# I've cured myself. Attention, please!



## Haimat (Nov 15, 2011)

Hey'all.

I've been sweeping the forums for awhile now (2-3 months), and now finally I decided to make a post about _my_ little story. Please excuse my lack of englishskillZ.

First of all, let me introduce myself. I'm a 22 year old boy. I live in Norway, and I go to the university. I live with my girlfriend, and have been doing for the last couple of months, which by the way has been a success although my DPcondition.

I'll try to be as brief as humanly possible.

The beginning of my story takes place at the military school, where I was taught how to become a sergeant (head of recruits, in general). Over the first year I developed a crisis on a normal, personal level (non-diagnosed), in the form of personal uncertainty / insecureness, which would eventually lead to the beginning of this so-called depersonalizationillness later on.

The first part of my deveolopement took place in Amsterdam around a year after beginning, where I used both LSD and brownies / pot. I had a few flashbacks later on, and for that reason, combined with my new group of recruits coming in and insecureness regarding these, I started "hanging more and more out with myself". In other words a mild form of desocialization. I felt like I couldn't talk to anybody, thus having to give orders to recruits all the time. I was under alot of pressure, and I was being hard on myself ontop of my unreal feelings. These feelings would eventually pass until they evolved x10 when I found out I wanted to try pot again a year after my trip to Amsterdam.

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It is worth mentioning that I attended a fighterpilotuptake the summer after my Amsterdamtrip, and that I disqualified as the 12th attendant (they took in 4 people ... ), with written proof of good mental & physical health, which calmed me having struggled with these feelings of depersonalization and lack of self all year. 
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I was at a buddy's when I had my first real panic attack, and it was the worst feeling ever. I started questioning what was going on, when I eventually concluded with having Alzheimer's disease, and that I would never ever get rid of this. I also concluded with symptoms of severe schizophrenia, severe depression and a severe dissociative disorder later on in that same panic attack.

I had a number of panic attacks that semester. Common for all of them was that they all came out of a high-state of awereness, feelings of unrealness and most of all, hypochondria. Hypochondria for schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease, severe depression, dissociative disorders and later on bipolar disorder.

These feelings, combined with anxiety, would control my life for the next year. The dissociative part made me, when having "come back to reality" in the form of having a high value of adrenaline in my body, feel & somewhat believe like I had 2 different personalities (although very often evaluated to such point as till such my brain could not even present this as an option anymore). To cope with this, I would start writing down all my thoughts (OCD-ish), I would force myself to believe very specific things (the term Qui Audet Adipiscitur, for instance), and I would at some point start fighting back after having tipped over every single stone in this brain. I would calm myself with knowledge of panic attacks (nothing but a defense mechanism, it happens because of fear and fear are irrational thoughts and brain-barriers MEANT to be broken), knowledge of brain disorders and not my "know-it-all"-answering machine the brain itself (you are probably familiar with "Do I exist? Am I myself? Are these my hands?").

Socializing was definitely the tip-over for my part. Forcing myself, I even managed to get a girlfriend in my worst state of mind. By the way, excuse my show-off attitude, having already mentioned my fighterpilotschoolattendance (one word?) and my exceptional mental / physicalskills.







Having now moved in with my girlfriend is just another point in my self-discipline regime.

As for many of you also I find it hard to describe how I feel when I get in the very self-destroying state of mind Depersonalization actually is, but I share with you some of them: 
-Feeling unreal, disconnected with myself, like watching a movie
-Obsessed with getting better, obsessed with the brain, myself
-Massive hypochondria
-Depression as some of the consequences of this
-Constant anxiety, fear of losing my mind
-Constant self-monitoring
-Obsessed, when in the described state of mind, with brain functioning, such as thoughts and how they interact with each other, language, and existential questions such as "Why are we all here" and "Finding meaning with everything".

I am now getting very much better than I was, having dealt with much of my anxiety and panic attacks, and I can very much relate to the "what is normal?"-thought. I know these feelings will re-appear from time to time, but I also know that I am much better armed than I was some time ago.

I want to share with you some of the things that helped me getting through this. I do also know that I may have not have had the worst type of lie-in-my-bed-all-day-depersonalization, but it had a major effect on my life and my ability to function, and I feel that I must deliver to you my top 10 list:

*1. Organization & Self-discipline.* EVERYTHING comes down to HOW MUCH YOU WANT THIS. Figure out a plan and FOLLOW IT. Learn to fight for yourself, your brain WANTS you to do this so that you can cope and deal with your emotions. Whip yourself through a couple of hours with pain (not physically, don't get me wrong) every day with this in your head: Fight to live, live to fight. GET OUT OF YOUR COMFORTZONE!

*2. Believe. *I used associationtechniques combined with terms such as Qui Audet Adipiscitur, having to tell myself things as I EXIST. I AM ME. I AM IN A PARTICULAR STATE OF MIND. I CAN GET THROUGH THIS. Abit narsissistic, but that was needed for my part.

*3. Confront your fear.* Do what you do not want to do. Fear is nothing but brain-barriers. They are meant to be broken!

*4. Socializing & Conversing with others. *Don't sit behind your computer and on these forums all day long. Find somebody who will LISTEN - don't bother if they don't understand everything you're telling them, but keeping intact your social life will help you in the long run. And also - trying to express these feelings helps you get a realistic hold of yourself! AND: Tip to you narssisistic beasts out there; Talk with somebody. I struggled with this for some time just because of these tendencies; What will they think of me. Am I not my original thought; SUPERSTRONG?

*5. Focus. *I have tipped every single stone in this brain, and it DOESN'T WORK. I have tried organizing every thought, the only thing that works is forcing your brain to function with the "outside world". Focusing on brain disorders GIVES brain disorderthoughts!

*6. Training.* Excersice. Run outside. Enchance your self! Use your self-discipline for what it's worth. YOU'RE in charge!

*7. Understand the process of recovery.* It is a 2 step forward - 1 step back-path. The brain will not allow you to recover in a day, and the reason for that is that you may, like me, have had a series of traumatic events which yet you are not strong enough to handle the consequences & emotions from. The brain is literally BEGGING you to get stronger!

*8. Read* http://www.dpselfhelp.com/forum/index.php?/topic/29572-please-read-this-dp-manual-that-i-have/page__p__243451__hl__manual__fromsearch__1#entry243451 - and other manuals focusing on recovery. Believe in principles such as DEPERSONALIZATION CANNOT EXIST WITHOUT ANXIETY. There is absolutely nothing to be afraid of - NOTHING will happen! Your brain is always trying to give you an answer to what is going on - even if these answers aren't always correct!

*9. Stay with positive people. *Do not read sad stories on these forums. Seriously. It will not help you. Other people have different STORIES, and you cannot seriously be meaning that you can relate to anybody else then yourself and your own symptoms. As I believe it is caused out of personal trauma, others simply cannot help you other than giving advices such as mine. : )

*10. Learn.* I learned that my DP WISHED for my that I would become STRONGER so I could deal with the stuff that had been going on. It IS a defense mechanism, and it gets a grip on you if you let it, and I assume it already has as you're here reading my post. The brain will try to prevent you from experiencing anything emotional disturbing, and it "locks you out". Although that in itself is quite traumatic, if you ask me. Take it back!

Damnit, this was a long one.

Oh, I used Johanneswort for a month or two from time to time to deal with my depressions, but that's about it.

PS: Don't study psychology while you're recovering like I do. It doesn't help your hypochondria. 
PS: There simply are no problems in life anymore after experiencing something like this. !!









Hope this helps!
PS: Send me a mail or two if you'd like some more tips!
PS: Excuse me for any grammatical errors.

EDIT: And oh, I used to self-diagnose alot. In my world, I've been (self)diagnosed a schizophrenic, bipolar, severe depressed, Alzheimer's, personality split, and I won't even start writing the things I've done to cure these disorders, including obsession with IQ-tests (average 122), mental excercises, and much, much more.

Best regards,

-J


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## rightwrong99 (Apr 17, 2011)

Like being like cured and being in recovery are like two totes diff things. Like.... ??

Sincerely, 
Estoymuy Confudido


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## Haimat (Nov 15, 2011)

newyork said:


> Like being like cured and being in recovery are like two totes diff things. Like.... ??
> 
> Sincerely,
> Estoymuy Confudido


Yeh, in the way you say this I agree - although I must say that my periods without any DPinfluence have become so long and so controllable that I even sometimes consider myself totally recovered. I apologize for not mentioning this in my post as a "conclusion". : )

So edit: I have found muself a cure and I consider myself on the very last steps of the recoveytracks, but it will despite of that fact take a while until I can say that I'm 100% normal because of my brain being "used" to be in that state of mind. I can see these two sentences are somewhat contradictory to eah other, but I hope some of you will understand what I mean.

-J


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## missjess (Jun 1, 2012)

I love your attitude and enthusiasm







I myself was doing great and getting out there and facing my fears also and to my surprise yes the disassociation lessens once you show the brain that it's not going to kill you to face fear in fact it will allow you out just that little bit further each time









I'm currently going through a bit of a backwards step at the moment though because I have recently become single I'm getting in my horse again tho and taking control


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## SnowFlake (Jul 7, 2012)

I like your post J. It is good to see some positivity here. And MissJess, maybe thats in part what it is, is some kind of fear of death. Some egotistical philosopher who was otherwise overrated said" if you stare into the abyss it will stare back", I think in a way thats what it is you have to learn to stop staring into the abyss, and concentration is very key. I think I will write my account now in brief.


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