Depersonalization Disorder Victim..

[Anunfamiliarceiling]

Hello!

My name is Erin, I'm 25 and I'm in the Southern Texas Area.

I was diagnosed with Depersonalization Disorder in 2009 after I started having a feeling of living in a dream after I smoked weed for the first time. I have struggled with the disorder on and off daily and have yet to find anyone who has the disorder as well. There are some people on YouTube, but I haven't found any support groups or even therapists who are comfortable treating me.

It's been very hard to manage.. I also have been diagnosed with ADHD, PTSD, and Deppression. I'm taking CONCERTA, Clonasapam and Zoloft. I feel a little better on meds, but I've noticed a spike in mood swings that last a few minuets to a few hours. I hate that I'll have a spike of happiness, then a bad thought ruins my mood for an hour than I'm happy again.

Sometimes if I have to go pee for a long time I get triggered and feel like I'm dreaming and I then freak out and start having an anxiety attack. The same happens randomly through the day, but I haven't found all the triggers or how to stop it.

Of course if I'm distracted or in a good mood, I don't notice it as much. But it's always lingering... I haven't lost hope, I know there are others out there and I know we can help each other!

I just want some relief, I want to feel real.. I want to feel alive. Because most times I feel as if I'm a ghost hosting this body.

[Murphy]

Hi Erin! I'm so sorry you're going through that. It sounds awful.

[Anunfamiliarceiling]

Thank you! I appreciate it!

[Boogi3]

Hi Erin, my name is Lisa. I live in Canada and I’m also 25.
It seems like a lifetime ago now, but (I think) I have experienced what you are experiencing. I have never come across anyone who could relate to what I went through, so I am so excited to find your post here.

I want to say first, that I am doing well now and no longer experiencing any symptoms. I do currently struggle with depression (and I’m medicated for both depression and Generalized Anxiety Disorder), but regarding that ‘dream state’ that I thought for so long I’d be stuck in, I am on the other side of it all now and couldn’t be more grateful.

I also want to say that I have forgotten so many parts of my story. There’s a lot that’s missing or fuzzy and I am kinda unsure of the chronology/sequence of events. Sometimes I wish I had of written down all that I went through when the feelings were visceral to me, but during that time I couldn’t face what was happening to me and didn’t have the awareness or guidance to do much besides ‘survive’.

Anyway, I guess I’ll start. (This is gonna be a long post.)

I spent the tail end of high school dabbling with marijuana, smoking on average maybe anywhere from 2-5 times a month with friends. The very last time I smoked I got higher than I ever had before. I remember it was a warm summer night and I smoked up with few people on a whim for something to do. A few minutes after passing the joint around, my friend who was driving everyone around that night got a call that she had to go home. We were all pretty bummed out to have to go home to our respective houses as high as we were, but part of me was excited to be high and alone for the first time as I had some Doors and Janis Joplin CDs I wanted to ‘experience’ under the influence. I remember lying on my bed in my room and listening to the music and my closed eyelids were like little screens for the projector inside my mind. I was seeing so many different images and like cool ‘trippy’ moving pictures. This was the first time I had a reaction like this, I suppose the THC was on the high side. I don’t remember the experience being particularly negative though and and if I recall correctly I was relaxed and fell asleep in this state.

[Just a side note, I think it's worthy to note that I almost never had good experiences when I got high. I would say probably half the time I would have 'bad trips' where my heart would pound and my hands would go numb and tingly and I would panic hardcore. It always felt like all the blood would suddenly leave my stomach and a sense of dread would come upon me. Also, a kind of 'in a bubble' dissociated feeling. I kept smoking every now and again though out of stubbornness I guess. My friends told me that 'eventually I'd get used to it' and I guess that sounded like sound logic to me.]

Anyway, this is where things get blurry for me.

I’m going to tell you the events I remember, but they may not have happened in this order.

I remember waking up the next day and not being high anymore. I remember getting my hair cut that afternoon (I think), and being really conscious of the smock that the hairdresser put on me, like really aware of it touching my neck. I don’t think I asked her to loosen it but I felt sort of anxious and like it was too tight. This was the first time I ever felt any kind of anxiety like this before.

Next memory I have is (I think) maybe a few days to a week later. I was working my part time job at movie rental place. I was probably 2/3’s of the way through my shift when I was serving a customer and as I took the five dollar bill out of his hand to put in my till everything went almost in slow motion or like, got strangely affected, and I felt really weird and almost high all of a sudden. First thought was ‘what the fuck is this’ and after a little while I called a friend from the work phone to tell her I felt ‘high as fuck’ and didn't know what was going on. She asked me why I was smoking at work and I had to explain to her that I hadn’t smoked anything.

I can’t remember how long this headspace lasted, but it was a long time. Maybe a year? Maybe less? Maybe more? I wish I knew. When I tried to explain to people what I was going through, I told them I felt ‘permafried’, like something in my brain ‘broke’ and was irreparably damaged. The feeling of ‘high-ness’ and dissociation wasn’t an ‘off and on thing’; the altered headspace was my new and permanent reality that I couldn’t break free of. It was like a living nightmare. I remember telling my mom as we drove in the car one night that everything felt like I was ‘in a doll house’. I remember how eerie and horrible florescent lighting made me feel and how much dread I felt when the sun went down and that half light/dusk time of the day started. I also remember remembering what it felt like to be ‘normal’ and wondering if I would ever get back to that place.

Now things get really blurry.

At some point my perceptions normalized, but I was left with crippling anxiety and a major panic disorder. I saw a few doctors, and had multiple trips to the ER thinking I was dying. The constant state of panic was exhausting and my panic attacks were unrelenting. No one really seemed to know how, or care to, try and see what was wrong with me. No tests were ran and the only real feedback I got from the couple of doctor’s I saw was that I had a bad reaction to pot and that it would leave my system sooner or later.

I was eating sparingly and had no sensation of hunger the longer I went without food. I remember my throat and neck constantly felt tight and like I couldn’t breathe so eating was near impossible. I lost so much weight.

I lived in a constant state of anxiety with absolutely zero reprise. I was on the brink of having a panic attack at ALL. TIMES. I could keep them at bay or keep them small when I had someone with me, but the moment I was alone I would fly into an attack that would only stop when my body wore out. And then the cycle would repeat. Eventually I learned to train myself to combat the attacks because it wasn’t feasible to have someone with me 24-7. When my parents left for their 9-5 jobs, I compulsively watched mindless daytime TV (I remember watching so much shitty television) and making phone calls to them or a close friend when I absolutely needed to.

I missed a long stretch of high school as I couldn’t leave my house let alone socialize or deal with the pressures of school, so that’s why I was home all the time. I would sit for hours, white knuckled and staring at the TV trying to avoid the panic. When my mother came home I would follow her around the house like a puppy dog and try to eat when she was with me in case I choked.

I basically fell out of life. I couldn't hang out with friends. I couldn't even sit to read a book. I just fucking broke.

The only diagnoses I got during this time was one of ‘Generalized Anxiety Disorder’, this was from my family doctor. He told me that he desperately wanted me to start on medication because of the severe anxiety. I resisted for a long time because I was afraid, and my mother ‘didn’t want me to have to be on pills for the rest of my life’. Eventually though, after being beaten down to a near ghost of my former self and becoming too exhausted to even worry anymore, I agreed to start medication because nothing could get any worse.

I started with .5mg of Cipralex (Lexapro) and gradually increased to 10mg. It was a slow process but gradually I got my life back. I couldn't tell you that ‘timeline’ either. I just remember years of baby steps and slowly becoming ‘normal’ and then all of a sudden finding myself on the other side of it all where I am today, looking back on it all as if it was all almost a dream.

There’s more to my story and current situation but I’m going to stop here because this post is massive. I will gladly post more if you have any questions or want to know anything else.

Also, just curious, what YouTube users have you found that you relate to? And I agree, finding support groups can be difficult. Paul always speaks so highly of them but I haven’t come across any over the years. Maybe I need to look more aggressively.

Lastly, I’m curious as to what you mean when you say you haven’t found therapists that are comfortable treating you? I’ve been in therapy myself for nearly five years and it’s been a tremendous help. I hope you can find someone to help you with your issues soon!

If you made it through this post, thanks for taking the time to read it. Take care and message me any time!

xo Lisa