Hi all, been a long time reader here but this will be my first and last post. It's been a year today since my own long term comedown began, and like so many of you I ended up here on this site looking for answers. I can't even begin to describe how many sleepless nights I spent scouring every forum I could find, every thread on this site, looking for answers, looking for hopeful stories... and knowing how much those stories that I found helped me in the absolute darkest days, I promised that I'd come back to post my own.
I took 120mg (tested). It was my first time, and I was also drinking. Had an amazing night… one of the best of my life, actually… but woke up the next day with crushing symptoms, of which I know that you're all familiar, so I won't spend too much time on them.
Depression -- I'm not talking about "Tuesday blues", I'm talking soul-crushing, can't get out of bed, melting through the floor, wouldn't have cared if someone had called to tell me I'd won the lottery type of depression (and I had never even been mildly depressed before, nor have a history of any mental illnesses in my family).
DP/DR -- I really only had DR, I think, and not so much DP, but this was by far the worst symptom for me after the depression started to lessen (after the first month or so). Nothing I looked at was in focus if it was further away than about five feet from me (anything further than what I could reach out and touch). Fluorescent lights were the worst. I'd walk into a super market and was almost blind.
Lack of appetite -- couldn't even stomach the thought of food for about the first 3-4 weeks.
Sleep/energy -- I know a lot of people complain of insomnia, but I had the exact opposite… I could have slept away the entire first month and not gotten out of bed at all. Complete apathy, no energy to even take a shower or brush my teeth, it felt like this went hand-in-hand with the depression.
Brain fog -- Had absolutely zero critical thinking ability. Felt like I was trying to think through a wall. Also very scary and very frustrating.
There were of course other smaller things, like very strange body temperature fluctuations, but those listed above were the biggest and most debilitating, and took the longest to go. I know everyone's familiar with them, and the others, so I won't do the whole list. The point is that they do go away. It does get better.
I looked into every remedy or suggestion that I could find on all these threads and tried all of them (with the exception of prescription AD's). Nothing seemed to work or change anything in a significant way. The only two things that worked for me are the two things that you hear people on here talk about over and over and over and over.
1) Exercise.
2) Time.
Those are the only two things that helped me, and I found aerobic exercise to be much better than weight training or anything else like that, and after my symptoms started to lessen I would always feel better for the rest of the day after running 3-5 miles. The first month I exercised as much as I could but didn't feel any change. I'm here to tell you, though, being on the other side of it now… even if you don't feel it in the beginning, it's helping, and is the absolute best thing that you can do, even if you have to start with just walking short distances.
The DP/DR was truly one of the most scary and frustrating things that I've ever experienced, and this is a post that I found that helped me cope with it until it eventually went away, so I thought I'd share that as well, since it's quite optimistic and uplifting, and so many people in the DP/DR forums just say that that they've had it their whole lives and you're going to be just the same as them, which is not true:
http://www.medhelp.org/user_journal...umn-about-depersonalization-and-derealization
So all I really wanted to do was add another voice of support and encouragement to everyone on here who is currently suffering, and those that will undoubtedly find themselves here in the future, to say one more time that it does get better. Listen to all the stories on here. Nobody can tell you when or how long it'll take… but abstain from drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, and live as healthy as you can, and it does get better. Time and exercise. I consider myself changed from having gone through the experience, but I also now consider myself 100% healthy, which is something that seemed completely impossible or unattainable even just a few months ago.
Thanks to all those who answered my DMs toward the end of my experience. You helped me overcome the last hurdles, and I truly appreciate it. To everyone who is suffering… recovery is more than possible.
Stay strong.
Andrew
