# Greetings from a sufferer of 2 years



## Cotillion (Oct 23, 2012)

Hey there, I've been lurking around this place for a year or so, and finally I've decided to register an account here. I've had dp for nearly 2 years now, it started at the end of November 2010 and has been constant pretty much since. But let me start from the very beginning of my dp "journey".

I remember having my first very short episodes of dp during my teenage years (I think I was 14-15 at that time; I'm 23 now), I was just sitting in class and looking around and asking myself "is this real?"; however, it was nothing serious back then, those moments lasted for a few minutes, and I didn't really feel derealized at that point, it was more connected with my thoughts rather than physical symptoms. I've had anxiety since my early teenage years (or possibly even earlier), so there's no wonder that I had thoughts like that. I read that short episodes like that are completely normal and nothing to be afraid of.

Now let's skip a few years to where things really started to get fucked up. Back in March 2009 (I was already studying in the uni then), I was drinking beer with my course-mates before class, and suddenly, I had a massive headache (I guess a migraine) which was accompanied with some visual disturbances. I still managed to go to class, but I was completely freaked out by that peculiar headache, after which I went back to the dorm and fell asleep, when I woke up, I still felt nauseous. I remember getting up and going to the toilet and seeing something very weird, namely visual snow, at that time it seemed scary, but nothing worth freaking out of. I suffered under stress and anxiety back then, so I guess (actually I'm pretty sure) that's what caused it. Since visual snow usually goes side-by-side with dp, I think it's worth mentioning when I started experiencing it. I didn't have any intense dp episodes back then, only minor, for example when travelling from one place to another. I was visiting my parents very often during my early university years, and I always felt kind of out of place or out of sync after a trip, but I guess that wasn't anything serious either.

My first intense (but temporary) episode of dp was in December 2009, during my trip to Holland. Obviously, one cannot go to Holland without trying some proper weed there, and that's what me and my friends did. We went to the local coffee shop, and smoked a few joints there. Smoking weed didn't get me high, so I decided to order a weed cake which got me high as a kite. What followed was one of the most hilarious experiences I've had in my life. I got hallucinations and all kinds of crap when you're really-really baked. One other thing I noticed was dp with dissociation, for example at one point I thought that I was back in my hometown despite walking in the absolute centre of Amsterdam. But in the end, everything went well, despite my having huge paranoia combined with euphoria and all kinds of weird experiences (at one point I even had an out of body experience). Once I woke up from my alcohol and weed binge, everything returned to normal, the only feeling that I remembered well was dp, I didn't have it after the trip, but I still remembered the weird feeling.

Cue end of April '10, I was smoking weed in my friend's dorm room, and again, the experience was absolutely hilarious. We were laughing at totally arbitrary things, after which we went out and were completely freaked out by people passing by. This time, I turned even more attention to dp, but once the trip was done, so was this sensation. Again, this drug trip was awesome as well.

During the summer, I decided to move away from the dorm into an apartment (a terrible, terrible mistake). When I was checking out the place, it seemed to be really nice and neat, but once I moved in, the problems started to appear (a very noisy neighbour and all kinds of weird shit I don't want to get into). With parallel to that, my mental health started to decline, my anxiety went off the roof, and I got really depressed. During that time, I felt totally helpless, out of control and thought that I'm completely fucked... and then... at the end of November '10 it happened: I remember I was in my room completely in despair, I didn't know what to do, it seemed to be that I was completely fucked, I thought that I had failed as a human being plus I couldn't stand being in that apartment I had moved into earlier that summer; at one point I noticed that I didn't feel real, everything was surreal, numb, just like a dream. I thought OK, that feeling is probably caused by stress, I needed something to spice things up, I remember buying a huge coke, because I thought the caffeine in that would wake me up and decided to watch a movie (I still remember the movie I watched, which was "The Town" by Ben Afflect, what a piece of shit movie, lol) and told myself, hey it'll pass, don't worry. Well, one day passed by, then two, and nothing, the feeling was still the same. Now, nearly two years later, I still have it. Anyway, along with dp my visual field got all kinds of distortions: floaters, dots, afterimages you name it. That time was absolutely hell, I had no fucking idea what was going on, since I was severely depressed at that time it made things even worse. Actually it made matters so bad that I started cutting and beating myself, I was thinking of suicide, but didn't have the balls to do it. Things got worse and worse, I remember that in February '10 I went to the eye doctor, who told me my eyes were fine, but nevertheless, I was completely freaked out and didn't have any idea, what was going on. Even though I was so fucked up I managed to study in the university and hide my condition from my flatmates (that's one thing I'm really good at, apart from my mom, no one knows of this). Hell, I even managed to finish my undergraduate studies that spring and apply for a master's programme, which I think was pretty bad-ass, considering that fact how screwed I was.

My first revelation came in early July '11, when I simply googled "I feel unreal" or some shit like that. I was directed to a page that talked about the condition, then at some point I found this forum, and also checked out the movie "Numb". Well OK, that shed some light into my problem, but I was still freaked out about the visual distortions and causes of dp. I thought I might have a tumour or some other life-threatening disease (surprise, surprise, typical thoughts of a hypochondriac/anxiety sufferer). As time passed, I didn't get better: I was still depressed, cut myself when things got really bad, and didn't know fully what the fuck was happening to me. In November '11, I started seeing a psychologist who specialized on CBT, and we slowly started dealing with my depression. We talked about anxiety as well, and he told me that dp is caused by anxiety. Anyway, it was good to know.

At the beginning of this year, I was receiving some treatment, but all in all, I was still fucked. School was very difficult for me, I got freaked out in class by the visual distortions several times, and for the first time in my university years, I decided to cancel some of the courses I was taking, because I couldn't take it anymore. Luckily I was able to pass the remaining classes, and didn't run into any other problems.

But my story isn't entirely negative...

Last summer I managed to move out from my old flat into a really kick-ass new one, which definitely made me feel better. My depression slowly started to go away, but the anxiety was still there, it still is. I guess my depression was caused by anxiety in the first place, which is good to know. In August, I had hit another low point in my life, I didn't do anything remotely useful during the summer and day in, day out, I was concentrating on my anxiety and its related symptoms, which made me go absolutely nuts. However, since I wasn't that depressed anymore, I didn't hurt myself. So at the beginning of August I simply had enough and went back to my parents' place for a few weeks. There I tried to relax as much as possible, since my mom is a masseuse, I asked her to massage me as often as possible. During the two week period I started to feel that something in me was changing, and for the better. I started to analyze my thoughts even more, which gave me more insight on why I am in that state, did some yoga, quit masturbating to porn (one of the best decisions in my life). However, those changes I felt were really small, but they were there.

When the semester started, I was still crippled by anxiety (but at least I wasn't depressed anymore), and well, going to the uni is still really difficult because of anxiety and dp. Another revelation came about 3 weeks ago when I decided to relax for a whole weekend and play a videogame. For 3 days straight I simply concentrated on it, since it was so cool, and what I had noticed during that time was that my thought patterns had changed, I wasn't paying attention to my anxiety and dp anymore, but I was more interested in the game. It felt really-really good. And I think it was the first stress-free weekend I've had in freaking years. However, that passed quickly since I completed the game and a few days later my thought patterns returned. But still, I felt that I kinda changed, and for the better of course, because now I know what I have to do in order to recover. So about a week later I started to think, what I really wanted from life. At this point there are 3 things I'm really interested in: fitness, personal development and music production. I started working out recently, and it feels good, started reading material on the other two interests, and again I noticed that when I'm concentrating on what I want to do, not what is wrong with me, I feel better. So I presume that HAS to be the key to overcoming this condition.

So at this point I feel like I'm slowly starting to move towards recovery, at least I hope so.

*My background*: Since I decided to write about my dp experience in great detail, I think I should also write about my life before dp and what led me to it. I grew up in a dysfunctional family as an only child, my dad was an alcoholic and didn't play a large role in my growing up, and my mom was just plain weird. She was always convinced that something was wrong with me (and there's a reason for that, she has lost 1 child before my birth), and I'm pretty sure that is one of the reasons I have some hypochondriac tendencies. My parents didn't put me into kindergarten, because of which I pretty much grew up in isolation and in front of the tele. Once I went to school, things got a lot worse: I was bullied in school a lot, which lasted till the end of high-school. Things weren't bad only in school, but at home as well. I've had many days were I was bullied to kingdom fuck at school, after which I went home in tears and despair only to see my dad kick the fuck out of my mom. Since I was a complete nerd (still kinda am), my escape was videogames, books, films etc. Also, my parents didn't put me into sports when I was young, so because of that my physical form sucks, and I was bullied about that a lot. On top of that, I've had social anxiety and other anxiety issues from an early age as well, and I was bullied because of that, too. Of course that ruined my self-esteem completely, up until now I felt that I was broken both emotionally and physically. I remember watching "The Dark Knight Rises" last summer, and during the scenes were Bruce was depressed because he was both physically and mentally damaged, I simply wanted to cry, because I could relate to that on a really deep level (and no, I don't think I am Batman, lol).

*What has changed recently*: Well for starters, I started concentrating more on the positive things in my life. For example, now I have a kick-ass apartment and pretty much know what is going on and what do I have to do to get rid of dp. Also, by reading my story you might think that I'm terribly unlucky, but I don't see things that way. For example, my dad realized that he fucked up my childhood, and now helps me financially. And on some level, I've forgiven him... and why shouldn't I? I still can't stand his personality because he is very grumpy and negative (I've recently started to avoid negative people)... but at least he understands what he has done. On top of that, I've become more positive towards life, yeah, dp and anxiety are horrible, but now I think I'm slowly climbing out of this pit. I feel more confident and attractive when looking in the mirror. Furthermore, I'm not angry at the world anymore, because I've realized that no one owes me anything. I used to be very angry at the world since I considered myself a victim and stuff like that, it's difficult to explain, but what is important, is that I don't do that anymore. Last week, I realized that one of the reasons I don't feel comfortable around other people is that I'm afraid of being myself, I've always hidden facts about me from my friends etc, but after watching a lecture last week I came to the realization that it's simply wrong and now I've taken steps to fix it. Today, I realized something quite surprising: if I would be given a chance to change my life, I wouldn't do it, because I think everything until now has happened for a reason, and I'm pretty sure at one point I'm going to find it out.

I still have a long way to go. I don't have close friends, luckily I have some "not so close" friends with whom I could go out, but still I'm yearning for some close friendship. Social situations are still really difficult for me because of social anxiety, but I have faith that I can get it under control.

After writing this I'm still kinda perplexed why I did that. I guess everyone, who has recovered, would advise me to avoid places like this in order to get my thoughts away from anxiety and dp, but I hope this doesn't hurt. I'm not planning on becoming a regular poster (that would be idiotic), but some of the recovery stories really give me motivation to strive forward. Then again, reading posts by people who claim they've had it for 20-30 years has the opposite effect on me. I mean, come on, if I change my behaviour and thought patterns, it has to go away, there is simply no other chance that dp, anxiety and visual distortions (which are caused by neurological issues) will stay forever. No fucking way.


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## DeToulon (Aug 2, 2013)

Great story, thanks for sharing. I suffer from the visuals, they are the worst part for me. Any advice? How are yours?


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## Your_Lordship (Aug 7, 2013)

Good luck.


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## quail (May 18, 2013)

Enjoy to live in the present. You are not alone


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## D'annie (Jul 24, 2013)

this is exactly how i feel


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## ev3rything (Aug 23, 2013)

Reading your post is very uplifting. It sounds like you are learning how to change the patterns in your life. The more you change your life the better the chance you'll have to change your subconscious thoughts which feed DP. You are making great steps and I wish you well. How can we change our reality if we are not evolving our minds? You are doing this by challenging things! Best of luck.


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