Derealization

General philosophy message board for Discussion and debate on other philosophical issues not directly related to veganism. Metaphysics, religion, theist vs. atheist debates, politics, general science discussion, etc.
Post Reply
RanOverByATrain
Newbie
Posts: 17
Joined: Sat Feb 06, 2016 6:56 pm
Diet: Vegan

Derealization

Post by RanOverByATrain »

I need some help. Sorry if this topic has been done before. I'm not finding anything about it on here through the search. This is going to be long...

I took antidepressants for about 20 days. I had an episode where I forgot who I was (I still knew my name, what I like, and could remember my life though. It was a weird feeling) and couldn't figure out why I even existed. I was so confused and I thought I finally understood what life was and that life was terrible. I realized that no one likes living and we're lying to ourselves. People rely on drugs, making fun of people, entertainment, learning, being nice to people, and other things to make them happy, but in the end we're not really happy. We're just trying to get away from bad feelings. At the same time, we don't exist. At times I thought I was the only one who existed. At one point I thought I may become a God after death, that I'm here to see this world and use this knowledge to create another one. That was weird because I'm an atheist. I wasn't sure what a human was. I thought that suicide was the only thing that will ever make this stop. I didn't try to kill myself because one of my boyfriend's close friends killed himself and I see the effects it had on him. I try to tell my boyfriend it isn't his fault, but he thinks if he had only spend that night with his friend he wouldn't have killed himself. I can't live like this forever though.

For about 8 hours, I thought I just realized what life was or maybe that it was from weed from the month before affecting me somehow, though I never had that happen before. I read about it that night and found out it's a symptom of extreme anxiety and that antidepressants can cause it. I stopped taking them right away and stopped drinking caffeine for a day or two then slowly started raising it up again. I'm not sure whether this happened because of the antidepressants or if I had a mild case of serotonin syndrome because I was also drinking a Monster every day like usual (it has panax ginseng in it so it works on serotonin receptors) and I didn't realize this at the time, but the protein powder I used every day has 5-HTP in it as well. Why was I drinking Monster still? Because I'M A MORON WHO THINKS BAD THINGS WON'T HAPPEN TO ME! I also didn't realize a problem like this could happen. I thought I would just die. And I'm even more stupid for not considering this because LSD and mushrooms work on the serotonin receptors and marijuana seems to affect them too. I haven't done LSD or mushrooms by the way.

Well, this happened the day before Thanksgiving. I've been getting better each day slowly, though I was thinking it could happen again for a while. I've been feeling positive this week though. I let my guard down. I thought I was safe. I was doing so well today and it just happened again. It's not as bad as it was without the spiritual feeling and without the depersonalization on top of it, but it's still a terrible feeling.

What's bothering me the most about this is that it seems like it's just the truth. Life/the world is a hallucination made up by my brain. I don't know that anything is real. Who I am is decided by my brain. I have read that derealization and depersonalization are caused by anxiety. The brain supposedly does it to protect you. This happens after something traumatic happens or you're about to die (the about to die part is a bit weird because I heard it's relaxing, not stressful). Why would this happen in an evolutionary way? I don't see how this makes sense. How did this get evolved? This seems far more harmful than the brain not doing this. And why does it happen before death if it's caused by anxiety? Also, why would it evolve to happen before death if it is to protect you? You're dying when it's happening whether it does that or not! I don't see how it could have evolved. It feels like there should be a purpose to life, but there isn't one besides reproducing, but when I have derealization/depersonalization it makes me doubt that because of the evolutionary problem. It feels like there should be a God, but there isn't. When this is happening, I doubt even science itself. I'm not sure why I'm here or why I ever liked life. I can't live like this forever. It feels like this is the truth and that now that I know, I can never go back to normal, that I will just keep coming back to this.

I talked to a therapist a week after this happened and she told me to go to a hospital if I need to. They will want to hold me and give me drugs if I do that. Drugs don't solve the problem and I don't want to be locked up. She also said that we don't know whether it will happen again (but that it likely won't because I'm over 25 and the brain likes to go back to what it was like before) because we are not God, which just makes me scared because it seems like the only people who know this feeling are spiritual or believe in God and I'm just not like that. I just don't see it. Knowing that the people who go through this rely on God or the afterlife to get through it only makes me think that I won't ever be normal again.

It also feels like I can see that everything is happening all at once or that all the possibilities in the world are true. I'm not knowledgeable about physics (though I'd like to be), but I've heard that in physics it's true. This also makes it worse. It's like I just know it all and it bothers me, but I don't know why. I feel like I wasn't supposed to know this.
Jasmim
Newbie
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Oct 06, 2019 7:08 pm
Diet: Vegetarian

Re: Derealization

Post by Jasmim »

good evening.
I was impressed with your words, because I feel exactly the same thing! No one ever described it so well to me.
how are you doing today?
was there improvement?
I'm having a very difficult time.
If you can give me any tips, I will be grateful.
Jasmim
Post Reply