I was thinking today about my childhood and some of the connections I made as a teenager and some of the spats I got into with friends and other people my age. I remember one time I became too friendly with one of my buddy's girlfriends and this made him really angry. There was nothing impure or any bad intentions on my part, but I just liked talking with this girl. But he wasn't buying it and this created a disconnect in our relationship and ultimately led to our not hanging out that much anymore. Now thirteen years late I honestly can't remember the girls name or the reasons why we liked hanging out, but I do know that me and my good friend had a falling out over this experience. While I have gone on to make other friends and no longer find myself upset about losing his friendship, I can still remember the spat we had over my youthful ignorance.
I think the concept of impermanence is important to remember in examining our own feelings and the presence of DP/DR in our lives. When I was thirteen this tiff with my buddy was the biggest thing in the world to me. Or when I was a young kid I would get so excited about watching Saturday morning cartoons. Not as much anymore though. The point is we can look to any point in our lives and see problems or obstacles that seem trivial now. Remember how hard riding a bike seemed before you could do it? Remember how big of a deal taking a test was or how nervous you were before a dance in middle school? But as time has passed so too have the feelings about our experiences. We should remember this because one of the things that has bothered me since developing symptoms of DP/DR is the whole notion of time and our relationship to and placement in it. However, I am better served by remembering that even though these feelings scare me they will not last forever. In fact they can not last forever and I have a lifetime of data to support this claim. We all do! These feelings may seem insurmountable and they may feel like everything is amiss, but they are 100% not here to stay.
Just as I can remember having a spat with my friend regarding his girlfriend but can't remember the details, so too will I remember this challenging time in my life but won't remember how awful this feels. I will be able to recognize that I felt uncomfortable for a period of time, but the details of the experience will melt away. The only way we can maintain these feelings for our entire lives is if we work to feed them. Think of people who have held grudges against friends for decades. Think of the anger many of us still feel against people who have hurt us. People have to work to keep these emotions alive. Thinking back to that person who holds a grudge against an old friend, it's easy to think of that person wanting to spend time with the old friend but refusing to do so out of holding a grudge. I used to get angry quite a bit while driving and therefore associated the road with negative energy. As a result every time I got in the car I would be angry/swearing/beeping the horn etc. I fed my negative energy by allowing myself to get angry at other drivers. But when I decided to stop being so angry in the car I actually found myself more at peace while driving.
The same can be said for the symptoms associated with DP/DR. If we don't feed the symptoms they won't grow and eventually will melt away just as all of the other negative feelings in our lives. There are many examples of things that have fed my DP/DR symptoms and they include: avoiding social situations, not going outside, researching what DP/DR is and how we get it, reading books about it, spending too much time on forums, thinking about it (we can control our thoughts), resisting the discomfort, among other unproductive habits. I certainly do not have recovery down to a science however, I do know that I have felt inclined toward feeding the symptoms and have witnessed a major difference in how I feel once I stopped feeding the symptoms. I would recommend to anyone who feels symptoms of DP/DR frequently to think about what feeds the feelings. What makes them worse? Intuitively what do you think hurts your recovery process?
This all leads me to believe that if we don't feed the symptoms they can not last forever. No matter where our symptoms have taken us regarding our feelings about ourselves and our environment, nothing can change the fact that the rules are still the same as before we started having these symptoms. Everything must come to an end, including these thoughts and feelings and I believe that one of the way to emerge from these symptoms is to find ways to stop feeding them.
The opposite is true by the way. Confidence and happiness feed more confidence and happiness. The more things we do that make us happy the better we feel. The better we feel the more likely we are to do things that make us and others feel good. We all have places that we associate with positive emotions and happiness. This is due to the fact that we do things that make us happy and feel comfortable in these places. Let's allow ourselves to be happy by looking for places and people that help make us happy. Let's do things that make us happy and things that will help us along our journey. Let's feed the person inside of us that wants comfort, joy, and happiness. That person resides inside of everybody, but needs to be fed in order to stay alive.
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