Hi goodgrief20

Hope you are progressing, please feel free to contact me directly for any further questions on DP/DR for your recovery.

I relate to what you have posted and its a very lonely place to be. There is depersonalization and derealization (DP/DR.I suffer more from derealization (DR) where the world looks like a movie or a dream.

I suffered a TBI with onset of derealization due to Anoxic brain injury while having bad sleep apnea and taking CNS depressants Ambien & Alzam. I was going through a traumatic period in my life and couldn't sleep. Im left with a host of symptoms (to many to mention) but very bad vision sits high on the list, my vision is very blurry, any light seems dim, eyes dont adjust to changes in light contrast. The most frustrating thing is that my close family say I look ok, but who can see whats going on with ones brain!

I had sudden onset of DP within while taking this medication as I realised it as I woke up. I felt very disorientated and the world felt like a dream.I feel like a ghost, I also dont know my "old self" and can only remember what I used to be. It feels like I have to start from scratch how to relate to the world. The extreme derealisation and vision issues coupled with the personality issues of self have left me acrophobia, thats how bad it has got.

When I went through the trauma I left UK and came back to South Africa, where I dont have medical support and insurance, so I am alone on this.

I did a lot of research myself and it makes sense to me, as I remember when I woke up one morning completely disorientated with DR whilst on the medication. Maybe I am lucky to be alive, but with really harsh symptoms. I subsequently quickly titrated off the medication after this incident. Hindsight would have been better! My theory is it suppressed my central nervous system by taking two CNS medications caused CNS depression, and whilst having sleep apnea, I had hypoxia (Absence of enough oxygen in the tissues and brain to sustain bodily function). Since then, apart from extreme DR, I have serious problems with short term memory, vision problems (dimmed vision with natural light and worse with fluorescent lights), bad insomnia and agoraphobia. This apart from extreme anxiety, there are so many other symptoms it can be equalled to brain trauma. I lost a lot a lot of my cognitive abilities, business skill sets. The brain fog is so bad and have not been able to work.Its like a computer hard drive being erased and rebooted which is fragmented. Apart from the fact that I have bad agoraphobia and DR I basically am bedridden as do not function properly, and have to force myself to get out of bed or to do any activity or exercise. I cannot socialise at all, as feel too uncomfortable with the DR. I say more DR than DP, as its more about how I perceive the world through a glass pane, and people look more like mannequins compared to when I felt normal. I feel emotionally distant from my own family which is an uncomfortable one to deal with, even from my own son.

Ironically, I have had depersonalizaton 12 years ago, and got through it after approx. 4 years., mostly through very high stress.

Its definately not psychosis, as you wouldn't be aware of yourself and actions if it was psychosis.

Your question, was do you accept this as status quo or does the depersonalization lift?

My answer to this, is that I am trying to treat this symptom the same as when I had DP, which is to accept the feeling to reduce the anxiety, and the lower ones anxiety level drops, the potential increases to break the anxiety cycle which makes this feeling worse. Its not as easy as one thinks, as the symptom is so uncomfortable, and sets one in a continuous cycle of anxiety.
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There is a guy on Youtube which runs a host of support videos for DP/DR. ** the Anxiety Ninja.

All the best for your recovery and hope we can beat this one!

goodgrief20 has not posted since Feb, 2017

Thank you Mark, I should have picked that up with the dates of his last post. May I ask for your assistance here with protocol on this support group? Should I make a first post and introduce myself and symptoms? I am struggling a lot alone with a host of terrible symptoms, with not much help from my GP who just wants to prescribe further medication(SSRI) ,which I am weary as prescribed medication (poly drugging) has been the cause of my brain injury, and I am sure that the members here would be able to assist me through their experience with healing the brain and central nervous system. The biggest question I have right now is which thread do I approach on this support group? I am a 53 year old male and have a brain injury caused by taking two CNS depressants in March 2019, i.e. Ambien and Alzam (Alprazolam benzodiazapene), where I had already developed sleep Apnea (without knowing at that stage) which brought on a sudden onset of terrible symptoms overnight due to a lack of oxygen to the brain.The follow up by my doctor was to put me on an SSRI, which made my situation even worse. I am still busy tapering off the benzo and stopped the Ambien and SSRI, which has left me with really bad insomnia and battling with a host of symptoms which fall in line with Sleep Apnea & Sleep Disorders and Traumatic Brain Injury and Post Concussion Syndrome. I have lost sense of taste, have poor fuzzy vision, have burning skin sensation, really high anxiety,apathy, derealisation, agoraphobia, lethargia, stay in bed and not functional. I have lost hope as cant seem to find anyway of getting out of being locked in physical and mental turmoil.

One possible cause of DPDR that is altered hormone levels after a concussion due to damage to the HPA axis. There is a video of a guy who cured his DPDR after a year of testosterone replacement therapy on Youtube. I cannot post links but it will show up with a search of "dpdr and hormones" on Youtube.

I am clinging on to the hope that this is the cause of mine, not seizures, because it is truly debilitating.

I realize that this an old thread, and that goodgrief20 is likely gone from the forum, but when I read through I thought I must post, because I've been experiencing something very similar to what goodgrief described, and also because it seems that goodgrief is a similar thinker to myself. Reading the words they wrote, I could see myself expressing myself and describing the situation the same way. I'm about six months out from the injury - sustained in a car crash. For the first few months, I felt a near-complete depersonalization similar to what goodgrief described. Since then I've been able to integrate more to an extent. I've been back at my (mentally demanding) work for a month, and I'm getting through it ok, but a job that I used to find easy is now very demanding and taking up most of my energy.

I still feel very dissociated. It feels like my consciousness, my thoughts, my perceptions, and my emotions are all disconnected from each other. They are still happening, but there is little integrated connection. And I feel the same feeling of mental blankness, with little inner dialogue. It's like my mind can still do a lot of things, but I can't "feel" it doing those things, feel disconnected from it, and my consciousness has to actively recruit my mind to do the things it wants, which can be difficult and tiring.

I might come back and describe my sensations and situations in more depth later. Also curious if anyone is feeling similar things.

That's a really good way to describe what I was feeling for a long time . Work was taxing in that It felt like I had to make a conscious effort to do anything analytical.

The first 6 months were very frustrating... I'd say around that time I started having good days occasionally, but then regressing into dissociation for weeks at a time. I can say that months 12-15 for me is when I really started to feel myself again, and that created sort of a positive feedback loop with my mental wellbeing, which in turn helped to sort of 'reactivate' my conscious. November will be 2 years, and I feel like I'm largely out of the woods, enjoying my math-y job once again, so hang in there!