# Old post from 1A, from August,always gives me hope.very long



## flipwilson (Aug 19, 2006)

Please apologize the scattering in this post and any typo's.

This post should give hope to everyone who has DP/DR, especially long-term sufferers.

A caffeine overdose (in the form of Vivarin pills) caused a panic attack, and then the DP/DR soon followed for me. That was the triggering event.

I finally feel, after 11+ years of non-stop, 24/7 DP/DR like myself again.

The main mistake I made was when I'd feel somewhat like myself again, I would get really excited and then the DP/DR would come back usually within 4 to 7 hours, if not sooner.

I knew in my mind that the DP/DR would come back, before it ever came back. However, the last few weeks the DP/DR has pretty much been gone, and I believe it's gone for good.

Trust me, I wouldn't say that just to say it, since I have been let down many times in the past, but this time is different, mostly because of three books I found (two very recently).

You think I would not be a mess right now, but while I feel better physically (pretty much perfect) I'm seeing all of these people my age, who I feel I must catch up with -- people my age who are now married, have kids, a house instead of a tiny apartment, etc.

Because of how bad my DP/DR was, I ended up selling most of my 6,000 compact disc collection on eBay. I haven't had a "job job" since August 2002. This was due to the crippling nature of my anxiety, agoraphobia and DP/DP, which I now believe to be the result of a trauma response not allowed to complete itself (explained in more detail later).

Before the DP/DR, I never went to any proms or football games... nothing. So I wasn't necessarily fully functional in high school, even. I began work on a four-year college degree in 1993, although the DP/DR came on in the Fall of 1994, during my sophomore year, so I settled for a two-year degree, graduated in Dec. 1995.

I barely made it to my classes, because my whole body would lock up and I'd be walking the campus like a robot and felt outside of my body. I could not concentrate or focus worth anything. I'm fortunate to have graduated, period, no matter what the degree, just the fact that I obtained something.

Amazingly, I had a steady employment record at two Fortune 500 companies between 1996 and 2002. I would take 3 or 4 hour lunches. I would go out to the parking lot and just sit in my car and feel spaced out, not wanting to go back into work.

When I was at work, I would avoid physical contact with everyone. My hands would shake like I had MS and I would accidentally trip on stuff or knock stuff over.

Certain parts of the building I couldn't even go to. I had a hard time even sitting at my own desk. It's like this anxiety and DP/DR followed me everywhere and there was no escape.

My voice would quiver on the phone while talking with investors because my entire body felt strange and I feared everyone could SEE how I felt. I thought they must be able to see how weird I felt and that made me even more uneasy.

I didn't look in the mirror much until rather recently. If I looked at myself too long, I would recoil in horror that I really was alive and in a body. It just was too much to swallow.

Now I look at myself in the mirror and I'm fine with myself.

However, everything is just messed up because I have this 11 year gap where life was hell, where I constantly felt disconnected from my body and environment, and to bridge that gap now, more than a decade later, seems a daunting task, at best.

To describe the extent to how incredible this transformation is, I would rather be in prison for life, and feel normal like this, than to have DP/DR but be "free" in the physical sense. There is no freedom with DP/DR, at least how I was experiencing it.

It felt like the most painful, uncomfortable, nagging wicked curse imaginable. I really can't see how anyone could live with this. I still can't. I'm surprised and glad I hung in there.

These feelings were the most intense spaced out, uncomfortable feelings anyone could imagine -- plus I was agoraphobic and anxious as hell on top of feeling like I didn't exist or not believing I was existing.

I sometimes would get locked into a certain position and couldn't move. Like I was frozen. I once felt so dizzy and out of it that my arms were crossed and I couldn't uncross them. They eventually uncrossed but not smoothly at all. I habitually made very jerky movements, just because that's part of the nature of DP/DR, I think.

Massive headaches, far worse than the worst migraine, preceded this apparent recovery from DP/DR. So if someone is looking for symptoms or signs that recovery is on its way, massive headaches could be one of those symptoms.

I don't have any problems with my head, if you're wondering. That's all been checked out.

Perhaps massive headaches because of 11 years of tension in my head. And that tension has been gradually releasing itself, it feels like, since mid November -- 7 or 8 weeks now, but more strongly within the past 2 or 3 weeks.

The worst part about feeling normal again is that it's like a transformation because I never thought this would happen. It's almost unbelievable. And now life seems more important. Too important, for instance, to sit behind a desk and work all day, or spend all day in meetings.

I know that if you have DP/DR you're going to hate this advice for getting better, but the first step I took was to allow any and all weird symptoms to come as they pleased. I'm pretty sure I was fighting them in the past. In 1999 I read a book by Claire Weekes about accepting whatever weird sensations your body gives you. That book is called "Hope and Help For Your Nerves."

From 1999 until recently I thought I was fully accepting the symptoms, but now I realize I wasn't. Only now can I stand up in a room anywhere, and just stand there, and not be anxious, not feel like I have to say something or sit down really fast. Not feeling spaced out, I'm just there, and connected. I talk so much slower (as in normal), too. My mind doesn't seem like it's racing anymore either.

I eventually started to ask for more symptoms. The symptoms would in fact get worse, but then they would peak and die off. The book that recommends asking for more symptoms is "Don't Panic" by R. Reid Wilson. That's a fantastic book even though I don't believe I ever had panic disorder.

The two books by Peter Levine are highly recomended and I believe were crucial to my feeling better. His first book is called "Waking the Tiger," and I haven't read all of it yet. You pretty much only need the first chapter in that one. His second book is more hands-on (less case studies) and is titled "Healing Trauma."

I found "Healing Trauma" at a coffee/book shop on a college campus two Fridays ago. It was like an awakening when I read most of it. I had to put the book down several times, because the fog in my head was started to lift a little bit more, as I kept hitting on things that I could relate to and I was catching myself saying "Yeah, this makes sense. This is amazing. This guy really knows what he's talking about."

I would recommend first working on reconnecting with your physical self. Because once you're reconnected with your physical sense, your physical self will automatically reconnect with your environment.

But if you try to reconnect with your environment first, then you also (I would think) have to manually reconnect with your physical self too. That way just seems backwards and more work so go with your body first; the rest will follow.

Don't despair if you've had DP/DR for years and years like me. Your body/mind is absolutely capable of returning to a non-anxious, non-DP/DR state. You never lose the ability to do that. It's always there, no matter what. It is true that if you asked me this past Halloween, I wouldn't be as sure. But enough time has now passed.

I also don't care if the DP/DR comes back. That is crucial for lasting recovery, too, I would think. All you have to do is be even a little afraid of the symptoms and then it's going to try to bring you down.

It's really paradoxical how this thing works and persists. You would think asking for more symptoms or for the symptoms to be worse would be illogical, when in fact the exact opposite is actually true.

If you've been DP-free for a few months or even years and it's come back, I'd be interested in hearing those things too. I really don't think this is going to come back, though, because my caring and focusing on it is what gave it the power to exist. And now that I don't give a rip about it anymore, it's like it's lost pretty much all of its power.

The other thing is that in asking for more symptoms, my body did initially start to twitch and shake, as if resisting what I wanted. But that eventually cleared up on itself. So if you're physically healthy, don't be alarmed by any twitching or spasms, as this is normal when recovering.

Lastly, once you start to get glimpses of yourself feeling normal again, your mind remembers. And so with each little glimpse, you are getting closer and closer to recovery.

Expect setbacks, though. Hell, a few weeks ago I thought I was good and then BAM! the next day it's like I had lost all progress.

But please remember that you're not losing progress. Your mind/body is going back to adapting its old, natural way of being and if it hasn't been "there" in a while, there is going to be some conflict and the symptoms will flair up. Eventually you win by not giving a damn about those symptoms.

I'm sure a lot of people here also feel a diminished orgasm or not as much pleasure in that area because of DP/DR. That too will return 100 percent, once you're feeling reconected to yourself. The sexual dysfunction is only temporary. In my case that's 11 years, but 11 years is still temporary -- heck of a long time, but technically temporary.

Two steps forward, one step back for a while. Hang in there. It gets better. And I never thought in a million years I'd be able to say this.

I am certainly not out of the woods yet, from a psychological standpoint. I just want to get out and be among people, because I haven't felt this good in so long. But I don't know how to reintegrate myself into society.

That's going to be tricky, I think. I can't just do it. I've been through too much to just say "Well, okay, the DP/DR is gone. Life is normal again. Just be normal."

No. Hell no! You can't just snap your fingers and get back to life as it was before, because this transformation is too huge, it's like miracle. I'm just overwhelmed and overjoyed but also confused and tentative.

I'm notorious for losing long messages that I type, so I'm going to post this now, just for the sake of getting it up, and if anyone has questions about how I got to where I'm at, I certainly welcome any responses, questions, etc.

Kind Regards,

Jeff


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## rui (Apr 27, 2005)

This is very inspiring and true to the point. I can attest to the veracity of the felt sense therapy. What happens to me is that I do so much more stuff now that I don't have time to go home and just stand on the bed! 

Yes, It seems stupid but even with the tiredness/aches my social enviroment is just so much better, that I just keep doing more and more social and getting more and more better. Even so, I have to remember to do the twitching more often. It does work!

I can understand perfectly the time lapse on life he is talking about, I felt the same but probably not as bad and I know why. Because I made plans. Because I knew that to get better I should at least investigate the things better persons do. Right now I have my mind full of dreams and making concrete plans on those dreams, and taking action step by step. Making plans was the best thing I could find to do something positive and create a psychological space of hope on all the madness. That's the best thing one can do in complete emocional lunacy... use logical and reasoning to create plans for the future, they will give you a direction of life, they will guide you inside the spaciness, even if you can't take action on most of them, dreaming and collection information and pictures on things you would like to see, do, be, own and feel will give you more than hope... they will be your part of your life.

Create life even in sorrow.


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## nu-power (Sep 27, 2006)

congratulations for engaging back to normal life flip, tell us how did you get out of dp/dr


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