Mental Health My experience and tips about Depersonalization

[Vaki]

I'm sure that a lot of people like me have experienced depersonalization that was triggered by drugs. I thought that posting my story and writting the things that helped me get rid of it might help people that are trying to deal with it.

My depersonalization (DP) was triggered by weed even though there were other factors that might have "helped" like very little sleep, some alcohol and a dramamine (I get nauseous in the car) the previous day. I was at a 5 day trip with our high school and me and my friends have brought a massive amount of weed with us. At that time I was smoking probably about 2-3 times a week but during the school trip we were smoking ALL day long. On the 4th day after smoking the second joint of the day which I shared with a friend we got into the bus to continue our trip and even though I was just mildly high, when the bus started and I was looking outside the window and I started hallucinated (something between delirium and hallucinations) all of a sudden I feel a twitch all over my body and next thing I know my vision sort of zoomed out and I'm staring at my self from above (what some people call astral projection I believe). Everything at that point starts getting brighter to the point that everything was white and I just thought to my self "ok, you're either dying or you're officially crazy", after that my vision "zoomed in" to normal and I realised that nothing felt real.. Everything I saw, said, felt and experienced felt like a dream or a movie. I was like a passive viewer in my own life... It was awful but I kept my cool and realized that by freaking out I wouldn't make it better so I tried to enjoy my unusual high.

The first day that it was triggered I was DP all day long until I went to bed and I woke up fine but soon it was back. And that's where I started to worry that it would never go away and that I have to live like that forever. The first week was a nightmare! I've never felt so depressed before. I was thinking about self harm just to feel something and I would even have suicidal thoughts. I felt like an emotionless zombie and nothing really matter in life. Of course I didn't try to suicide or cause any self harm because I knew that even thinking about it was idiotic. Slowly DP was going away. Every day I was a little better than the previous one and in about a week and a half I wasn't DP 24/7 anymore but it would come and go leaving me a couple of hours of feeling normal again. Week by week I was getting better and the DP "episodes" were less and less frequent.

But they didn't go away on their own! As soon as I was back home from the trip I researched about it and did a couple of things that I think help me a lot!

-I quit weed (and every drug including alcohol) for quite some time
-I started eating VERY healthy so I could detox and replenish all the vitamins I needed to recover
-I didn't freak out (well maybe a little..). I realized that freaking out would cause a lot of anxiety, paranoia and that's not something that could help me at all.
-I stayed positive. This is very important. I grabed on every sign of progress that I could see no matter how tiny it was, to help me stay positive. Positive mental attitude is VERY important for any kind of healing (ever heard of placebo effect?)
-I found that going outside helped me a lot. While I was staying in the house depressed, lonely, paranoid and full of anxiety it only made things worse. Going out especially on sunny days was a bliss!
-I started working out. I was not the type of person that would work out... AT ALL.. but it worked like a charm both psychologically and physically. The extreme work out made me FEEL exhausted and together with the chemicals released during the workout like endorphines, serotonine and dopamine made me feel human again.
-I was patient. Another thing that I realized was that no matter what I did DP wouldn't magically go away in a day. It would take time and effort.

It's been about 2 years now and the last time I felt DP was about 6 months ago and it only lasted for a couple of second. It felt more of a deja-vu than DP tbh. I'm more than fine now I still smoke weed and other take drugs without a problem, but that's only because I don't abuse any of them, I deal with them with caution and respect and always make sure my brain chemistry gets what it needs to be back to normal (time between drug experiences, eating healthy and supplements if necessary). Even though the recovery was a miserable journey especially at first it made me realize that ALL drugs no matter how "innocent" they look must be treated with respect and that you should take it slow and never cross your body's and mind's limits. I can even say that I'm happy I experienced DP because it taught me an important lesson and it made me more mature.

Good luck with anyone dealing with depersonalization. It really is gonna be better with time! Take care of your body and mind!

 

[tundradesert523]

Thanks for this! This is something that I've been dealing with and I think at some point I got used to it. It wasn't until I stopped using all drugs and alcohol for a long time that I realized how "out of it" I really was. I also stopped smoking cigarettes. At first it made things much worse but now it seems that I'm getting better than ever, even though I still have my off days. Sometimes multiple days at a time. But the bad days are getting to be less apparent.

 

[herbavore]

Those are great strategies, OP, and I commend you for coming to them on your own and then actually putting them into action. They are all important (and synergistic!) but I especially like #3: "I didn't freak out". People tend to make things so much worse by compounding what they are going through with anxious fatalistic thoughts like "this will never end" or "I have ruined my brain".

 

[Mracid]

From what I know and have experianced of DP it seems to be triggered by intense dopamine release or intense glutamic acid blockade. So stoping drugs is THE way to go. I'd suggest starting the use dietary supplement tho, they are safe and usually effective when used properly.

I found one good with helping studying and training, and also fighting anxiety (nearly all kind), DP, even depression; Noopept. One of its advendages is that it is neuroprotective and nootropic which help the brain reconnect with reality. It produce a state with increased senses,not altered senses, elevated mood, not altered mood. Basically noopept is a prodrug (molecule inactive unless the body transforms it) of an endogenous (alredy inside body) peptide (molecule created by attachement of amino acids like tryptophan, GABA, Glutamic acid, tyrosine etc). Another example of an endogenus peptide are endorphins.

Last thing to know about this substance is that even tho the psychiatric use is temporary the cognitive improvement is permanent even after stopping the substance. It basically helps your brain builds itself. It sure helped me for DP, school and social relations so I give it a good grade !

 

[adder]

I've been suffering from derealization/depersonalization (I will just refer to this as dissociation) since I quit benzodiazepines almost 2 years ago. It's much much better now as I only get episodes of dissociation while at the very beginning I was constantly feeling as if I was living in a nightmare. Constant dissociation is a very weird state of mind, to this very day I don't have one answer why I would get dissociated. One thing I realized was that it often happened when I was very anxious and nervous, and usually in such situations I would have soon exploded with extreme rage, but instead I shut down completely. For me dissociation is like a defensive mechanism against emotional overdrive. That's what happens when you stop taking benzodiazepines after many years spent on them, suddenly you start feeling everything on a completely different level, everything is so bright and sharp, most often too bright and too sharp at the very beginning. Have anyone felt this way? At the very beginning dissociation is frightening on its own and makes you freak out, but at times I was able to find some logic in this chaos, when feeling dissociated I am sometimes able to look at myself much more objectively as if observing from the outside, it's actually how I managed to make my dissociation episodes resolve themselves for the first few times, I guess.

I fully agree with all your tips although I often fail to maintain continuity with all of them and I'd like to emphasize the importance of direct contact with people. It helped me a lot after the first 6 months of withdrawal passed. At the beginning it was very painful as I couldn't cope with too much emotions that I couldn't control at all, but with time I started noticing that the more time I spent with friendly people, the less dissociated I felt. I don't really have any friends here, a few people who I had good contact with all went abroad, so I felt very lost, well, I've always felt lost, so it was a very good feeling when I finally met a few people who had a positive impact on me and accepted me the way I am. If this life here is worth anything, it's due to those short moments of mutual transcendence without shame, worry, and pain.

 

[herbavore]

... so it was a very good feeling when I finally met a few people who had a positive impact on me and accepted me the way I am. If this life here is worth anything, it's due to those short moments of mutual transcendence without shame, worry, and pain.

I think when more and more of us that suffer anxiety, emotional overload, shame of being etc have these realizations that we begin to see the need to not only seek out those people for ourselves but to be those people for others around us. Anxiety holds you firmly in your own discomfort, your own ego, and when you reach out to ease the shame or discomfort someone else is feeling you magically step out of your own discomfort IME.

Congrats to everyone successfully navigating the world of strong emotions and emotional sensitivity. No doubt you are all a lot younger than I and it took me quite a few years of struggle to even approach an understanding, let alone positive strategies to change.

 

[neurotic]

For me dissociation is like a defensive mechanism against emotional overdrive.

my thoughts exactly

 

[dmtmixalis]

Never had dp, sounds scary as shit. I have suffered on and off from dr and it's the weirdest sensation ever. It's like constantly coming up on lsd. Really sharp visual acuity. When I don't pay attention to it, it dissipates to the back of my mind. But it lingers at the back.