# hey everyone... this is realllllly long



## ifwinterends (Nov 3, 2006)

figured i'd introduce myself. i'm a 22 year old girl from ny. my depersonalization is much worse in the winter, so as the winter is approaching i thought it'd be nice to have some people to talk to that understand. i think this all started because of post traumatic stress. or depression... i guess i'll tell you all the story (or whoever is interested) starting from as far back as i remember being depressed.

when i was in the 8th grade (13) i was in the "gifted" classes. my mother was proud; my father always pushed for more. i got accepted into a 'special' high school. i didn't want to go because all of my friends were going to a regular public high school. but i was forced by my father to attend the 'special' high school. in this school, anything less than an 85 was a failing grade. any average less than a 90 was mocked, frowned upon, ridiculed. at 14 i was learning russian, writing thesis papers, and taking electronics classes. needless to say, it was very stressful and i was doing terrible (well, i had a 78 average, which apparently was terrible by their standards). my father was pushing me to raise my average to 90s. i just couldn't do it. and on top of this, i found out my grandfather had been diagnosed with cancer. at 15, i started cutting myself. stupid on my part, i regret it to this day (i HATE going to a new dr and having to explain the scars on my arm... they give you 'that look'). my parents separated and my father moved out. i finally was able to transfer to the public high school that all my friends went to. my grades went up. i thought things were going pretty good. cutting was actually helping me at that time. then i started hanging out with some of the wrong people. i started smoking pot. i never got REALLY high from smoking. i don't know if i just never had good pot, or if there's something weirdly wrong with me... but pot always just made me sick instead of high. shakey, nervous, naseous and tired. my friends were always laughing, giddy, and having fun. i was the one in the corner with a blanket over me, watching seinfeld reruns laughing with myself. i seemed to be feeling less depressed at that time (but now i know i only numbed myself with pot and cutting).

when september 11th rolled around, no amount of cutting or pot could have numbed me from how i felt. living so close (i'm in staten island) and being able to see the smoke from my classroom... experiencing all the kids in my school walking the halls trying to get in touch with their parents... seeing teachers crying... it was all too much to handle and i get anxious to this day just thinking about how i felt that day. i remember we had the radio on, and when i heard that a plane hit the pentagon, that's when i left class. at that point, our school was supposed to be under lockdown and we weren't allowed to leave. but i just walked right out. i lit a cigarette up right in the hallway. who was going to stop me? i walked right out of school. i wound up at my boyfriend-at-the-time's house, crying and worrying that i was going to die any day. that they were going to bomb us. that all of my friends were going to get drafted and die in war. that the world was going to end and everyone was going to die. we took a walk to the nearest deli and bought beer. that day, no one was carded. no one cared. i'm surprised that deli was even open. we sat in the burger king parking lot and drank. cops were all over the place; no one even questioned us. my mom picked me up after work and it took us 2 hours to drive home with all the traffic. it was usually a 10 minute drive. in the car my mom told me that we were going to have guests for a couple days. my uncle's friend from georgia and his coworker were on a business trip and had been right in the middle of everything. the hotel they were staying at was basically rubble. when i got home, i met them. they were both wearing clean clothes but they were not clean. they had dirt and soot and crap all over them and thick dust in their hair. one of them asked my mother where the towels were and went in the shower. the other one told me some of the things he had seen (they are really traumatizing so i won't even mention anything here) and i started having my first ever panic attack at that point. my mother was about to rush me to the hospital but i said no because i was more scared that they were going to commit me or something. when i calmed down, i remember going to my friend jackie's house (she lived right around the corner) and watching president bush's speach and becoming more and more scared. we cried together for a little while and i went home and cried with my mom. i slept in my mom's bed that night. if you can even call it sleep.

ever since then, i can't watch the news. i can't talk about war. i can't talk about what happened. even typing it all out just now is making my chest hurt and my head light. those 2 men that we welcomed into our house have been sending us christmas cards along with small gifts since then, and every year i can't even look at the card. i started giving my mother the worst attitude ever as i got older, and when i was 17 i started flipping out really badly. and the summer before i turned 18, i became very reckless. i would get in cars with people i had met 10 minutes earlier. i would sleep over people's houses that i met once. i wouldn't tell my mother that i wasn't coming home. i was 17, and at that time i was dating 25+ year olds. my mother couldn't handle me, so i went to live with my father, who is way too possessive. he basically had me in lockdown. i had a midnight curfew at 18 years old. i used to sneak out my window to hang out with my friends. living with my father brought back a lot of the other type of stress i had forgotten about -- the "you must succeed" stress. i didn't go to college first semester, but my dad was on my ass so much about it, that i went for the spring semester just to make him stop. big mistake. very inconsistent grades (A, B-, C+, F) and no motivation. although, i still don't have any motivation so i don't know if that's supposed to mean anything.

i stopped going to school after one year and still have yet to go back. i now work at blockbuster and my anxiety has become controllable. but winter is coming, and every winter i tend to have CRAZY mood swings and episodes. it started early this year... i yelled at my boyfriend earlier for absolutely no reason. he said "they're making me work on christmas eve" and i started screaming at him, calling him selfish. i was telling him that he doesn't care about me, he doesn't want to be with me on the holidays, that he is just like all of my exes that didn't give 2 shits about me. he screamed back at me in defense, telling me to calm down... it just wasn't pretty. and i told him about everything. we were talking until 4:30am. he said if there's anything he can do to help me, he will. but i'm really sad that he said that, because he just doesn't understand that there is nothing to do. and the really crazy thing about all of this is that most of the time when i REALLY think about it, it just all seems like it happened to someone else and i am just an innocent bystander. like i never yelled at my boyfriend. or i never treated my mom really crappy when i was younger. it's all just in the back of my head as a story. i feel almost as if i can convince myself it's all a lie and it really HAD been someone else's life. i just feel like i'm on lots of drugs, when meanwhile i haven't touched a single drug (not even caffeine, with the exception of chocolate) in nearly 5 years. i am even reluctant to take an advil when i have a headache.

one quick question before i end this. ladies... do you feel a lot worse and more withdrawn from the world when you are menstruating? does anyone know why this is? when it's that time for me, i feel like i just want to sit on the sidewalk and watch all the cars go by, but just kind of stare past them blankly. i don't know. i feel much more detached around that time.

sorry this has been such a long introduction. thank you for reading all the way through for those of you that decided to get this far.

--g


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## jennmarie (Oct 18, 2006)

It was a really long post, but I wasn't bored once, on here, people actually care and the longer the post the more you help other readers such as myself know, that were not alone. I totally am with you in the stress despertment, your parents sound like mine, only mine are still together. I was fine with all of my stress, I had it controlled until I had my daughter, married the wrong guy and had to move back home. My parents had all of these expectations of me and I always felt "pushed" to do these great and amazing things. I went into the military and I became an EMT...etc...but I always felt like nothing was good enough for them. Now with having a child of my own there is a tremendous amount of stress on me, and I mean TREMENDOUS! My anxiety and DR gets way worse in the winter, and I am the same way after 9/11, because of the military I worked down there for 3 months straight. Yes, with "that time of the month" it gets worse and I do feel like im always on drugs. Get well aquainted with this site, there are so many people on here that have similar stories, its good to know your not alone. Even though we think that WE are the ones going insane by ourselves. Good luck and I hope u find comfort here like I have


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## Andrew (Oct 27, 2006)

Hey ifwinterends. Welcome to the site! Hopefully you will find healing here.
As a side note, I can relate to the whole school thing. I am still in college getting my bachelores and I am 23. I also get pretty inconsistent grades and my parents are constently on my back to do better, but sometimes I just can't concentrate/have the motivation to do any studying whatsoever. I think some people might think this Dp/Dr feeling might be cool to have since it really does feel like I'm high all the time  but really it is the worst/scariest feeling I have ever felt. Take care.

Andrew


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## chiendeguerre (Nov 12, 2006)

Hi

This is the second thread I've read and i get the impression that people are pretty sombre in their attitude to DP. I just had a thought that I may have come over as manic or even flip in my previous posts but thats not the case at all.

I was fascinated to read your post winter. you remind of a contemporary Holden Caulfield. All angry and confused with parents struggling to understand and motivate a wonderfully promising child. I would love to hear anyone elses insights on catcher in the rye by the way. I'm 40 but I am low mileage and find anyone who 'thinks' endlessly fascinating, unless you think I'm a dickhead. heh

Again all i can honestly offer is my feeling that this psychological condition can be interpreted in a positive way. I feel like its given me another perspective on any given situation, the only thing that reverses my positive view is fear. DP is a stern and unforgiving critic but when I am achieving it has a smile that beams.

I hope desperately that this helps. I am so enthused by the prospect of engaging with other X-men. 

The last thing I wanna do is alienate people. I'm not gonna contribute anything else till I get some feedback.

Kindest regards


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