Hi my name is Brandon and I am not sure if I have DP, but I would like to share my story so that anyone else who has experienced it can find solace. I had an episode last night for the 3rd or 4th time in my life and decided to do an internet search. I was looking at anxiety sites, but the specifics of my episodes weren’t jumping out at me. I found this site and after I read one or two entries, I saw a correlation with the fact that many people’s first episode was with marijuana as is the case with me. In addition, such comments
as ‘high forever’ when referring to pot and if an episode was ‘what death might be like’ hit close to home and I felt like sharing too.
I am 22 now, but when I was fourteen I experimented for the first and last time with pot. My friends and I were doing a joint and suddenly I felt really weird. It is very difficult to describe, but I’ll make an attempt. I was staring at my wall for I don’t know how long, and then it felt as though I was looking down a tunnel at the wall, and all this time feeling very out of control and thinking this is how life will be forever and I would never come out of it. From the peak of it to the end it was like the last few seconds of sleep before I wake, where dream and reality meet. It was as though I was watching a movie. As the episode progressed, and I gained more control of myself I began to tell my friend to help me. It was a very weird feeling and didn’t happen again for a long time so I just assumed it was my body’s response to pot so I stayed away from it. But alcohol would prove to bring it
back on occasion. Last night was the first time it happened without pharmacological help and it was the most severe episode.
Just last night (May 1st), I had my most recent episode. I had stayed up all night to write a paper and then had to go to work until 1 in the afternoon. I got home and tried to study a little bit, but fell asleep. I woke up at 11 pm and wondered what time it was and what day as I usually do for a little bit after all-nighter naps. I laid there trying to come to for a few minutes when I started to feel a little weird. I rolled over and looked at my bookcase and
started to feel a little iffy about existence and if people really existed if I couldn’t see them. I sat up and started feeling a combination of heat and tingling all over my body something someone might associate with embarrassment severe nervousness, or the feeling that overcomes one when one first hears of a death of someone close. This began to develop further into the episode I had had when I was 14 and times since. I began to feel as though I was trapped forever in this state (a quick thought of suicide came to me, but then I thought that I would experience the same thing for eternity in death). I always come out of these episodes rather unscathed, but during them I am so out of control of my mind that I can’t think logically that I am going to be o.k. but I’m not even in control of my logic at the time. The main thing was that I had eternity ahead of me in this out-of-body state. This sounds stupid but the best description is that I am the center of the universe and nothing exists outside of my two set of eyes and that everyone in the world is a part of me and knows my thoughts and actions. I can’t stress the forever-ness
aspect that I feel and that I will be ‘trapped’ this way for eternity because that is the part that scares me the most. After I had gained control of my thoughts again, I was o.k. but in the middle of the episode is the scariest thing I have ever experienced. There is so much more description that I want to add to the episodes, but it is so difficult to describe in words. If there is anyone out there with the same thing I understand what you go through in these episodes. Just try daily to get better and you can. It is possible. I have been on Paxil for three months and it has helped me tremendously for depression. I wish everyone the best of luck. You are not alone. I now know that just telling my story is a big catharsis. Thank you for reading.