# 4 years in, what I've learned



## fantazgreat (Apr 18, 2014)

So I have had dp for almost 5 years. I used to post here all of the time under another username and left because I realized how unproductive it was to obsess about my symptoms all day long. I was one of the severe cases. My dp and dr were horrific for the first year. I couldn't feel my body, I had no emotions, I felt like I didn't know who I was or where I was at all of the time, I lost all of my memories, I lost all connection to my family, I felt like I was dead or in a dream, I had pretty much one year long panic attack, the whole 9 yards. I admitted myself to the psych ward twice and lived on klonopin because it honestly was the only thing that kept me from killing myself for a very long time. This journey has been extremely rough. I was in bed for a year and really non functional for another year after that. I realized that the only way for me to get better was to toughen up and stop letting dp rule my life. So told myself to shut up every time I started obsessing and found other stuff to focus on. I got dressed every morning and let the house and went out and lived life. I went back to school. Most importantly, I took the painful steps to sort out bad relationships in my life and set healthy boundaries. I walked away from people who hurt me and started to love myself. I left a bad marriage and slowly gained my own independence. I faced everything in life that scared me. If I came across something that made me afraid, I took it as a personal challenge to do that thing and get rid of that fear. I went from unable to get out of bed to holding down and full time job and buying my own house. My dp and dr symptoms have subsided a lot in the past 5 years. I used to measure my recover in percentages but now I see that when I thought I was at a certain point in recovery, I really wasn't so I've stopped doing that. What I can say is that the only part of my depersonalization that isn't gone is my disconnect to my memories. I don't remember large chunks of my life but I'm finding that here and there my brain will unlock memories. I still have mild derealization. I honestly don't even notice it anymore. It is still frustrating that it's not gone though. The way I feel now is really like I don't fully wake up when I wake up in the morning. Like I'm still half asleep. My vision is still flat and 2-d and I still don't feel the atmosphere in a room. My senses and reality are just not integrated yet. I have had

a handful of breakthrough moments in the past 3 years where I reconnect with reality. I realized about a year ago that when things are going well in my life and I really focus on an object and repeat to myself "This is real", I can force my brain to reconnect for about half an hour. That is so encouraging.

Out of desperation, I started watching Harris Harrington's video series and, I have to say, it's really good stuff. I really wish that I had access to that series 5 years ago because I don't think that my dp would have lasted this long if I had. There is so much research out there about dp and so many books but it seems like none of them offer any hope. When I read Overcoming Depersonalization and it basically says at the end of the book that there is no treatment or cure for dp and that you just have to learn to live with it, I got angry. I refused to take that for an answer. I decided right then and there that I will recover. It will happen. I WILL NOT spend the rest of my life like this. And for most people, there is no reason to believe that you should have to. Dp/dr are not some incurable illness. It's just your brain trying to protect you from something it doesn't want to deal with. Plain and simple. There's really nothing more to it. What I really have liked about Harris Harrington's program is how he explains attachment styles and how we are really set up for this tendency to dissociate from birth. There are so many things that explain WHY we end up with this disorder. Not only that but exactly what we need to do to recover. I won't lie, it's difficult to do the exercises and face the issues that we need to face to get better. If our brain was ok with dealing with this stuff, we wouldn't be dissociated. The dissociated brain basically takes the thing that is too hard to face, isolates it in a bubble, and shoves it away out of sight. It wants to isolate it and shut it down so that it can't affect us anymore. But the problem is that those issues are still there on a subconscious level. Our brains are still aware of them, even if we don't realize it, and it still effects our mental and physical health. If you want to recover, you have to face those things that your brain is trying to detach you from and overcome them. It's a lot of work and there is a lot of change and healing that has to happen to get better. I've done about half of the videos and have had to take sometimes a month between videos before I feel ready to face a certain issue and move through it. I have to say, I have seen so many counselors in the past 5 years and none of them did as much good as this video series has done me. I highly recommend it. It is available for free online if you know where to look.

Anyways, I guess the point in me posting is because I know that people tend to leave this site and not come back. I just wanted to come back because, though I can't give the encouragement of being fully recovered, I can give you encouragement in saying that it does get better as time goes on and that you can and will recover. It takes digging deep down and becoming a stronger, better version of yourself, but ultimately it's something that needs to happen. I know some will scoff at this but I can honestly say that dp has changed me for the better. If I had never gotten this condition, I would not have grown as a person, faced issues within myself, and ultimately learned to love myself the way I do now. I am a better person, a stronger person, and honestly, a happier person because of the lessons I've learned and the growth I've gone through. I pray that one day each of you can look back and see some good in these ashes.


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## cacophony (May 28, 2012)

Great post, mate. I'm in a kinda similar situation as you. My DP/DR was WAY worse the 1st and 2nd year with it. I don't feel DR'ed anymore, wich was the biggest problem for me 2-3 years ago. I felt like an alien in an unknown world.

What still bothers me tho, is the OCD, emotional numbness, and fear of panic attacks. I haven't had a full blown panic attack since 2011, but the fear of getting another is still here somehow, and I still tend to avoid certain situations where I feel "trapped" with no escape route. I have improved alot socially the last couple of years, because as you, I forced my self to not let the DPDR contol my life.


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## fantazgreat (Apr 18, 2014)

That's great. I think that the most helpful thing to realize about all thoughts is that they are nothing more than chemical reactions in your brain. And panic attacks and anxiety are a byproduct of those chemical reactions. It sounds like you are stuck in the loops of having a fear of fear. Panic attacks suck. I have had them since I was 9 years old. It helps when you feel yourself getting anxious to just stop, close your eyes, take a long slow breath and remind yourself that your feelings are just chemical reactions, that there is really nothing around you that will harm you. When you start to feel anxiety and panic your sympathetic nervous system kicks in, while causes your heart to beat faster and adrenaline to be released. Panic attacks are a snowball effect of your sympathetic nervous system being over activated. The good news is that you can stop a panic attack from happening by reversing that process. When you take long slow breaths, you cause your parasympathetic nervous system kicks in. It causes all of the chemicals in your brain to change, which results in your heartbeat and breathing slowing down and all of your muscles relax. You can't have a panic attack in this state. The difficult thing about dp is that because we feel so weird, we are afraid of what we feel and we keep ourselves stuck in a loop of false anxiety.


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