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.
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Saturday, August 10, 2013
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!
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!
Sunday, August 4, 2013
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.
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.
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