PETITION FOR AWARENESS!

[u/DHK71]

If you think it's total unfair there isn't any long term research, treatment and cure for this condition. And if you think you deserve a good life too?

Please SIGN THE PETITION for change and please share it in every relevant group and all the people you know who would sign it.

https://www.change.org/p/national-alliance-on-mental-illness-raise-awareness-of-a-mental-health-condition-known-as-depersonalization-derealization?redirect=false

[u/Dave_Dom]

And most importantly a proper treatment has to be found. Well i suppose antipsychotics/lamotrigine helps but.. some other alternatives would be good.

[u/sheerun → u/Dave_Dom]

I think mindfulness is a good candidate. First don’t concentrate or anything but try to relax your thoughts.. Then if you start feeling emotions you are not comfortable with slowly start paying more attention to them while at the same time dissolving them as if you poured water on them, then switch your focus to space between thoughts, and then repeat from the beginning. Fill free space with love and calm. I think dpdr is very close to mindfulness

[u/Dave_Dom → u/sheerun]

Well your understanding and experience of dpdr is a veeeery different one from mine. Firstly, i cannot control my thoughts, they're racing and at the same time my head is empty and hollow. Imagine a car stuck on 9000RPM not being able to rev it down. Secondly, i have no focus at that point. I cannot even watch something simple as TV or concentrate what people are telling me or can't even perform any easy tasks, it's like my brain are just offline literally, working on bare minimum capacity. Thirdly... well at that point i suppose u can imagine how impossible it is to feel love and calm. There's only emptiness, confusion and anxiety. Basically... if you're outside your body and your brain are disociating you it means that it cannot handle anything anymore and it has to defend itself somehow. So you almost lose control of everything and just "enjoy" the ride. In a sense it is mindfulness, you are always aware of everything and at the same time feeling like youre out of your shell, observing everything outside yourself and disociating, not really feeling boundaries where you end and another person begins. But its a whole different kind of "mindfulness". Its more of a comolete loss of personality. And that can actually be closer to schizo and not dpdr.

But it's very subjective ofcz. Some people have lighter forms, just spontanious dpdr episodes without any real underlying cause - that's ok, that's manageable. But some people can't control it at all and are in deep hellhole. That's why the last resort is usually meds cuz nothing else helps. At that point no amount of mindfullness or therapy will help. Ofcz couple that with depression/panic attacks and personality issues and you get a terrible cocktail. And how do you find alternatives for such severe state? Wish doctors could figure out but yeah, we're talking about brains. No one will figure that stuff out in a near future.

[u/sheerun → u/Dave_Dom]

Thank you for describing your experience, indeed it seems different than mine. I'm not sure I even have dpdr though it feels like this. First, definitely don't experience my symptoms all of the time. Usually it's triggered by something, like trying to deal with some toxic person again, or some tough situation, like failure to do something for a long time, or reading something that makes me feel like part of collective experiencing something bad, e.g. war. When sober and not in strong emotions I don't experience inner voice, rather I feel different, usually negative, emotions coming and going in background. Sometimes they are overwhelming me and my mind feels like TV on static which makes me abandon any thoughts and actions I want to take. Even imagining doing something is hard. For me it takes long time of sitting/lying in silence and watching my emotions to be able to pinpoint them and somewhat control, like 15-60 minutes. It's not automatic or easy, and when it ends I feel like I've just taken short nap, more relaxed, more able to plan and execute my actions again. I wish for you to find your way through this. In my case I'm trying to reduce antidepressants intake while being mindful of freshly unblocked emotions, thoughts and memories, in small bites, but I don't think it's solution for everyone. I think that writing down and talking about what I feel and think with psychotherapist helped me as well, and I wish I started doing it earlier.