When did the derealization/ dissociation go away for you?

I had this constantly at first with the brain fog and dizziness - it got significantly better around 8 months for me personally. Congratulations on your 6 months! That’s a huge accomplishment and it’s awesome! You will feel better and better as time goes on.

Iv never told my story on here but mine was horrific. Took me 4 years to get totally over it. The first year was off the scale and the2nd year wasn’t much better. I started feeling better after 2.5 years.

Lightweight wrote:Iv never told my story on here but mine was horrific. Took me 4 years to get totally over it. The first year was off the scale and the2nd year wasn’t much better. I started feeling better after 2.5 years.

How long were you smoking for ?

That’s why I call myself lightweight I didn’t smoke that much when I did smoke it , but I was smoking 3.5 years 5 days a week.

Lightweight wrote:That’s why I call myself lightweight I didn’t smoke that much when I did smoke it , but I was smoking 3.5 years 5 days a week.

You didn’t do any other drugs, and you didn’t have any anxiety or depression before, you weren’t taking no medications ?

No nothing depression etc. The only other vice was alcohol but that was social drinking. The funny thing is the night it all started going wrong (was fine the first 2 weeks of stopping weed) I had been out that evening and had 5 pints in the pub went home, had a early night fell straight to sleep woke up 2 hours later having a full blown nightmare just like you see in a horror movie. The next 2 week was a absolute nightmare that drug beat me to sh**. After 2 weeks it was all over with but then it took 4 years to come out the other side. Never touched it since frightened the life out of me. If my dealer was mixing it with something else I will never know.

I don’t know if the 5 pints of beer mixed my brain up that night with quitting weed.

Hi Jessica I would encourage you try not to focus on the timeline of this thing. Just know that it gets better eventually. I was in the exact same shoes as you at 6 months. I had nonstop dissociation/derealization. I thought my mind was permanently broken. I couldn’t function at all and the thought of leaving my house was terrifying. It was so bad that I couldn’t even feel comfortable around friends and family. For me it started to improve at around 8 months and then it got bad again at 9 months. Months 10 -11 were decent and now at one year I am feeling much more like my old self. The derealization is gone for the most part with the occasional minor wave. I still have weird symptoms but they are much more manageable than the derealization/disassociation.

The reason I say don’t focus on the timeline is because you will drive yourself crazy by doing so. There’s no way to tell how long this will take. It doesn’t appear that length of use has anything to do with the duration of it. As lightweight said it took him 4 years to recover and he wasn’t a heavy user. I personally used for 15 years with 10 being daily use. I started when I at age 12 and have history of addictions with other drugs such as cocaine and alcohol. Despite all this I’m feeling better at year one and expect to be mostly healed by the end of year 2. Just take it one day at a time and trust that it will get better. Also, don’t get freaked out about lightweights story he is an extreme case. And he is also an example of even the most extreme cases getting better. For most people things are dramatically better by year one and by year two they are mostly recovered. So just keep pushing on. Take it a day at a time and you’ll be through this eventually. You’ve already it through 6 months and those first 6 months are the hardest.

Lightweight wrote:No nothing depression etc. The only other vice was alcohol but that was social drinking. The funny thing is the night it all started going wrong (was fine the first 2 weeks of stopping weed) I had been out that evening and had 5 pints in the pub went home, had a early night fell straight to sleep woke up 2 hours later having a full blown nightmare just like you see in a horror movie. The next 2 week was a absolute nightmare that drug beat me to sh**. After 2 weeks it was all over with but then it took 4 years to come out the other side. Never touched it since frightened the life out of me. If my dealer was mixing it with something else I will never know.

That’s a lot 4 years, your only symptom was dissociation, and how bad was it when your were at 2 years was it at least getting better, because for me it feels like I’m high and when it’s dark I realize it way more

symptoms of depersonalization or derealization persist for weeks, months, or years (3, 5), even after discontinuation of the substance