Derealization- feelings of unreality _{Page 3 of 19}

Sorry, that was supposed to say I have NOT touched pot since I got sick. Promise me you will come to that site I mentioned. You will find many with drug-induced DP and you will be able to have all of your questions answered. My name there is university girl. Feel free to send me a private message (PM) once you register there.

Hi again....

You can see my earlier posting on pg 2 but I want to add some things for people that may prove helpful. It really hurts to see new people going through this in the beginning. It is enormously scary at the start so hopefully I can provide some insights that will prove helpful. First of all, this is heavily related to two events in your life. One is that you are having a subconscious reaction to a stressful early childhood issue that you never really resolved. The pot has reminded you of it subconsciously and now you have a problem. The second and maybe more important thing is that this traumatic unresolved event has caused you to lose faith in God. Trust me on this; the Holy Spirit is with us when we are born and things that happen early in life cause us to turn are backs on the feelings of joy we had when we trusted in God. Many people lose the Holy Spirit in them at an early age because of unresolved issues, but they don't reach a point of crises about it, they just die emotionally. This feeling that you're in hell is caused by the fact that your inner most self is angry at God but another part of you is crying out for him. You are all having anxiety about death because you do not feel deep in your soul that God is there and will take care of you. You feel as if the predominate power in the universe is malign. When you were young, you thought much differently. You are lost sheep right now but there is a huge blessing for you! You know you're lost sheep, and that's why you feel like you're in Hell. OK....what can you do to help yourself? Here are things that have helped me. You need to start on some level, re-establishing your relationship with God. It may be hard at first but as you commit yourself to trust, he will bless you with break throughs. Trust in me with this. If you commit to him, he will help you. Also, you need to do some serious grieving to find out what it was that affected you so much as a child that made you turn from God and the belief in a goodness in life. How is this accomplished? Try primal screaming. It will scare the heck out of you at first but it taps into your childhood anger, and when the anger is let out, the grief will soon follow. It is painful stuff but I promise it will be worth it. In the midst of your pain, ask God/Jesus Christ to be with you. Be persistent and patient! Rome wasn't built in day. One of the over whelming feelings you will get with this is the feeling that you're efforts are fruitless. That is the angry child in you talking. You can feel that way if you wish but do not stop the painful work of dealing with grief/anger. And don't stop trying to reach God! Then the day will come when you will have a series of excruciatingly painful grieving episodes. This is Good news! You are getting back on track. You will feel as if you are a small child when this happens and even colors in the room will appear much brighter. The grief will come in waves and you will begin to experience joy alternating with the grief. Through this, your angry "child" will begin to both forgive the perpetrator of your unresolved issue and come back to God. We all have God with us in the beginning but when we experience the traumas of life, especially in chilhood and do not go through the grieving/forgiving process, we turn our back on God. This anger at God, coupled with our awareness of it, literally makes us feel like we're in hell. Take heart, because others are in hell but are not aware of it. God has blessed you by telling you that something is seriously wrong, and that you need to fix it. Finally, I just want to say that you can come out of this! I hear people talking about medication and vitamins but if you really want to grow out of this and become your full selves, these are the keys to your recovery. Let me also say that that if you deal with the grief, God will give you some of the most heavenly days in the process. God loves you for going through the pain to get close to him again,like you were as a child, and along the way, he gives you incredible days of acceptance to make the journey bearable. Just remember that this is a blessing. You know something is wrong, and now all you need to do is gut up and work with God to fix it. I'm living proof that it works!

Good luck and God Bless!

tchill2

PS. If anyone wants to talk further about this, I can be reached at the hot site at "hi5301". I'd love to help!

man this is an old post! I too have had these feelings. maybe the original post starter would like to comment on how she/he is doing? what is your occupation that might make these feelings come about?

I know it has been a couple of yrs since you posted, but was wondering how you are? I too, suffer from dp, mainly dr and would love to know what you have tried and whether or not it has helped. Will write more, once I know you are still around at this address. Thanks - Vanessa

Something very scary similar to the rest of your situations has happened to me. I smoked marijuana one time, but must of had too much. I think that I must have inhaled about 12 times. I had never smoked before, and the people I was smoking with didn't really know what they were doing either. At first it was fun, but then as the weed started to set in it became horrible. Immediately I jumped up from the table and ran out of the door for a breath of fresh air, that didn't work. I began shaking my head, in hopes that I would gain a glimpse of reality. Everyone else was high, so they just laughed because they thought I was pretending and I wasn't.

It was the scarest moment in my life to be dettached from reality, and have my mind question what is real and unreal. In addition to being in an unfamiliar place and the haunting thoughts of my trusted friends laughing at me even though I know they were under the influence as well. I began to repeat things uncontrollably, shake, and want to go home.


I literally felt like I was about to die. It has been a month since the incident, and I am desperately trying to regain my life and my ability to reattach to the people I love. I feel like because the the horrible event is attached to such a monumental part of my life, (college, graudation, moving), that everytime I think about the incident, I have negative feelings and attitudes about my whole college career. I don't want to have these feelings but they exist. I felt so helpless and vulnerable at the time that today, my personality is still that way. I used to be a very determined girl, but now I just feel like sitting on the sidelines of life most of the time.

I must have not only been experiencing effects of the weed, but also having a full blown panic attack, for about 2-3 days after the incident. I kept asking the people to take me to the hospital or get me help, but they were sure that in time, the effects of the drug would wear off, but they didn't. Even though the THC or whatever is out of my system, I am having psychological effects from the incident. At time I relive the incident and want to avoid all things that remind me of it.

I feel at times, that I am not with life, like I used to be. I have difficulty keeping up with myself, time of day, and my motivation. I feel like I am obsessed about the event and that is what keeps on driving me crazy. It is as if my mind never, ever, ever stops wondering, worrying, or being anxious about something.

I feel like I am in denial about the whole event, and that may be a reason why I am still in this state. Untill I accept the event and all the feelings that I have surrounding the event, I will not be able to capture parts of my life. Untill I realize that there is hope and my life has brought me a lot of happiness then I will not move myself into the future. Because at this moment if feel stuck inbetween the past and the future.

What keeps me going in this life, is knowing that I have something, even though I can't see it right now, something out their to live for. I have an awesome mom, boyfriend, and friends that are willing to support me.

The best advice I have, it not to sit around and mope about what you may have lost with whatever thing triggered your dp/dr. What you can do is still get in the thick of life. Keeping on pushing foward no matter how hard it is, becuase one day God will allow you to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I can't keep on saying "God why did this have to happen to me," "What I can say is, I am going to make it, and I know that you have great plans to restore my life to what you want it to be."

If I can touch anyone out here with this, if you are a christian, or wish to seek christ, read Joyce Meyer, battefield of the mind. This will help you to understand, what is happening in your mind. I can tell you that it has been hard, but the book is a blessing for me.

Any other suggestions about what may be happening to me?

The same thing happened to me after smoking about a month ago. It faded over the next couple of weeks but then came back about 3-4 weeks after. It was very intense and scary and i kept thinking i was going mad. I found out that it is an effect of high anxiety, and in order to get over it you must lower your anxiety to a normal level again. With me for some reason that time when i smoked i had a panic attack which must have raised my anxiety levels and they have remained above normal. I managed to lower them through breathing exercises and visualisation and relaxation until i felt normal and good again. Yesterday i actually went backwards by thinking about it too much and trying to analyse why it happened. Lowering your anxiety is the key and then diverting your mind from thinking about it again is the second factor. This means that you should not look for answers and discuss your problems. You have to get over the anxiousness which might not even be apparent and then not do anything to let it back in. It is only TEMPORARY anxiousness that is causing it and not any permenant changes in your brain, but YOU have to fix it and then you will be 'normal' again.
Hope this helps someone. Get stuck in and sort yourself out!

Hi, I'm new to this forum, and I myself am not suffering from derealization, but my 15 year old son was just diagnosed with it yesterday. About 3 months ago he had a bad experience smoking pot at school with friends. Bad enough that my "cool" son turned to his mom for help. After several hours he wasn't able to shake the feeling of being high. And it wasn't a good high. For the next couple weeks after that he kept talking about having "perma fried his brain", he believed that he had done himself serious brain damage. After listening to his permafried stories for 2 weeks he changed his tune, but now he said he was living in a "bubble" that nothing was real. He was in a "dream".

His living in a dream stories turned into very deep questions about life and death in general. Questions that I myself have, but simply pass off as something that I am not privy too. He can't seem to pass them off though. He is constantly questioning, constantly talking about his dream state and always worried about dying. He believes that if something good happens to him then he will surely pay for it by dying in his sleep.

I arranged an appointment with a childrens' phyciatrist after listening to him for 3 months. And I'll be honest, I did it because I believed that if faced with having to see a mental health doctor he would snap out of whatever he was in and stop obsessing about what he perceived to be some type of brain damage and detachment from reality.

The appointment was yesterday. I spent the night crying. I came home from the doctors with him and although he felt better because he knows this is real, and that he's not going crazy, and that there will be help for him to come back to the real world, I only began to see what he has been going through. I came home and googled derealization, and reading all your posts helped me to understand this state of mind much better.

I feel guilty that I didn't take him seriously earlier. That I let him go for 3 months this way. I honestly believed that this was something he could snap out of. I know better now.

I have read all your posts, and what you all say is hauntingly familiar to what I hear in my own home from my son.

I am going to get my son all the help I can possibly find for him so I can bring him back to where he is supposed to be. And I will pray every night for all of you, that you too may find your way back.

God be with you all.

I see all of these posts deal with smoking of pot. but I never smoked it. I think it my be related to thyroid. My dad had a similar experience and it was his thyroid. although my dad did smoke pot before. hmmmm.

Hi all in de-real land,
The dream-like "bubble" I've been in for the last 25 plus years has finally "burst". It happened after I read the post on page 2 from tchill2. I am a true believer that at some point, we all choose our emotional states subconsciously, and my reason for choosing the derealized state must have been quite close to the one tchill was describing, because I immediately recognized myself, and it was like looking into a clear mirror for the first time. I had before tried to blame this de-real feeling on outside forces, instead of looking at deep inner emotional fears.
There have been several times in the past month that I've been wanting to post about this "awakeining", but as it seemed too good to be true, I wanted to see if it lasted. Not only has it lasted, it has changed my life. It was just enough of a subtle shift- kind of like a dial adjustment- to put me back on the right frequency, and now life is all coming in louder and clearer. I tried to write to tchill2 to thank him/her in an email, but haven't heard anything, so I'm making it public here.
What really prompted me to post about this is the last post about the 15 year old son of sherisse. He is a lucky kid to be able to go to his mom and ask for help. I think most of us (myself at 15) were too scared that this happened to them, and too ashamed to expose the info to doctors and parents that they'd smoked pot.
I've warned my kids about the connections with de-real and pot, but my 17 yr old son says it hasn't happened to him. I'm going copy the parts of tchill2's post which helped me;
" I've now come to see that the whole thing stems around some serious existential angst about living and dying. I read on some other chat site about these "derealized" people who were talking about death. They kept saying that there were acutely scared of dying, and yet, they also had no interest in "living forever". At that point, the only way out is to pretend that your existence is nothing but a dream. Then you are not living or dying. There has been a lot said about the effects of the pot and chemical imbalances, but the reality is, you "want" to be in this state right now even though it is hellish. You are choosing it. The pot may have been the vehicle to bring you to this point, but I'm guessing you all grew up armed with great imaginations and rich pretend worlds. When you dealt with a severe crisis over these life and death issues, you opted for the escape. I know it doesn't feel like you have chosen this problem, but deep down, you feel that it is preferable to living in the real world."
" Secondly, you need to work hard to realize that you are not the center of things. One of the "luxuries" of a derealized state is that you become the center of the universe(which is all a dream of course). You are not the center of the universe. None of this is a dream, and the pain of thinking that you are "controlling things" is ultimately far worse than coming to grips with your own relative insignificance. Paradoxically, once you realize that you WILL die, and that you are very small in the universe; then you become "larger" in yourself again!"
"You will know it when you are recovering but here are some questions you can ask yourself that are good indicators. When you envision your death, does it seem like you are just waking up from the dream, or do you realize that you will really be dead? If you see the latter, you are on the right track.

I wrote a couple of posts up about my 15 year old son. He isn't home right now, but when he gets here I will be sure to share with him the last post from Tangy. The quoted part about being so scared of death that you are scaring yourself out of living makes sense. The childrens' psychiatrist I took my son to the other day mentioned that it seemed my son had a great fear of dying and of hurting himself seriously in anyway.

I am going to continue to take my son to see this doctor. Perhaps talking about the underlying fear will help eliminate the symptoms.

Tangy, I'm so glad that you were able to "pop the bubble", and I pray that it never circles around you again. It sounds like such a scary place to be.

Again, I pray for God to be with you all.

Thank you Tangy! Your acknowledgement means a lot to me, and I'm glad to see that God is at work among you. The greatest thing we can do as people is try to help and heal one another, so it's safe to say that your posting makes my day!

tchill2

Me again, the mother of the 15 year old. I've been reading the posts, and I've also found a chat room for people who suffer from DR and DP that I've been going into to learn more about this. I've been trying to find out just as much as I can so I can find a way to help my son. Do you all think it would be helpful for my son to participate in the forums and chats I've been in? Does talking about it with others who suffer the same thing make it better in any way, or in your opinions could this throw him deeper into it.

I ask that because it seems this is really a symptom of anxiety; and if he's already obsessing about this feeling would reading and hearing more make him believe he may have symptoms he's not yet experiencing?

I don't mean to lessen what any of you are feeling. I haven't experienced it myself, and quite frankly, I pray that I never do (it sounds like a horrible place to be stuck), but it seems that the more credibility you give it the worse it is.

Hi Mother of 15 yr old,

You concerns are well thought out and I commend you for that. My personal feeling is that the sites would be helpful to your son. There are two reasons for this.
1)It is important for your son to recognize that he is not going crazy. Years ago when some of us first went through this, there was no one is the psychiatric community that had any awareness of the problem. At that time, the sense that you were going crazy was greatly exascerbated. Now, people are realizing that this is a problem that many are dealing with, and more importantly, a problem that can be eradicated. Your son come out of this. Tangy just did and so did I recently. That is important to know for a newly derealized person, because derealization makes people think they are going crazy and that they will never return to a normal state.
2) It is very important that your son spend time bonding with other people emotionally. These bonds help to destroy the illusion he feels that he is the center of things. Derealization is characterized in a lot of ways by withdrawing into oneself. Powerful connections with other people help to counteract this tendency. My one caveat is that you musn't assume that your son will come out of derealization immediately. Although grief therapy (and in my opinion, religion) will be helpful in speeding up the recovery process, you can also think of this as a growth stage that sometimes takes years to emerge from. It's important to remember that derealization isnt all bad. It is a defense mechanism that helps an individual cope with overwhelming anxiety about the deeper problems of life. Changes may take time. It is also important for you to understand that derealized people are not bothered by it all the time. It comes and goes in stages. There are years that go by where you know you are still derealized but you barely notice. It is an odd thing to explain. Just no that if your son does not come out of it right away, he can still have rewarding experiences in life. He will not be in Hell with this all the time. Anyway, I would let him go on the sites and reach out to people. It is much harder to be alone with this the way some of us were in the eighties.

Take care and God bless!

tchill2

Thank you so much for replying so quickly tchill2. Your post made alot of sense, even to someone who doesn't quite understand what you all are living with.

I'm sitting here, typing this, in tears right now. Noone should have to live alone in fear, and it sounds like that's exactly what some of you have had to do until this was recognized in the medical community, and until you found each other. My heart and my prayers go out to you all.

I wanted you to know that your post gave me hope, and because of that I will indeed show my son this site, and let him read all your posts. And I will bring him to the chatroom I've found dealing with this. My hope is that he finds the same comfort in your words that I did.

His name is Andrew, and he's 15 years old. If he decides to post here also, please take care of my baby.

I am not quite sure if what I am feeling is derealization, so I was hoping to find some answers here. The easiest way for me to explain how I feel is.... i feel like I am high. I feel as if I smoked a bunch of marijuana. I have gone to the Dr. and he seems to think nothing is wrong with me. He did blood work, found that nothing was wrong, and said it was allergies and sent me home with a RX for allegra. I used to smoke marijuana on a regular basis but have not done so for over 3 years. This feeling started when I was at work one day and all of a sudden my vision got blurred by kind of a colored circles and lines. I left work, and while i was waiting to leave it just stopped. Ever since then I have not felt the same. Sometimes my arms feel tingly and numb. And sometimes i just dont know what to do. I dont want to go anywhere anymore cause i feel like this. I dont know what to do. I hate feeling like this and just want it to go away. I have a 13 month old son and dont even want to take him places anymore cause of this "high" feeling i have. I want to find out what is causing this. If anybody can help me. Please do.

I am not quite sure if what I am feeling is derealization, so I was hoping to find some answers here. The easiest way for me to explain how I feel is.... i feel like I am high. I feel as if I smoked a bunch of marijuana. I have gone to the Dr. and he seems to think nothing is wrong with me. He did blood work, found that nothing was wrong, and said it was allergies and sent me home with a RX for allegra. I used to smoke marijuana on a regular basis but have not done so for over 3 years. This feeling started when I was at work one day and all of a sudden my vision got blurred by kind of a colored circles and lines. I left work, and while i was waiting to leave it just stopped. Ever since then I have not felt the same. Sometimes my arms feel tingly and numb. And sometimes i just dont know what to do. I dont want to go anywhere anymore cause i feel like this. I dont know what to do. I hate feeling like this and just want it to go away. I have a 13 month old son and dont even want to take him places anymore cause of this "high" feeling i have. I want to find out what is causing this. If anybody can help me. Please do.

I am not quite sure if what I am feeling is derealization, so I was hoping to find some answers here. The easiest way for me to explain how I feel is.... i feel like I am high. I feel as if I smoked a bunch of marijuana. I have gone to the Dr. and he seems to think nothing is wrong with me. He did blood work, found that nothing was wrong, and said it was allergies and sent me home with a RX for allegra. I used to smoke marijuana on a regular basis but have not done so for over 3 years. This feeling started when I was at work one day and all of a sudden my vision got blurred by kind of a colored circles and lines. I left work, and while i was waiting to leave it just stopped. Ever since then I have not felt the same. Sometimes my arms feel tingly and numb. And sometimes i just dont know what to do. I dont want to go anywhere anymore cause i feel like this. I dont know what to do. I hate feeling like this and just want it to go away. I have a 13 month old son and dont even want to take him places anymore cause of this "high" feeling i have. I want to find out what is causing this. If anybody can help me. Please do.

Hi ashleygrl,
Do you have fluorescent lighting at work? My DR used to be triggered by it. I'm convinced that although my DR was mostly an anxiety-induced emotional state, it did have components of mild epilepsy which runs in my family. I would suggest getting a phamphlet called, "Brainstorms: Epilepsy in Our Words" read it and show it to your doctor. I never did this- but after reading this book, if I were seeing colored circles and lines followed by DR, I would get checked for epilepsy. It is described there. I seem to be the only one on the planet making these connections- but I can't deny my convictions.

Like I said earlier in my posts, since coming to terms with the anxiety issues tchill2 wrote about, I am 100% out of my anxious "fog" of DP.
I don't know how it all fits together, and if my DR was connected with mild epilepsy, why am I able to control it now, and calm myself down by connecting with my "fear of death"?

All I know is DR is a state induced by stress, and epilepsy is induced by stress, and can have components of DR.

Connections:
*My daughter had her first seizure after being up late at night, and was fighting with her brother.
*Another girl I know has petite seizures when looking at swimming pools (reflected light flashing)
* I feel like I'm going into DR when I'm tired, and under fluorescent lighting (which flashes very fast)
* My DR first started from the stress of a marijuana-induced paranoia.
*My daughter's doctor used to tell us to keep her from stress- as a priorty to prevent seizures.
* The people in the above-mentioned book describe many of their petite seizures in DR terms.
*Their DR seemed to go away with the passing of the seizure- but our DR seems to linger. I don't know why that is.
OK, I'm done with my armchair speculating, but seriously, being a working mother is stressful. Since you have a little one to look after, it's important that you check out every avenue, but first come to terms with the anxiety.
Gina

Thank you very much for replying to what I wrote. It makes me feel alot better hearing some advice on how to make this feeling go away.
Ashley

I'm kinda going to jump in to an ongoing conversation w/ something new, sorry to interupt. I was searching this sight for any remedies thought to help dp/dr. I am almost convinced that my dp state, which has been going on for 4 years, was induced by very mild extacy use. One morning after using it, these dreadful feelings set in and have never waned. I have spent years trying conventional meds. and have giving up on those. More recently I started seeing a homepathic dr. who is so optimistic that I will one day be normal again. WE have now tried about 6 different remedies w/ no luck. She recently suggested making a remedy from extacy - sounds crazy, but would support 'like cures like'. HAs anoyone ever heard of such extreme measures. I am willing to try anything, do anything, go anywhere to get any relief. Any advice on this?

Honestly, I don't think the "cure" for this condition is in a pill or drug. What I think has happened to us all is that at some point, usually in a drug-induced state, some part of our brains (TLE?)were "short-circuited" which induced an ongoing panic response to a life-threatening experience. We responded by deciding that it is so scary to die, it is safer to live in an ongoing dream-like state.
My DR seems to have a "memory" for that state, and my mind used to jump back into it sometimes merely from just thinking about it.
It reminds me of a time when I was young, and got poison oak rashes all over my body from clearing a hillside on Catalina Island. Even when it had gone away- for about a year later- I could scratch those areas and bring up the rash again. The doctor told me our skin has an "itch memory" for the trauma, and that skin is a organ that is strangely related to the emotions and memory, and it is proven that emotion can bring about excema, and rashes. I think the brain is an organ that also does this.
Coming to terms with the "fear of death" vs the 'fear of life" was the best cure for me.
Gina

I would like to direct this specifically to Ashleygirl. My first symptoms when lapsing into DR years ago were basically perceptions of being high all the time as well. It is important that you deal with grief therapy as soon as possible. If you opt for pain avoidance, your state may progress to the "life is just a dream" phase that I and others have experienced. The sooner you deal with the pain, the greater the likelihood that you will stave off more advanced symptoms. But make no mistake, what you are experiencing is the onset of derealization. Get off the pot, and deal with painful issues now while its early for you. I also want to add for the others on this forum that another positive way to look at the "fear of death/fear of life" anxiety, is to remember that there are 6 billion other beings on this planet that are dealing with the same existential plight. Instead of worrying about life and death, spend some time building relationships with the folks traveling on this bizarre journey with you. It's one of the only things truly worth doing!
God Bless!

tchill2

Hi, the mom of the 15 year old here again. I have just taken my son to his second psychiatric appointment. The doctor seems to think that there is an underlying issue that is buried sooo sooo deep within my son's psycie that even he does not know what the problem he is dealing with is. She says that once they discover what is truly bothering him, then all the symptoms of anxiety (i.e. derealization, panic attacks, etc) will dissapear. Do anyone of you believe this to be true?

Hi Mother of 15 yr old,

Yes! I definitely believe there is some truth to what the therapist is saying. That will always be the banter of the psychiatrist anyway...but it is also probably correct in this case. It is also an incomplete picture. I'm going to do my best to explain this clearly. When we are children, we truly believe in a benevolent world. If we are raised as such, we believe that a God is controlling things and although bad times will come and go, the world has a positive purpose. If we are not raised with religion, we get this same security through our parents. To a child, parents represent the controlling element in their universe, so the effect is basically the same. Huge quantities of anxiety (and the desire to escape it) result from a shaking of that central belief. In fact, on a day to day level, all of our worries and fears are a by-product of this essential belief being challenged. Deep-seated doubts about this "big picture" are felt by all of us and there are often specific childhood events that precipitate this doubt about the overall presence of good in the universe. These events can often times be family-related because to a child, the family structure is the benevolent universe. When the family structure gets shaken, God and the universe often go with it. Another way of looking at it is that when we are hurt through these early experiences,we begin to depart from God. There is anger at God, other people, and lots of unresolved grief. Now here's the kicker: all of us have had this separation as a result of painful childhood encounters. In many ways, it is natural(although not neccesarily a good thing). The only difference between a DR person and any other person is that DR people tend to be acutely sensitive individuals whose dabblings with pot have caused early issues to resurface that in other people might have remained buried for a lifetime! In that sense, DR can be a real blessing! Remember: mental illness doesn't indicate that you have issues that others don't have; it is more an indicator that you are aware of issues which others are not aware of on some subconscious level. This can be a good thing if you work through the issue. Believe me; if that happens for your son, he will experience a new level of mental health that most others in life will never see. In your son's case, I believe that there is some digging to do (if you can afford it). In my personal experience, there was unresolved emotional baggage from childhood, and once I worked through the pain, I let go of the issue, forgave God and all those involved, and drew closer to God, people, and the general belief that the world is ultimately a worthwhile and rewarding place. I hope this is in some way helpful to you.

God Bless!

Tchill2

TChill2- Thank you for replying to what I wrote. The main thing is, and its driving me crazy is that I dont know what problems or issues could be making me feel like this. I am having relationship problems but im not sure if that is what brought it on. I havent touched pot in over 3 years and now all of a sudden i feel like ive been smoking again. Like i wrote before, it started when I was at work (i dont work there anymore) when my vision was basically distorted. I seriously thought for awhile that I had a brain aneurysm or tumor for AWHILE after that. Until my doctor told me that I dont. But he never did an MRI or anything so the thought is still in the back of my head. Could that be it? Is there anything elso that you can suggest to make this go away? Are there any prescriptions or methods?

I have to be careful when offering help in your case because there always is the possibility that you have a medical condition that warrants attention. DR for the most part is a psychological and not physical disorder (although where one stops and the other picks up is kind of a mystery to all of us). I will say this though. Many people who are dealing with the onset of DR go through a denial phase where they convince themselves that their problem is physical and unrelated to mental health. This is not unusual and in the beginning, I did that myself. Remember two things: (Wow...I sound like Dave Matthews)
A)Your issues may be very masked and hidden deep in your past. They may not be easy to spot right away. Usually an event in the present helps to trigger a subconscious remembrance of this buried event. In my case, it was my parent's divorce, and so your relationship problems may be a place to start your examination.

B)DR isn't necessarily triggered by an event. It can be a form of "lifeshock" where you come to realize that this ride(called life) is too wild to stay in touch with emotionally.

The way to handle both scenarios is to work on finding where you are hurting emotionally and deal with feeling the pain. In my case, I asked God to help me, and he/she did...but I'll leave that alone for now.

Again, I need to stress that I don't know all there is to know about these disorders so I would suggest you do go the medical route for safety's sake, but also experiment with trying to find emotional issues that may need to be dealt with but are boiling somewhere beneath the surface. I wish you well with this. Keep addressing the problem! Do not run from it. Whether it is physical or emotional in your case, attack it head-on. A large percentage of all our problems in this life result from our failure to deal with issues when they are still small and manageable.

God Bless!

Tchill2