Starving the Thoughts and Patience

        First, I would like to apologize to anyone who visits this blog from time to time in order to help aid in her or his recovery.  I have not been keeping up with my posts in recent weeks, which in some ways is a good sign, but does reflect a failure on my part to maintain a commitment to helping others as I continue to feel better.  My rationale and strategy recently has been to make DP/DR a less prominent part of my life, which is why I have not even been checking the email for the blog doing anything DP/DR related on the computer during the last few weeks.
        That being said I have learned that this strategy has proven effective in many ways.  Although I originally started the blog in order to help myself and others along the way in the recovery and healing process I did get some satisfaction in checking my blog and seeing that people were actually reading it and seemed to care about what I had to say.  Not that I was happy that people felt the need to seek the input of others (believe me I would not wish these circumstances on anyone), I think I experienced a normal level of pride or satisfaction in being recognized.  The problem with that is that I was associating blogging with something that was positive and wanted to hold on to in a way.  While the blog was initiated for my healing, it also became a part of my identity, which I think hindered my attempts to fully heal.  After reflecting on this a bit, I decided that religiously keeping up on my blog was not serving me and in turn would likely not be serving others either.  I do maintain that my ability and willingness to start focusing my energy on other people in my life has helped deflect my attention from the existential ruminations that were torturing me, however this can have negative consequences as well.  I started to take ownership of other people's symptoms, which could exacerbate my own.  As a result, I believe that we must be careful and deliberate in our attempts to help out.  I think that blogs, forums, and self-help websites serve an important role in helping ourselves and helping others, but I would caution anyone who starts her or his own blog or forum should consider the potential outcomes of the work and should also set clear boundaries for the project.  I have learned that the blog best serves me when I only check it when I have something to say.  In prior weeks I would sit down and start writing.  Now, I will only write on this blog if I have something to say and believe that it will serve others.  I do believe that it is important to "send the elevator back down" to the people still suffering terribly from DP/DR in order to help them achieve their goals.  Many people on the forum who have fully recovered say that they will never return to the website or the forum because they want no memory of what DP/DR is and what it was in their lives.  From the outset I believed that this would not be me, yet the people who have made this commitment do have a point.  In order for DP/DR to no longer be a part of your life it can not be a part of your life, meaning DP/DR should not factor into your day any more than it has to.  I have decided however that for the time being I will keep up the blog, but be more calculated in my visits and posts.  The pain is too unbearable for people to do this entirely alone, which is why I want to help in any way that I can.  But the best way to help might also be to set the example of not obsessing over the symptoms and to demonstrate proof that the symptoms can be overcome.    
        In addition, I have recently concluded that patience remains even more important to the healing process than I previously believed.  I have encouraged myself and others to remain patient and hopeful throughout my DP/DR experience, but may not have internalized this belief as much as I could have.  I have noticed that by allowing the feelings and thoughts to be what they are that they bother me much less.  I think that patience as it applies to the healing process from DP/DR should look something like a cross between submitting one's self to the circumstances of the symptoms and an ability to allow each day to be a tiny step in the direction of recovery.  I no longer allow myself to struggle against the symptoms.  I have a friend who says that you should not wrestle with pigs because you get dirty and the pig likes it.  This is how I view the interaction with DP/DR in my life.  I refuse to fight it.  Clearly, the scope and depth of the symptoms have confused and overwhelmed me for the past 8 months, but if I resist even giving DP/DR the time of day than it can not have as strong of a hold on my life.  Therefore, if the symptoms start to manifest during the day I just allow them to be what they are.  If I feel weird, I feel weird.  If I am not what I thought I was, that is ok.  If the universe is overwhelming and confusing, that is ok too.  The thoughts will be there and can only survive if I deliberately continue to feed them.  Do not get discouraged if they arise during your healing process.  Healing from something like DP/DR is not necessarily linear or even logical.  It is likely a little different for everyone and that is perfectly fine.  However, I can not stress how important patience will be in all of our efforts.  The last two days I have noticed a shift in my attention and a further lifting of the weight of the role DP/DR plays in my life.  I have been getting lost in the moment for longer stretches of time than I had been in the past couple of weeks.  Patience is working for me and I think it can help you too.

Attitude is the Greatest Healer

        One of the most important things I think people can do who have witnessed partial, full or near full healing or recovery is to "send the elevator back down" to people who still have work to do.  I continue to detail my experience for this very reason because I have steadily improved my outlook and experience of life.  I have spent the better part of the past few months writing about my experiences and thoughts on healing.  Yesterday was the first day in a long time that I felt almost completely integrated into my life.  I was able to completely enjoy conversations and interactions with others.  I was able to laugh and I was able to think in a way that I find more normal and comfortable.
        The DP/DR success stories that I have read all seem to share the same sensation of slowly ceasing to notice the symptoms or not experience them at all. Healing does not appear to be an all or nothing endeavor.  I certainly agree with this assertion.  In fact I would say that healing feels more like a stock market chart than a graph in which healing strategies/time directly correlate with recovery.  Although the general trend has been positive there have been times along the way in which I find myself convinced that the way I feel is as good as it will get, that I will not feel any more normal.  These feelings could not be further from the truth and have proven to be resoundingly incorrect.  Some people are at their low points in experiencing DP/DR.  Some people have experienced healing and not even recognized it, while others can point to little check points along the way to recovery that demonstrate their healing.  If you need proof that what you are doing is working and you think you have recovered even a little just try to think of what life felt like over a given period of time.  I would encourage everyone to journal as it has proven essential to my understanding and recognition of my sustained recovery.  I can look back to my journal and see that I felt much worse 6 weeks ago and even worse 6 weeks before that.  This is important to those of us who sensationalize and think that we will never get better and that we may even be getting worse.  If you are reading this blog you have committed to living another day and you have successfully made it through every day prior to this one.
        Another idea that I have been considering revolves around a way to understand what ails us with DP/DR.  I think many people who experience the symptoms find that not knowing what we have is even more frustrating than the experience itself.  I have concluded that DP/DR is nothing more than there being something wrong with us.  Not "wrong" in the "I'm broke and can't fix it" way, but wrong in the sense that something has changed in our bodies and experience of the world that prevents us from living comfortably and happily.  If you have DP/DR than something is not working with you.  This is not something to fear as DP/DR is not a terminal illness, it is quite the opposite.  For most of us the onset of symptoms is not a conscious decision we made to live life more miserably.  However, there are circumstances in our lives that may catalyze DP/DR or make it worse.  Although DP/DR feels like the end of the world and existence as we know it, perhaps a more appropriate way to view the symptoms is like the common cold or some other treatable illness.  Of course it is not the common cold, but the point is that DP/DR is treatable, curable, and something that does not have to exist with any of us.  Please keep in mind that nothing has changed about the world, your world, or the universe.  Something has however caused you to view these things in a different light.  Everything that is going on with you makes you think that you have something to fear, but in reality your mind, your negative thought patterns, and perhaps a chemical imbalance in the brain is making you feel not like yourself.
        Additionally, I have been greatly helped by my conscious attitude of seeing my symptoms as something different from me and something that I can recognize as a problem I have the power to address.  I have previously stated that I dismiss the thoughts and feelings that I have regarding DP/DR.  I acknowledge that when I feel bad or obsess over existential thoughts that there is something wrong with me that I am working through right now.  I have not "freaked out" about these feelings in a few days and have been rewarded with considerably more feelings of normalcy.  You do have to make a decision though as to how you are going to view your symptoms and subsequently your recovery.  If you allow your negative thinking and the symptoms to take control of your recovery than you will have a hard time moving past DP/DR.  A glass half full approach is essential to recovery.
        Finally, I want you to recognize that you are still a normal person.  Even if you no longer know what normal means or even what a human is, you are still essentially the same as the billions of people who do not live with DP/DR.  Any time I have an odd thought or find myself wondering how I am able to do the things I do in life, or what a human is, or if I have autonomy I quickly remind myself that these thoughts are harmful and abnormal, but I am ok.  And guess what?  You are ok too!

Dismissing Fear and Living Normally

        This blog entry will focus on the steps of recovery I have employed as well as the barriers that exist for people to fully enjoy their days and their lives.  One of the things that I have noticed recently is the major obstacle fear plays in feeling better.  Although I have been experiencing the world and my life in a way that is closer to normal I still have points in the day in which I become overwhelmed with reality and my own existence.  Furthermore, there are times when I feel a bit detached from myself and reality and merely exist as a being without autonomy.  However, these feelings have been less acute recently and have occurred less frequently.  Due to my new perspective as a nearly healed person, I believe that fear often exacerbates the feelings of depersonalization and derealization.  When I start to feel my symptoms, I notice how fearful I become of even the simplest things.  I begin to witness a downward spiral of my thoughts that I will never feel good again.  Fortunately, I am now able to recognize the downward spiral and examine the causation of it.  As I stated previously, I believe that fear causes some of the worst parts of the experience.  Fear works for us in many respects.  It is the reason many of us do not engage in risky behavior or do things that have negative consequences for our families and society.  However, just like the symptoms of DP/DR themselves, fear fails to serve us.  There is nothing to benefit from when we become fearful of our symptoms.  No matter how you look at DP/DR, either as an ailment on its own or as a byproduct of anxiety, something has gone awry in the way our mind and body are experiencing life.  It is important to recognize this and respond accordingly.  Perhaps, I cannot control the onset of my symptoms right now, but I can recognize my thoughts about them.  When I recognize these thoughts I now choose to dismiss them and the fear that arises when I have them.  Being in my basement doing the laundry or quiet and lonely moments of the day often make me realize the experience of DP/DR.  When the thoughts come up I just say to myself, "this isn't the way my life is and these thoughts are just the symptoms, not the definition of my life."  I dismiss the thoughts and experience entirely and while this strategy does not immediately eradicate the symptoms it does mitigate the negative feelings associated with them and helps them recede more quickly.
        The other thing I have noticed as I experience the world more normally is a piece of advise I have read from other recovered people.  Many people have said to start living your life as if you do not have DP/DR.  I think this bit of knowledge is not only helpful, but perhaps the crux of many of our problems.  One of my goals when I first started looking at DP/DR as something I wanted to systematically rid from my life was to "get lost in the moment again."  I was thinking about existential concepts too much and focusing my energy on feelings "normal" again.  I obsessed over both of these goals.  However, the irony was that the more effort I put into feeling normal again the more I had to think about it.  While I maintained many parts of my recovery process such as meditation, journal writing, yoga, prayer, and reading other parts have slowly proven to not serve me anymore.  I started using a planner to hold myself accountable for not staying inside and doing nothing all day, but I do not have to do this anymore.  I used to pray for relief, but I have decided to let this prayer go.  I used to write about the feelings of DP/DR, but I have decided to not spend any more time thinking about it than I have to.  As a result, I started to live more normally or at least closer to the normal I had before the onset of my symptoms.  Psychologically, we can in fact "fake it til we make it."  We can trick ourselves into feeling better.  This does not work perfectly, but it does work to an extent.  No matter how bad the pain is, no matter how uncomfortable you feel doing mundane and routine tasks, DP/DR can not end you.  It can not destroy your will to live and it can not completely take over your life.  Consequently, I strongly urge you and others to live as normally as you possibly can.  Control what you can right now.  If you used to go grocery shopping after work, but stopped for fear of social anxiety than try it again.  If you used to read or write or watch TV in your free time try to start it up again.  Nothing will allow you to "get lost in the moment" the way you used to than living normally again.  

Comparison from January to Now-Improvement!

        This post will focus on comparing how I feel and experience the world now versus a few months ago when I first started noticing the effects of severe anxiety, depersonalization, and derealization in my life.  Everyone has a unique story and set of circumstances that caused, formed, or exacerbated their symptoms.  My circumstances revolved around going through many transitions, worrying about health, dreading failure, and not addressing the loss of my mother and subsequent shift in family dynamic.  One thing I do have in common with everyone who suffers though is that I did suffer the pain of feeling detached from my environment and myself, rumination about existence, fear of existence and my environment, and an overall discomfort in being alive.  The pain is real and the discomfort is real.  Fortunately for us the maladaptive thought patterns and ways to heal are equally real.  No one has to live forever in pain and I believe that many of the strategies I have employed have gotten me to the point where I can live fairly normally again.  I still feel a bit odd at times, but these occurrences are fewer and the severity less than ever.
        When I first started this blog I was deep in the thought patterns and sense of hopelessness of DP/DR and in the months leading up to that point I experienced extreme pain on a day to day basis.  I wanted to rush through my day so that I could pass out and not have to experience reality.  This was my life with "was" being the operative word.  Perhaps no one can understand what it feels like to experience DP/DR unless they have lived with it on a daily basis.  More than anything it consumes every thought and action in a person's life.  However, I do think that therapy, journal entries, yoga, meditation, seeking out self-help books that had nothing to do with DP/DR, making a conscious effort to stop researching DP/DR, seeing a psychiatrist, and remaining patient all allowed me to return to a more "normal" me and to begin enjoying life.  To offer a sense of where I was versus where I am today I will include in this post an entry from my journal dated January 28, 2013:

"Sense of powerlessness/fear about the magnitude of the universe and the world.  I became fearful of my mind.body relationship or disconnect. Are people real even when we're not touching them?  What makes someone real and alive?"

January 29

"I have a tremendous sense of fear and powerlessness.  I feel like everything is real for the first time.  The world feels scary and unfamiliar.  I feel like I'm not a part of the environment.  I feel fearful of the sky and the vastness and feeling of my head not being covered.  I am depressed.  How do I fix this?"

These feelings do not even occur to me anymore.  This person's thoughts and experiences are no longer my reality.  If anything still troubles me it is still anxiety, but this is much more manageable now that I am not thinking about the things that bothered me in the posts from January.  Healing or recovering from DP/DR is not a clean process in that it does not flow logically or linearly.  Much of my progress was made without my even knowing or noticing it.  Many times I felt as if nothing was working and that I would not heal.  However, at each point in my reflections I can point to growth, improvement, and a general trend of enjoying life more.  The world and life are amazing things to experience and I am grateful for the chance to have these obstacles and overcome them because I appreciate the good things in life even more.

Noticeable Changes and Unnoticeable Changes

        I can gratefully share that I continue to experience incremental progress in healing from DP/DR.  Every day I find myself fascinated by the depth, scope, and complexities of the experience.  From the beginning of my writing blog posts and journal entries I held the position that more than anything DP/DR is an ailment of perception.  This is not to invalidate the physical manifestations of DP/DR or the very real lived experience of the symptoms.  The pain is real.  The experience is real.  And the feelings are important and real.  However, I believe our time can be more efficiently utilized by focusing on what we can control and the perceptions of our experience.  Every day I experience more clarity and every day I feel more integrated into my life both physically and mentally.  When I first began to feel noticeably better I would do so with reservation.  I would avoid existential thoughts and do everything I could to avoid triggers for my thoughts and feelings that did not serve me.  Now I can entertain some of these existential thoughts without fear and I do not have to be as mindful of my triggers.  Although this bit of information may not be useful from a practical application standpoint, I did want to share this to demonstrate the small steps one must take in recovery and to show people that life does get better and the feelings and experience more manageable.  This improvement has allowed me the space to understand that nothing in my world has changed, in many ways I have not changed, but rather the way I am seeing it all has changed.  I can be fascinated by my mind, my body, the physical world, and the universe without completely devolving into negative thought patterns.  The intrigue remains the same, but the way I feel about it has changed.
        Not to contradict myself or confuse anyone, but I do also want to say that something has changed in my.  When I say this I mean that my recent improvement has been more noticeable.  It has been the DP/DR version of my "A-ha!" moment.  I can point to certain points in time when I can clearly distinguish between DP/DR me and "normal" me.  Something has changed, but in a good way.  If my experience of healing is typical than there is a feeling or a change to look forward to.  We can certainly point to times in our lives when we did not have DP/DR for most or all of the day, but it can be kind of hard to notice the intricacies of the transition from "normal life" to DP/DR.  I am sharing this reflection because I want people to further understand that healing is multifaceted but not necessarily linear.  In short, there are changes that have come which are noticeable and there are some that result from my commitment to the healing process.  Be well and stay hopeful because life is much more enjoyable the more you heal.

Some Recent Perspective on My Healing

        The last two days have been my best as far as feeling "normal" again.  When I say best I mean that I have felt normal, comfortable, and have been able to enjoy life.  In the past months I felt as if life was happening to me (if there was in fact a me) and in the past couple of days I felt that there is a me and that I have some control over the direction and arc of my day and life.  Although there remains a residual disconnect from the world as I once experienced it, I have gained a new hope for the new normal that I will one day experience.  The past two days have convinced me even further that lifestyle and attitude can play as much of a role in healing as any physical manifestations of DP/DR that we may experience.
        One of the things that I noticed recently is that I was getting complacent with my healing.  I believe that I was happy with feeling much better and as a result got a bit lazy with my healing process and with the steps that helped me arrive at where I am at today.  In particular, I noticed that I was allowing myself to contemplate these existential questions that were not serving me.  I would take silent and lonely moments in the day as opportunities to think about the things that have clearly not served me.  I have found strategies for either avoiding or dismissing these thoughts, but in recent weeks I slowly stopped using these strategies as I began to feel better.  While feeling better is certainly the goal, it is important to respect what got me to that point and see the program that I established for myself all the way through.  Some of the strategies I have used to negate thoughts that do not serve me include: dismissing the thoughts as ridiculous, talking the away ("go away little thought that doesn't serve me), making fun of myself for caring about the thought, reminding myself that the thought does not own me, and reminding myself that my thoughts can be destructive.  Even though I think that avoiding the thoughts has helped me, I have found that I can think about some of the existential questions that have plagued me without being debilitated by the thought.
        Another thing that has helped me has been my imagination.  Many of us have had at least two experiences of life: life with DP/DR and life without it.  I have used the past few days as a time to pretend that I am completely "normal" again and I am giving myself advice from that perspective. I encourage you to think about the advice you would give someone with DP/DR from the perspective of someone who doesn't have it.  Picture the day when you are completely back to "normal" and think about how you will send the elevator of healing and recovery back down to a person who is in pain.  From this exercise I have developed a few bits of advice (please remember that this is my opinion and not the thoughts of a trained doctor or therapist).  First, DP/DR is as much of a disorder of thought patterns as anything.  We can not dislike our thoughts if we are not thinking them.  I know for a fact that the more anxious I am the more destructive my thought patterns are.  This is likely true for anyone from people who have eating disorders to people with an inclination toward depression.  Anxious feelings lead to destructive thoughts.  While we can not control the onset of anxiety every moment of the day we can step back and acknowledge its existence and try to do something about it.  That something in the case of people with DP/DR can be ceasing or muffling the thoughts that plague us.  Be more conscious of how you are feeling during the day.  Even if you are anxious all day surely there are points in the day when you are more or less anxious than others (I get really anxious around dusk).  What are your thoughts during those times and how can you respond to them in a manner that won't harm you?
        In addition, I have come to the conclusion that people who say that recovery is a slow and leveled process are completely correct in their assessment.  Try to think of healing as whittling a block or even building a castle out of small Legos  Recovering and healing from DP/DR is not an overnight process.  It takes time, patience, and an ability to recognize what is working and what is not and making changes accordingly.  However, in light of the past couple of days I can completely relate to the people who say you notice DP/DR less and less and when you do notice it you are not as bothered by it.  Let me say again that this is ABSOLUTELY TRUE!  It is a bit hard to describe the nuances of noticing it less and less, but I will say it is somewhat like a scar you get from a sizable cut.  At first the scar is glaring, then with treatment it gets less noticeable, and finally it becomes almost not noticeable at all.  This is what DP/DR seems to be like to me.  Just like with a scar some treatment will work and some will not.  Sometimes you aggravate the injury and make it worse for a while.  But ultimately with the appropriate care it completely heals.  I do not think that DP/DR necessarily goes away like clipping your fingernails, but I do think that it goes from extremely painful, to manageable, to no longer a problem in our lives.  The only reason that I describe it in this way is because I think it is important to respect the maladaptive thought processes and lifestyle choices that uphold and contribute to DP/DR.  If we do not commit to treating our anxiety and other destructive emotional experiences than I think DP/DR has a good chance of coming back.  My treatment plan is to make it completely a thing of the past and something that will never return.  This is why respecting the recovery process at all times is important.  I do think that we can all heal and that some scars are worse than others.  But there are powerful healers in the world, there are great tools for recovery and there is hope for everyone with this ailment.    

Focusing Energy on Positive Thinking and Hope

        I continue to witness progress in my healing process.  One thing I have learned is that recovery or healing is not necessarily linear.  There has been peaks and valleys and there have been plateaus as well.  However, the general trend since I began a concerted and directed effort toward recovery has been growth and progress.  In many ways I am as confused about the experience as I was the first day I noticed the symptoms, but my odd feelings fail to control my life and ruin my days.  As a result, I am convinced that we must maintain a commitment to positive thinking and to continue holding ourselves accountable for our actions and healing.  One thing that I have learned is that negative thinking begets more negative thinking and that obsession with my thoughts and symptoms only exacerbate the problems.  On the other hand, positive thinking and a commitment to hope has greatly aided my feeling better.  I implore you to remain hopeful.  Hope can be a crutch, a band aid, and a cure.  Hope can carry you.  Hope does not have to be based on just knowledge either.  We do not always need immediate proof that all will be fine.  Sure, reflecting on our progress and the steps we take to get where we are can validate feelings of hope, but even saying to yourself every single day that "I will be happy and ok" makes a difference.  Positive and hopeful affirmations make a huge difference.  Many successful people do them and if you have no reason to be hopeful than affirmations may be a place to start.  Keep the faith and good things will come.

Journal Entry July 2, 2013

        I haven't written a journal post about my symptoms in quite some time now.  According to my records the last time I wrote about my symptoms from a reflection journal point of view was on June 12.  Although I have kept up with my blog posts, I believe that the cessation of journal entries specifically about my symptoms of DP/DR has been another major point of success in my process of recovery.  In the spirit of fairness and honesty about my symptoms I have elected to write about them for the first time in nearly a month in order to further demonstrate that recovery or healing is in fact a process.
        My day-to-day experience of the world has dramatically improved.  I find myself getting lost in the moment in the same manner that I did before the onset of my symptoms.  I am more cheery and I am genuinely enjoying my life more than I was at the end of December when my DP/DR first became a problem in my life.  Previously I dreaded going outside because I feared the sky and the magnitude of the universe.  Now I get up extra early just so I can stand barefoot in the backyard and feed the birds.  I am happy to take the dog for walks because being outside does not make me anxious anymore.  Social situations are much easier to be a part of.  Where I previously found myself overwhelmed and confused by the concept of other beings, now I am able to enjoy conversations and the company of others significantly more.  Additionally, work formerly represented the highest experience of my anxiety and feelings of alienation from myself and my environment.  People at work seemed alien to me and I struggled quite a bit just to get through a short work day.  Now I am able to enjoy the boring times at work and I am able to enjoy just being there and doing my job.  Six months ago just sitting in my living room was a major source of alienation and anxiety for me.  Especially during the day I found no refuge at home.  Now I am comfortable most of the time and have a fairly calm disposition and experience of life at home.  Even certain times of day were difficult for me.  Dusk was a high time of anxiety and DP/DR, but now I think nothing of this time of day.  It is safe to say that my life has improved in a number of different areas that pertain to my symptoms.
        Although everything that I have blogged about (particularly lately) indicates that I am making marked and sustained improvement, I do not want to create the impression that everything is "perfect," "fine," and "normal."  While I do believe that full recovery is possible for us all, I do think it's important to understand that healing takes time and it is not necessarily a straightforward process.  I have had some problems as it pertains to my experience of the world and myself.  Some of the issues that I have had revolve around my concept of autonomy and what I am.  Being able to conceptualize myself as one whole being rather than I brain and eyes and body parts has been a bit of a struggle for me.  The improvement has come in that these thoughts do not bother me as much or dominate my life.  My environment can still be difficult to be completely and organically a part of. The physical world is still a bit confusing to me and I continue to have some difficulty understanding and accepting the world as it is.  I have also been thinking about the whole idea of where we all came from and how something can derive from nothing.  Fortunately, these existential questions are not as scary or troubling.  Thinking about the physical sensations of the body and my bodily functions confuses me a bit.  I wonder as to how I should or can comfortably conceive of myself.  I still wonder if I am merely going through the motions or if there is some rhyme or reason to the way I go through my day.
        So in some ways my symptoms still exist, but it is clear to me that they do not dictate the quality and experience of my life.  I think that it is perfectly acceptable that healing is a process.  I do not worry about being "normal" anymore.  Ultimately, I either will or I won't.  While I want to be happy and comfortable I can only control so much.  Embracing this attitude has been an enormous step for me and greatly helpful to my feeling better.
        The state of me is far and away better than I was even a few weeks ago.  Every day is still a struggle at times, I am not entirely comfortable, I do not feel entirely normal again, but I do get up every day and want to live the day all the way through.  Discomfort, fear, panic, and doubt no longer drive the actions and thoughts of my day.  I continue to improve and believe that I have much to look forward to.

The Illusions of DP/DR

        There seem to be a number of different aspects of DP/DR.  Not only do people experience it in a variety of ways, but the onset comes from an array of factors and the causes seem to be different as well.  The focus of my energy has been on the mental or cognitive aspects of DP/DR.  This mostly results from my belief that there is only so much that I can control about the physical elements of the experience.  Fortunately, the tips that I have employed and shared on my blog have worked very well for me.  In addition to being on a consistent dose of Zoloft (200 mg) I have also devoted much of my time to reducing anxiety, reflecting and general self-help.
        One of the most obvious ideas that has resulted from my DP/DR and subsequent recovery process has been the notion that panic, fear, and anxiety impede the process of recovery.  Even though we may find it hard to believe that there is nothing inherently wrong with us or the environments in which you live, ultimately everything in many ways is just fine.  Our beliefs may be the biggest obstacle in our attempts to heal.  You might say, "Well how can I change a belief when all of the stimuli make me feel out of place, uncomfortable, and even miserable in my existence?"  This type of questioning necessitates a new way of looking at the symptoms.  If we only see the world in a negative light or if we think our world has been literally turned upside down than it's time for a change.  DP/DR is nothing more than a matter of perception.  Sure there are many factors that contribute to that perception, but at the end of the day all that has changed is the way we see, negotiate, and feel about the world.  We see DP/DR as an attempt to lift a car by ourselves when in reality our problems are nothing more than lifting a glass of water.  The complicating part is that we truly believe that the problem is like lifting a car.
        In all likelihood, we cannot lift a car by ourselves, most people cannot.  However, there are many different ways we can accomplish this task:  enlist the help of others, new tools, try another car etc.  This is how we need to view the symptoms.  There is something that seems impossible to move past, but we just need to reevaluate the way we're approaching the problem.  In order to love without DP/DR in our life we need patience, resilience, and the right tools.  We may not get the problem right the first time, but a solution is out there and comfort and happiness are possible for all of us.

Some Insight Into the Symptoms

        As my symptoms continue to fade and now occupy a less prominent place in my life I have gained some insight as to what makes the symptoms feel uncomfortable and I can now speculate as to what exactly has gone on and is going on with me.  Like many people who have been affected by DP/DR, I have spent a notable amount of time researching the symptoms and seeking out success stories from people who once lived with DP/DR, but now live happy and peaceful lives.  One of the common themes of people who have moved past DP/DR has been the notion that DP/DR does not necessarily exist on its own, but rather results from or relates to problems with anxiety.  Although anxiety has occupied a large role in my life during the last seven years or so, I always looked at these success stories with a level of skepticism.  My doubts came from my reluctance to embrace all encompassing statements about DP/DR as well as my belief that one cannot be diagnosed over the internet.  I did not rule out the possibility of DP/DR being strongly tied to anxiety, but I did not fully embrace the idea either.  However, recently my opinion has developed more strongly towards the role anxiety plays in exacerbating and perpetuating the affects of the symptoms of DP/DR.
        On its best days depersonalization and derealization embody many complicated and ambiguous elements of the human psyche and capacity for discomfort and alienation.  As a result, people who have felt these symptoms often feel overwhelmed and, at times, hopeless.  While I do not feel DP/DR as strongly as I did even a month ago and I would self-evaluate as being close to 100% healed, at this point there is still a little something that does not feel right.  I expect that "normal" for me will look different than it has in the past, but that is actually a good thing because my former way of experiencing the world was not working for me and ultimately led to my depersonalization and derealization.  As my DP/DR recedes I am able to see the large role that anxiety plays in supporting and upholding the strength of the symptoms.  If anxiety does not cause DP/DR and if anxiety is not one in the same as DP/DR than they are certainly neighbors of one another if not close relatives.  The worst parts of DP/DR for me revolved around the obsession with the nature of existence my detachment from my experience.  What I have learned as I have healed is that these feelings result more from my experience of anxiety than anything.  I can say this because even though my DP/DR has mostly faded I still feel anxious at times throughout the day and I have noticed that many of the thought patterns of my anxiety match the ones that I had when I experienced the world almost entirely through the lens of DP/DR.  Please note that I use the word "lens" deliberately as I have always held that DP/DR is just another way of looking at a world and an existence that was always there.  We just happen to be experiencing it through a glass half empty point of view.
        For those who are still experiencing DP/DR and are not even at a point to accept the possibility of anxiety's role in your feelings I encourage you to start thinking about it.  Try to think of the times you've felt the worst.  What preceded these feelings?  What do you think caused them?  What was the physical sensation of your emotional experience.  No one with DP/DR and anxiety is beyond hope.  I also know that many people feel that they will never heal.  This is not true.  I want you to understand that your symptoms are causing you to feel this way.  But I want you to think about the period of time you've had DP/DR and I want you to think about a period of time when you didn't have the symptoms.  What's the difference?  What is the same about both periods of time?  I know my body and cognitive abilities are essentially the same.  I may have lost some weight due to stress and changing my diet a bit, but my basic body makeup is the same.  I can still think critically about the topics I enjoy and I still remember all of my high school math.  The only difference between me now and me in high school (at least when it comes to DP/DR and anxiety) is the way I see the world and my place in it.  Remember if you're reading this you made it through a day with DP/DR.  You're still here, but you just may not like how you feel about being here.  Remember also that there are many different types of people who experience DP/DR.  Surely there are laid back people who worry about it and there are obsessive thinkers who experience it.  In both cases the thought processes at least partially contribute to the discomfort and hopelessness.  Anxiety is a powerful, powerful, aspect of the human experience.  I didn't think this until I felt better and really started to get in touch with my feelings.  I didn't realize how bad my anxiety was until I started doing some soul searching as a result of DP/DR in my life.  This isn't to say this is true for everyone, but I will end by saying that please don't allow anxiety to block and impede your judgement and experience of life.  You will live whether or not you have DP/DR and you will live with or without anxiety.  However, the way we live with those experiences is what will define the quality and enjoyment of our lives.

A Way to View Your Symptoms

        I can very gratefully and proudly share that my DP/DR symptoms have reduced significantly in the past ten days and more importantly the feelings of detachment that I do have fail to bother me or affect my disposition.  One of the ideas that has truly helped me move even further into being fully healed has been how I now come to view my symptoms.  First, since I began this blog I have deliberately used the term "symptoms" in an effort to further drive home the fact that what we are experiencing are merely symptoms and not some impossible to overcome illness.  I believed this to be true when I first started blogging and as I near the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel of DP/DR I hold this belief to be even more true.  Viewing DP/DR as a condition prevents us from fully healing because of the fact that recovering cannot be viewed as an all or nothing sort of solution.  This is mostly due to the fact that you cannot look at someone and tell that they have DP/DR.  Even my partner, with whom I have been fully transparent about my symptoms, has no idea as to when my symptoms are disabling or not present.  DP/DR in my opinion is not a condition, but rather the combination of physical symptoms that result in thought patterns that harm our well being.  So while we can treat the DP/DR, it is equally important to treat how we feel about it.  I think that it is also important to view DP/DR as symptoms because I think we should separate DP/DR from the person that we are.  I like this way of thinking about DP/DR because it allows us to see the feelings and thoughts as maladaptive responses to the symptoms rather than something to overcome.  This thought process gives us quite a bit of power over our symptoms in that it enables us to take full responsibility for our recovery.  DP/DR is not terminal cancer or even a degenerative mental disorder.  It is solvable, treatable, and something that can exist in all of our rearview mirrors if we put in the work.
        While everyone experiences DP/DR in a different way, I think that people may be able to relate to a character flaw of mine that inhibited my full recovery.  For much of this experience I operated under the belief that somehow my symptoms were different or something that could not be cured or solved.  I thought that somehow I was different from the rest of humanity and that this experience was beyond even my own capacity for thought.  But that is where the problem resided.  Due to the fact that I saw my symptoms as something that was above or different from what others experience I couldn't work on the destructive thought patterns.  Even people with symptoms or experiences similar to mine were in my mind going through something different.  And by looking at my experience this way, I inhibited my ability to recover.  It shifted the responsibility of my recovery from me to the universe, or perhaps even more telling it made me feel that I would never feel better.  But if you are able to read this blog, or if you are able to research your symptoms, or if you're able to go through life pretty much the same as you always have than in all likelihood you are not "going crazy," whatever that even means.  So I think that we can look at our symptoms in one of two ways: everything is completely different and the world is just a figment of my imagination, or I am connected to everything but my thinking has just gone awry.  Let me be clear and say that I am not negating the physical symptoms and the pain we experience because it is true and it is real.  However, I do think we posses much more power than we even think or realize.  As much as the physical symptoms feel uncomfortable, there are many aspects of the experience we can control.  This is due to the fact that DP/DR is a set of symptoms and not a condition.  No matter how detached we feel, we are still a byproduct of the thoughts we have had, we continue to have, and we will have.

Urgency Without Forcing It

        One of the positive outcomes of my experience with DP/DR has been the knowledge I have obtained from self help books.  I actually stopped focusing on DP/DR related self help books and began reading widely into how I could affect numerous aspects of my life.  Once I discovered that DP/DR was not as much a physical problem, but a mental, emotional, and lifestyle issue I began focusing on how I could become what I believe to be a better form of myself.  This isn't to say that making the above stated changes necessarily help with DP/DR, but they do help the overall outlook of one's life.  Many of the changes I made allowed me to work on the problems that contributed to and perpetuate my DP/DR symptoms.
        Perhaps the most difficult part of life for anyone to endure revolves around change.  Experiencing DP/DR was the worst I have ever felt on a day to day basis in my life.  I have had other changes that I certainly disliked, but from the moment that I noticed something different about my experience of life I knew this was a new low for me.  Fortunately, I have been able to reframe the experience in a positive fashion, particularly since I am feeling much better, but I spent quite a bit of time hating the symptoms and the discomfort.  Very few people like change and I would say even fewer like it when it is unexpected on not on their own terms.  Additionally, many of us have a difficult time being self reflective and self critical in a useful way.  Sure many of us have dealt with low points as far as self esteem goes and I'm sure we all have edited a paper or two for school in our lives, but the kind of self analysis I am talking about is the kind that is both deliberate and serves a function in advancing your experience of life.  I am grateful for my DP/DR because it is the first time in my life that I reflected and made changes resulting from the reflections that have bettered me in the long wrong.
        Undoubtedly, experiencing DP/DR results in the person experiencing a great amount of desperation to feel better.  For me this desperation often manifested itself in being willing to do whatever it took to get better, but at other times it resulted in my feeling defeated and overwhelmed.  What was the use of doing all this stuff if I was never going to feel better?  Luckily, the "doing whatever it takes" side won out and has allowed me to make giant steps in the past two months both personally and DP/DR wise.  Another byproduct of this desperation is a desire for the symptoms to subside and never come back.  Yet again this feeling can either serve us or defeat us.
        There is a huge difference between doing things with urgency and forcing an outcome.  An urgent driver remains focused on the road at all times, while one who is forcing it cuts people off and acts dangerously on the road.  An urgent Black Friday shopper gets up early and waits patiently in line to get good deals for Christmas, while the person who is forcing it ends up trampling others to save $10 on a toaster.  The same logic can be applied for DP/DR.  An urgent person experiencing the symptoms patiently and methodically allows her/his treatment plan to work, while the person who is forcing it relentlessly frets over the lack of short term results or relief.  This is not to say that the person who is forcing it does so with faulty intentions.  Quite the opposite is true in fact.  These symptoms are terrible no matter what way you look at it, but our response to them is what makes all the difference.
        I would recommend taking some time to think about how you are handling your symptoms.  Are you forcing it?  Dig a bit deeper and think about your obsession with how bad you feel or how uncomfortable the experience is.  Having read many recovery stories, the one thing that stands out is that time is the ultimate cure if we allow it to be.  It seems that in some ways obsessing over our symptoms serves us.  Otherwise why would we do it?  Unfortunately this obsession can only take us so far and we have to learn how to adapt our thinking patterns to the physical discomfort we experience.  Getting caught up in our symptoms only makes them more real and more powerful.  The symptoms can and do exist independent from the reality that we experience and certainly from the reality that people who don't experience DP/DR live in every day.  So I encourage you to think about how you are being urgent and how you may be forcing your recovery a little too much.
        None of us were born as a finished product.  We crawled before we could walk.  We babbled before we could read.  And now we are experiencing DP/DR for a reason too.  Destiny and fate talk aside, there is some reason that this experience has come our way.  For me, DP/DR has allowed me to find coping tips for the things that bother me in life and it has allowed me to actually feel rather than going through each day emotionally unawake.  You can allow this experience to define you or you can take control and use DP/DR as your crawling emotionally and spiritually before you can walk in happiness and peace.
        Accept your symptoms because they are a very real part of your life and the lives of many others, but also realize that you can control your response to them.  Once you start working with urgency rather than force, I believe that relief will come shortly after.  

Remain Hopeful and Never Give Up

        I continue to experience progress in my healing.  If you read my most recent journal entries you can see that I am enjoying life even more and I am feeling much more comfortable.  My past blog posts describe in a fair amount of detail the efforts and strategies I have employed to this point in order to move past DP/DR.  When I first started blogging about my experiences a little over two months ago, I did so in a frame of mind in which I was incredibly confused, scared, and frustrated.  Even adding blog entries was difficult because it reminded me of the pain I'm experiencing.  However, blogging and journaling has been an important part of my healing.  It focuses my mind on the tangible world rather than the existential thoughts that have plagued my days for the past six months.  At points along the way between late December and early June I can see the progress I have made.  Progress, in my case, has come slowly and sometimes has seemed to plateau.  There have been times when not only did I stop thinking a "normal" life was out of my reach, but I even stopped caring to a certain degree.  I have felt defeated at times, but to my credit I got up every morning and committed myself to my routine, schedule, and treatment.  At one point I was seeing two therapists per week for help and now I only see my therapist every other week.  I am going through my days with my comfort and enjoyment.  I feel like I am getting things done rather than feeling like life is just happening to me.  I feel more autonomous and free.  Don't get me wrong, I have had many good days and moments as well as bad ones, but the general trend has been improvement.
        It is difficult to speculate what has "worked" for me.  However, there has always been something inside of me that kept telling me to carry on.  Even if you are not naturally optimistic you really don't have very many choices other than to carry on.  If you are reading this blog you were successfully able to do something in an effort to understand your symptoms and improve yourself.  This is important because it shows how resilient you are.  Even if you don't recognize it you are carrying on right at this very moment.  So rather than just carrying on, acknowledge and celebrate the fact that you are here.  Like me, you may not know what "you" is or what "here" is, but you also don't have a choice about that either.  We are what we are whether or not we understand it.  Even after we are gone we still exist.  It may not be in the form that we previously lived in, but even a cremated body still exists.  Whether or not you are religious, whether or not you think we go to heaven etc., we don't go anywhere.  Matter cannot be created or destroyed, but only changed from one form to another.  With this in mind, we can conclude that we in fact have a great amount of power in shaping our futures.  No matter how painful this experience is, no matter how disconnected you feel, no matter how detached from your own body you are, you are still in control.  Your mind and body may be a bit foggy, but you are still in control.
        I implore you to remain hopeful.  I encourage you to seek help and commit to a process as well as tweaking the process if necessary.  Symptoms of DP/DR are unique, but they are not a terminal illness.  You aren't born with them.  The symptoms exist and we all have a choice as to how to respond to them.  Remember that change is inevitable.  I will not speculate as to why some people experience DP/DR longer than others, but I will say that we can be our own worst enemy in trying to solve this problem.  Sometimes even the smallest changes can make the biggest differences.  My road to recovery started when I stopped researching DP/DR.  I recognized that this was harmful and I stopped. You can recover with patience, hope, and an ability and commitment to changing.

Journal Entries May 30-June 10

Thursday May 30, 2013
1:50 pm
I have felt pretty good today. I haven't been caught up in negative thoughts. I have been able to function and exist fairly comfortably. I will admit that the symptoms or persistent discomfort is stressful and I do think that it makes me constantly on edge or at least stimulated. Being effortless and just existing has been hard. The thing is that no matter how I feel about what is going on in my life everything is what it is. There is no way around it. In fact fear is the only thing I have to work around. Not discovering myself. Not being depersonalized. Not being detached. But this persistent fear of something. It's like my friend says, "something just doesn't feel right."  One of the overwhelming things about consciousness is that the clock is constantly moving.
10:57 pm
Overall I had many good feelings about today. I felt connected at times. I still have the persistent discomfort but I found myself noticing it a little less today. I am grateful for the whole day and the opportunities I've had to live my life.

Friday May 31, 2013Today has gone pretty well. I've felt good at times. I think I get a little mentally blocked up by the whole concept of being. Particularly the whole notion of how we got here. I mean really?  It's an important question even if there's no clear answer. How can one think of anything else?  Also, given this question how can people concern themselves with seemingly trivial topics and questions?  What gets me is this sense of agency. Do I have agency?  Not from the free will v. fate point of view, but in actuality. Am I an agent of anything?  How marvelous and miraculous it is that this body that writes this journal entry can do so. Why is it that we naturally come to this conclusion that we have agency and identity?  Even the most oppressed people have identity. Why is that the default?  Other animals don't seem to have identity beyond the roles and functions they have in their respective environments. If I do have agency and there is such thing as an I than what should the role be of that agency?  If I am in fact an I, truly something unto myself if there is a myself, than what is the significance of that self-hood?  Buddhists or humanitarian types might say to end suffering. Egocentrists might say to seek and experience pleasure. Religious people will say to glorify and serve God. Artists might say to create beauty. Teachers might say to spread knowledge. Are any of those right?  Are any wrong?  Is there something no human has figured out yet?  Does it matter?  Why does any of it matter?  Is suffering really that bad?  Why?  It's temporary anyway. If we don't have agency or identity what is suffering?  Who is suffering?  What is suffering?  I ask these questions but can't even understand how my thoughts form or where they go. I admit that I enjoy asking these questions more than I had in the past months. I am afraid that my life path is leading me to explore these questions further. I am fearful because I don't want it to lead me to this Camus apathetic type character. Perhaps I don't want to be a giddy school girl, but I don't want to be an old detached grump either. Why am I struggling with this issue of identity?  In some senses identity is socially constructed. An alien might come to earth and say humans are eating, breathing, moving, sweating beings. To an alien who cares if you're a stockbroker or unemployed, Christian or atheist, baseball or hockey fan, Ghandi or Stalin?  Even peacemaker vs. warmonger makes no difference outside of earth. I am grateful to live in the United States of America, but identity is all about how you look at it. I can be an American or just a piece of matter that exists in the Milky Way. It all depends on perception.  So perhaps identity is irrelevant, but it seems that most normal healthy people have some sense of self or identity. Even Ricard who challenges the notion of identity to a certain extent claims to be a former cellular biologist, photographer, monk, and writer. Perhaps these are social constructs but guess what we live in society. So what is bothering me than?  Is it that I'm going through a transition right now in life?  I mean my identity is literally forming every day, even if it is just socially constructed. But doesn't it seem that my reaction to this identity crisis and/or formation is a bit extreme?  Perhaps I'm subconsciously starting from scratch and asking hey what am I. I'm doing this before I can ask who am I. I do think I've fallen into some negative thinking patterns ie. thoughts that don't serve me. What are these negative thought patterns?  Well, first it comes when I have a moment of silence thinking or otherwise. My mind settles a bit and I start to wonder what am I. Now I do have the capacity to ask this question which should answer it but the answer is  unsatisfying.  I listed some ways people identify themselves and any, all, or none of them could be accurate. So given that identity is malleable why am I unsatisfied with the answers?  Why do I go even further inward?  There's either an essence to our being or there isn't or there is some combination of the both. But why do I spend so much time thinking about it?  And why do none of my answers or non answers not satisfy me and allow me to move on with my life. How is this serving me?  Why do I feel that whatever it is I am is something to be served or serviced?  If why questions are unproductive what causes me to ask them?  How did I fall into this habit of asking questions that bother me. Perhaps I was formally unhappy and didn't recognize it but I wasn't being bothered all day. Maybe subconsciously I was dying but I didn't think it was that bad. But then again it was. I was quick to anger, often unkind, impatient, anxious, negative, too competitive, and not a good partner all the time. I wasn't a bad person, but I had a lot of work to do. Undoubtedly, I needed something to galvanize my self improvement. In this sense I am grateful. Do these thoughts serve me anymore though? I've been sick of them since day one, but can I honestly call this a wasted time in my life when other people can speak to how I've improved. I do want to have emotions. I do want to feel.


Saturday June 1, 2013
10:40 amFirst day of June!  Feeling pretty good today. I'm excited to get back to my hometown. One solution for not feeling bad: don't think bad thoughts. Easier said than done haha. I'm looking forward to the day and my journey.


Sunday June 2, 2013
11:39 pmIt feels amazing to be back. There is something spiritual about this experience. I can connect with the people I know and love. I can just be here. Home is spiritually familiar and I'm finally in a place where I can recognize myself while here. I want to drink every last drop of home. I do enjoy where I live now and need to find ways to recreate this feeling out there. Part of my identity struggle comes in the fact that so much of my identity is tied up in my hometown. Undoubtedly today was a success. It's a challenging process but I am learning about myself. It's not easy but given that I don't have a choice in the matter I need to accept.

Wednesday June 5, 2013
10:54 amWe're leaving today but I think I'm heading back.  I am in a better place than when I came out here. Perhaps the most fascinating thing about what I've dealt with over the past few months is the depths and variety of the human mind. I feel better but can't point to some objective point of improvement or shift of focus. I guess the symptoms haven't changed but more that I don't focus on them as much. I still get a bit confused about my existence at times but I haven't been as troubled by it the last couple of days. It's certainly interesting. I think I will be able to live normally again.

Thursday June 6, 2013
10:19 pmToday went really well. I felt uncomfortable at times but I also felt cheerful and talkative. My comfort level was fairly steady. I didn't really think about existence that much. I really think that I'm making progress. It's still impressive to think what a miracle this all is. But it's a blessing whether or not I understand it.

Friday June 7, 2013
11:20 amI cant say that I feel like good old Chuck again but I am feeling better.

:19 pm
Although I can't necessarily say I'm back to normal I'm not fearful all the time. I'm not struggling with existence as much anymore. It is what it is. I'm able to think and reflect from a position of relative power. I haven't been getting that sensation recently of whoa I'm actually here. I'm doing a much better job of just being. I don't feel as overwhelmed. I am more eager to live my days and even have taken to getting up early again. I feel like I have more purpose. My direction is positive. Last week I said I am 80% recovered. I feel closer to 85-90% now. Almost there!

Saturday June 8, 2013
9:53 pmOverall today went pretty well. More than anything I experienced anxiety rather than existential rumination. This is a good thing in that anxiety is far less confusing. I'm encouraged by my progress. I'm encouraged by how I felt today. It hasn't been an easy thing to go through but I'm still here. This isn't to say that I want anxiety and its related symptoms to be an everlasting part of my life, but I am proud to have made it this far. More relevantly, I've made it this far with steady improvement. I suppose life, living, consciousness, and reality may seem odd but they are here to stay. If the rules of the universe changed I'd have bigger fish to fry. I suppose I'm even more concerned about my own death than anything right now. Where do we go?  How can I rationalize something to nothing?  If the laws of the universe state that matter can't be destroyed than where does ones life force go when we "die?"  I can understand what happens to the body but what about the life of the body that isn't the body?  If we do go somewhere or there is something else who experiences it?  Is identity impermanent?  Am I reincarnated?  Am I who I have always been and always will be?  In any case I had a good day today as far as my examination of self and universe goes. I'm proud. I'm happy. And I'm confident I can live in peace as me as an entity as a human.

Monday June 10, 2013
12:57 pmReally starting to feel normal again. I'm starting to feel integrated and not consumed with destructive thoughts. What a relief!

Continued and Marked Improvement

        I think that I can finally share that full recovery exists on my horizon.  First, let me say how enjoyable it is to feel improvement.  Not to gloat, but I wanted to share this because I want people to know how good it feels to experience improvement.  As with many others who experience anxiety and DP/DR, I have extensively researched recovery tips and have read stories from people who have lived with and overcome DP/DR.  One of the most common things people have said in their recovery stories that you start to think about the negative thoughts less and less and eventually you never think about them.  As much as anything DP/DR can be characterized as a thinking problem.  While there are many physiological issues that cause and exist with my DP/DR (which is why I am taking Zoloft), the most problematic aspect of the experience has been the obsessive thoughts.  Never before did I think that the most painful stimuli one could experience is one's thoughts.  But there is no doubt in my mind that the alpha and the omega for joy and suffering is the human mind.  Without getting too anecdotal, I will share that I have read stories where people can literally convince themselves that their pain is not as intense because of the power of thought.  Similarly, I have read about imprisoned monks who have come to love their captors because of the power of thought and love.  I am in awe of my own capacity to not only experience pain and discomfort, but also to be the creator of this pain.  As a result, I am convinced that as much as anything the change in my thought patterns has helped me recover.
        I will corroborate what others have said before me in saying that the thoughts either arise less and less or they diminish in their importance and control over you.  I will not say that I am fully "healed" or "recovered" yet, but I am loving life much more than I was when I first started writing these posts.  I am more excited to get up every day.  I am excited to live again.  My thoughts don't ruin my days anymore.  I also believe, as I've said in the past, that we need to lay out the path for our own success.  Just as new parents prepare a room for their newborn baby, it is important to prepare our lives for the healing we want to recover.  What can you change about your life or your environment that will set you up for success?  What does a "healed" home look like?  What does a "healed" person's schedule include?  How does a recovered person spend his or her free time?  How does a healed person handle stress and anxiety?  Certainly there are little things that you can change.  I love the mornings, but in January when my DP/DR symptoms began I started to sleep in to avoid the discomfort of my days.  A couple of weeks ago I broke this pattern and started scheduling activities early in the day to get me out of bed and enjoy the morning air.  Sure enough I am able to get out of bed now and I am enjoying my waking hours more.
        Admittedly there is quite a bit of work that has gone into my recovery.  But please do not mistake hard work as some sort of panacea for your symptoms.  Patience is.  Commit to your program, find ways to adapt it if need be, but more than anything I have needed time to recover.  I do not know why I have what I have.  I do not know how I am now feeling better.  But I do know that I have not wavered from my program for even one day and I am now beginning to feel better.  DP/DR is not terminal cancer.  It is not paralysis.  It is not Alzheimer's.  While there isn't a "cure" that I know of, I do know that it does not have to last forever.  The biggest obstacle in recovery is fear and once I began to overcome my fear, I started to overcome my DP/DR.  And do not think for one second that your case is rare or incurable.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  DP/DR is well known in the healthcare field.  My friend who is a medical student just finished his psychiatry rounds and told me that he learned about DP/DR during these rounds.  While we may be inclined to think that our case is special or the outlier, chances are this is our ego talking.  Although every case may be different on the surface, in reality DP/DR is very treatable.  In addition to fear we are our own biggest obstacle to healing.  Whether or not every case is different I can not say, but I do know that we all entered the experience with different backgrounds and mechanisms for coping and dealing with problems in our lives.  This is likely why some people only experience DP/DR for a few months and some for many years.  This is not a critique on other people's personalities, but rather my speculation that we all have aspects of our personality that serve us and others that hinder our improvement.  I think that my unyielding commitment to my treatment plan has served me well (this results from my personality trait of embodying diligence), but my inability to just let go and accept has hurt my progress.
        What is it about your personality that serves you in healing DP/DR and what is it that hurts your recovery?  Were you extroverted before you experienced DP/DR?  Then maybe go out and tap into that potential.  Are you compassionate?  Than maybe spend more time helping others.  Do you like the outdoors or physical activity?  Get back in the gym or go on more hikes.  What about aspects of your personality you have always wanted to improve?  Are you introverted?  Maybe you can find one little way to make connections with others.  Do you anger easily (I do)?  Look into relaxation techniques like meditation or spend some time thinking about what triggers your anger.  Do you hate exercise?  Maybe you can find something fun to play like kickball or dodgeball or something that you have enjoyed in the past.  The point is that we can control quite a bit in our recovery process.  Yes, Zoloft has helped.  And yes I have gone on and on about my yoga and meditation experience.  But more than anything, even more than my work in therapy, I credit myself for my continued and sustained steps of healing.  You have quite a bit of power and you can live happily and more fulfilled.  

The Pain Obsession Brings

        My childhood, teenage years, and adult life has all been defined by excesses.  Nearly everything in which I have involved myself has been done full throttle and entirely committed.  Oftentimes this personality trait has served me well and in some instances it has hurt me.  Excess can be defined in many different ways: staunchly loyal, overdone, fierce, diligent, overwhelming, and obsessive to name a few.  Mostly, I have associated excess with the positive aspects of my personality and have often taken pride in the fact that I can "do more" or get more out of life than the next person.  I studied for hours on end in school, I stayed up late and woke early, I committed myself to a difficult workout routine, I have refused to turn my back on people who hurt me, and I have gone out of my way for the service of others on more than one occasion.
        However, the laws of nature and the forces of society suggest that excess fails to prove favorable to a sustainable and fruitful life.  Crops need rain, but if it floods they are no good.  Working out is good for your body until you do it so much that you injure yourself.  Having a drink to celebrate a promotion is fun, but getting drunk and driving your car into a pole clearly serves no one.  The point is, and we have all heard this at some point or the other, anything done to excess can end up hurting us and others.
        I believe that this is particularly relevant to people who experience symptoms of depersonalization and derealization.  My psychiatrist diagnosed me with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, which among other things includes anxiety, DP/DR, and obsessive thoughts.  Undoubtedly there are many causes, characteristics, and manifestations of DP/DR, but I think that many of us share the experience of excessive thoughts.  There is a difference between thinking and feeling.  Just as there is a difference between visual distortions and focusing on the visual world to a point where you start to feel alienated from the environment.  I believe that more than anything DP/DR has been an affliction of perception rather than reality.  Yes, there are many aspects of DP/DR that I cannot directly control, but there are many things I can.
        This is where I believe obsessive thoughts and my lifelong experience with living in excess comes into play.  Many of the ways in which I have dealt with DP/DR seem to be antithetical to the way one should respond to a problem.  In order to avoid the feelings of discomfort in my environment I retreated into my mind and obsessed over the characteristics of my surroundings and more importantly how uncomfortable they made me feel.  Given that feeling derive from thoughts, it is easy to see how my destructive thought patterns led to negative feelings.
        So the next question will naturally be, well how do I stop obsessing over these thoughts?  How do I control my thinking?  And how do I do so when this experience is so uncomfortable?  There likely is not a one size fits all approach to answering this question, however I will almost guarantee that it will start with ceasing to research the topic.  All of the information should come directly from a mental health professional.  I only say this because of the fact that everyone's experience is different, the onset of symptoms vary from person to person, and finally most of what you will find on the internet only adds to your confusion.  I am not fully healed yet, but I have witnessed sustained and noticeable improvement and it all started with the last time I typed DP/DR into Google.  This was the first small step in my slow but steady recovery.  Other tips that I have found helpful have been: finding things to distract you, making yourself as comfortable as possible, spending time in familiar places, invoking positive emotions, journaling, among other things can help to divert your attention away from your discomfort.
        In many ways DP/DR is and can be treated like an addiction.  There are parts of the addiction over which we have little control.  Still there are other parts that we can control, like the obsessive thoughts and worry.  For the parts that we can not control I would recommend at least exploring medication.  Zoloft (after about four weeks) really has helped with my anxiety.  As for the parts that we can control, please start by obsessing a little less.  You can't think about something if you don't spend all of your time thinking about it.  It is much easier for an alcoholic to stay sober if he/she stays out of the bars.  So keep your DP/DR out of its bar and don't feed it with thoughts that harm you.  Take some time to reflect on what makes you feel bad.  Then think about what makes you feel good.  Finally, commit yourself to focusing on those positive things more frequently.  This has definitely helped me.

Fear, Patience, and Unrecognized Progress

        Experiencing depersonalization and derealization undoubtedly has been the most uncomfortable experience of my life.  I am surely not alone to think that this discomfort is seemingly unbearable.  Upon reflection of the past few months and even the present moment, I have come to believe that fear plays a prominent role in perpetuating the symptoms.  I have been living completely in the clouds so to speak with my excessive rumination about reality, what I am, and autonomy.  Thinking about these concepts has both fed my symptoms of DP/DR while strengthening the fear inside of me that prevents my efforts towards healing.  Although my thoughts have produced limited answers to my existential questions, I have learned quite a bit about what makes me anxious and what hinders recovery.  Fear.  There are many indescribable feelings about this condition, but fear is not one of them.  I am afraid to confront my feelings.  I am afraid to allow the feelings to take over me.  I am afraid that I may be experiencing physical health problems.  I am afraid that I am going mad.  I am afraid that DP/DR prevents me from experiencing life.  I am afraid that I will never be able to connect with myself or my memories ever again.  I am afraid that I will never feel "normal" again.  I am afraid that the life I had loosely planned for myself will never come to fruition.  I am afraid that I will never again appreciate the things in life that brought me joy.
       Despite genuinely feeling every one of the above stated fears, I can at least recognize that they are nothing more than words in a blog post or thoughts in my head.  This is not to say that these feelings don't play a major role in my life, but rather to share that I think the only obstacle to my healing is myself.  There is nothing physically or even remotely tangible in my way.  I do not know how I got into this mess, but I do know that there is really only one person who can get me out of this.  Me.  I can continue to follow my treatment plan.  I can recognize and explore my feelings.  I can bring my memories to life by looking at photos and talking with loved ones.  I can go to the doctor if I'm not feeling well.  I can create my new normal that was better than the old one.  I can continue to try and live out my life's plan and if changes come I can decide how to adapt.  I can take small steps to really enjoy life's blessings.
        Fear is powerful.  My therapist thinks more than the ruminating about life that fear is driving these DP/DR feelings.  At the end of the day, the only power fear has over me is the amount of weight that I give it.  I can submit to the fear or I can confront it.  Or I can do something in between.  But the important thing to remember is that we are in control.  It does not feel like it.  We may not even know what we are.  But we are agents for our own happiness.  Think of all of the things you are able to do that you could do before DP/DR.  You can read this blog post, you can sneeze, you can control your breathing, you can cry, you can smile, you can feel miserable, and you can feel better over time.
        Patience may be the single most important tool you can utilize as you recover.  Given the breadth of people who claim to have experienced DP/DR for several years, I can safely say that healing takes time.  Use that to your advantage.  If you know healing is a process than make it a process.  Once I got my anxiety in check I was then able to focus on the DP/DR.  Use the time you have to improve yourself so that when you do fully heal you will be better positioned to control the outcome of your life.  I don't think any of us signed up for this, but we all signed up for how we deal with it.  I get quite impatient during the day and week sometimes because I just want to feel entirely normal again.  I want my life back badly!  However, forcing the issue will not make it come any faster.  This is a road trip and we do not know the destination.  But guess what?  That's life.  Embrace it or fight it you and I are going somewhere and we can't predict exactly where.  However, we can choose the road.  We can pick the music we listen to on the trip.  And we can control our attitude towards going on the trip in the first place.
        I am struck by how much the people in my life have noticed a change.  I can recognize at times that I am feeling better than when my DP/DR was at its worst.  However, I don't feel completely like me yet either.  In the past month my therapist has pointed to all the work I'm dong as a sign of progress, my partner is starting to get annoyed with me again which means I have more zest for life haha, I just visited my hometown and one person said that I have a light shining from me, and my psychiatrist says that he is happy for all of the progress I've made.  Rather than focusing on how nothing is working, perhaps we can imagine and examine how everything we are trying is working.  Surely something is working given that you are here.  But even if nothing is working try to imagine what "working" looks like.  Even the attitude towards our recovery makes a big difference in its success.  We can't heal if we don't believe in ourselves.  Remember there isn't a surgeon or scientist in the world who can un-DP/DR you.  You are the agent for your change as I am for mine.  If you can get out of bed every day after a day of DP/DR than you are ahead of the game because DP/DR sucks the life out of many people.
        Remember to keep calm and recognize your fear.  Have patience in the process because it takes time to heal.  And look for even the smallest examples of your progress.

Journal Entries May 22-29, 2013

Wednesday May 22, 2013
12:49 pmI do wonder if I'm getting anything out of therapy. I know it's hard for me to acknowledge progress but I think I may be of the mindset of if I don't have homework than I'm no doing good work in therapy. I will admit that meditation seems to help. I think I'm getting something out of the meetings. I do worry about this sense of being here for the first time. I do worry about my disconnect from my former self. I am eager to exist organically and as one. I thank God that I am more comfortable. I am also happy that I can enjoy more of life. I also wonder if we're treating what I actually have. I only worry because I'm not sure I describe my symptoms correctly. However the people who examine me are well trained and experienced and there are only a finite amount of conditions. And my symptoms aren't something really wacky or obscure. I am thankful for that. Undoubtedly my discomfort will help me grow and be happy.

Friday May 24, 2013
8:25 amYesterday and today are interesting. Yesterday felt pretty good at times and at times I felt disconnected from my body. It's an odd sensation, but I do a good job of recognizing it as symptoms and not this overwhelming thing that I won't be able to handle. I'm handling it just fine actually. Perhaps the hardest thing to deal with is this struggle between what I can logically conclude about my symptoms versus my thinking that I'm the beneficiary of some great knowledge or insight. The problem comes when I think about what drives the nature of my thoughts, even this journal entry. I might also want to know what my body's relationship is to my mind. I can find comfort in knowing that I'm not God and therefore would have little say about many things no matter how I viewed them. I'm finding it interesting how much I've always lived in my own world, not realizing that everyone out there is going through their own lives. Everyone has their own journey and I've never thought to care or consider this. I've actually always wanted other people to be happy. When I think about it I've never wanted unhappiness or ill will for others. However I've never been overly invested in others' experiences. It's never really occurred to me beyond the surface level that maybe its not ok to focus so much of my energy on how I'm doing. The ironic thing about that is that I haven't ever spent much energy on self care either. In many ways I've just shuffled from activity to activity with no real direction as to where I know I want to go. Perhaps I would have gotten there no matter what decisions I make, but maybe this experience is giving me the kick to start exploring.
6:20 pm
Fact: there's no way around it that this is all perception. Every tool to succeed is already in me. Remain patient. Don't think about things that make you uncomfortable.

Saturday May 25, 2013
10:15 amFeeling a bit anxious today. It feels nice to reminisce about school, but I am having a hard time fully appreciating the moment. These feelings are just a product of unhelpful thinking. I am patient and calm and accepting. I am doing a good job of living with these symptoms. Remember that change is inevitable. Nothing bad can happen to me even if I'm uncomfortable. This is a good thing to remember. It's also good to remember what a blessing it is to wake up. I have so much to be thankful for. I have really loved my time at school and its a blessing to be back.
7:54 pm
Today has been ok. I haven't really felt that anxious but my disconnect from self has been there. It's been nice to talk and hang. I'm at least able to realize that these thoughts are just a part of symptoms. Thinking of it this way makes it more manageable.

Sunday May 26, 2013
1:16 pmToday has been an ok day. I've felt a bit anxious at times. I'm feeling better anxiety wise after meditating, but I have been feeling a disconnect from myself today. I am feeling a bit of fear because I'm not sure if I'm starting to lose my personality, or more importantly the unchanging part of me. I am fearful of not retaining my identity or sense of control and self. Resistance fails to serve me however. I am going to enjoy what I have with the means and constructs I possess to enjoy things. A goal would be to gain a better understanding of what I'm experiencing. I only ask this so that I can better strategize and deal with my discomfort. I am getting the sensation of my consciousness being new. I'm also getting the sensation that I'm not in control or that what I do has no merit or purpose. I am still struggling with self concept. However I'm better off than  I was. I'm learning a whole lot a out myself and the human psyche. I'm on a definitive spiritual path. I have people who love me. I have someone to share my life with.
5:22 pm
Im having a bit of a hard time conceptualizing what I'm feeling right now. I just feel a bit odd, off, and out of sorts. I feel kind of spacey and disconnected. Some goals: figure out what feeling spacey is, rid myself of the notion that I'm having profound thoughts, embody my gratitude list, try to help others, accept the process.

Tuesday May 28, 2013
11:26 amYesterday and today have been ok. I have some feelings of anxiety and unease. I am pleased that I handled being out of my routine fairly well. My experience traveling this time has been much better than when we traveled in January. I can definitely say that I was more at ease, less obsessive with my thoughts, more able to engage, more hopeful, and generally more happy than when I traveled a few months ago. Perhaps I can't quantify the improvement, but I know. I'm even able to think existential thoughts without getting really worked up. I think that the nature of this experience lends itself to a lot of confusion. The biggest change is thinking about thinking. Obsessive thoughts. Destructive thoughts that don't serve me. Something has gotten me in a rut, but it doesn't have to stay this way. I think it's important to commit myself fully to my goals. I want to live in peace. I want to exist organically without thinking about my existence. I want this with all of my being. So I have to lay out a plan for the life that I want to live. I have to commit myself fully to this plan. If I don't want to be bothered than I have to stop being bothered. Remember I've done this for most of my life.
7:09 pm
I've gotten by pretty well today. I've been pretty comfortable and engaged at work. I've gotten a lot done in terms of working on me. I've made a list of things I want to accomplish in my life. How can I just exist without these thoughts?  Remember when I was just a member of the world who didn't consider these things?  It's important to note that I couldn't even consider these questions if I didn't have the capacity to think and create. I'm in more control than I think.

Wednesday May 29, 2013
1:51 pmToday has been ok. I'm still here to think about it and write about it. Yoga went well today and I enjoyed my guided meditation. I still think my mind races a bit too much during meditation but the guiding helps it. I feel a bit mentally blocked up as far as living a normal life again. What is driving all of my thoughts?  How can I get more comfortable with just existing?  Surely other people have grappled with this issue and have come out safe and sound on the other side. I can't help but look at my environment and think of the impermanence of things. But I'm also troubled by just being. How can I do that again and live in peace?
9:40 pm
I'm a little bummed out that I'm not back to normal yet. I'm not frustrated because of the work I'm putting in, but I am frustrated because I feel like these thoughts take away from my enjoying life. How did I get to this point?  Sometimes I feel like I'm not here but on another level I know I am. I feel like I've hit a plateau again and I'm eager to feel even better. I am blessed for my improvement and I am blessed for my discomfort because I'm here to feel uncomfortable. Patience is so important.