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Derealization

My Life Behind a Veil

By Dekker ChristopherPublished 6 years ago 9 min read
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Imagine, if you will, completing a task. Let’s make it a very simple task: brushing your teeth—a very mundane, everyday task that we all do. You wet your toothbrush, squeeze out the gunk, and begin to brush. You rinse out your mouth and begin your day, or end, depending on when you brush your teeth. (You should really do both, but I’m not here to preach.) Now, imagine wondering if you really did brush your teeth. You remember being in the bathroom, you remember brushing, but the whole time you were doing it, you felt as if you were watching yourself do it. You were looking through a window at yourself, or watching yourself on tv. You run your tongue over your teeth. Yes, you know you brushed them, but it doesn’t feel like it was you. Yes, sometimes this happens when you are so used to doing something that your brain goes into autopilot. Imagine, from the time you wake up to when you can finally get some sleep, feeling like this. You have this feeling of being disconnected, of having a sensory fog over every aspect of your life. This, my friends, is derealization, something I’ve been struggling with for the past ten years. Now you get to hear my story. Well, at least, I think it’s my story.

It was ten years ago, in March. Everything was fine until about six in the morning, and for some reason, I had a panic attack. There was no evident reason for this panic attack, but I had one. I was pacing around wondering what the hell was going on. I went to look out the front door, and when I pulled my head back inside that’s when everything was different. My life was now behind a window. I was inside my head, watching my life through my eyes, as if I was watching a movie. I wasn’t there. I wasn’t connected. There was no depth. Everything was flat. People I looked at became robots. They didn’t have their own personalities. They said and did what they did as if it were scripted. I would speak and be fully coherent, I could carry on a conversation and do things I had to do, but never actually felt like I was the one experiencing it. I thought that all I needed was sleep because I had been up for so long. I thought all I had to do was go to sleep and everything would go back to normal—only the next day, when I woke up, it was still the same, with the same disconnect. I couldn’t seem to snap my brain and my life back together. It was a horrible feeling. It felt like I was living in a dreamlike state. At this point, I was convinced I was losing my mind or that I had a brain tumor or was on the verge of having a stroke. Something was seriously wrong and so I made a doctor's appointment. I didn’t get any answers. They told me it was anxiety and didn’t have any clue what I was describing as far as the derealization goes. They prescribed me antidepressents and antianxiety meds. I thought, well, hopefully this helps. But six after months on them, my life had still not become real. I had been reduced to isolating in my bedroom. I couldn’t leave the house, because a world that big not seeming real just triggered my panic attacks.

So, after another three months, I decided to check myself into the psych ward—the first of seven times I would end up being admitted there. I knew I had lost my mind. There was no way this should have been going on this long. Still, there were no answers. No one knew what I was talking about. I was baffled that people in the medical field had never heard of this experience. Was it real? Was my brain just that fucked that it had created something completely out of nowhere?

I began to self-medicate. I won’t go into too much detail because that is a separate story, but drugs and alcohol became my escape. For nine years, I resorted to shutting out all of the real world and stayed strung out and drunk. It was the only way I could deal with it. I became a wreck: years of self-harming, wreckless behavior, constant visits to psych wards and rehabs, and promiscuity. Basically, I did whatever I could do to try to forget about the life that was now so foreign to me. I couldn’t stand being alone with my thoughts because then I realized how unreal the world still felt. I was eventually diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and found a psychiatrist that finally knew what I was talking about when it came to derealization. It is a coping mechanism for extreme stress and anxiety. Your brain literally disconnects to protect itself. I was put on more meds but the more important thing I was told was that, if this was going to go away, I had to just try to embrace it and realize that once I accepted what it was, it would get better. But that’s a lot harder to do than it seems. I took the meds—the benzos were a miracle pill that really helped with my panic attacks—and I tried to start my life over. I tried to continue life with the knowledge I now had, still to no avail. I still struggle everyday with it. Still, I have not been able to really leave the house or start my life.

We all have our good days and our bad days. My derealization is the same. There are some days where, even though I’m always aware that it’s there, it doesn’t bother me too much. I’m able to kind of just get through it without the panic creeping in. I also have triggers that make it worse. It’s always at its worse when I wake up. I guess my brain adjusting from sleep state to wake state makes everything seem more unreal. Being in public, as I mentioned, makes it worse. It’s just more people to seem unreal. It’s worse when I don’t get proper sleep, or someone is talking too fast or too slow. Don’t ask. I have no idea why that triggers it. Also, when it’s too quiet or too dark is problematic. I can’t sleep with the lights off or in complete silence. It allows my brain to race. I need the lights and the television on while I’m trying to sleep. There’s a new sensation that has come along in the past couple of months that I can’t even begin to explain. The only way I can say it is that things look like they are too big or too small, sometimes at the same time. It’s a weird sensation but luckily the benzos usually help with that.

With every negative, there’s a postive, right? So, there are things that make it better, or, at least, bearable. Benzos, of course, help, but medication really shouldn’t be a factor. But, let’s be honest, it does help. Also, wearing my glasses helps. I guess since I go through life feeling like I’m looking at life through a pane of glass, it helps when I actually have something I’m looking through. Writing music helps sometimes, if I’m able to get into it deeply enough to completely distract myself. My two best friends, who gladly live right next door, help a lot. I find if I’m hanging out with them, I’m more often than not going to be able to get through a rough patch.

I get defeated. I do. I’m human. It’s too much sometimes. I feel like I will never get better. This will be life until the day I die. I can’t imagine being like this forever. I need a life. I need to get out and start my journey. It’s hard. I don’t know what I’m going to do about it. I want to give up about 50 percent of the time, but I have to try to realize that those thoughts are only because my derealization is at its worse. I enjoyed life before this, so I’m sure I can enjoy life after this.

Now, I’m not saying this to give those of you who are going through it a feeling of hopelessness, because there is hope. You will overcome it. It just takes some time. It just so happens that I haven’t beaten it yet, but it doesn’t mean I won’t. I know I will. It’s a fight. It’s a struggle. I have a long road ahead, but I know it will be worth it. I don’t know what life after derealization will be like. I can’t imagine it’ll be the same as it was before. It’s changed me. It’s made me a completely different person than I once was. As much as it has crippled me, it has also made me better. It has opened my mind up tenfold. I see things differently. My opinions on things have changed. I experience more and am more aware of things I never once was. I love harder. I fight harder. I’m a survivor. I’m a recovering drug addict. My mind is no longer limited to the conformities of society, because I’ve seen things and felt things and been places in my head I have never been before. I have dreams and ambitions and things I want to do. I want to raise awareness on mental disablity. I want to tear down the stigma that is attached to it. I want to help others who are going through the same things I am. I want to show people all the wonder your mind can achieve just as long as you let it. Don’t let things pull you down. Don’t stick to what is known or what is expected. Don’t be put in a box of what society thinks you should be. Jump outside that fucking box and explore. Be different. To this day, I wake up and feel like I’m the verge of losing my shit and completely going off the deep end. I can’t let that stop me. As much as it hurts, as scary as it is, as much as I want to give up and give in, I now know things that make me want to live. But it’s up to me. And it’s up to you. Kick your mental illness in the ass and fight it with all you’ve got. Never stop fighting. Because the victory will be worth every horrible, scary, painstaking moment this illness has brought you. That’s what I have to keep saying to myself everyday. Fight. Survive. Thrive. Your mind and your emotions are capable of more than what you know. I hope if you’re going through this you know you are not alone. People have overcome it, which means we can, too. You’re not going crazy. You’re not dying. You’re protecting yourself. That is the basic human instinct. You’re doing what is naturally expected. But, somewhere along the road, we’ve turned it inwards and torn ourselves down with it. We need to turn it outwards and conquer the world. We have a voice, so let’s fucking speak. We can change things. All we have to do is speak up. This won’t defeat us. It will build us up and prepare us for the greatest experiences life has to offer us. It all starts with us.

personality disorder
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