A Little Bit About Me

March 26

        I think before delving into my musings about DDR it's first important to share a little background information about the experiences and circumstances leading up to this time in my life.  All of the research I've done into the anecdotal evidence of depersonalization and derealization it is abundantly clear that we all arrived at this place from different backgrounds and circumstances.  Even still, each of the manifestations of DPAFU (depersonalization and feelings of unreality) appear and seem different from one another.  My research has indicated that though our symptoms may fall under a certain criteria we can all experience them in different ways and are bothered by them to greater and lesser extents.  Despite this fact, I will contribute more anecdotes not in an attempt to find someone who shares my experiences or to have a "brother in arms" so to speak, but rather to offer how I've dealt with these feelings and to connect myself to the world through my feelings about the symptoms I've experienced.
        So as I stated in the first post, I started having these feelings of DDR/DPAFU at the end of December 2012/January 2013.  I lost my mother suddenly in 2006 when I was a young adult and never found an effective or at least a healthy way to handle this loss and the subsequent feelings of grief.  In fact, I essentially ignored or avoided these feelings for the past six years having never gone to therapy (until this past October) or found any other way to grieve the loss of my mother.  Also, there was an additional change in my family's structure (caused by my father) that added an additional element of stress to my life.  Those are my major stressors prior to this September.  I am additionally in the process of making a career choice that will affect not only the arc of my life, but also my location of residence.  Currently, I'm living many miles away from home and I am now faced with the decision of going back or staying here.  I am torn between a number of factors and circumstances in this decision, which undoubtedly has caused me a great amount of stress.  I hope that these tidbits provide at least some context as to how I got where I am and also shows that DDR/DPAFU can be caused by any number of circumstances.