have experienced many of those same exact thoughts. I can say (in my opinion) that you have DP. ( I can tell you're quite intelligent, so Ill expand my vocabulary a bit here







)

*MY* research and daily observations that I have come up with amount to this.

1. DP is most prominent when under amounts of acute or enormous stress. Or really anywhere in between.

2. DP can manifest itself in an enormity of unstable and unrecognizable ways. Although, some being very recognizable, and even 'normal'

3. With first initial DP experience, following experiences can be provoked without mimicking and-or re-experiencing the original attack.

4. DP is a lot of the time drug induced. ( The core of ALL of my problems would be marijuana ) But still does NOT have to be drug related.

5. A lot of things can ' fuel the fire ' so to speak. Depression; anxiety, work, school, new environments, new people, large crowds. The list really goes on.

I would think it's safe to say you have DP. Feel free to message me if you have any further inquiries. Or you can just reply with them. I'm not too rounded on this whole mess yet though.


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## whatthehell (Jul 27, 2010)

Word,

Its weird that these kinds of situations occur at the worst times. On a more positive side, I think crisis can lead towards personal growth, but holy crap, DP is the ultimate
growth experience. It's like if your mind had nuts, and it got punched in them. Now we know that we have to protect our nuts. And when I talk about nuts, I guess Im really
talking about our thought process. I dont believe the mind is static, or that we are stuck with current perceptions about life. Here I come positive thinking.

I also made it my goal to do everything that I am scared of at this point, because whats the use of holding back. 
The only thing I can't do is face DEATH, cause thats the ultimate, probably for most people on this board. But I think
a sky dive might do the trick. If not, at least I jumped out of a plane.

In regards to your symptoms:
Have you found some relief?


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## ROBO (Jul 29, 2010)

wow, "whatthehell", you just described in a few words exactly what it feels like to have DP for me
"felt like i was observing myself through myself, instead of just being me".


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## outlaw (May 20, 2010)

whatthehell said:


> The earth looked smaller, the sky was lower, and I felt too big. I couldnt understand how people were alive, and although I knew that reality is normal,
> it just looked so frightening and terrible. I felt like I was locked into this weird existence and that everything was just sinister, and somehow i woke up
> to the "real" reality behind the reality we live in.
> Where is the earth?


I know exactly how you feel, I just want to bring attention to the "I felt too big" I didn't know how to explain that to anyone but you put it into words.. sometimes I feel like a giant its soo weird!


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## whatthehell (Jul 27, 2010)

Its funny that I can explain this so well.

I think im getting better with this all, and Im not going to come here for a month or so starting august 1st. 
The last thing im working on is that surreal existential shit. And by working on it, i mean not working on it,
literally. Just letting it be. Trying to figure out why we look and are made the way we are...is....exhausting...
and to be blunt....idiotic. I just called myself an idiot.


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## Michaek (May 17, 2010)

wow your description of dp is the closest thing ive seen to mine on this site.

-Too aware of being aware
-observing yourself through yourself
-how its weird to exist
-not understanding how people are alive
-not understanding why people look the way they do
-feeling in the "real" reality behind reality

This is the way ive been feeling about the past month. its scary as hell. every day is a challenge and my mind can't rest for one second. It's maddening.


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## whatthehell (Jul 27, 2010)

you nearing some sort of recovery?....i think i am in some way or another.


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## Michaek (May 17, 2010)

Well ive had DP for a little over 2 months and those thoughts that i describe started comin on in about the past 3 weeks. Sometimes i think maybe im getting closer to recovery, but sometimes i think im far from it. However, my mind has been easier to distract over the past couple days so thats encouraging. Why do you think your closer to recovery?


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## whatthehell (Jul 27, 2010)

My sense of time is coming back, Less existential thinking, dont feel like I have the flu constantly, real life looks realish, 
the real last part of all this is for me I think is just chillin out, not letting this thing occupy my brain for too long, because
the less I pay attention to it the less my mind makes it important in my life.


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## Daniel C (Jun 24, 2010)

Sorry it has taken so long to reply.

Okay.

For relief? Slim to none.. but I can shed some light.

DP seems to be the WORST when I fight it. To be honest; the best thing you can do is ( in my opinion ) acknowledge it's being, and accept that you have it.

I have other disorders that are unstable that take over and push my DP aside. ( Depression, OCD, anxiety ) But when DP is present, you must embrace it, I guess. You need to understand that it cannot hurt you, nor is it permanent. It's not going to turn you crazy, or anything related to that nature. Repeat these words when DP is prominent.

It's here. I'm okay. This is Depersonalization.

And then push through the best you can. It helps.


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## PDubya86 (Jul 17, 2010)

Michaek said:


> wow your description of dp is the closest thing ive seen to mine on this site.
> 
> -Too aware of being aware
> -observing yourself through yourself
> ...


Pretty much bang on in terms of symptoms with me as well.
If you imagine a scale between 1 and 10, and everyone's awareness and sense of self and surroundings were measured by this scale...with 1 being unconscious or dead and 10 being completely and utterly over-the-top-im-about-to-lose-my-mind awareness of everything ie movement, parts of body, your environment, the space around you, the way people look and how they function etc etc....Its as if the vast majority of people hover around 6/7, a normal level with just the right amount of awareness, whereas I feel like Ive been hovering around 8/9 for the past few months. Occasionally hitting 10 when it gets really bad, at which point im pretty much a tensed-up rigid mess. Scared to move!

I hate this shit.


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## pancake (Nov 26, 2009)

whatthehell said:


> It's like if your mind had nuts, and it got punched in them. Now we know that we have to protect our nuts.


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## pancake (Nov 26, 2009)

whatthehell said:


> I thought I had lost my soul. I thought I had a kundalini awakening. I thought I was going to kill myself if I felt like this any longer.
> 
> Now, I am feeling relatively ok now, after about 2 months or horror. I still feel whacked, and my existential thoughts are still around.
> 
> Are all these things part of DP? Even the people looking weird like robots, not understanding how anything is alive and the sky and time feeling so abstract and weird?


All of that is part of DP/DR.

I just listed some symptoms in another thread: http://www.dpselfhelp.com/forum/index.php?/topic/22645-dpd-symptoms-draft/


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## whatthehell (Jul 27, 2010)

That picture is the best thing...ever


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## chippy! (Mar 20, 2010)

whatthehell said:


> Here is my story in detail, forgive me for the length.
> 
> First, I am a philosophy major. The reason is, I had a major freak out at age 18, on pot, realized I was going to die someday, and since then I have been looking for the "whys".
> Now I am 24. I think I experienced/am experiencing some major DP or something similar to it.
> ...


Yes I and most of us feel the same way. I think DP/DR makes us take a step back from our lives and take a look at ourselves in 3rd person. We question everything and analyze everything about ourselves and surroundings. This is what I beleieve brings on the symptoms becasue we've lost faith and confidence in ourselves. Instead of doing things automatically as we've always done we seem to over think and talk ourselves through everything one step at a time. 
The way I desribe it is like we've turned auto pilot off and now we're using the manual controls. Which feels weird, uncomfortable and scary. Knowing that we're in 100% control of ourselves and our decisions. Thats why everything feels different around us because we're thinking about things we've never even questioned and doing things we haven't needed to think about. 
We need to stop thinking and use our instinct. I think the best solution is to distract ourselves. Keep as busy as possible (without getting over stressed). Hopefully we won't have time to question our thoughts and feelings then and the symptoms will fade.


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## lance447 (Aug 19, 2010)

Well I never experience that kind of illness!
Thank God I am safe from harm!
Thank you for sharing those good thoughts!!

God Bless

_______________
guild wars 2 gold


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## Tacxj (Aug 3, 2010)

> Yes I and most of us feel the same way. I think DP/DR makes us take a step back from our lives and take a look at ourselves in 3rd person. We question everything and analyze everything about ourselves and surroundings. This is what I beleieve brings on the symptoms becasue we've lost faith and confidence in ourselves. Instead of doing things automatically as we've always done we seem to over think and talk ourselves through everything one step at a time.
> The way I desribe it is like we've turned auto pilot off and now we're using the manual controls. Which feels weird, uncomfortable and scary. Knowing that we're in 100% control of ourselves and our decisions. Thats why everything feels different around us because we're thinking about things we've never even questioned and doing things we haven't needed to think about.
> We need to stop thinking and use our instinct. I think the best solution is to distract ourselves. Keep as busy as possible (without getting over stressed). Hopefully we won't have time to question our thoughts and feelings then and the symptoms will fade.


chippy that was wonderfully put! That's exactly how things feel, like I'm in manual mode when everyone else has the snazzy automatic model. I really like this thread, whatthehell, your description really resonates with me. I can't tell if you're describing the moments when things seem SuperReal as DP or moments without it, but to me I have episodes where I am super aware and the world does seem very sinister. Like suddenly I have all this responsibility and like suddenly people can SEE me, though that sounds silly since I'd been interacting with them before. Because this feels so threatening to me, I prefer to slip back into the haze of what I think my DP is, where I'm just watching everyone and it feels like I can do anything.


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## BusyBee (Aug 7, 2010)

Hi. In reply to your post, it would apear that these are all symptoms.
I am young, optimistic and reasonably succesful person. I had a happy and normal upbringing, I would not have said I was axious or stressed, although looking back I feel that a long time relationship involving alot of emotional abuse may have been the trigger for my problems. I did not do drugs and although everybody has disturbing thoughts occasionally, I feel that I was fairly happy with my existance. The one sunny day it all changed.
I began losing vision, which terrified me and i later found out that it was migraine. After the second visial aura attack,I had this weird sensation that everything around me was not 'real', like if i tried to touch it my hand would go through. Or i would miss it completly. It got to a real bad stage where, like others describe, i was scared to look in the mirror as i felt that the reflection was not me. I was freaked out that I was trapped inside a body and that my arms were coming out. I felt so lost that I began to wonder if I was dead and I was just a ghost.. I was so unaware of the world as I knew it that if someone showed me a smashed up room and told me i'd done it I rthink i would have belived them. Can you see why Ive had so much trouble explaining how i feel to friends family and physicains..!?
It has been six months and I do feel that everything is still 'not quite right'. Like you, I wonder if things look too vivid, or too close. But then I stare at things and they dont seem as intense and real as they used to be..
Remember that you are real and your feet are on the ground. This helps a bit. Despite that I feel as though there must be a physical cause, Nearly all the success cases Ive read are from people who have trained their mind out of it, not used prescription drugs.
Good luck


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## sunn lord (Sep 21, 2010)

whatthehell said:


> Here is my story in detail, forgive me for the length.
> 
> First, I am a philosophy major. The reason is, I had a major freak out at age 18, on pot, realized I was going to die someday, and since then I have been looking for the "whys".
> Now I am 24. I think I experienced/am experiencing some major DP or something similar to it.
> ...


whatthehell, I wanted to register here to reply to you specifically. I have experienced the SAME symptoms you described. I had my first episode of a panic attack when I was 16, it ruined me. I was depressed as hell, I thought I was dying, all kinds of stuff. I ended up getting on Prozac and it was odd, almost 7 months later I felt "cured". It was great. Well recently, I had a major panic attack once again out of nowhere (I'm 23 now). I'm assuming from a build up of a stressful year I had. One night I was in bed and was falling asleep but got the strangest overwhelming feeling of confusion almost. Like you said, I felt like I was just put on this world with memories, I felt almost like I was suffering from dementia, except I knew where I was, who I was, who my wife was, etc. It just "felt" foreign. I'll sometimes get "racing thoughts" as I call them as I'm trying to fall asleep, I'll just have weird shit stuck in my head, images, music, etc. and I'll freak out and think I'm going crazy. I've started taking Prozac again recently and noticed a slight difference until I took some Xanax. Turns out I have panic disorder with agoraphobia. The Xanax REALLY helps IF you use it WHEN you NEED it- I can't stress that enough. Xanax usually gets a bad wrap because of abuse factors, but if you take it when you really feel you need it and it helps, why the hell not take it. Xanax puts me back on the "level" I was at before all this stuff happened, I feel like if I can just keep my mind there and train myself to stay in that place, I can shake this funk.

It is pretty exhausting, man. I thought I had cancer, mad cow disease, etc. I did numerous tests and physicals and was fine. I feel so exhausted everyday, and yeah - flu like almost. It's apart of the depression & anxiety though, you're body is all tensed up and your brain chemicals are out of whack, of course you're going to feel tired. I'm a musician and playing music really helps me relax, sometimes. I feel like I'm slowly getting better, I've been going through therapy and kind of doing "self therapy" as well (little things I do to center myself).

Sorry for the long reply, I just had to sign up and let you know you're not alone. I know how scary this stuff can be as we all do, I hope you find some reassurance from this.


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## whatthehell (Jul 27, 2010)

Hey Thanks for the reply!

I have survived the summer, major ups and downs, but so far, the best thing I can say is that time is whats helping it the most, i am on meds, but they help a little.

Weird stuff...


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## sunn lord (Sep 21, 2010)

whatthehell said:


> Hey Thanks for the reply!
> 
> I have survived the summer, major ups and downs, but so far, the best thing I can say is that time is whats helping it the most, i am on meds, but they help a little.
> 
> Weird stuff...


Good to hear. Yeah, unfortunately there's no "magic bullet" for DPD/DRD. The only way you'll fully recover is through you. Meds will help in some cases though, as in my case I have a panic disorder that causes the DPD, therefore taking xanax when I have the onset of anxiety really helps me forget about it. Just rest your mind. I'm not really a spiritual person but this has kind of made me into one, it's bizarre. Just think of it as something you can do that other people can't, you can look OUTSIDE the box, when the rest of the world is stuck in the box. There's people who would pay money for drugs to go through the type of stuff we're going through everyday and it's a more common disorder than you would think. Well anyways, I'll stop the rambling.

Just stay positive (Yeah, I know... Kind of hard, right?). But with the right mind state, you can pull through it. Just remember, it's not fatal and it can't hurt you, it's just a mind game. Learning how to play the game and conquer it is the key


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