# Point of no return.



## Imagine (Oct 24, 2004)

I'm gonna die because of this, right now I feel i dont know who the hell iam how the hell i know this forum, what the hell is a forum, what the hell is the internet, who the hell am i?

My voice - slurred speach.... these are not my words im thinking this is not me talking.

Blacking out feeling - not knowing how i got from one place to another.

Feels like my mind is slowly shutting down.... cant feel my own weight, feel light, hollow.

This post is just a complete ramble but i dont know how to put it.... i even shed a few tears earlier... just let me die let me whispering to myself.

my memory... feels completely lost.

Im becoming dumbified if there is such a word... soon i will be a lifeless living piece of meat.... sitting there... trapped inside my brain not knowing who or what iam, what words are, what their meanings are.

cant take this.


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## SillyPutty (Mar 29, 2005)

Get professional help ASAP.


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## Scattered (Mar 8, 2005)

I feel sorry for you. I can't say I've felt that bad recently, only during my worst episodes. However, I can empathize. Of course if you feel as if you're going to hurt yourself, either directly or indirectly, you should seek some help. Check into a hospital, stay at a friends or family member's house. Do whatever you have to do to get yourself support until you feel relatively "stable." I think some fast acting medication should certainly be considered.

I hope you feel better. Continue to post you're feelings if you need to, try to stay connected as long as possible. Ride it out in whatever way is possible.


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## Sojourner (May 21, 2005)

Anthony,

Go to a hospital emergency room or, if you cannot get there, call 911.


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## Imagine (Oct 24, 2004)

I won't hurt myself (never have) or kill myself... in that case I'm safe.

But what is this extreme DP/DR going to do to me... I still feel its something more.

I fear ending up in a catatonic state. Psychosis, brain dead.

Forgetting everything!

Not being able to function at all.


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## Imagine (Oct 24, 2004)

Actually from all of the above it feels like I'm just hanging on by a thread before I end up that way.... tottally unable to function. Forgetting everything.

Stupified.


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## Guest (Jul 18, 2005)

> just let me die let me whispering to myself.


I don't have any magic answers, but I do want to say two things. I recognize the place you're at - I had about a year solid where I couldn't leave the house and barely left the bed. I felt like I was watching, slowly watching my Self just evaporate, waft away. I was terrified but even more I felt more and more "gone" - there are no words to describe how annihilation of self FEELS, but if you've been there, you know.

I felt like I was no longer the human being I was born as, and that I was only physical residue, atoms and blood and veins moving the show along, but that the core of Me, any version of Person, was as if she had never been born.

The isolation is petrifying. It feels like being buried alive and no one realizes and you are just lying there using up the last inch of oxygen and knowing it is happening.

I am promising you that NOTHING has actually happened TO your brain. your cognitive abilities are fine. What is "lost" or in jeopardy is your SENSE of self, your Experience of being you...

the quote above that you wrote is beautiful. I read it earlier and thought about it several times today. It is poetic and touching and hopeless and heart-tugging, and I recognize the place too well. Your words make perfect sense to me, and only the echo of agonizing isolation is the horror - not the way your cognitive functioning is working.

Your mind is working FINE..And I know it doesn't feel that way, but I can tell you from over here that you are communicating very very well. it is temporarily your sense of self that is askew and when you move through all this, nothign will have been lost.

Take care and write later and let us know how you're doing.

Peace,
Janine


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## Guest (Jul 18, 2005)

Anthony,
My heart breaks for you. Even though I don't know you, I wish you didn't live on the other side of the earth so you could have a friend, who truly knows how you feel. I often wonder when the complete break is going to come and what it is going to feel like when it happens. Sometimes I wonder if it might even be a relief from the nothing that I feel that I have become. Hold strong to whatever there is in your life to hold on to at this point and know that there are people who truly care about you even when you are at your worst.
Kate


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## bright23 (Jun 6, 2005)

I don't know if this is helpful, and you've probably heard this before... but in my worst episodes I would overcome my fear by specifically letting go of my resistance. Acute DP for me was extremely physical, everything in my body and mind was tensed as I was confronting the seeming fact of life long institutionalization. Letting go of the fear of losing sanity/consciousness, even if it meant for a moment losing sanity/consciousness.

Perhaps your agony and pain is in the struggle and the resistance to what you fear most. You're wound up and seized up. Let yourself get stupified, let it rush over you and annihilate you, and then take a walk to a cafe and get a cup of coffee, and look around at other people, use your imagination to penetrate their personal dramas. Everyone has one, not just us DPrs. Focus out. There's so much going on in existence at any moment, focus out and let yourself disappear in the distractions of this world.

Let me know if this suggestion is total crap and unhelpful for you.


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## Scattered (Mar 8, 2005)

> I am promising you that NOTHING has actually happened TO your brain. your cognitive abilities are fine.


I'd have to disagree with that completely. I'm no expert but recent studies have shown that high levels of stress, or extreme anxiety or depression can cause brain damage. If not permanent, then temporarily a persons cognitive abilities can be impaired because of thoughts that are causing physical changes in a person's body.

I don't want to be a contrarian. I just think its kind of misleading to tell people that their body or brain is not being effected or damaged by their emotional states. Perhaps ignorance is bliss.


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## bright23 (Jun 6, 2005)

"I'm no expert but recent studies have shown that high levels of stress, or extreme anxiety or depression can cause brain damage."

Please direct us to these studies that connect stress/anxiety/depression to permanent "brain damage." Its news to me.

I'd think news like this would be on the cover of the New York Times. Don't you?


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## Imagine (Oct 24, 2004)

Scattered said:


> > I am promising you that NOTHING has actually happened TO your brain. your cognitive abilities are fine.
> 
> 
> I'd have to disagree with that completely. I'm no expert but recent studies have shown that high levels of stress, or extreme anxiety or depression can cause brain damage. If not permanent, then temporarily a persons cognitive abilities can be impaired because of thoughts that are causing physical changes in a person's body.
> ...


Damn!


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## Imagine (Oct 24, 2004)

Thank you all for your support.

All though it is all hard to take in, I try my best.


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## bright23 (Jun 6, 2005)

The human brain is a self-regulating system. 1 year ago this week I was spiralling into a major depression with horrendous physical and mental effects. I could hardly speak and avoided communication with others as much as possible. Suicide ideation and all, no escape.

1 Year later and I'm better than ever. There's no brain damage from stress/anxiety/depression. The brain always comes back around. Major Depression untreated will always resolve itself and disappear after six months for this very reason.


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## Scattered (Mar 8, 2005)

http://www.fi.edu/brain/stress.htm

http://mednewsarchive.wustl.edu/medadmi ... 710072479A

http://my.webmd.com/content/article/106/108114.htm

The idea that major depression untreated will simply go away seems a bit ridiculous. It will go away and come back and go away and come back. People seem to relapse frequently and it seems to me that it is the COMBINED effect of these depressive episodes, as well as anxiety attacks, or breakdowns that will do damage. Just because you have a hard time thinking now does not mean that you have already caused permanent brain damage. But your brain is constantly changing, and the cumulative effect of these negative experiences are deleterious to your health. Even if it is a very gradual process.


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## Sojourner (May 21, 2005)

Go to the hospital emergency room if you want to feel better.

They will give you (probably) an anti-anxiety medication such as lorazepam. You will feel better and perhaps you will connect what they give you to feeling better and understand why you are being advised to seek medical attention immediately."

I'm not afraid you will harm yourself; I know, however, exactly what you are suffering and how horrific it is.


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## bright23 (Jun 6, 2005)

"The idea that major depression untreated will simply go away seems a bit ridiculous. It will go away and come back and go away and come back."

Actually, yes you are right. Absolutely. My point was that EVEN without treatment the brain by nature will right itself and recover from Major Depression even without treatment. I've had two relapses myself...

I'm concerned for Imagine's situation right now. And sorry, I don't see how you talking about brain damage is really at all helpful AT THIS TIME.

We're largely here to support each other, right? not to freak each other out and make us even more depressed and miserable.

I will check out your brain damage links...


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## Scattered (Mar 8, 2005)

I thought about that. I'm sorry I posted about it, its not helpful, its scary. Scares the shit out of me anyway. The point of the post was to help someone in need, I just had a sort of knee-jerk reaction when I read it. Fighting a problem with a potentially false idea bothered me.

So I'll rephrase in a less ominous way. I believe and some have found that anxiety/depression/stress can cause negative changes in the body. However this also works both ways. By thinking positively and treating your body right, I believe that emotions can be stabilized. We are all capable of making a recovery. Whether that recovery is 100% or not doesn't make a difference. We can get to place that is dramatically better than where we are or have been.


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## Sojourner (May 21, 2005)

Well, when they say "chronic," they mean unremitting for years on end...

We all know your true intent, Scattered -- we can seeeeeeeeeeeeeeee into your miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiind...... ooh ooooh ooh


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## jc (Aug 10, 2004)

anthony we talk alot on msn and to be honest i would cut down the alcohol your drinking,its not overly excessive but using it everyday will just lead to more detachment and anxiety...enjoy a drink but take a few days off inbetween sessions

jc


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## bright23 (Jun 6, 2005)

"By thinking positively and treating your body right, I believe that emotions can be stabilized. We are all capable of making a recovery. Whether that recovery is 100% or not doesn't make a difference. We can get to place that is dramatically better than where we are or have been."

That's what I'm talking about. Wasn't that easy? And the effect is huge! Even I feel better!

IMAGINE ? I've been sober for one year all drugs and alcohol, and I feel like a different person. A new person with very ordinary everyday problems. But I am free of the extremes of thinking that addiction to drugs and alcohol subjected me to.

I don't have any idea what your consumption is, doesn't matter. If you think there's a problem with your substance use, then there's a problem. And of course if you're taking meds its advised against. You know this already.

Good luck over the next few days...


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