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It is best to taper one medication at a time. Wait 4-6 weeks between tapers. Taper by no more than 25% at a time. That is what I have heard and what has helped me.

Have you ever heard of Depersonalization Disorder? I'm not saying you should diagnose yourself but your description sounds like the beginning of my Depersonalization. Feeling like you are not yourself or have lost your soul is a main symptom. Of course, it is a dissociative disorder and PTSD...

I am talking about things like gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, when they relate to the issues or trauma you are discussing. For example, would it be better for a female survivor of abuse by a male to have a female therapist? For someone who has been bullied due to sexual...

Justmehere, I want us both to be able to tell our therapists these things and somehow not feel "stupid" "ashamed." In my case my secret is truly stupid and weird, so I have no confidence. I think the key with the revealing and the key with the attachment is to go slow...

I think I can relate to your post. When I have told therapists secrets and they have accepted me with caring, it creates in me such a strong feeling of closeness and gratitude towards them that I actually feel threatened by the idea of being that close to someone. I have rejected therapists...

I have experienced feeling like I have "merged" with my father, that we are now one being, that he controls me or has "contaminated my essence." These thoughts sound psychotic to some but I believe trauma can produce a kind of "false psychosis" in some people, that is driven from anxiety...

I have trauma issues and sometimes my anxiety progresses to psychosis. What I was taught to do is when I feel something like that coming on, to engage my senses in a soothing pleasurable way--I have carried a small aromatherapy pillow to smell, a smooth cool rock to feel, a bag of dried beans to...

I find that it is physically *possible* for me to move when dissociated, it just tends to be harder. I have a sense of being frozen and people around me say I seem paralyzed. But I am still capable of moving. I would not rule out dissociation for you.

Thanks Abstract...maybe dissociation is like the immune system, essential in small doses but a disorder happens when it becomes overactive. Do lots and lots of self care and take it very slow and easy. This is good advice, thank you. When you're on autopilot self-care is hard to remember.

It was very helpful for me to post on these forums about my depersonalization and anxiety over the summer, and in fact my dissociation was starting to get a little better during those months...however it snapped right back into place plus some on September 11, when the recent flooding in...

Stopping the meds you are on cold turkey is extremely dangerous.

I think for me depersonalization and dissociation feel safe--although I hate them. I feel if I am not dissociated, emotional harm will come to me especially with a situation I am in now. When you are grounded you are also more open and that is threatening. It's like--why bother grounding myself...

Well, after one lovely year where I began to come out of my depersonalization and back to my body, a situation I don't feel safe in and can't get out of has set me back to Depersonalization Square One. Soooo upset...I am a floating head...food had no taste... I have no feelings...all that fun...

I wound up on lorazepam three times a day. I started out with it as you did, just being given it as needed. I became too dependent on it and now I have a physical dependency/addiction whatever you want to call it. Now getting off of it is probably going to be very hard. It gives me brain fog and...

I believe in herbs. My only thought is be sure to check whether the herbs/supplements interact with the drugs he is on--a surprising number do.

That is true Abstract, delusion does imply lack of insight, but I think severe anxiety can produce a kind of pseudo-delusion....

Here are the steps I take. They were suggested by my therapist. The first step is recognizing that you are having a delusion, that as scary as it is, it's not real. The next step is to distract your mind and body from the delusional world, give yourself something sensorially pleasant to focus...

Jeffery Schwartz knows his stuff. I like when he said exposure therapy changes the OCD brain. (And it shows up on brain scans!) His book helped me a lot more than SSRIs.

Hashi, My old OCD therapist told me that severe anxiety cannot last more than 90 minutes. Do you try to resist compulsions for that long before you do them? Just a thought...

:hug:Hi Hashi. I have struggled with OCD for much of my life. When I was 17 I did compulsions literally all day and was hospitalized for OCD. I managed to stop doing the vast majority of compulsions through Exposure and Response Prevention. Laziness is your friend here--a major factor for me was...

For me, the signs of therapy working have been that I have felt calmer, less often suicidal, more able to cope with life...the world just seems brighter somehow. Also I don't hate myself.

Just to second what Franciemarnie said, I have only blacked out maybe twice, and in both cases I just kept on doing what I was doing before until I came to. Keep in mind that dissociation's goal is to protect you, so although I think there are people who black out and do harmful things, I think...

Psychopathy and sociopathy are not psychotic conditions, although one may be a psychopath or sociopath and also be psychotic. Psychopathy is not a term used in the DSM; sociopathy is basically a personality disorder. If you think about it, every mental illness alters your sense of reality; that...

So, basically I feel like I had one identity, personality, "self" from birth until age 24, and then when some stressful things happened it was like a switch flipped. I felt my old self leave my body (very weird feeling) and over the next few weeks more and more of who I was seemed to leave, to...

I find that to be true at times. It's not like I'm a sociopath, I don't wish people ill, I just feel emotionally shut down so it can be hard to connect and thus have empathy. Sometimes i have too much empathy though.