Back then when I had a panic attack and started experiencing heavy DP/DR, I was reading articles about it constantly. All my mind remembers that through all of those sites is articles saying "DP is not harmful", "panic attacks are not harmful", "you are not going mad".
I want to write this post because now I see how I successfully fooled myself 4-5 years ago by reading helpful or not so helpful articles. Now I see how I used my intelligence to NOT face what I should have.
Back then when I had a panic attack and started experiencing heavy DP/DR, I was reading articles about it constantly. All my mind remembers that through all of those sites is articles saying "DP is not harmful", "panic attacks are not harmful", "you are not going mad".
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I decided to stop writing this blog this way. I decided to only write my story. I will not delete any post since a lot of people told me the posts are helping them. I hope it is really true and I did not mislead anyone into my madness, and I hope that some of the posts was a real help to others.
But from now I decided to only write down my own story, with the highest level of honesty and accuracy I am able to. Wish you all the best. Sorry for everyone who read this blog. I realized I AM a narcissist. Still I don't think most of the posts aren't useful, but read them accordingly. Sorry if I mislead anyone it was not in my intentions. I hope you are all well.
few posts from me from this week: Hello Lynda, I am glad if I help people with this blog, and yes, I did hard work to create these materials. Still, I realized I am a Narcissist. This is why I disappeared from here, I did so much bad things without realizing it, that lot of things from my past including this site reminds me of that. It is very painful for me, especially that there is no chance to make things up. Thank you for your kind words, I may end up writing more posts. Wish you all the best. ------------ they have some hidden bad intention" That is exactly what I did back then, but still, it was not not even bad intention, just a false self which needed to be defended, and I could only defend it by devaluing others. Doesn't make sense? Well, it is pretty simple. Depersonalization means you lose a sense of self you have been holding onot. Now, the only "self" that can be lost is a false one, which is no longer able to provide you a sense of self. That is DP. Narcissism means that one is holding onto an unrealistic sense of self, which has no real basis in reality (cause of derealization). When I got a panic attack and DP, it was a time when my "artist" self, with it's unrealistic narrative got crushed by people who saw me from a real perspective. That got me into DP. But unfortunately, even after reading so much about these things (some people said I became an expert), still, I wasn't able to help myself. I went on trying to defend a dysfunctional self and I ended up ruining literally everything in my life. If you guys feel like you are in a similar situation I was in, PLEASE, PLEASE don't be like me and save your life. ----------- Well, DP is a symptom of someone getting lost in his own indentity. Narcissists definetely get to a point with their confabulated self where they just can not rationalize away reality anymore. As they go on with life with their irrational, overblown sense of superstar self, they get to a point where they need to DENY a significiant part of reality, and themselves. That is how they experience DP. Of course I am not saying that everyone with DP is a narcissist. ---------- Narcissism is a tricky thing. A narcissist starts life with a confabulated, overblown ego, which sooner or later get crashed down. Now, problem is, narcissists usually super intelligent, and they always rationalize their own attention away from the real problem: they are living a lie. Some narcissists, like me, DO get self-aware and do admit their problem, but usually only when it is too late. Note that I am not a "born narcissist", I was not a narcissist until 20 years old, so I do understand where I went off-track. Other narcissists who develop this because of parental mistreatment, may be in a different situation. ----------- My biggest problem was back then, when I got panic attacks and DP/DR, that I BELIEVED people who told me that it is not serious. I believed that I will not go crazy, but I actually did. When you feel like you are going mad, there is a REASON FOR THAT. It is insane to just even think about the possibilities in my life if I would have taken this seriously. --------- Well, it's a little bit complicated I guess. Yes, I acted like a full blown "standard" NPD in the last 9 years. So yes, how I operated in life is the typical cover narcissist. And no, I am not putting a percent more blame on myself than what is due. But, what is also true that I am literally not this person. You can think about me like a guy who perfectly imitated a narcissist. I do have a "real self" and I do feel empathy. But I did not "use" my real self and empathy for 9 years, and I did this without realizing this. My narcissism was like a "play" for me, and I never ever realized what I am doing. What I mean is, I never "confirmed" this to myself. It was like playing xbox but not in the way that it was a play to me to hurt my family and others. I really did not realize this. When I did, I was close to suicide. I never needed this, and I can not take responsibility for this because it was something I never was. Thanks for you question, it is very late for me. I could go on here explain this. What bad things I have done? Can't find the words. From my perspecive and from the perspective of who I am really inside, it is the worst possible. If I couldn't feel empathy I would not suffer the way I do now. I will go on answering this but people waiting for me now so I need to stop. God bless you. ---------- Well Luke, I am a narcissist or not. Look, I am not a narcissist because I am not a narcissist inside. I am Gábor Szurdoki from Hungary, a guy who you never met. I never had a "developmental problem", let alone NPD. But at age 19, I started something which is EXACTLY what narcissists do. So yes, I am (was) a narcissist. It was like 9 years of not being yourself and not realizing it. I think I am a rare narcissist. I never needed it, I never meant it, it was just a game which I forgot I am playing. I will not get through this and there is nothing that is can be done. But I think I do have a lot of knowledge which you guys who are in similar situations can use, and I don't think there is a person on this Earth who feels more what NPD can cause. Feel free to comment here or write me. I'll be back. ----------- I deeply hope that you are not going to go through the revelation I went through, if that happens, feel free to write me I'll give you my email. If you are having sleepless nights because of what I wrote, that means you are heavily depended on mental concepts. "Inner objects". If you are getting scared, try to "root" yourself in things you KNOW are true. I know it feels impossible right now. Both DP and Narcissism involves being so heavily "lost" in fantasies and mental concepts (and a false self) for so long that the person eventually loses touch with reality. That in ITSELF is not a problem, but is a VERY dangerous situation. People who tell you that DP/DR are not dangerous, on one hand, says the truth because for your HEALTH, they are REALLY not dangerous. But on the other side, they are the most dangerous situation a person can be in. Never forget, that DP/DR means you are LOSING TOUCH WITH REALITY. Not in the way like psychotic people do, but it's VERY CLOSE. It's not a coincidence that some experts say that Narcissism (being identified with a FALSE SELF concept) should be called borderline psychosis. It is really a very good description. In DP/DR and Narcissism, one's psyche is intact, but the way the person uses it can literally destroy the person's life. Anyone who is experiencing DP/DR, GET HELP. Don't give it a second thought, don't try to rationalize why you don't, because both in NPD and DP/DR, you is your worst enemy. DP/DR and NPD are both very intelligent disorders, because the person suffering from them is very intelligent. And you can not beat your intelligence with your intelligence. Very dangerous thing. Your sanity and logical mind will remain intact, but with time you can become what I call "social madness". Your mind is exactly as sane as everyone else's, but you are literally mad in the way you interact with people. MAD means MAD. MAD means you are not being able to realize that you are MAD. Get help. From family, from a psychiatrist, and from your sane mind which is there but covered deeply by fantasies. Do not let DP/DR and your fantasies get you to a position where I am right now. ------------- You all have to understand, that one just can not "SLIP" out of DP, because DP/DR itself was not created in a second. I DO know that it can feel like it. One day you are okay, next day panic attack and DP wasteland. Still, DP/DR is not developed in a minute, not even a day or not even a few months. Back then, before, long before your DP started, you have already started building a "self" over very shaky foundations. That's NOT something to get scared of. I DID. But now, as I look back, I KNOW that if my mind would not have been occupied with 1.) DP/DR 2.) my false self concept, I could EASILY solve my life, and now I would not be writing stuff here, I would live a life which is beyond beautiful. But what I did? Did not take DP seriously (reading all day long about DP and reading everything you can google about panic attacks and DP DOES NOT EQUAL taking it seriously. Reading this forum and not doing anything either.), I read about it all day long, it became something like a hobby. DP/DR started to become a part of my sense of self. My identity. I repeat DP/DR is VERY dangerous. Especially - and that is GOOD news for everyone who is going through this right now - that WHILE you are experiencing DP, you are STILL OKAY, your LIFE is still okay, BUT at the same time, you are LOSING a little bit of that life and safety EVERY DAY, EVERY HOUR, EVERY MINUTE. But the STRONGER your DP is, the more it means that you still have a lot of chance to save your life. My DP diminished with time, and I was thinking that oh it is okay. It DISAPPEARED. Well, yes. The WARNING SIGN that I am RUINING my life disappeared, because I did not do anything to save it. REMEMBER: The ambulance is not in hurry when they take the dead body to the morgue. This is a very crucial part in chronic depersonalization, and if you don't get to the root of this, I'm sure that you'll not recover to a healthy state. I'm not saying you can't recover from DP without it, but I'm sure you won't get the most out of your life.
If you grow up with a pathologic parent (I'm talking about NPDs and Psychopaths), then abuse is an inherent element of your environment. That's not your fault, not your weakness, nothing that you should feel any shame about, it is because the defect of the pathological "parent". A smart child senses that something is wrong with the parent, so therefore accommodates to it. That's a very smart thing to do. Accepting the bad situation, accommodating to the parent's abnormal behaviours, therefore creating the best possible life quality. However, if you grow up, and don't go back (mentally speaking), and recheck your reflexes which you developed to an ABNORMALLY TOUGH childhood environment, you can be sure you'll cause yourself a lot of pain. Some people say, to make a compromise, is a good thing. I disagree with them, but even they'd agree that making compromises with someone who intentionally wants bad to you (actively, like a Psychopath, or "passively", like a Narcissist), is definetely not a good thing. For example, if you live with a psychopath, like I did, then you definetely learned how to make him cause the least possible frustration to you. The psychopath manipulates you, but by instinctively accommodating to the situation, you also manipulate him. That can be done by behaving in a way that makes him quiet or passive in a way that causes you the least problem. The psychopath will never shut the fck up if he sees you feel happy. If you feel happy, relaxed and calm in a psycho's presence, you are asking for trouble. What I developed as a child, is to behave in a way that gives him only as much supply (narcissistic supply) as he needs to go back to his room and shut up, but not a bit more. This was the best possible thing I could invent in order to live a somewhat happy life as a child. For example, this happened in ways like, okay, you are not letting me eat some cool food an play videogames at the same time, but here it is, I am eating some less cool food or not eating at all, and pretend like I'm a victim of you, so I can play video games without you coming and fcking with me. This type of behaviour causes probably the best possible situation in a pathologic home, but if you keep these behaviours as an adult, that'll definetely cause you trouble. Why the hell I shouldn't be eating the best possible food I can afford, and play video games at the same time? What kind of thinking is that? Why do I have to pay for something good with something bad? These types of implicitly learned reflexes play a HUGE part in depersonalization. Because depersonalization is basically this: "I am not understanding why I am acting the way I am acting.". Or you can replace the word acting with feeling. Or behaving. Hope I helped. To be continued. When I started to do my studies about my past, in order to get rid of "depersonalization", there was a point where I watched Harris Harrington's videos, and he mentioned the so-called "narcissistic parenting". It definetely rang true, I knew that I have experienced something like the mentioned narcissistic abuse, but I couldn't really accept it the way he put it there.
Still, I researched more about the subject, because I knew he was right on a basic level. Soon after, I realized, that I was growing up under a "narcissist". Still, what I have read about narcissists and stuff like that, I couldn't accept it a 100%, as an explanation to what I was going through. So I researched more, and there came a point where I realized the truth: I wasn't growing up under a narcissist, but a psychopath. Still, almost everything they have written about narcissist fitted my biological father. Now, years later, something strange happened to me. I am doing business, and I was talking to a client / friend. And there was an obvious situation where he did wrong things to me, and when I confronted him about it, he gave me a very strange reaction. I was talking to him loud, and I knew I was right, and the subject was strong. Still, he didn't give me any emotional reaction. He got defeated in the argument, but he didn't sound like that. This, and the lot of knowledge I acquired about psychopaths and stuff, made me realize something: the guys who say that narcissist is not the same as psychopaths, are right. The difference between the two is not much, and they are almost the same creature from the human perspective, but there is a difference. None of the two has emotions, both lack empathy, none of the two cares about you dying or crying or being hurt or any kind of suffering. Both manipulates people, and none of the two cares about the suffering they cause. Both has an abnormal, delusional, incurable, inhuman fantasy of being God-like creature who controls human beings. The difference is the intention: a Narcissist only cares about being God-like, and only causes hurt by accident, while the Psychopath, while also has this narcissistic delusion, it WANTS to hurt. That's it. One of the common reflexes that can happen in a sensitive child when growing up with a psychopath parent is something you can call "self-parentification".
That means, if the child has a strong personality, (s)he can interpret the psychopaths emotionally provocative /abusive acts in a way that (s)he starts to think that the parent has some pain inside, this is why it behaves that way. As a response to that, the child may accept this situation, and automatically decides to be something like a parent. Emotionally, the child becomes the parent. That means, the child will accept that the environment is just not letting him/her to play, to enjoy life, to be a child. Because the parent becomes the child, so the child needs to take care. If this mechanism stays "on" - and it possibly will, because the situation can't be resolved until the person understands that the parent's behavior was intentional -, it can lead to a very draining, tiring life, because the person may instinctively acts like a parent who always has that little baby around. This can play a huge role in DP. Depersonalization is often (or always?) the result of childhood psychopath abuse. For a lot or people, like me, it is crucial to understand what has happened to them in order to solve this situation and get on with life. If you are the same, and want to understand this kind of emotional abuse (which you are not even sure if happened to you), you need to under what a psychopath is, in order to put the events into context. I am giving you the best and most simple definition I ever heard, and this was in one of my favorite movies, The Dark Knight. In this scene, Bruce Wayne coming with his old (and good) reflex, when it comes to dealing with criminals, and that reflex is to understand them first. It is a very efficient way of thinking, when dealing with an enemy. But this time, this thinking does more bad to him than good, because he is not aware that this time he is facing a different kind of criminal. Alfred tells him about it. That's it. This is why psychopaths are very dangerous, emotionally speaking. If you are a great problem solver, then when it comes to personal situations, you try to understand the other person. BUT, in this process, we AUTOMATICALLY ASSUME, that the other person has some HUMAN motivation. What else could he have, right?
But if you think like this in a situation when the other person is a psychopath, then, when you start to try to understand his/her behavior, in order to find the right thing to do and go, you are already in the psychopath's web. He already tricked you. And the game already started. You are watching his words and actions, trying to answer with the right decision, but you never get to the point of understanding. And you don't even think about the possibility that understanding will never come. You don't think about that, because you know that everything and everyone can be understood, which is right, but if you don't know what a psychopath is, you'll never get there. A psychopath just wants to hurt. And the explanation ended. No reason, no pain inside, no human motivation. Just wants to hurt, and (s)he is willing to do ANYTHING to get that. Nothing is too much, nothing is too expensive, because NOTHING ELSE matters to him/her. No price is too high, because the only thing a psycho wants is the SUPPLY. This is a very important part on depersonalization, and understanding and solving this alone can take you where you want to be. The core of depersonalization is one mechanism, that creates all of the other layers and then fuels itself.
The basic situation is this: you experience something in your life, which starts a learned reaction, which originates in childhood abuse. This "thing" you experience is probably an inner experience, like being happy, being inspired, being scared, etc.. It is probably different in everyone. You experience something in your life, which starts a learned subconscious mechanism in you. Now, the learned mechanism I'm talking about, is there because you experienced emotional abuse chronically (frequently), and you responded to it by learning implicit reactions. Implicit means that you did not consciously decide to respond in a way, but just responded instinctively. This is why DP makes so little sense, because it doesn't have a "reason". There is no "reason" why you do these things, these are all implicit mechanisms. Emotional reactions that doesn't really have an "answer". You just experienced abuse chronically, and you just emotionally responded to it. And since this happened frequently, the response became automatic. What is the result of this, is that every time you experience that feeling that initially started your DP, you start to solve problems that don't exist. This is because, since the original feeling didn't and didn't really have a reason (didn't have a reason but of course had a cause), you can not FIND the reason now. To understand this, you really need to understand what the difference between a reason and just a "cause" here. I'm telling you examples. If your loved one dies, you feel bad. This can cause several feelings and emotions in you, but all because of your loved one dying, and you clearly know it. But if a psychopath approaches you and insults you in those subtle ways I was talking about in my previous posts, you can't really make sense of the situation, you just feel bad. When you are under psychopath abuse, all you experience is just a feeling. Not an emotion, just a feeling. You don't understand what is happening, so you can't point out a reason, but your emotional "sensor" just notices that something feels bad. If you don't understand this part, read my previous post about the girl and her mother eating her food off the table. The main thing here, is that these feelings from childhood coming up in your life now, they are uncomfortable and even scary, but there is nothing really to solve there. But at the same time, you are a sane human being who KNOWS that when you feel bad, there is a REASON. But these feelings have NO REASON, especially no reason in the present, they are just LEARNED implicit reactions from childhood. So there is nothing to solve, but since you feel bad, you automatically try to solve this. This is how you end up thinking you are going mad, lost yourself, etc.. Because you grab the feeling, and try to "solve the world" from that feeling. And when there is nothing wrong but you are STILL convinced (because your emotional sensor alarms), and still want to fix the problem, you will "fix" things that aren't broken. Realize that all these weeks, months or years you have been suffering, there was not a single negative realization that would prove any of these feelings. You doubted your sanity a million times about a million subjects, but all of those scary castles collapsed. Every single one. All you did was causing yourself terrible hours and days, but nothing actually happened. Hope I helped. I once read about a girl and her psychopath mother. The story was, in short, that every time the girl was eating, the psycho mother went there, and stole some stuff from the plate of the girl, ate it, and said to the girl that "Oh sorry, I didn't know that you were still eating." There is one more, very important element in that story, and that was a simple, very intense, very clear, but subtle gesture from the psycho, and the goal of that gesture was to clearly let the girl know that she KNEW that she was still eating.
I do know that the story sounds confusing and blurry, so I repeat. The "Oh sorry, I didn't know that you were still eating." sentence from the psychopath mother was a lie, and which is the most important element, that - by using other, non-verbal communication forms such as gestures, etc. - she clearly, very clearly let the girl know that she was lying, and this was an abuse. This is a very good example why psychopath abuse is so shady, under-the-table and IMPOSSIBLE TO PROVE. If the girl tells the story to anyone, nobody will understand why the girl is so mad about this. Because telling this story can not include the gesture, the intonation, the ridicule, the sarcasm, which were very very present in the live situation, but can not be quoted after. But those were the elements which gave a TOTALLY OPPOSITE meaning to the situation. (If the girl tells the story from word to word to people who weren't there, people will think SHE is the bad one for hating her innocent mother, who even apologized for eating her food. But in reality, the real thing is the opposite.) This is why people who grew up under a psychopath parent, tend to get mad at people for no reason. We clearly know that the "abuser" never says anything "wrong", but we still get abused as fuck. So when we get to the real life (where there are no psychopaths present), we still tend to interpret totally innocent words as hidden attacks. This, later, will lead to TOTALLY INAPPROPRIATE, and "anti-personality" emotional reactions, which can eventually confuse you about who you are. You will get mad at people who you know you shouldn't be mad at, and will accuse people on things you know they'd never do. There is a technique I developed, which I wish I had 2 years ago, where I was experiencing depersonalization almost every day. It is a very simple technique that can make you make a great progress in a very short amount of time (days, or even hours).
The trick is this: grab a paper and a pen, and write down your thoughts, the feelings they cause, and the actions you do after. Just write down where you at now, and how you feel. Maybe you are reading an article about DP now, and that makes you hopeful, and you start doing X. Write down that. And when your mood changes (probably will), write down again. Like, the second line would be: I still experience DP, I feel frustrated, and I started to do Y. Then, when you get angry about it, write down that. Third line: my whole life is fucked because of DP, I feel very angry, I don't deserve this, and that made me do Z. Then, let's say it makes you feel hopeless, write down that too. The most important thing is, that DOESN'T MATTER how you feel, write it down. Thought ---> Feeling ---> Action. Doesn't take much energy. If you do this, you can realize "circles" you are doing, which you are not aware of. Because that is why you experience chronic DP, because you get lost about what and why you feel, and how these feelings and moods create the next. I suggest you to start right now. This was one of my "circles", which I realized and helped me: 1.) Something makes me feel happy, or makes me feel realize that everything is cool, and inspires me to do something I love. I realize something great ----> makes me feel great 2.) Because I feel great, I want to start it. ---> inspired 3.) When I get inspired, an old reflex kicks in: when I was living with my psychopath father, feeling happy was not an option, because he punished me or said or did or lied something to ruin my mood, so the only way to feel happy was to imagine some great scene in my head. To daydream. ----> so, when I get inspired, I start to daydream, instead of doing the inspired action 4.) I start to daydream, start to imagine situations (which could even happen in real life), and start to get emotional and sensitive. I daydream even more, and I "lose myself" totally. Like I am in my head and not living life. ----> get distracted 5.) This daydreaming goes on and on, and the whole stuff does not let the realization I had at 1.) "lock in". I can't accept that realization because the "energy" goes into daydreaming. 6.) At some point, I lose the momentum, and "punish" myself somehow. And this whole shit just ruptures me. I lose track and I am at "nowhere" again. Hope this helps. |
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