Posted by confusedeeyore on March 21, 2004, at 3:00:46
In reply to Re: Depersonalization/Derealization, posted by matrad6781 on March 20, 2004, at 14:25:45
Thanks to evryone who replied to my post. I feel that I should also mention that I had a history of panic attacks dating back to age 5 and have also suffered from a lifelong struggle with depression and low self esteem. I would put myself in a hospital during the worst episodes, but I own a home and have a mortgage to pay so that is not an option as I have no savings to pay my bills during a hospital stay, nor do I have any form of insurance. I will try to get up the motivation to seek out a psychiatrist as soon as I can afford an appointment. I do experience emotions, some quite strong, but it seems to exist in a part of my mind that is just outside my reach, and I cannot fully integrate that part into my normal feeling of experience. When I was smoking pot, I got high, but was fully cognisant of everything around me and had fully rational thoughts, I just had an interruption in my sensory and motor skills that left me helpless waiting for the feeling to end. Drinking alcohol is the same as this as I feel the same drunk or sober, I just can't walk straight if I am drunk. This leads to my panic attacks when I am under the influence of either substance as my logic leads me to question the feelings and wonder if they will ever end. This is quite unpleasant as there is no way for me to even temporarily escape my thoughts other than to occupy my mind on other subjects like engineering a new car project so that my focus is not on the unreality that is omnipresent in my conciousness. My current project has become trying to make sense of DP/DR, hopefully having enough knowledge of the subject to be able to have a productive relationship with a mental health professional and increase my chances of success.
poster:confusedeeyore
thread:8172
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040319/msgs/326619.html