My saga begins on a street corner in a fairly large city with ” my buddy” Jeff stating the question to me, “I thought you were gonna do all three” in regards to some random pharmaceutical amphetamine tablets, “uppers” as they were called, most likely doled out to weight obsessed housewives back in the late spring of 1969. I was pretty high on two already, but gave into peer pressure and took the third one. It was a month before my 16th birthday people.
I went to bed that night with my heart racing, and a panic that began to swell from inside my stomach to my head. I walked into the bathroom and got down on my knees as if i wanted to heave up the poison in my system, only to be overcome with a feeling that I was facing death, and I was scared, shaking. I went into my parent’s room and spoke out for my mom and dad. They turned on the lights and asked what was the matter. I said my heart was beating extremely fast and i was frightened. I sat on the bed and my Mom admitted that it was so, worried about what was happening to me. My Dad said i would be alright, it was just some dream……..
Well, from then on I was never quite the same. The world looked unreal to me, and I had panic attacks off and on over the next few years. I could never take drugs again, and I turned to drinking at 18. This seemed to even me out and gave me “courage” to behave “normal” with others. The difference with my experience , and from what I’ve read on this site is that nobody seems to mention the “religious” aspect to depersonalization. While reading Allan Watts, a famous author on Buddhist principals, he speaks about the connection of all things to one another, “who” are we really? Are we this voice inside our heads? Are we our random thoughts? As if to say that this detachment we feel is a necessary component to “the awakening” self-realization” etc. I associated with these things and also was confused by them. I heard George Harrison sing in “Within you and without you” “..and the time will come when you see we are all one, and life flows on within you and without you”.
I have spent my entire adult life with this condition. And through it all I am married for 26 yrs. to a wonderful wife, have a good son, 22 yrs old. I often wonder how things would have been if I would have turned “Jeff” down that night and not taken the 3rd tab. Who knows.