When I first visited this website and I read the stories I cried. I have been suffering from DP for 3 years now and it’s nice to know that there are other people out there like me.
To start my story, I used to be a real big fan of weed.(not anymore!) I started smoking weed when I was 15 and continued until I was 16. One night while at my friends house I smoked some weed and only a few minutes later I felt weird. I had never experienced this before and didn’t think It was a big deal until I started to panic. I suddenly felt like I was dying. I couldn’t keep a thought in my head for more than a few minutes. I began to cry and asked my friends to take me to the hospital. They thought it was funny and brushed me off. The symptoms continued through the night and I finally fell asleep because I was so tired of trying to concentrate. When I woke up the next day I got out of bed and immediately knew that something was terribly wrong. I felt as if I would fall asleep and wake up over and over. I thought that if I went to sleep again it would go away so I slept for most of the day praying this would go away. When I woke up and nothing had changed I began to panic! I was hysterical and I finally told my mom. She thought that it would go away soon and told me to just calm down.
Well I would like to call that the biggest understatement of the next 3 years of my life! I can honestly say that I haven’t felt the same since that day. The symptoms continued to get worse and I would stay in my room for weeks at a time. I barely continued on to the next grade because I was afraid to go to school. Although the symptoms were constant they would get worse at school when I was around people and I was embarrassed to have an attack at school. I finally made it through high school and just graduated a few months ago. I have seen doctor after doctor and no one has fully diagnosed me with anything but I know that I have ruined my life. I have been on 4 different medications and none have really seemed to help me completely. Some day’s I am fine and I have no symptoms while other days I can barely talk because I don’t sound like myself. Just recently I have been seeing a really good psychologist and he has helped me a lot. Although none of the drugs have really worked for me yet I’m not going to give up yet. We just recently started to work with antipsychotic instead of antidepressants and I hope these can help me. I have had so many different types of DP experiences that I think they will change and progress throughout my life. Some have stayed with me while others have left. Just recently I have developed a new one. (great…) I have been questioning the existence of others around me. The reason I bring this up, is so if others are reading this and they are experiencing the same thing, they can know they aren’t alone. I attend college now and am living on my own (with a roommate) and while at school I thought I had imagined someone say hi to me passing me on the stairs. Everything in my mind is telling me that It didn’t happened and I still question it… I hope that someone out there can relate to my story and I can help them in some way. I think that all we have is hope….