Derealization- feelings of unreality _{Page 8 of 19}

Sniper, yes I'm serious. I no longer have as many existential questions AND if I ever have an existential question, I can shrug it off like I could not do before. I don't have that undescribable/scary "things aren't right" feeling and life is like it was before.. even though every time DP/DR comes back, it feels like I could never go back to being normal after having those thoughts/feelings. I am able to just relax and live life without fear. Life is normal for me now. I've had several "episodes", lasting anywhere from four years (my first episode) to 6 months. When I have an episode, it's like the dp/dr is there 24/7.. and eventually lessens in intensity after a long period of time. My first "episode" was 11 years ago.

Hey I was wondering if when people think of whatever memories they can that involve themselves from before the time the dr set in, (like that time a few years ago when i was at such and such place and was talking to such and such person about whatever) from what point of view do you see whatever is happening in the memmory?

If you are feeling unreality, then all of the memmories of your experiences seem to be seen from a 3rd person perspective. You see yourself doing whatever you were doing, but you see yourself from outside yourself, not feeling any connection to the person in the memmory.

And I think the way it works when we are not derealized is that when you remember something you experienced you see it from your own eyes the way you experienced it the first time.


Like someone said, it seems that there must be some deep seated painful experience that happened that caused you to stop accosiating with the person you used to be, because if you are not that person, you cannot experience the pain that person experienced again.

So it seems the only fix is to go back and experience whatever painful events happened and accept them. Seems like psychotherapy and a lot of love is the only answer.

hey toggle, did you also get rid of it because you removed all your anxious feelings?
cause I now "suffer" from it for almost 4 years after smoking marihuana and a lot of people tell me it will not go away before you remove all anxiety. Is this true? cause I don't know what I have to believe.

maarten,

For me, a lot of my anxiety came from the dp/dr (depersonalization/derealization). It freaked me out and made me anxious/panicky. It feels like the weirdest/scariest thing in the world to deal with... of course it is going to make us anxious.

Whenever I would have a dp/dr "episode" -- and by episode I mean dp/dr feelings for a 6 months + -- I was diagnosed each time as having an anxiety disorder.. rather than depersonalization disorder. I am not usually anxious when I don't have dp/dr... so for me, the dp/dr causes most of my anxiety.

Having said all that... the onset of my dp/dr "episodes" have always come at highly stressful times in my life.. so I definitely think that the issues/stress that I was dealing with at the time contributed to my dp/dr... and I think that dealing with your issues/stress/anxiety is an important part of the "healing" puzzle.

Hi again,

I mentioned the DMAE as good for your DR recovery process, and I just want to clarify this a little. If you were like me, you experienced times when you were ready to bring on the griefing issues but instead, you just went numb and couldn't recall, or get to the issues. There is something in the DMAE that helps people focus on things so that your mind's repression isn't effective at stalling your grieving. This is key for DR sufferers who are at the stage where they consciously want to grieve but can't. Having said this, you need to be prepared to fight. Grieving is hard but once you let these powerful feelings come through and "hurt" for a while, the well of anger and depression gets smaller and more manageable! Some are dealing with the repression of existential angst, and there may be a few of you who are grappling with painful childhood injustices. Regardless of the sources, this is what you all have in common: you all have opted (at a primal level) to escape painful feelings instead of dealing with them. This is classic neurosis..... but of a surprisingly mild variety. Believe me: you dont have to be permanently ill. Once you begin to deal with your issues, change and recovery move quickly. I will say that people who have deeper issues with DR symptoms might not have fast recovery, but your average garden-variety DR is curable. I'm living proof!Also, I'm not gonna push God in anyone's face, but a relationship with God helps. You have nothing to lose......so why not start by building one!

Tchill2

My poor friends, please don't give up :( I stumbled upon this thread and this forum accidentally. Alas, unfortunately I am able to relate to you on so many levels. My story is very similar to many of yours – when I was about 14 or 15 y.o. I decided to start smoking weed with my friends, who at that time were experienced smokers. It all went well and fine for about six smoking sessions over the period of maybe two months, but then one day, one warm summer day, while I felt cheerful and relaxed after having a joint – something went awry. Something went TERRIBLY WRONG. My head became foggy, my arms and legs became heavy and unresponsive, and my vision turned reddish. I grabbed myself, tried to calm myself down, and shook the feeling off. It was gone. I turned to my friend and said that I was done with smoking forever. He just laughed. A few minutes later the feeling came back, stronger now! :( …. For the rest of the day I rolled on the ground, drank gallons of water from a well, begged my friends to ask their mothers to give me some “calming medication”, and just prayed, and prayed, and cried. My heart was racing – I counted closely to 200 beats per minute. I felt like my consciousness was slipping away – I clutched into objects – trees, benches, and repeated their names to make sure I was “still there”. My friends kept laughing, and prancing around me, high as they were. When the night came, they all sobered and left… and I was left there all alone, sitting on a curb, with my head between my knees. I waited for another hour, to make sure the traces of drug would leave my system, then went home and ask my mom to call the ambulance. The ambulance came, and gave me something, one or two shots, and I told them that I’ve been running too much and drank coffee at my friend’s. Whatever they gave me, it left me weak and I laid down. The room was spinning around me, but my heart was calming down. I fall asleep, finally. ….. . . .. Just to wake up in the middle of the night with my heart racing. And I just cried myself into sleep yet again. I was back to normal next morning, and I blamed everything on a heart attack, a bad trip, or whatever rot you can think of. No prior experience of this, and no sufficient knowledge.

A few days later, the feeling of depersonalization came. Along a constant fear of having another heart palpitation, with periodical actual palpitations, and with constant shortness of breath – they staid with me for almost TWO YEARS.

I never felt like I was there. When people would speak to me, I felt like their voices were coming from somewhere far-far away, while the people themselves were right infront of me. Whenever I would look at things – walls, ground – I would notice the tiniest details of their structure, like little cracks, or ants crawling on the floor, or bits of dust. Seeing these small things detracted me from perceiving the bigger image, it was like my sight would zoom in if only I didn’t shift my eyes nonstop. I, too, questioned where I was real, and why everything around me looked like a cartoon (no object had a sense of volume to it, everything looked flat). The fear of death – so intense, that I kept counting my heart beats to make sure they would not exceed the normally acceptable values. Much of my free time, I sat there, measuring my heart beats against a watch. I couldn’t breath – I would keep trying to inhale as much as I could, because I thought I was suffocating. I slipped into a depression so strong that I question whether I was still alive, didn’t even bother with thinking of committing a suicide.

I started working out, wrestling and weightlifting. I was bursting with health – I could run for miles, and do about fifteen pull-ups, and bench press more than I should’ve been able to at my age of 15 or 16. I never used the elevator to get up to the ninth floor where I lived. Alas, it didn’t help much to my overall condition. I always felt unreal, suffocating (except when exercising), and had periodic heart palpitations. At that point I “realized” that I must’ve had some incurable disease, which was slowly killing me. I went to hospitals to undergo examinations, and they were unable to come up with anything conclusive.

My mom’s friend, a doctor, realized that something must have been amiss in my jar. So she prescribed me a drug. Something based on belladonna. I don’t recall its name and I don’t believe it’s produced in the US, or even if it is whether it has the same name. After I popped a pill, the effect was amazing. CLARITY OF MIND, at last! It made me feel calm, and a little cold – so all I wanted was just to get a warm blanket and play a video game, or watch a movie. It rid me of my hellish suffering in a month or two.

What did I get out of that? At the end, I came out a stronger person. The time I spent “locked” within myself, thinking and pondering, gave me a strong insight on meaning of life, on human values. I knew it all now. I prevailed at my career goals, and moved to the US, currently I’m about to graduate from a college with a degree in computer science. Every now and then I have mild depressions, even short lasting anxiety attacks. But I know how to cope with them. And I also have an advice for you! :)

DON”T GIVE UP, never f**ing give up. This condition of yours is most probably curable, just seek help. Ask the doctors to prescribe you drugs for YOUR CONDITION, tell it how it is, don’t be afraid to reveal the truth (amazingly, in my case, my parents never found out what I went through). Even if this is to stay with you – LEARN HOW TO LIVE WITH IT. You’re normal, it’s just something that makes you feel as though you aren’t. THE THOUGHT, IS TRIGGERED BY FEAR. Whether it’s the fateful joint that you had a misfortune to smoke (like I did) or something else, it scared us to death. The feeling of unreality is itself scary, especially to uninitiated. Rid yourself of this thought, don’t let it occupy your mind. Rather, try to occupy your mind with something, find a hobby – whether it’s playing video games, learning Chinese, or gazing at the winter clear night sky. Learn astronomy, buy a pair of binoculars and take a look at the moon – you’ll be amazed at what you will see! But for god’s sake, stop pondering on whether you feel real or not. This thought leads to nothing, as there’s no question to be answered – of course you’re real (otherwise, how’d you be able to read and post in this thread, doh). It’s like an idle loop (a computer science term) that keeps running in your brain, dragging you down into the abyss. Even healthy people would go insane if they think about what reality is too much. Whenever you start thinking of weird things (and you should be able to tell weird from reasonable, if you’re not a village idiot =) ) say to yourself – F**K IT, WHY DO I EVEN BOTHER WITH THINKING ABOUT IT?
Secondly, don’t let the “physical symptoms” bring you down. If your feet feel heavy, or you experience heart palpitations, go and perform a hospital test. If nothing is wrong with that part of your body – you know where those sensations are coming from. So learn to ignore them. While talking to people, concentrate on what they’re telling you, not on whether they look unreal to you. Don’t let it affect your job performance.

That’s what I had to say to you. You are your own master, and you’re as real as this post you’re seeing in front of your eyes. Your situations are all different, and only you know yourself well enough to take the steps in the right direction. And remember, you’re not alone. Just look at this thread – 20 thousand people read it! We’re all over the world, of many different nationalities and social classes, and many of use made stupid mistakes for which we have to pay in this horrible way.

P.S. As I read this thread, initially I wanted to move along, because technically this doesn’t concern my personally anymore. But then I read more – from a young guy who still feels it, from a mother who only lives for her daughter, from a guy thinking that he’s already dead, and from all others – and I started crying :( Believe me, I know how you feel. So I registered so that I could write this little comment (which nothing on earth will make me to check for grammatical or spelling errors, no siiir). Hopefully this little insight on my experience will help someone out there to get their sh*t together, and to refrain from resorting to unnecessarily extreme measures.

P.S.#2 This concerns a young guy who mentioned that he keep hearing looping songs in his head when he goes to sleep. This is something known as “racing thoughts”, and may or may not be related to the feeling of depersonalization. Go to a doctor and ask him/her to fix you up. And remember, don’t try “to act normal”, because you are normal.

Good luck all.

My previous post came out too long, so here’s a brief summary:

I was 14 to 15 y.o. when I smoked that fateful joint. I smoked the same amount and the same stuff as what my friends did, and nothing happened to them.


The symptoms prevailed for almost two years.

The symptoms that I had included:
- severe depersonalization (derealization)
- I felt like the world around me was two dimensional, completely flat
- I thought that I already died but my spirit somehow didn’t notice that and just kept walking around
- I felt like I was a mere observer of what my body did and said, like I was watching a movie about myself rather than being a participant
- Whenever someone would talk to me, it felt like their voices came from a long distance away, and didn’t synchronize with their lip movement
- Whenever I looked at objects or people, me eyes would focus on some small unimportant details, like a little crack on a wall, or a tiny spot on someone face, preventing me from focusing on the bigger picture
- I felt constant shortness of breath, except for a few hours in the morning after I just woke up
- I experienced severe heart palpitations (150+/min)
- I constantly pondered about the meaning of life, and whether or not I was already dead
- I didn’t experience any emotions, e.g. joy, love, frustration, excitement, comradeship; nothing would touch me.
- I was afraid that I had all kinds of incurable diseases, particularly a heart disease


What I tried to do to help myself:

- working out
- acquiring interests like vide gaming, star watching, reading
- self control and meditation
- I also took some drug, which helped a lot. Don’t remember the name, but it contained belladonna extract
- I sort of grew out of it. Perhaps I got so used to it that I stopped noticing it


How did it affect me in the long run:

- I think I’m a stronger person now, with an insight that most people don’t have
- I’m prone to periodic panic attacks and heart palpitations. Although they can be really bad sometimes, I more or less learned how to cope with them.
- Personality wise, I became sort of gloomy and depressing, e.g. I often wonder what’s so funny, prefer dark music, and windy weather (a goth type, which I think I’m not, haha)

What I suggest you:

- DON’T give up. The help is available, and it’s possible to learn how to live with this condition
- DON’T be afraid. It’s not fatal, it’s not noticed by people around you, it’s not gonna get you unless you let it to.
- STOP thinking about your condition all the time. Stop questioning the reality of things, occupy your mind with positive thoughts.
- SEEK HELP. Tell the doctors how it is, mentioned the weed (if that’s what caused it).
- Improve your health, life style, and physical fitness.
- Help others who are still in the dark about what’s happening to them.


Good luck all! Stay strong, stay vigilant. DON’T repeat the same mistakes again.
And sorry for a repost, ha =)


P.S. To the young guy who said he can’t get song tunes out of his head, and keep hearing them, especially while trying to sleep. This is known as “racing thoughts”, and is another mental disorder. If you still have it, you should seek help for it too, as it’s something different than depersonalization.

In the drift,

You are going to torture us all by not telling us the name of the substance that helped rid you of your DP. Please try to find it or get ahold of the doc that gave it to you. I've had DP/DR for 11 years, 24/7 so you can see where I am coming from. Other than that, your post was helpful.

BL

I can't believe that you've been in this condition for 11 years. Why? Were the doctors not able to help you?

But yeah, I'll do as you ask. I'll try to find more information on the drug that alleviated my problem. Although I firmly believe that a professional psychiatrist or a neurologist would be able to come up with a better advice.

Can't tell you when (and whether) I'll find the info, though. It was more than ten years ago, we moved, those doctors people don’t work there anymore, I'm busy, and don't even know where to start looking. But I'm sure that once I post it here you will be notified through email.

P.S. Please let us know how come your condition lasted so long.

Hi again,

Just a note on the well-intentioned email about Niacin by Steve Lord. I am a recovered DR person (after 20 years 24/7) and I can tell you flat out that those involved in DR do not want Niacin. If you are still in the grip of DR, you still have major unsolved anxiety issues beneath the surface. Niacin in high doses will quickly induce a moderate to severe panic attack. And if the rush doesn't induce the panic, looking at your beet-red face and neck in the mirror probably will (LOL). It may have worked for the trippin hippies but I wouldn't recommend it here.

tchill2

does anyone know any medication that will cure this? Please i need to know. Im being put in teh hospital...theyre idiots they think tis the dopemine levels in my brain...which its not! what do i do?

does anyone here know about the dpselfhelp site? I found this site before i found that one and i think that if anyone here does not know about it they should definatly check it out!!

I believe I have mentioned the dpselfhelp website a number of times on this website. Yes, it is likely the best site out there for depersonalization sufferers. You can also visit NODID, a website for drug-induced disorders. Just google it and you will fine the site. We are not allowed to name websites on this site so I cannot use the full address.

INTHEDRIFT:

I, like many others, had a very hard time finding the appropriate diagnosis. And I did see many, many doctors throughout the last ten years. I even spoke specifically and in detail of my DP symptoms. Firstly, I was so young (14) it was hard to convince anyone I wasn't just depressed. My symptoms were often blamed on things such as my parents divorce. No one would listen to me despite how persistant I was with doctors. I had only minor help from meds until recently. Now 11 years later, my current psych is calling it a rare form of schizophrenia which I am fine with. I still sometimes feel it is DPD and not schizophrenia. Maybe it is somewhere in between. Nobody really knows.
What matters is if the help I am getting is working. It has somewhat thus far.

Have you found out anything about that herb you took yet? Please get back to us on that. I have never heard of Bella Donna before and I have been speaking to those with DP for sometime now. I have even been involved with a survey about DPD that was carried out through my organization: The National Organization For Drug-Induced Disorders (NODID) where I am a director of dissociative disorder research. Visit this website for preliminary survey results!

My best to you all.

In case any of you are out of the DP loop, which you probably are if you only visit this site, their is a book which is soon to be released all about Depersonalization Disorder. It is called Feeling Unreal: Depersonalization Disorder and The Loss of Self. It is by Dr. Daphne Simeon and you can find it on Amazon. Daphne is one of the primary researchers of Depersonalization Disorder.

As for WHAT MEDS HELP DP the most, a recent study by NODID, an organization I belong to, suggests SSRIs and benzodiazapines are the most effective meds to date. They are by no means a cure all. You can view the preliminary survey findings at the NODID website. The study will later be published.

Hey BL,

Sorry I didnt reply, I warned you that I wouldnt have much time for anything besides my finals. Im going through an extremely hard period of my life, I think I have stress and Im almost ready to snap - good think the last exam is on Friday, and I dont even care anymore whether I pass or fail. So there :)

Check out this link w w w dot botanical dot com | botanical | mgmh | n | nighde05 dot html

This is a description of the plant I was talking about. Im not sure if I got prescribed the drug to cure DRDP or my obsession with checking my pulse, so I apologize in advance if Im giving any false clues here. Im not affiliated with any medical or online community dealing with DRDP, and dont have any medical knowledge to back up my claims.

Ill try to get in touch with the doctor. The contact is long lost, I dont even know where she lives now, but Ill try.

Good to know something is working for you now. Good luck, hang in there and keep updating people with useful info.

i have seen many two people now mention belladonna. Isn't belladonna a hallucigion though? And how does it work and does it really work?

Hi Gerigurl:

Be careful with regard to the Bella Donna! It's other name is deadly Nightshade. It is poison that in small doses, has medicinal value. However, as a cure for DR, I think it would be suspect. It is known to cause feelings of unreality as opposed to curing them! At least that is how I understand it.

Tchill2

does anyone feel like dp/dr is giving them ocd or ocd like symptoms , i dont really have compulsions, i get this thing where i repeat things in my head , like things iv said , things someone else said or things i think about saying, i never had this problem before dp/dr and it freaks me out. I also get songs stuck in my head really easily.

search google for "racing thoughts"

I get ocd like symptoms when I have dp/dr.. the same sort of things that you are describing. When I am dp/dr free.. I don't have the symptoms.

Way back in the thread is a question asking has anyone tried The Linden Method.

There seems a lot of negativity about it. I have tried it, and it has turned my life around. No it is not a scam, it costs only £58-00 and has a permanent affect if like me, you did suffer from Generalised Anxiety Disorder. I no longer suffer from Panic Attaks or feelinfgs of unreality.

Give it a try, choice is either another decade of Panic Attacks or freedom and confidence. I chose the later and am glad that i did. I simply cannot praise it enough.

Yes he may have made money out of it, what business doesn't. Good luck to him I say. He deserves every penny.

Belladonna~ maybe it was *homeopathic* belladonna, whcih is not harmful at all and I know is good for helping ppl "focus". Try to find out! Start a new thread keeping the discussion to homeopathy (you still have this thread to discuss these other things- which has been helpful for me to read). But ask the homeopaths about belladonna for this.

Rebecca

I don’t know what to do anymore iv been stuck inside my house for 4 years now with agoraphobia I have not drove my car in 4 years or had a job in five years all because I have really bad anxiety,panic attacks,and derealization and its to the point now that I’m scared of almost everything like simple little stupid things like sneezing cause I feel I cant breath or coughing scares me and dry mouth and throat or if I’m home alone and the power goes out and the air conditioner goes out and I get heat exhaustion from it if that’s not bad enough the anxiety makes it worse cause anxiety makes it so I cant breath and like I’m going to pass out and I cant eat or drink or take care of myself when that crap happens so its like that scariest thing in the world and its constant feeling of What The F*%$!! Its like nomatter what I do I’m on the edge and of course you would ask me Have You Seen A Doc about this and the answer is yes iv seen them all And Yes iv tried all the meds and yes iv seen therapist and psychiatrics and still nothing helps I just don’t know what to do anymore I’m so frustrated and sad cause its like I don’t even live anymore its like I’m out of it all the time and feel as though I’m in a dream and my eyes mess up when I look at fast movements or florescent lights and I have all these crazy thoughts that come out of nowhere and they scare me bad cause its not me to think of something like that its just really crazy I just wish somebody knew what I was talking about ……….

weird-
i no exactly how you feel! wow yousound exactly like me...flouresent lights irrate my eyes...they make me nervous....i never feel inside my sefl....i feel like im watching a movie and im not even intrested in the things i once used to be intrested in. The thought that im in a "daze" is constantly on my mind. I dont no how to be "normal" again. I forgot...my love life suffers....my boyfriend donesnt understand and i constanly dont remember what to do. Time stands still. And my eyes always feel so heavy.....

Dear Wierd,

I and several others have used this simple technique for anxiety (and thus panic attack would apply too). It works because it immediately changes your brainwaves to our most soothing , healing brainwave state called theta.

Just put your tv set on a non broadcasting channel whereby you will see the pure snow or static with no bleedthrough from a nearby channel. Turn the sound totally off so as not to be irritated by that annoying sound. Just keep looking at the static or snow. It startes working within a few seconds. You will feel yourself relax and your anxiety start to go down right away.

I read on a Doctor's website that some new tv sets may have a blue screen that blocks that snow and that that blue screen can be defeated using the tv set up on the remote control.

Whether this will help with the depersonalization I do not know but someone can try it for that and tell us. This method has many, many uses for different types of healing.

Finally if you need to do other things, it is partially effective, just not as much, even if not looking directly at the screen, as long as it is in your peripheral vision, even if you are reading, etc.

If it worked you could even buy a portable tv set, I bought a very small one for 30 dollars that used batteries and take it with you when you go out. I have used it in my car for example slthough for the strongest effect a nineteen inch (or larger) set was needed.

Let us know what happens.

Steve

lol a t.v. set an watching static ? lol ive neaver heard of somthing like that although i do watch alot of t.v. so i might give it a try what can it hurt ...