# Derealization and existential thoughts.



## fckdrugs (Oct 27, 2016)

Hi guys. Im so happy that i created this forum in my imagination so i could heal myself from DpDr and get some help from people that i created in my imagination.

Haha. I don't think that we should loose out sence of humor, even though the state that im in right now isn't exactly the happiest moment in my life. But seriously, im really greatful to you guys for opening this website and posting your expiriances here. I guess thats one of the main reasons why we still have hope that some day everything will be back to normal again. My story is long one i would appriciate if you could read it and give me some advices or.

In the beginning of summer 2016 I smoked my first joint. Im 24 years old. First experience wasn't so good. I panicked and got a bit paranoid. Went home thinking I would never smoke again. I never wanted to do drugs, but when your friends smoke it every day all day your kind a feel you need to experience what it's all about. Being a idiot that i am, i then I smoked again. And again and that continued in total of 3 months.

I don't honestly know the reason I continued to smoke cannabis. I wasn't responding to it well. Sometimes I smoked and felt good, like everybody else. Sometimes I got panicked and needed to calm myself before I could enjoy the high.

During august 2016 I got my first real panic attack. I didn't know what was happening. I was staring at my screen doing some work, and just got ``too high``. I was designing a website for a customer and just asked myself a question, while being high. What's above the header? That very thought sent me to a panic attack field with extreme anxiety which lasted in about 1-2 hours, during which I thought I was going to die or go crazy. The next day I woke up and felt like shit. I never felt so bad in my life. I've seen and been trough a lot. Things most people see on TV, but for some reason It never bothered me.

And just like everybody else in this world, I've been depressed before and know how it feels, but this was something much worse. It kind of felt like the loneliest moment I your life, field with a discomfort and constant anxiety. This feeling didn't last very long. The next day I was normal and wanted to know if cannabis had anything to do with it. I know it did, but I kind of wanted to make sure.

So rolled a joint and took total of 3 good puffs. After few minutes I felt how my body responded to it. This wasn't a normal high. I didn't smoke much, but I felt that my body didn't like it. I now knew that the problem was and decided to quit smoking marijuana.

About a week after I stopped smoking I got the panic attack that I wouldn't wish to my worst enemy. This time i got scared and couldn't calm my self down. I tried to do all the things I did before (drinking cold water, washing my face etc.) to calm me down, but nothing worked. I didn't sleep that night. I waited till 7 in the morning and went to the hospital to see a nurse. See said I had a panic attack and gave me some pills. I took one pill and felt too sleep. Things were never the same after that. I was fucked. I thought I would be I this state forever. I was now living constant anxiety and discomfort every day of my life. Irrational fears and constant paranoia.

Most parts of the day I couldn't put myself together. I wanted to be the old me. The guy who was extremely motivated and never scared of challenges, always positive and happy, but everything lost interest. Anxiety was eating me from the inside. I started to exercise, stopped seeing my old friends who got me smoking in the first place (because, let's be honest, they were never my friends. Just palls that were only there to smoke up and have fun), and started to take a walks and listening to some good music.

Googling things didn't really help me. I belived that i permanently dameged my brain. My biggest fear was getting dementia or some sort of schizophrenia. I googled symptoms and got really scared.

I honestly believed that one of these moments some voice is going to start talking to me and make me do things that I don't want to. Then I started to overthink and got to the point where I was questioning my own existence. I'm I really alive? What is I'm in coma and need to wake up? What If one day I'm going to commit suicide in order to get back to my real life? These thoughts really freaked me out. I don't normally get depressed or cry over things like relationship, money problems or any kind of materialistic matters, but this made me cry. I just cried and wanted it to go away. Somedays I felt good. Then strange thoughts would pop up in my head that would send me back to anxiety.

Solipsism is one of them. The very thought got me scared AF. ``What ifs`` in the back of my head started to pop up and I couldn't stand them. I'm I real?

What if everyone I know is fake? What if they don't exist? What if Im a just a bored God and all of this is just my imagination. This got me so scared that I constantly would google arguments against this theory to find out that this theory can't really be disproven. It's not that I believe in this theory that makes me anxious. It's the fear that I will somehow someday wake up and start believing it which will result in some kind of mental disease. I think people who are obsessed with this question fill the same way.

Honestly, who give a flying f.ck? I now accept it as a theory. A philosophic theory that makes my DpDr worst, but still it's just a theory. My anxiety have some have lowerd over the pas few weeks, but the very thought keeps popping in my head and gives me a huge discomfort.

Does anybody have an advice? Anyone with similar life expiriances?


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## mind.divided (Jul 2, 2015)

I believe you need to stop thinking and analyzing everything about life. Instead, try to connect back to your emotions because without them nothing feels real. This has worked for me


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## fckdrugs (Oct 27, 2016)

Hi mind.divided,

Thanks for replying to my post. 

I guess you right. I need to let it slide and stop thinking and analyzing these things.

Im feeling better at this moment, as i've learned so much about anxiety and know that thats what causes the whole thing.

I still have these weird thoughts though, but i'm just letting them be there without analyzing. 
I guess the hardest part is that one moment i feel like im 100 procent back to normal, and somthimes DpDr is back and i need to reinsure myself. Being normal feels a bit unusual and wierd now. 
Did you have these issues before? And what did you mean by ``try to connect back to your emotions`` ?
Thanks in advance


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## Yourimotte (Oct 5, 2016)

Hi I know what you mean by 100% feeling normal and then you kind of pop back in the dp/dr. I had that too. This is because the thoughts srill bother you. Once they won't bother you anymore (what I mean by that is that you won't feel anxiety), it will just be a thought that only bothers.you because it is weird to think about it. So what I.have done is once I had the thought and the anxiety, I just stood listening to every thought and feeling of aniety. I know those are weird thoughts but don't think them as weird, think about them as a thought caused by anxiety.so write everythng down you think and feel. This trully helped me iut. When I think about life is just an ilusion it doen't bother me. It is still weird because thinking about this is weird but it is just a thought passing by

Hioe it wil help you ????


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## bioluminescence (Dec 16, 2013)

I relate to this post a lot, like I can somewhat tolerate "normal" DP and looking at my hands and not feeling like they belong to my body, like that's all cool I'm more than used to it now. But what really sends me down the path of extreme anxiety and what I consider actual hell is that feeling, that thought that nothing actually exists. Solipsism, as you said. Interacting with other people often helps me to lessen that feeling. Reading posts like these and other people's experiences with similar things helps too, because it makes me realise that if others experience the same feeling of unreality, they have to be real. It's kind of a backwards logic but it does help. Other than that, the only thing I can do is try to forget those thoughts. It's scary how tempting they are though. Like they're so interesting but I shouldn't let myself fall into them. It's like trying to dodge a magnet that's constantly drawn to you.

It's also funny how often people describe that feeling as something they wouldn't wish on their worst enemy. That's literally one of the only ways I can come up with to describe it, too.


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## Hibou (Oct 25, 2014)

Hi fckdrugs,

it's good to read your story because I sometimes feels that I am the only one to have theses thoughts of solipsism, theses "what if the reality is only a creation of my mind", "what if other people doesn't exist", "what if I am not real".

What helped me a lot is rather than fighting theses thoughts or let myself lose into a counter-argumentation, just observing theses thoughts and let them go away, never try to catch them. My argument is that these existential problem has no solution, and over-thinking about it will never helps and mostly it will harm myself.

You can try, for example, to just concentrate on your breathing until theses thoughts pass away. It is hard on the beginning, but you will strengthen your mind and have less and less theses thoughts .


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## fckdrugs (Oct 27, 2016)

Thank you guys for replying to my post.  I never thought i would get so many responses from people with same experience.

Knowing that your not alone and feeling the support from people really helps. Other people had similar problems and went trough it and we'll make it too.

I guess thats the reason i managed to reduce my daily anxiety. Reading about the DpDr and learning about anxiety. CBT has been really helpful and i don't feel as bad as i did before.

One thing i learned though, is that we shoudn't fight these thoughts. They will pass. It's not the solipsism itself that causes the anxiety, its the obsession about it. Meaningless battle that won't give us anything, but anxiety and depression.

Somthing happens and you start to analyze it and then trying to find arguments against it. We know it's not true (Solipsism). As i see it now. It's just a theory, and i don't buy it for a second. Why? Because i have memory. I remember things, and i remember that i was perfectly fine before these panic attacks caused by harmless weed. I will never smoke that S#it again.

We know its just anxiety. It will do us no harm and it will pass. As soon as we learn to manage it, this experience will only make us stonger individuals. Dont fight it. Learn to live with it and let it just be there, without being anoxius and it will go away onitself.

After a while, when you feel less worried and anoxious about things, you kind of realize how stupid it sounds (Solipsism) and how in the world could i've givin this thing so much of my time and energy?

I think of it as a feeling of being in love with someone. You get obsessed and think about her/him all the time, and one day it's just gone and you don't miss him/her anymore, and the only thing thats left is a memory and when you're sober you kind of relize how stupid you were.

I would recomend everyone with similar experience to watch these videos on youtube. They helped me and they will help you.


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## fckdrugs (Oct 27, 2016)

Yourimotte said:


> Hi I know what you mean by 100% feeling normal and then you kind of pop back in the dp/dr. I had that too. This is because the thoughts srill bother you. Once they won't bother you anymore (what I mean by that is that you won't feel anxiety), it will just be a thought that only bothers.you because it is weird to think about it. So what I.have done is once I had the thought and the anxiety, I just stood listening to every thought and feeling of aniety. I know those are weird thoughts but don't think them as weird, think about them as a thought caused by anxiety.so write everythng down you think and feel. This trully helped me iut. When I think about life is just an ilusion it doen't bother me. It is still weird because thinking about this is weird but it is just a thought passing by
> 
> Hioe it wil help you


Thx m8. Its does help.
Im also find it useful to write down every little thing that bothers me and then analyze it on the papper. Helps you to clear your head.


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