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.
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