“I think mental illness is the worst of anything. The hierarchy of suffering is sort of bound into our society. But my personal experience is that the isolation and anguish of severe mental illness was much worse than…having something physical that people could understand better.”
~ Bobby Baker ~

I couldn't agree more ... Read More...

A friend sent me a wonderful quotation today, and it speaks to what I am trying to do with this site. I do this for others, but I also do it for “selfish” reasons .... Read More...

We must all fight the good fight ... we must all shine like crazy diamonds ... Read More...

Here is an article on “Mad Pride” and the battle to define “normality” continues. Personally, I do not wish to have any problems with my brain. And yes, I am creative and always have been. In my case, I do not feel that medications have stifled my creativity -- my illness has. Medications and therapy have helped, but I am not cured. But I am alive today because of my medications -- and I am not exaggerating. It’s difficult engaging in this debate as I have “neurotic” symptoms, not psychotic. I would never claim to know what it feels like to walk in someone else’s shoes, and I do understand that certain medications do cause individuals to feel like zombies or worse.

Listening to Madness:
Why some mentally ill patients are rejecting their medication and making the case for 'mad pride.'

By Alissa Quart | NEWSWEEK
Published May 2, 2009
From the magazine issue dated May 18, 2009

“We don't want to be normal," Will Hall tells me. The 43-year-old has been diagnosed as schizophrenic, and doctors have prescribed antipsychotic medication for him. But Hall would rather value his mentally extreme states than try to suppress them, so he doesn't take his meds. Instead, he practices yoga and avoids coffee and sugar. He is delicate and thin, with dark plum polish on his fingernails and black fashion sneakers on his feet, his half Native American ancestry evident in his dark hair and dark eyes. Cultivated and charismatic, he is also unusually energetic, so much so that he seems to be vibrating even when sitting still.

I met Hall one night at the offices of the Icarus Project in Manhattan. He became a leader of the group—a "mad pride" collective—in 2005 as a way to promote the idea that mental-health diagnoses like bipolar disorder are "dangerous gifts" rather than illnesses. While we talked, members of the group—Icaristas, as they call themselves—scurried around in the purple-painted office, collating mad-pride fliers. Hall explained how the medical establishment has for too long relied heavily on medication and repression of behavior of those deemed "not normal." Icarus and groups like it are challenging the science that psychiatry says is on its side. Hall believes that psychiatrists are prone to making arbitrary distinctions between "crazy" and "healthy," and to using medication as tranquilizers.

Read the entire article HERE:

I have thought about this long and hard over the years, and for me it has essentially been 50 years ... Disclaimer: do not take the chronicity of my problems as your fate!

My DP and DR have changed over time. I attribute that to everything from the deaths of my parents (1990 and 2001-- both abusive and absent), therapy, medications, distractions of all kinds (from university courses), to hobbies, to work to volunteering.

I also have GAD I now know I had ... probably since I was born. I also had panic attacks which have DP/DR as a secondary symptom. These days, I have a lot of anticipatory anxiety without an increase in my "daily" DP/DR. Very odd. In the past I anticipated DP/DR and that brought on anticipatory anxiety OF the DP/DR. When I have horrible DP/DR THAT is the focus of my attention. I have TERROR, not anxiety.

At any rate, I would say in the majority of psychiatric DP/DR, the symptom is indeed secondary. But a secondary symptom can BECOME CHRONIC as in my case. Again, research at the IoP would indicate ... as I interpret it ... that "Depersonalization Disorder" is rare. The description in the DSM-IV is incomplete and misleading. I hope to God they get a better definition in the new DSM in 2014.

And clearly, each case is unique. Every single case here [on my DP support board] includes more than just DP/DR. If DP/DR were the ONLY symptoms per the DSM, it would be true Depersonalization Disorder. Many here have noted over the years they recall being anxious on some level before the DP hit. Or they were under stress. Or they had a bad drug trip that included panic and anxiety.

I have not had a HORRIBLE DP/DR experience in about 5 years. Now my anxiety is high as it was when I was a teen.

DP/DR, IMHO, becomes a CHRONIC SECONDARY SYMPTOM in many situations -- not necessarily a DISORDER which would be "pure" (and that definition is ridiculous save in neurological cases, IMHO), and it depends on so many factors to reduce the symptom. Pure DP/DR is described in neurological disorders more frequently, and in taking antibiotics and in Lyme Disease. Epilepsy auras as well.

Meantime, fight the good fight! As best you can, in any way that helps.

I wish people would understand that DP and DR are perceptual distortions that are not a “fad.” This disorder is nothing new and dissociation has existed for thousands of years. However, it is infinitely difficult to describe unless perhaps one equates this with negative recreational drug trips or drugs meant to achieve “spiritual awakenings.”

"The word depersonalization itself, in a diagnostic sense, refers to both a symptom and a full-blown psychiatric disorder. Ludovic Dugas, a psychologist/philosopher, who often wrote on topics of memory and déjà vu, is most often credited with first using the term in its present context, in the late 1890s ... Read More...