# Identity!?!



## Coming?Back2Life (Oct 20, 2006)

Has anybody COMPLETELY lost their old identity and who they were etc? i find it so hard to interact with the world as i don`t have a personality anymore and i haven`t felt like "myself" or had a personality in 6 years that belonged to me! and its devestating, terrifying and extremely depressing!

I have actually lost all sense of myself, my past, my experiences and i`m just a big empty hole of nothingness heading towards my death, i wish i could interact with the world again i always wonder wot this could be, perhaps just severe depersonalization with depression who knows, but i don`t want to go on much longer feeling this way!


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## Anla (May 1, 2007)

I do what I do anymore because I have a teenage son to support. Once he no longer depends on me for day-to-day needs, I do not think I will even be as involved in life as I am now.

And yes, this is much less than I ever imagined for myself...

Anla


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## Anla (May 1, 2007)

I do what I do anymore because I have a teenage son to support. Once he no longer depends on me for day-to-day needs, I do not think I will even be as involved in life as I am now.

And yes, this is much less than I ever imagined for myself...

Anla


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## flipwilson (Aug 19, 2006)

read spirits post : Remembering my old DP thoughts....your self isnt really lost

she talks about this loss of identity which is basically what DP is..a loss of self

I too feel this way most of the time and ive only been dealing with this a little over a year, i can imagine the longer we stay like this the more we forget who we are.

it blows, but i have to put my hope in posts the spirits

peace


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## jimmyb (May 9, 2007)

Why don't you go on meds CB2L?


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## Coming?Back2Life (Oct 20, 2006)

just a bit scared mate i never knew wot i had so i just accepted my doctors diagnoses, post viral/chronic fatigue syndrome with some anxiety. But i took Varous anti depressants and kept gettin obsessive dark thoughts and crippling depression weird eh when they supposed to be "anti" depressants? fucked up tbh, so i tried 2 diff types and i aint ever takin em again!!! almost killed myself on those fuckers and i wasn`t that depressed b4!!!! but now i am.

I now know since i play footy and basketball and have a lot of physical energy sometimes that its not cfs tho and right form the beginning the symptoms didn`t seem to make sense as its all "in the head" symptoms i have, like dizzyness and unreality etc, doesn`t help that i was smoking cannabis and i guess im terrified ill get diagnosed as some psychosis suffering poor sod or even worse SCHIZO! terrifies me.....

I`m seriously considering asking him for a psychologist tho as i dont think i can last much longer like this, ive disappeared and the depression is crippling me right now which wasn`t there as bad b4! so i think its time to take the step and see someone! its been 6 years since this started so i hope i haven`t let it rumenate and develop too much !


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## jimmyb (May 9, 2007)

Have you heard that a fast like "The Master Cleanse" is capable of healing the body of mental and physical problems. I'm thinking of trying this if the meds don't work out for me!


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## Guest (Oct 17, 2007)

Only try that once you've totally come off your meds Jimmyb.


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## Coming?Back2Life (Oct 20, 2006)

No i havent mate!

I shd really see a psychologist or something, can`t see wot good it will do i feel like my brain is sooo damaged that its beyond repair, been thinkin about gettin scanned for temporal lobe epilepsy as i do have epilepsy in the family and there are times where i just totally zone out and dont even know my own family or my own house!


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## Guest (Oct 17, 2007)

If you have epilepsy runing through your family... I would highly recommend you get it checked out mate.


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## Coming?Back2Life (Oct 20, 2006)

yes i am thinking about getting it checked out m8, has anybody else ever had levels of testosterone checked and addrenaline levels checked? thanks for your time and patience.


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## Luka (Aug 30, 2005)

It's always good to let yourself get checked out, if only to rule neurological things out, but the feeling that your brain is dying/crippling/damaged, is something alot of people with DP/DR feel.

As for losing your identity, that's a DP-symptom. I have DID and my personality is kinda shattered, but "I" get this DP-symptom too alot. I don't know who I am, what kind of person I am, what I (dis)like etc.


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## BooJ (Oct 20, 2007)

Coming?Back2Life said:


> Has anybody COMPLETELY lost their old identity and who they were etc? i find it so hard to interact with the world as i don`t have a personality anymore and i haven`t felt like "myself" or had a personality in 6 years that belonged to me! and its devestating, terrifying and extremely depressing!
> 
> I have actually lost all sense of myself, my past, my experiences and i`m just a big empty hole of nothingness heading towards my death, i wish i could interact with the world again i always wonder wot this could be, perhaps just severe depersonalization with depression who knows, but i don`t want to go on much longer feeling this way!


I am very much in the same boat as you, I have been in this situation since 2004 after a run of traumatic events and high stress I shared
half a joint with a friend and it all went downhill from there.

It wasnt long after the joint I had a severe meltdown and ive never recovered since, I lost my sanity and all sense of who I am and the person I am.

What makes it more stressful is being around people who know you well i.e family and friends and they expect you to be your usual self.

I can only describe myself as an empty shell , my world inside my head an ongoing nightmare of confusion and total loss of oneself.


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## Coming?Back2Life (Oct 20, 2006)

Have u made any steps towards trying to get better m8? u spoken to ure doctor about this crap i`m terrified to speak to him after the anti depressants shit i went through which almost killed me!


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## happyandfirm (Oct 19, 2007)

ive been through that, the thing is you didnt lost a single bit of your personality, you just gained irrational feeling about loosing your personality. this sounds complicated but i hope you get it.

i found small doses of antipsyhotic (dont worry you are not psyhotic :wink: ) very helpfull about this particular feeling, i could notice the difference after only a month or two. i took promazin 50 mg before sleep for six months and the feeling never returned after. in such small doses you shouldnt have any side-effects, for instance psyhothic people take 200-1000 mg per day and after years of taking them it affects their brain.

also you should get your brain checked for epilepsy i dont think you have it but you will be more calm when the results show you that.
my first MRI showed possibility of epilepsy so i got a bit scared but second one showed normal results as well as CT scan so i was more calm after.
i also advise you not to take antidepressants because i think they will only make your feeling forse.

good luck!


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## BooJ (Oct 20, 2007)

Coming?Back2Life said:


> Have u made any steps towards trying to get better m8? u spoken to ure doctor about this crap i`m terrified to speak to him after the anti depressants shit i went through which almost killed me!


I went to my GP not long after I started to suffer and I was met with nothing but ignorance and a suggestion that he felt the mental health team should be called to weigh up what was really going on, he said If I waited 1hr they would be down to see me which I point blank refused.

Since then and that was 3yrs ago I have never even considered mentioning any of it to a GP for fear of it going against me and being noted down as some lunatic.

Some days when I feel my worst I feel the urge to make another appointment and try explain myself again, but I always lose the courage.


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## happyandfirm (Oct 19, 2007)

BooJ said:


> Coming?Back2Life said:
> 
> 
> > Have u made any steps towards trying to get better m8? u spoken to ure doctor about this crap i`m terrified to speak to him after the anti depressants shit i went through which almost killed me!
> ...


sorry for interrupting your conversation again but i feel need to say something about the subject.

i suppose gp means general practice, something called family doctor in my country. your gp was ignorant because he doesnt know anything about your condition. and thats ok because its not his job.

i will now write about my experience.
my gp sent me to a public psychiatrist which i found very disturbing at the time. but i went there anyway.
hospital in which he worked was in other end of town so my father drove me to him.
after like 5 seconds of me describing my simptoms my psychiatrist said: were dealing with dp/dr here. dont worry you arent crazy and you wont go crazy. and you probably will get over this because 90% of my dp/dr patients did.
then he ascribed me those antiosyhotic pills and told me to came back in 2 weeks, this time without my father and by public transportation. after few months of me coming there he said that he is shore ill be ok and that i should stop taking the pills and stop wasting his time by coming there.

what i want to say is that i believe that if i didnt go there at the time i would be in pretty bad shape right now and nothing else could replace that appointment with psychiatrist. if i break my arm ill go to the physical doctor. it doesnt mean im an invalid, it just means i am going to a person who knows how to resolve my problem.

i dont think that everyone should do things that i did but you should at least reconsider visiting your gp again.

good luck!


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## CECIL (Oct 3, 2004)

I tend to see DP and that "loss of self" as a transition period of sorts.

CB2L, did you like the person you were before you found yourself in this state? At the very least, were there things about you that you would have liked to change?

If so, then this is your big chance. Because as terrible as losing your sense of self feels, it also provides you with a lot of freedom. You can basically take this as an opportunity to relearn how to connect with yourself and literally create a new you from the ashes of your old self (I like the Pheonix metaphor  ).

For me, going through DP I realised that my "old self" was not my real self at all. It was merely a hollow construction - like a mask that I'd constructed just to fit in and try to protect myself. DP then is like returning to the real self inside which I wasn't familiar with. Then that "old self" sort of cracks open and gets discarded like a dead husk, allowing me to make whatever I want of my new life.


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## BooJ (Oct 20, 2007)

happyandfirm said:


> BooJ said:
> 
> 
> > Coming?Back2Life said:
> ...


Did you recover completely though? are you feeling the same person you was before you experienced DP?


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## BooJ (Oct 20, 2007)

CECIL said:


> I tend to see DP and that "loss of self" as a transition period of sorts.
> 
> CB2L, did you like the person you were before you found yourself in this state? At the very least, were there things about you that you would have liked to change?
> 
> ...


Perhaps but some people lead full and enjoyable lives and were highly capable people prior to the onset of their illness.

Me I would rather have my oldself back anyday, what I am now I do not like as it isnt anything as such just emptyness with no pleasure in life
which has also ruined relationships with friends and family.

I have had to try and rebuild a new person but it still feels like im going through the notions everyday, im not participating in anything with my heart and soul there, just doing enough to make it seem like im a real living person to the outsiders.

I could almost describe it as the living dead.


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## happyandfirm (Oct 19, 2007)

BooJ said:


> Did you recover completely though? are you feeling the same person you was before you experienced DP?


these questions are so simple and short but unfortunately i cant give you short answer, especially because my english is rather impaired.

i recovered completly from dp! some traces of dr, ocd and anxiety occur during winter - cold and dark days but each year they are weaker and i truly hope they will never completely go away to remind me of what ive been through. but my dp is long gone and will never return not even in small doses.

i am feeling myself again, i know who i am and where im going. in every second of the day i feel and act like me, myself and i!

i was 15 before i got dp/dr and today im 23. all of my dp/dr-free friends have changed in this 8 years. so have i. it would be sad if i didnt. but i changed in a good way and i have grown in so many ways! i have this huge expirience behind me and im grateful for it because it made me a better person.

the only thing im still working on is my emotions. after years of hard (but also joyful) work my emotions are on about 80% of my pre-dp/dr capacity. and i wont stop working on that subject until i reach my full potential.

i am calm in the evening when i go to sleep and i am waking up with a smile on my face, thats the only thing that matters to me right now. 
and that is something i thought i never would be capable of.

and by asking this questions i can see you are overthinking this. so my advice for you is to THINK LESS and ACT MORE. if you act like yourself you will eventually start feeling yourself. if you are sitting home locked in your thoughts you are not giving yourself a chance to feel like you again.

THINK LESS->ACT MORE formula is i think applyable to all people with dp/dr but it is a process and cant be carried out in a day or two.

so what you should do is to look at my previous post and start taking action instead of thinking about consequences of your dp!

seriously, think about it :wink:


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## Coming?Back2Life (Oct 20, 2006)

Hey thx for the replies ppl very helpful!

Erm i Did like myself b4 i was dp/dr however i was always an anxious person and i felt my anxiety was stopping me from doing a lot of things i really wanted to do! i have always been a bit socially phobic and found talking to girls etc hard to do and many other things i had anxiety with, i wanna go back to the way i was but with no anxiety!

its been 6 years of my life now down the drain i haven`t enjoyed 1 minute of this sh*t and i`m tired and depressed, i still don`t fully know if this is just dp/dr as its so intense i just can`t focus on any task at hand and even the simplest of things it feels like my brain wont process it! like brain damage man!

I want to phone the doctor and make an appointment, i want to see someone who deals with mental health but how do i go about requesting this from my GP? he already thinks i`ve got Post Viral Fatigue shit even tho i`m fit its just my head is soooooooooooo tired all of the time i feel so ill and this has been 6 years! a long way to go! i guess i`m just fed up and depressed now and can`t see any light at the end of the tunnel!


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## Guest (Oct 23, 2007)

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## happyandfirm (Oct 19, 2007)

Coming?Back2Life said:


> Erm i Did like myself b4 i was dp/dr however i was always an anxious person and i felt my anxiety was stopping me from doing a lot of things i really wanted to do! i have always been a bit socially phobic and found talking to girls etc hard to do and many other things i had anxiety with, *i wanna go back to the way i was but with no anxiety!!*


it is very possible but i advice you to take first step before thinking about the second one.



Coming?Back2Life said:


> its been 6 years of my life now down the drain i haven`t enjoyed 1 minute of this sh*t and i`m tired and depressed, i still don`t fully know if this is just dp/dr as its so intense i just can`t focus on any task at hand and even the simplest of things it feels like my brain wont process it! like brain damage man!


from what i can read i would bet my next salary that your brain is intact. but only ct and mri can give you the answer.



Coming?Back2Life said:


> I want to phone the doctor and make an appointment, i want to see someone who deals with mental health but how do i go about requesting this from my GP? he already thinks i`ve got Post Viral Fatigue shit even tho i`m fit its just my head is soooooooooooo tired all of the time i feel so ill and this has been 6 years! a long way to go! i guess i`m just fed up and depressed now and can`t see any light at the end of the tunnel!


i know what youre going through and i know its hell but it wont go away unless you do something about it!

i surely sound like an annoying smartass but youre one step away from getting back on track and i must tell you that you should:
- go to dpselfhelp.com homepage
- click on the "Print" link on the top of the page
- underline symptoms that bother you
- write in all the symptoms that also bother you but arent mentioned (if there are any)
- go to your gp and give him the paper, telling him that youve been dealing with this sh*t for 6 long years and youve had enough of it

i bet he wont stick to the Post Viral Fatigue diagnosis :roll:

thought of telling all this to a doctor is probably frightening but youre just feeding your anxiety if you let it control you!

good luck :wink:


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## solboard (Jul 8, 2006)

I find that I have no solid identity, and it can change depending on who I am with.

If I am at home with my parents, I tend to revert back to my old self concept . When I am with a particular friend, I feel better because I developed a new self concept around that particular person--a healthier, more positive concept.


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## Coming?Back2Life (Oct 20, 2006)

if i can pluck up the reality for the day i will make that call to the doctor after i`ve printed this sh*t out, i wanna get my head tested just to calm my anxiety down as it feels awful, it could just be anxiety but its so intense and i don`t get panic attacks really so why is it so intense!

Its been 6 years now and i haven`t done shit with my life because of it! I have no motivation as nothing seems real! not even myself or my family or friends!!! I went back to university for a year when i had the dp/dr at its worst and i didn`t have severe anxiety until a couple of months in, then i experienced an anxiety attack in class giving a presentation or somethin and i just forgot who and wot i was and couldn`t think so i just said "thats it i`m done, thats all i have to say about that" and sat down! wtf man, and since that attack and my other one in front of the tv they`ve came and gone but mostly only in situations with a lot of stimulation and when i`ve needed to concentrate!

I remember the attacks so vividly! they seem so strange, its like i`m outside of my body watching my actions! and then the world shifts, its no longer real and i see myself and think really negative thoughts about how i`m portraing myself to others and if what i`m doing looks sane or if everybody is looking at me thinkin omg he is a complete schizo maniac!" and then the attack comes, not a nice attack and its certainly not the type i`ve read about yet!!! which terrifies me more.

In fact from wot i remember my first panic attack came when i was sittin staring at the tv watching a football after i had the viral infection and post viral fatigue diagnosis so its weird.... it feels like i only got anxiety because of the unreality which is terrifying! But at the same time they see these 2 things are matched and go in endless circles, anxious because because u have DP/DR and DP/DR because you are anxious! i just think the dp/dr kicking in tipped the ice berg and gave me the anxiety attacks!


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## Guest (Oct 27, 2007)

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## happyandfirm (Oct 19, 2007)

any news mate?


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