Year2

I first developed symptoms in 1981. I had 3 or 4 years of pure hell with DP/DR and severe visuals. It all seemed to improve steadily as I started doing something with my life other than feeling sorry for myself and mourning my previous self. 30 year on the visuals are still about if I look for them but I really think much of this is self fullfilling prophesy. You look for the visuals, spot them, and tension builds up. It's real but navel gazing nonetheless. As there may never be a cure for this, move on and accept. There are worse things in life.

What does Mirtazapine do?

Alisa - speaking as someone who got this in 1981 I think you've got exactly the right idea. When I focused on things beyond myself and obsessing about 'what are these sqiggly things shooting about?' I think I started to heal. The social aspects were undoubtedly the hardest. I was convinced everyone I met thought I was weird and insane and so I guess that's how I came across. But in the end, after feeling sorry for myself for a couple of years I decided to fight and slowly but surely regained my self respect. Cassandra - I'm a painter and got a BA and MA in fine art. The visuals drove me mad but I found the process of objective drawing especially, to be very rewarding in regards to the symptoms. It's a very philosophical process - to attain what metaphysically is in front of you. Looking back on it things started to get better after 4 or 5 years and the progress went hand in hand with competing with other 'normal' people in the world and achieving ambitions and goals. I've still got VS and floaters but most of the other stuff has calmed down and most of the time I rarely notice it. Lastly, if I look back at my life before the onset of this - it wasn't some utopian paradise. I had my fears, worries and self-doubt. If you look around there are plenty of people who are fit and healthy who squander their lives and seem to need prozac and xanax to get by. One of my mistakes early on was to see my life as 'before' and 'after' and really romanticised the former. I am what I am and HPPD has been a hurdle but also a spur to not let it beat me. I used to have terrible panic attacks and social anxiety out the yang. I am primarily an art teacher these days and lecture to large classes in art history etc....I would have been amazed if I could have seen that 30 years ago. It really, really gets better. And you're lucky to have a forum like this. I only discovered what this was a month or so ago. I was completely amazed that I am not alone. Best of luck.