Depersonalization? I feel disconnected, "not with it"

Hello all, I've tried to keep this message as short as possible. Please don't hesitate if you have any questions. I'd greatly appreciate advice, tips, guides… any help whatsoever. Thanks.

So here's my background information.
- Throughout teens felt miserable a lot of times, depressed at stages
- Start smoking weed occasionally at 16
- Smoking weed daily at 18/19 years old
- A few weeks before my 20th birthday (I'm smoking loads at this stage) I start feeling bad when I smoke weed, I feel nervous and panicky and I keep thinking I might have a heart attack and other bad thoughts, my heart actually felt weird too, during these weeks. Still enjoyed being high though, just had weird thoughts and that feeling of panic
- On my 20th birthday (September) I smoke and drink loads and end up on my bed with my mind going a million miles an hour, thinking i'm about to have a heart attack - pure panic (luckily I was drunk so I fell asleep quickly)
- Ever since then I've felt different. I started smoking a lot less afterwards, I didn't like it anymore, it made me feel like I wasn't in control and had paranoid thoughts about something going wrong or getting a heart attack.
- Then, one day, I look up my symptoms (racing mind, lack of concentration, constant worrying/feelings of stress, paranoia about what people think, etc)
- I looked up schizophrenia (due to some people claiming marijuana can induce schizophrenia)
- I recognize some of the symptoms (racing thoughts being one of them)
- Spend the next weeks/months scared out of my mind thinking I have schizophrenia. Literally every second of the day I'm scared I'm going to hear a voice or lose my mind or go crazy. I 'scan' everything thats going on in my mind. Every thought, everything I do or say I ask myself "Is this schizophrenia" or "is this one of the symptoms?" Stress levels sky rocket.
- Then, I find out about Anxiety and every symptom I had, was a symptom of anxiety.
- Spend the next weeks calming myself down, convincing myself it's 'only' anxiety and not schizophrenia (still not 100% sure if I actually have anxiety, or any other disease or disorder)
- Read a book on anxiety and the symptoms
- Since then I think of anxiety and its symptoms pretty much non-stop, I analyze pretty much every thought and everything going on in my mind. Although, some days, I wake up and don't think of anxiety for 5, 10 minutes and then when I think of it again it feels like I'm disconnected again and overanalyzing my mind)

So that's everything that's gone on the last 7/8 months. Bare in mind I didn't go to school, didn't have a job in those months so I spent most of the time on my own. I don't have much of a social life or any hobbies. My parents also broke up months before I turned 20, which obviously caused loads of anger, frustration and stress within me.

Now I'll describe what I currently feel like:

I feel disconnected. With my surroundings, with my thoughts and with myself. I don't feel much emotions. It's like I'm going through the motions of life without actually experiencing anything. I don't get excited about things anymore, I don't get the energy or motivation to do things. I have trouble concentrating and thinking clearly. I have racing thoughts once in a while - all these memories, previous conversations, pictures, situations, "voices" (i don't actually hear them), music, thoughts etc going through my mind and I can't really control them when I get them.

The lack of emotions is the worst thing. For example, music used to inspire me and I would feel all these feelings and thoughts stream through my body and mind. Now I don't feel anything. The only thing I think about now is "You used to enjoy this". I just don't feel with it, if that makes sense?

I'm not doing much with my life either, I just sit around all day doing nothing really. I know I should be doing more with my life, and I feel as if I'm letting myself and others down. But I feel like I've been so concentrated on my mental health that I now feel empty and detached. I guess the constant pressure of doing something worthwhile with my life, but not knowing how to or having the motivation or inspiration has a draining effect on me.

So, I hope that made sense, and I hope someone out there can help me out. Please bare in mind I'm extremely sensitive to hearing about mental diseases and disorders. I worry I might have them, it's like I have mental hypochondria. So please, don't tell me I have this or that - I want to know what I can do to get out of this state. Thanks.

I enjoyed reading your post. I thought it was fitting at the end when you mentioned the possibility of mental hypochondria, also I am really wanting to write something but I must qualify it first, this site does not approve of us diagnosing each other and I think that is exactly right, we dont. I hope that qualifying statement allows you to recieve this comment with a grain of salt. I have schizophrenia, I was diagnosed with drug induced schizophrenia. I did not accept this diagnosis for the first few years. I was quite firm about stating it was incorrect, I believe from what I have read and heard that poeple that are diagnosed with schizophrenia rarely accept the label. I would not say I agree or disagree with my diagnosis at this point(unless I was pressed i would admit it to be true), I have spent an absurd amount of time and grief on the matter to even care anymore. You said that you worry about I voice talking to you someday, I find it very interesting that you worry about that because out of the countless poeple I have told about my voice I have a good feeling that a single person believed what I was saying. Just to be clear if that last sentenced seem hostile, I give you my word it was not, I truly find it interesting. I want to say that I do have respect for your troubles though because to be frank, having that voice talk to me is not an atoumatic bad time or pain. In other words there is no need to have a voice talking to you in your head to have pain. Like I said before, I enjoyed your post, I am going to check for more of your stuff. PS You sound like a person who enjoys sci fi movies, I love them, one cool thing about having the voice(my other, a self appointed nickname) talk to me is the stories he has told me, in the begining he led me to believe amazing things, after 7 years he has long aknowledged his intentional dishosenesty, but he'll still tell stories just for fun, let me know if would like to her about any of them. good luck on your journey friend.

-- Sat Apr 28, 2012 7:25 pm --

I enjoyed reading your post. I thought it was fitting at the end when you mentioned the possibility of mental hypochondria, also I am really wanting to write something but I must qualify it first, this site does not approve of us diagnosing each other and I think that is exactly right, we dont. I hope that qualifying statement allows you to recieve this comment with a grain of salt. I have schizophrenia, I was diagnosed with drug induced schizophrenia. I did not accept this diagnosis for the first few years. I was quite firm about stating it was incorrect, I believe from what I have read and heard that poeple that are diagnosed with schizophrenia rarely accept the label. I would not say I agree or disagree with my diagnosis at this point(unless I was pressed i would admit it to be true), I have spent an absurd amount of time and grief on the matter to even care anymore. You said that you worry about I voice talking to you someday, I find it very interesting that you worry about that because out of the countless poeple I have told about my voice I have a good feeling that a single person believed what I was saying. Just to be clear if that last sentenced seem hostile, I give you my word it was not, I truly find it interesting. I want to say that I do have respect for your troubles though because to be frank, having that voice talk to me is not an atoumatic bad time or pain. In other words there is no need to have a voice talking to you in your head to have pain. Like I said before, I enjoyed your post, I am going to check for more of your stuff. PS You sound like a person who enjoys sci fi movies, I love them, one cool thing about having the voice(my other, a self appointed nickname) talk to me is the stories he has told me, in the begining he led me to believe amazing things, after 7 years he has long aknowledged his intentional dishosenesty, but he'll still tell stories just for fun, let me know if would like to her about any of them. good luck on your journey friend.