# DR/DP 'e-book' (Permissions please!)



## Martinelv (Aug 10, 2004)

Hello troops. Because I am fantastically egotistical, and I've recovered from DR/DP twice, I've started (just) writing a book(let) on DR/DP that I intend to put online - free for anyone.

First off - would it be okay for everyone or anyone here to take some quotes from your posts? Real names will NOT be used, I guarantee that. Also, I think I should ask Rev if I could mention this site? Would that be OK? Also, the first part is a slightly revised version of one of my short stories - The Uncertain Iceberg.

Anyway, here is the provisional Index (of course, it will be greatly expanded):

*Contents/Index*

*Page:*

3	*My Story*

What is Depersonalisation Syndrome?
?	Symptoms
?	What it is not

What causes it?

?	Psychological triggers
?	Drug abuse
?	Physiological factors
?	Hereditary

What can we do about it?

?	The Traditional approach
?	My opinion

The e-book is going to be called, most probably, 'The Uncertain Iceberg'. Here is what I've written (it has not been proof read, so there are bound to be huge amounts of spelling and gramatical errors) regarding the first part of the book - My Story.

*My Story*

Part 1

_?Whence is this monstrous thing? The mind controls the body yet not itself.?_

These words were spoken by Saint Augustine as he groaned under the weight of his own mental illness. As I sat there in my university dormitory, shivering with fear, drowning in dread, with my girlfriend smiling back at me and thinking that I was okay, and with me smiling back, his words seemed not just a form of poignant romantic tragedy, but summed up exactly how I felt at that time. I felt like an uncertain iceberg. My mind readied itself to melt and crash into the sea and dissolve into an eternity of insanity (oblivion?) but my fragile certainty that life was outside my head, rather ? reality is outside my head, the 
reality (regardless of philosophical speculation) that I wanted, that I needed, that I enjoyed, froze me to the ice-pack. I fondled this brittle certainty that the incredible world that I saw before me, through a slick blanket of oily filth, was not real. I knew this.

My heart shattered into a million shards of broken glass but I continued to smile through the pain. Much like, perhaps, the pain only a parent can feel. The type of pain they feel as they stand on one side of an unbreakable wall, battering their fists against that wall, and watch as their child cries for your help as he or she is dragged away by unknown dread.

Reality, or my hope for it, was my child. My fists were bloodied from battering against that wall; the dread, the bizarreness of my sensations, cradled my child in his hands. He leered at me, certain of something I did not know, and wrapped his stinking cloak around my child, my reality. It was at moments like that that I feel myself slipping into the sea.

But I learnt. I knew I was not insane. If I were, I would not know it. I learnt to stop devouring books on my most feared dread ? schizophrenia, or other flavours of psychosis. I had learnt that the obsessions, my dear God, the obsessive rumination regarding the reality of things and the nature of myself, including my guilt, fears, speculations, hopes and disappointments, was a facet of my illness. I knew this. I wanted, fiercely, to live. I wanted to recover, however long and whatever it took.

That was about fifteen years ago, and I did recover. And if I, the most week willed of men can do it, then so can you. All of you.

Part 2

I remember the night when the terror began very clearly. I was eighteen years old, naive, excited by the opportunities for my academic and social life, full of bluff, bravado and of course, for a young man, with hormones on the rampage!

I was only into my third week of my five year course, and let it be told ? yet to skip a lesson or seminar. I was studying psychology at Glasgow University, and like everyone else of that age, imagined it to either enable me to have some mystical insight into other peoples minds (damn those hormones!) or listen about the extraordinary states of minds of serial killers and their gruesome deeds (not to mention delusions of becoming the next ?Cracker?). But, not surprisingly, I was quickly disappointed. Even in the deeply atmospheric old lecture halls, with stalls as steep as a theatre and with their dark, ancient brick walls, wooden benches moulded by the backsides of countless students ? Kelvin perhaps, and other notable academics, it was like looking down into a bull-pit and listening to the matador drone on about statistical analysis, instead of the shock, blood and gore of sociopathic killings, except for on one memorable occasion. It may not seem important, but I?ll tell you about it. It may contain a metaphor or analogy that I do not understand or recognise. Perhaps it will strike some kind of resonance with you.

I was sitting in the lecture theatre, eying the nimble young fillies as they took their seats, when a lecturer I had never seen before; youngish, cheerful looking, cursedly attractive and not at all bookish, entered the room and promptly turned the lights down so low I could, literally, barely see my hand in front of my face. Everyone gasped, myself included I think. I know now that this, and the following experience, was privy to a select few, and word had spread to the rest of the campus because the hall was packed. Even in the gloom I could see students stumbling to their seats, or sitting on the cold steps and peering through the windows peppered around at the top of the circular gallery above us.

The lecturer was standing at the bottom, in front of the blackboard, arms folded across his chest and smiling around the room, patiently waiting for the hubbub to calm itself. When it did, he bent down behind his desk and rummaged around for a bit. The theatre was completely silent. I could hear my own hormones wondering what the hell was going on. It seemed everyone else was holding their breath. I held mine too.

After a moment he reappeared and stood there holding a violin! Still - complete silence among the throng. He then waited for us all to exhale and then began to play. The sweetest sounds filled the hall. If memory serves he played, in hindsight and deliberately, the most emotive tunes ? Adagio for Strings, The Enigma Variations and a couple of modern ballads which went down especially well, one after the other which, too enraptured, none of us dared interrupt. After six or seven of these expertly played tunes, he calmly placed his violin on his desk and smiled up at us. He had sucked us in like flotsam on a receding tide.

Then the applause; it was deafening. I found myself up on my feet, clapping like I was trying to swat a wasp or a troublesome fly. Even my hormones applauded. This was what it was all about! What ever it was. Regardless, this felt right. Special, important, different and emotional, because what every undergraduate secretly thinks ? psychology is not only the subject they believe will get you into more promising sexual encounters, but is the one that marks you out as well, unique. That we were potential saviours of the worst of human conditions, which we all agreed ? was that mental discomfort was worse than psychical pain. Incidentally, after experiencing both Depersonalisation and its dreaded accomplice and friend - Derealisation, and suffering from all sorts of physical ailments such as leukaemia and epilepsy I still believe that. This is because with psychological pain you cannot run away from yourself, however far you run or however hard to try to hide. I am not belittling physical pain, far from it, but I firmly believe that there is a difference, at least in terms of approach to treatment. I am just attempting to make a distinction between the two. Perhaps there is no difference; as usual it all depends on the individual. But I remember something I once read which said: ?Fear has many eyes, and can see things underground.? I could not agree more.

But I digress.

Anyway, I thought, what could be more mysterious than understanding the workings of the human mind? So wallowing in my shallow naivety I thought that this kind of thing, lurking in darkened hallowed halls of learning, was what psychology should be like. At the time I wished I had brought my cigarette lighter, because I would have lit it and waved it about in solidarity for us chosen few, and out secret knowledge.

The lecturer waited for the applause to die down then nodded gratefully and motioned for us to sit down, which we did, reluctantly. I think I heard someone crying. A few of the more burly chaps whooped and yelled their appreciation.

And that was it. He turned up the lights, bowed slightly and left to more cheers and applause.

And that night, that night I remember so clearly, thrilled with what I had just experienced, went back to my friends and had three puffs of marijuana that I promised myself I would never do.

And then the terror, the unspeakable horror, the terror that inspired me to write this book, and the consequences that changed my life, began.


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## Revelation_old (Aug 9, 2004)

When it is completed send me a copy before hand. I'll make it look nice and create a section on the site for it.

ie. I'll host it for you and you won't have to worry about bandwidth.


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## Martinelv (Aug 10, 2004)

Cheers mate. It might take a while, but thanks again.


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## Rozanne (Feb 24, 2006)

Martinelv said:


> Hello troops.


Haha.


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## Guest (May 4, 2007)

Good on you Martin, thank you.


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## suz (Mar 26, 2007)

Use me as you wish Martin :lol:


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## PPPP (Nov 26, 2006)

yall can use anything I've said as long as it doesn't have to do with anyone but me. i.e. nothing I've posted about my family or anything like that. :wink:


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## EverDream (Dec 15, 2006)

Wow, cool  Good luck to you and thanks.
You can "use" me too :lol:

EverDream


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## Pablo (Sep 1, 2005)

You can use anything I have written


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## = n (Nov 17, 2004)

Looks pretty good.  
The only error i spotted was 'psychical pain', i presume 'physical' was intended.

(Please don't hate me for pointing that out even though you mentioned it hasn't been proof read - it's a pathological condition i have)


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## CECIL (Oct 3, 2004)

You can use anything I've written too. Just go easy on the "making me look like an idiot" part


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## Martinelv (Aug 10, 2004)

Thanks guys. I promise, I will not use any forum or real names, or anything that could compromise your annonimmmmiiity.

Cheers.


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## widescreened (Jun 22, 2005)

If its a free ebook, defo. Thats a good idea.


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## suz (Mar 26, 2007)

Good luck with it Martin.


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## Guest (May 10, 2007)

Yes you may use anything mature i've said (because i've said nothing mature =P )


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