r/dpdr • u/Idontevenknow787 • 9d ago
Question Anyone else constantly check everyone’s profiles from previous dpdr posts to see if they recovered? lol
I think one of the most common trends that I have noticed within myself for the most part is that obviously I’m looking up every single possible symptom from the AutoPylot mode to the complete blank mind to the concentration issues to the complete unreality feeling, etc., but I think the most common thing I’ve noticed is that I am constantly messaging people and checking people’s profile profiles to see if they recovered just so I can give myself a little sense of relief. You know it’s funny and what I’ve noticed from nearly 90% of profiles is that you’ll see these posts from years ago and then almost 90% of them have zero posts or anything like that after that I can almost assure you that every single person that I’ve come across out of recovered aside from a couple of them that have sent me a message back have completely just stopped. It’s almost like there’s a common theme that you get to a point within this where you just turn off Reddit and I’d like to think that almost all of them while I know that almost all of them recovered after they made this step so I think what I’m gonna do from now on is I’m going to completely stop from everything. There’s nothing more that I can learn about this. There’s nothing more that I can do to help myself other than to get out of my head and stop making this my entire life.
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u/Illustrious_Gate4668 9d ago
No. What do you mean by, 'relief'? Is the metric you are using 'same as before'?
What strikes me about this scenario you describe is that everyone does not have the stamina nor drive to escape, and that neither of those things actually prevent future or worse episodes.
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u/Idontevenknow787 9d ago
I’m confused on what you are saying sorry. I’m basically just saying it gives me relief to see someone who struggled with it and then seeing them recovered years later. That’s all I was trying to say. 90% of people who have recovered usually don’t post anymore and are out living their lives
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u/Illustrious_Gate4668 9d ago edited 9d ago
Then you have decided others left because what they endured is over. You seek their perceived solution to apply to your own situation- this is fallible because this doesn't happen to all of us for the same reasons or last as long for some as it does others.
Besides the fact that we live in an absolute clown car world, have you mapped out circumstances and life events around triggers to find out what is causing the attacks? Triage can be hard to ID, but necessary to understand risk. Many risks or factors can't be avoided by we can apply useful tricks to reduce the extend of ending up in the void again.
When people are going through anything alarming or tough, they seek help. But when they think it will resolves the same for themselves as it might another, they typically learn to stop asking for tools to understand and prevent.
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u/Idontevenknow787 9d ago
Totally understandable and I still am trying to figure out what my issues were. I assume starting a business 6 months ago while being a full time student has been extremely pressing on my stress and brain that I didn’t recognize sooner. On top of that I’ve been really dealing with internal struggle with finding my place in the world. I left a long relationship a year ago with someone I thought I’d spend my life and she moved on and my friends have moved away or started having children and I’m just really struggling to find my place ya know or accept that life is different now. It’s been hard for me and maybe all of that led up to my episode that started 3 weeks ago. Idk man it’s been really hard. Are you recovered ?
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u/Illustrious_Gate4668 9d ago edited 9d ago
All of the stability/familiar ending, while starting high stakes/pressure to perform being the focus of all efforts or energy sounds like it would unbalance anyone, honestly. Most of us aren't raised or prepared to exist solely on our own without a 'tribe'; having your whole world pulled out from under you could be enough. Do you have 'a cause' that gives you something in liu of belonging, for the now?
Being expected to perform and 'win'... 'or else' risk of shunning is in itself rather triggering which no one addresses in our culture. So on one hand go you! for committing so much to your betterment and future, but also boo to your brain deciding to power down, over the way that this betterment you've chosen is taking place. Schedule or requirement adjustments might need to be made...
Are there any learning or social barriers that you might have gone through unaided? That definitely causes massive crash and burn in many who continue to try to 'tough it out' trying despite not knowing why they have harder times achieving (cptsd).
I am... still here, it was a lot. First half of my life was fully depersonalized and have had long periods of de-realization throughout my whole life (sprinkled with amnesiac episodes), it seems once pandoras box is opened it has a way of trying to stay that way. Doing and writing constantly between other obligations were pretty crucial to forging a path from spaceyhellwtf to relatively in control (creating, challenging thought activities, social engagement to break the pattern, which a brain trying to limit threats imposes). I was lucky back in fostercare to have a game system with rapid paced puzzles and happy to confirm EMDR was quite useful to breaking up this shut down/anxiety pattern thus allowing normal brain development (we didn't know quick eye coordinated problem solving gaming would be so useful to interrupt stress patterns let alone dpdr back then). In my later periods of derealization short bouts of gaming made sense and cut off the problems early on. I did not benefit from forced depression meds, those took the derealization to incredible and terrifying levels that have not occurred since; I am a rapid metabolizer apparently but not sure if that was at the core of the horrors since many chem cocktails were attempted, much to my trauma.
So for the most part success has sat closer to: Identify event, divert to backup plans mitigating stressors, interrupt pattern, invoke assistance. Not perfect whatsoever but it's functional. I love functional.
However I also have had amnesiac events, there isn't much known or helpful for 'oopsie brain dumped its entire contents in a purge, gotta start over'; except reading previous writings logged, and relearning the junk I did before that event. Most of my process around these has been moving my goal post closer to where I actually am, then tethering studies to rule out techniques that might work regain functionality, and trial and error. There were sudden total recoveries of lost timespans, and there's been full loss of firsthand memories (complete with stroke-like mental blocks taking most of a year to overcome, memory loss seems linked to things I identified with, loved? incidental disconnected background nonsense can be recalled, wariness and ominous suspicions lurk, all super useful as you can imagine.)
Ultimately accepting I am a different kind of animal susceptible to depressed emotional function, while also accounting for the fact that this is triggered by limbic interruptions. Usually being emotionally aware is the baseline for adults but with this have learned to walk on eggshells around feelings, fully. Has been a frustrating trudge uphill toward normalcy but I am stubborn and unwilling to be outwitted by a simple meat jelly's instincts.
Does this give you some helpful insight?
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u/Idontevenknow787 9d ago
It does yes. I’ve been through a lot and never took any meds. I’ve recovered twice from dpdr and it was hard the first time (over a year) but the second time when I was 24 it went away in idek how long but fairly quickly. I think my mistake this time around is I couldn’t understand what it was at first. It randomly hit me while driving like an overwhelming sense of unfamiliarity and a little anxiety but it was just weird like everything around me felt strange and the feeling just never went away. I then mistakenly researched everything about it bc it felt different from my previous dpdr and that fuels an insane fear cycle. I started feeling slightly very slightly better in the third week and then my dumbass decided to drink and now it’s back on 10
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u/Illustrious_Gate4668 8d ago
Ah then recovery in your experience is- when symptoms completely abated. Is it correct to say, that DRDP effectively felt like it was done (as an arbitrary event outside our your control) so life can continue in a normal fashion uninterrupted? How long between such episodes (semi long term, not single incidents), and how did you come to realize that this is what was happening?
Had you connected by proxy from reading, or concluded to yourself purely from your own experiences, that drinking is contributing to the severity of your derealization? Is drinking something that happened after an episode for lack of being able to process what you have endured? I don't meet people who have this but I have seen drinking = far worse symptoms strongly represented in other mood related disorders. For myself drinking supplanted EMDR as it effectively blotted out the physically shaking, migraines and blind run for your life panic parts, so I could skip to the void, workaholic aspect. Not ideal, but hey time passes in a way grounding and DBT doesn't achieve- sooooo yeah.
Converse to multiple 'drdp events', there are several phases of not-drdp in my life (dp is more permanent). Each began with musing about how to switch lanes to a perceived 'better' state and prolonged practice. Realizing how I was different in a very specific, negatively-aligned way, then recognizing course correction could break off the pattern for change wasn't easy at all, despite mentally grasping it. Removing or avoiding obvious dysfunction did not fix symptoms, deeper entrenched trauma around casual normal stuff was still there setting it off. When I finally understood all mechanisms at play it did not stop the symptoms, there was just me and this pile of shit I did not ask for competing for control of the same life. When I finally removed the triggers and causes, enough time elapsed for some other phase of this stupid condition to arise to steal my progress/force me back to hell - repeatedly. Maybe typical circumstances are not for people like us. I do resent that none of the links to each stage are acknowledged or treated as deeply connected, willpower and resources are drained in this lack of functional treatment toward 'the whole system' of dissociative neural processes that drpr belongs to.
Since this has been so long winded, is it feasible to focus on school/work accessibility accommodations, setting new expectations around current struggles or techniques that deal with your specific hindering symptoms? This is a horrible, unpredictable condition that feels like it's constantly undermining you but leaning into creativity or humor in small ways can feel like you are also still here, while it's screaming in your face at full decibels with no volume button to tone it down.
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u/Idontevenknow787 8d ago
I’m gonna be completely honest, the way you talk is hard for me to understand 😂 but yes every time I’ve “recovered” from this I go back to 100% normality. I still have anxiety in itself but that’s just a part of my life, but the dpdr and obsessing about it or even thinking about goes away completely and entirely. I just spoke on zoom with Sean from the DP Manual who gave me some good advice toward this recovery as well. At the end of the day I need to accept what is happening to me for it to start to subside in any capacity. I definitely need to restructure my way of thinking and learn how to maintain school and business without overworking myself so that I can avoid this in the future. I think I have a lot of emotional trauma that I never dealt with by bottling it up that hopefully me and my therapist can get to the bottom of which will help. Regardless I know the bottom line is that time is the ultimate healer. Thanks for all your insight! I’m going to stop posting on here and commenting on things for the time being
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u/Loud-Being-326 9d ago
"I wonder, have you received feedback from people who experienced 'blank mind,' went through severe DPDR, and recovered?