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.