Back in November 2013 I spontaneously developed what would become permanent depersonalization/derealization dissociative identity disorder. I have three weeks of missing time I can’t account for when it triggered; according to my family I was at home the whole time while it happened, as if I was sleep walking, but no one noticed.

When I came to, I found myself in a very literally dark, distored, and morbid hell-scape. I was very confused and although I still had memories of being “me” I no longer associated them with whom or what I was now and likewise for family and friends. I was a stranger to myself and everything and everyone I had ever known.

I went to see my primary and the nurse went to take my pulse and it was so high that she brought in the doctor to take it multiple times because they thought the machine was broken. I was recommended to a psychiatric clinic by my home and went there for about eight months before I switched to a private practice psychiatrist. This was because clinics are too afraid of being sued and thus their doctors rarely are willing to experiment or go off-label on their patients in order to cure them.

After almost 8 years of experimentation and trying pretty much every medication on the market and with the help of my doctor, I can say I have recovered to my satisfaction. My disorder is rare and thus isn’t well documented in the DSM and therefore is hard to treat and diagnose. I still, from time to time, have periods of “missing” weeks that I can’t account for but I’m still functional and appear normal during those periods.

I learned many lessons about the medical industry over the years, but the most important is: “Only experimentation cures patients”. You have literally 5 minutes per month with your psychiatrist because they “prescribe“ whereas psychologists “talk”. Buy the best healthcare you can afford and only go to pharmacies and doctors in very affluent neighborhoods. If a medication or class of medications, such as SSRIs, didn’t work the first time, they won’t work a second time. Be patient, because your doctor has other patients—this means you have to be responsible for doing your own homework about your disorder and what treatments might be effective for you. This also means you have to learn a considerable amount about neurochemistry and biology sadly and keep a journal of controlled experiments to determine what factors are significant or not. Don’t be afraid to fire your doctor if it’s obvious they don’t value your time, such as routinely being late for appointments, or ignore your every word and just follow a scripted dialogue with you. I wish I could tell the readers here all that I’ve learned, but for brevity’s sake I won’t here, but I can comment on any responses.

Lastly, my advice is do NOT tell your employers nor your coworkers about your condition. They won’t care nor understand what you’re going through and they will use it against you the first chance it becomes convenient for them. I’ve seen this happen time and time again with past employers; they love to say “Oh, he was crazy” as the reason they fired a developer who dared challenge their authority. This is the unfortunate stigma the mentally ill have to contend with on a daily basis and only makes things worse for those of us whom are struggling.

One final word: true mental illness is a life long struggle and what has kept me from giving up so far is remembering, “There’s always something better”. No matter what stage of recovery you’re at, you can always be a better you—never stop improving.