I'm just wondering why I'm kinda stuck in this no man's land. I don't get panic attacks, I don't feel anxious at all - I actually feel very calm. But the emotional numbness and disconnection from self hasn't improved. The only thing I can think of is that there's my deep down trauma that hasn't been fully healed and that's why my mind is still in defense mode. 2 years ago I was an absolute panicked wreck; terrified of the world, of being a live, of reality. I don't fear any of that anymore. It's crazy how much I've healed. I remember sitting on the sofa and being absolutely freaked out that I was alive and stuck in my body, I felt trapped in my own body. I can remember it, but it doesn't feel like it was me experiencing it.

Looking back at this makes me realize how far I've come; from not being able to leave my house, being so scared of the world. Unable to work, drive, go anywhere. I live alone, I own my own company, I'm social, I keep busy and am not in my head nearly as much as I was before. I used to have to plan out every thing I was going to do, for fear of having a panic attack and not being able to escape. I would ruminate all day long, I mean all day; constantly searching for answers and obsessing. I do read Reddit now but maybe 1x per day vs all day long. I'm in my life and living - but the emotional numbness and loss of self are still there. I'm still having trauma / emotional dreams but that's the most bothersome symptom at this point. I haven't had a panic attack or any sort of fear of physical sensations in a year or more. I know im healing because when I look back, that's when I see the major progress I've made, it's so slow and gradual - you don't notice it until a lot of time has passed. I just want to regain myself and my ability to feel. Has anyone else been in this similar state and got better? I don't feel like I can relate to most of the posts here anymore because I'm not in a state of anxiety or panic, I guess I just have a lot of repressed emotions that need to be processed before the defense of DPDR will let up

We already know dpdr is not psychosis. This is described everywhere and every day people who are not doing proper research do comfort seeking on reddit. Also typical dpdr behavior of course. But this week I have dealt with someone who actually was getting into a psychosis and she had absolutely NO IDEA she was acting off. No idea at all. She was delusional but completely convinced of them. She wasn’t aware at all of how off she was acting. She wouldn’t have been able to go on Reddit and describe her delusions, she was just in it.

I hope this helps someone…and saves a few psychosis posts on this sub…

While I'm so much better than I was a year ago, and 2 years ago - I'm still nowhere near myself. I used to get such feelings for the holidays, the season changes, my birthday during Christmas, traveling to the snow, the smells, sounds and feelings.

It's like feeling nostalgic for your own life, your own experience. How many more years am I going to have to live through holidays, seasons and changes that I can't experience? I'm not panicked, I'm not anxious - I'm just not connected to anything or any of my memories, that make everything feel so familiar this time of year.

I miss it all so much. It feels like it's all a million miles away. I don't feel unreal. Fake. Dead etc. I went through all those phases. I can't imagine missing more and more of my life - I honestly can't even believe it's now been the holiday season of 2022, 2023, and now 2024 with this. All the small things in life, they matter. And I miss them all, so much. I can so vividly remember traveling, how the evenings would feel, how my life used to feel, how I used to feel and who I used to be. How mornings felt, how getting on an airplane felt, how I experienced this beautiful planet. I can't feel any of it. I'm not anxious, I'm not fraud, or scared. I'm just completely depersonalized, all the complex layers of life and its experience, I've become a one note person. Everything about me and how my past life was experienced - is gone

Yesterday, I had a very bizarre experience, and I think it was an entirely mental panic attack paired with severe dissociated. I was all alone, as I have been for most days, because my boyfriend works a weird shift (2 p.m. - 10 p.m., got to love blue collar workers). For a month straight, I have been panicking about whether or not I will get out of this (if it even is DPDR) and then yesterday I felt like I was going to snap. I started having the worst intrusive thoughts, like "what if I believe my thoughts and go entirely insane and hurt someone?" and then was having intrusive images and urges with it. I literally was so scared that I thought I had to go to the hospital but took a walk and went to my parents. I've spent every hour that I have been awake looking up stuff about psychosis and schizophrenia and am terrified.

I can't stop asking people if they think I have it--I literally called my psychiatrist today and she asked me a series of questions. "Do you see things? Do you hear things? Do you think your TV is talking to you? Are you having disorganized thoughts?" All of which I said no to. I have been in such a severe state of anxiety since last night after further researching psychosis. I've been taking 5 mg of Lexapro for a week. I woke up at 8:44 a.m. (I don't even know how I remember this, lol) with the worst racing thoughts about whether or not I was mentally sound and my heart POUNDING. I texted my mom freaking out and she told me to call the psychiatrist. My psychiatrist wants me to take 10 mg of Lexapro, and I'm scared it is just going to make my anxiety worse. She tried to tell me to start Abilify with it, but I told her absolutely not. I am scared these medications are going to make me worse.

I have spent every waking moment today researching psychosis and am convinced I somehow believe my thoughts. I am so scared I believe I am in a dream or in another universe or something, it is literally scaring me. The unfamiliarity that DPDR is giving me is not helping whatsoever. I didn't eat yesterday and barely ate today, and I am genuinely terrified. I don't want to be in a dream or in another universe, I want my life back. I feel like I have lost everything--my family, my boyfriend, my personality. I feel so alone. The intrusive thoughts scare me so much. I want my life back and I DO NOT WANT PSYCHOSIS. I am so terrified.

i know its such a basic question with dpdr, if something is wrong with the brain. But seriously, i dont have headpressure or anything, but it feels stuck or clocked on the sides of my brain.

I had dpdr before, but it came back due a trigger. It came back even worse. I feel anxiety, but i know that there is no freakin danger. I can’t get my brain off the panic loop. I have constant nightmares or existential thinking. Right now, i have to function for my family.

I would say that there is a miscommunication between my brain & myself. Idk where my fuckik brain is going. Insane intrusive and irrational thoughts. I know you could just say: thoughts are just thoughts but they feel so fuckin real. Yesterday i had an intrusive thought that it is so fuckin weird to be human. If it would be a thought by itself. Thats okay. Its the imaginative + „explainative“ feeling that makes things so scary in a way that it makes no sense for my brain. The worst part is… IT comes automatically. Trick here would be just letting this weird feeling thought passing by, but its hard.

I'm Writing this In hopes that I will get assurance and clarity, An understanding that it's closer to truth

I think psychedelics triggered my depersonalization And de realization This and also the hindu philosophy That I studied a lot which says The world is not real, And that our individual personality is also make belief and unreal.

I had a mushroom experience where I felt like. I woke up from the dream as infinite Consciousness. And my mundane human life was just. Make belief. I feel Like I learned hidden knowledge about existence that I wasn't supposed to. Kind of like eating for the tree and knowledge.

As I was detaching from earthly existence, All objects and experiences And physical sensations were fading away, As I was floating up into infinite consciousness existence Like a helium balloon, with no ground. It was disturbing because I W a s So light, That I couldn't feel anything, Couldn't see anything I couldn't hear anything There was only Light, There was nothing else, But my awareness.

Where is the ground to our being? Is it possible for us to be grounded in eternal peace And assurance?

What am I just doomed to be trapped in existence eternally?

Did god create this universe And it's inhabitants to escape himself? Or did he create Out of fufullment and wholeness?

Or maybe it's My ego Projecting onto God? Maybe this feeling was just some kind of illusion or hallucination. Is existence inherently benevolent and whole?

Is there any hope of universal balance harmony and peace?

Is there a ground of being? Can we be peace and grounded in the self?

Or is existence doomed

I asked too many questions, why oh why did I not stay in the dream?

Could anyone who had took this medication for DPDR explain their experience with this med?

It’s my birthday in 1 hour and I wish I could feel more like myself more like it’s really now and just enjoy moment, stop thinking so much about existence and putting myself into depersonalisation I just want to be normal on this day with it, just feel like oh wow I’m 18 it’s cool. For now I feel like I will regret tommorw that I couldn’t enjoy it makes me sad and my family puts so much effort into it

i always say this and i will say it again..im not diagnosed so idk what really is wrong with me. i feel so weird just being alive and being me. its becoming unbearable to think about my existence. i feel like im a fucking brain trapped in a fucking body and nothing is real. i constantly look around myself and i get confused by what i see. its like i shounldnt be alive. the fact that theres everything instead of nothing is so scary. i wanna live a normal life and i cant do anything about it cause i will forever feel trapped in my body. i also feel weird being around people especially my family…i need serious help and i am so fucking scared..please

I'm 16 and I have had social anxiety since I have memory. It might sound not that incredibly terrible, but it has completely traumatized me, specially because it was severe and I'm convinced mine has a biological origin

During my childhood I had multiple anxiety attacks because of it. I never received the right diagnosis, which worsened everything, there are lots of circumstances that led me to not be helped, one of them an ASD misdiagnosis.

Everything went downhill after COVID, I couldn't handle it anymore, I have lived in constant depersonalization for 4 years, I lost my feelings, my motivation, my energy, I became apathic, my dopamine is destroyed and can't feel pleasure/interest anymore... I feel really numb and absent, my brain just can not understand cognitively what is going on anymore, I don't get anxious at all, I just feel dead and a zombie, I'm even having trouble to write this. I don't care about nothing anymore, I don't feel human, I can not even remember how I used to feel pre-DPDR. What if it's a unsolveable trauma?

At the moment I'm taking an exposure theraphy, and meds, but I feel like nothing is working or will, like how am I supposed to improve? Exposure theraphy this, exposure theraphy that... dissasociating has become an habit anyways and ISSR's aren't working. What should I do? I feel like it's way too late, will I really recover?

Feeling alive and "real" when driving my car recklessly. When ruining stuff, wrecking stuff. I ruined many things when downtown being drunk.

Many years ago, I drove mother's car off road, pulled hand-brake, got stuck, had to call for assistance. Car repair was costly. It was an expensive affair.

Also, I like provoking people. When a child, I would pick fights with classmates. Provoking teachers.

Anyone relate?

(F,25)After some changes in my life and breaking up with my boyfriend, plus I finished college and came back to where I lived, my disorder, depression, anxiety and the rest relapsed. It's weird that I'm here again.. advice?

it is prescripted by my doctor. what experience you have on it?

I’ve struggled with derealization for 6 and a half years now, starting in spring of 2018 from some weed. Ive gotten better (maybe 60-70% recovered) but I still struggle with almost constant dissociation, horrible memory issues and the whole perception of time thing. The emotional blunting is also taking a big toll too, not feeling anything when hugging someone really sucks. Things still don’t feel real unless I put a lot of effort into grounding myself, but I feel like I only “come Back” for a second or two, then it’s right back to disassociating. Like everyone says, I feel like my brain will never fully recover but I hear a lot of stories of people who do pull out of this state of mind.

After ignoring it for so long, trying the whole “don’t give it attention” thing, it’s hard to believe this won’t be permanent even though I know it won’t be.

For the people who have recovered, what helped you the most?

I'm on Guanfacine at 2mg per day and it's been about a week. Apparently I'm supposed to notice a difference quickly...but yeah it's not doing anything.

So wondering what I can ask my psych to let me try next.

Ok so I (20f) have basically had issues with I describe it as being high without the good parts. They started when I was in highschool but like got way worse when I was actually smoking weed. It feels exactly how I say it. It feels like I'm high. It usually happens when my anxiety spikes but like the past year it's gotten to the point of just randomly happening and garenteed to happen like once a day and I just figured it was dissociating but it's not?! Kinda confused on that part. I mean it's happening rn. I feeling I'm not actually in my body and that I'm just well floating I can think mostly normally but it's very one track and one task at a time you give me to many and I just error completely to the point I'm purely floating. Sorry if my wording sounds wrong or like weird it's 5:15 am for me

https://youtu.be/ciEgEe_QlH0?si=faSSSeK0kenqVpbM

Could anyone share their experiences with medication? If treat my OCD could DPDR go away?

I feel like I’m alone in experiencing dpdr alongside emotion. Maybe I don’t actually have dpdr and it’s something else, but idk. I feel frustrated, i feel envy, I feel FOMO, I feel guilt. I can recognize these emotions as mine though they feel distant (because it feels as if my eyes have glazed over, that I’m not an agent in my own life, etc.) In fact my dpdr symptoms usually coincide with these negative emotions. I think my lack of a sense of self compounds with my envy (seeing others “enjoying themselves” and participating in activities/within certain societal circles I see myself as permanently estranged from and incompatible with because of my worthlessness, my guilt associated with lying to everyone about the authenticity of my emotions. It feels as if I’m faking everything and that my words mean nothing) Sometimes it spills out and I go on a tirade venting to my close friends about both of these feelings together and they think I’m just being dramatic. And of course I can’t fully articulate my feelings to them because someone who doesn’t experience it wouldn’t know the difference between what we experience (with negative emotions) and just having bad self worth. I then lash out at them for not understanding, making me feel even more stupid within my symptoms, which then causes me to feel worse .it just feels like every waking second of the day I could be venting about something. They tell me to not dwell on the negative, to focus on the positive. I try. I’m not even focusing on the negative, my mind is just constantly foggy and it’s hard to be in the moment and to focus on anything, period. But it always circles back to me never feeling like a person, never being fulfilled, permanently estranged from the human experience, running on autopilot and not comprehending my words as they come out of my mouth over 3/4 of the time

im going to keep this short basically i got dpdr from weed and it gave me trauma. during the start of my dpdr i had a dream where i took a drug and right when i just woke up i thought i took a drug after a few minutes after waking up i realized i didnt and that it was a dream. im worried this was a delusion or was it a vivid dream or what. idk im tired of stressing about schizophrenia

The sky used to feel so big, so did the world. Now it just feels like nothing around me is actually happening, or is very far away. That sensory awareness and experience is gone.

5am sky used to feel like 5am and like it was a new day. Especially when flying in an airplane. I did ketamine many years ago pre DPDR and it's a similar sensation. Although I don't really have the detached sensation from DPDR anymore, I feel like the passing of time, the experience of how big the world is, how big the sky is - that there's a whole world around me; I feel like my head is in a box. I only sense what I can see, because my internal map of the world and all my experiences of it is gone.

Seasons, sunsets, time, holidays, the passing of years, months, feeling in my body and all the sensations that come with being alive, the memories, how each city I traveled to had a different feeling, how I had these specific feelings on my birthday, Christmas, thanksgiving, Halloween etc. today is Halloween and it feels like nothing.

I can't imagine how I'll ever go back to experiencing those things again, like how? I don't see many people who have recovered explain what it's like to go from completely detached from all these things to normal. I do remember when I would do ketamine, it would only last maximum 30 mins and because I knew the drug would wear off, it was never scary. But I do remember that sensation of coming out of it. But even in my worst ketamine episodes, I never felt as detached as I do now. It was just more of a body numbness and complete detachment where I wouldn't even realize the thoughts I was having about it, and I always returned immediately to feeling myself. I also didn't feel dead or anything, I felt very much alive - just disconnected temporarily. My sense of self and emotions were still there and so the whole experience was different.

Fall evenings when the days get shorter used to have such a feeling to me. The time change did. Looking off into a sunset and realizing there's a whole world beyond the horizon. Just none of that makes sense anymore. I almost can't believe there's people and other places beyond what I can see, because my mind can't connect with the world I knew before, it only knows what I can see within my eyesight.

I don't have a circadian rythym anymore, I don't feel mornings, afternoons, evenings, it's all the same blur of nothing. I don't even feel drugged, I just can't comprehend any of those things cognitively anymore, like my brain doesn't understand. It's almost like someone speaking another language you don't know, it doesn't make sense. Pre-DPDR life just made sense. I was me. No matter how hard things were, I was always me and had so many emtoions to tap into. It's almost unbelievable to think the been this way for 2 years, how I could ever go back to experiencing things again as normal and like I do before, seems impossible.

Good evening, everyone, I'm 19F and am going through the worst time in my life right now. There is truly no way to put into words how bad I have been suffering and how isolated I have felt.

I have suffered from severe anxiety, OCD, and bouts of depression all of my life. I wasn't diagnosed properly until I was 16 years old and then pieced together everything. I experienced every single theme known to man: homosexuality OCD, relationship OCD, sensorimotor OCD, and my current and most prominent ones--schizophrenia/psychosis and existential OCD. This combined with DPDR has basically ruined my life.

lt basically all started when I had a series of panic attacks in September. They would happen out of nowhere and I would dissociate pretty bad during them, which made me freak out worse. The fourth one I had, I obsessed over how I dissociated, and my body went numb and that just made matters worse. I spent three days on the couch obsessing over it and looked in the mirror and did not recognize myself. I knew I was in for it. I knew what this was because this isn't my first rodeo, however for some reason this has debilitated me. That was the beginning of October--it is now October 31st, Halloween, and I am still practically bedridden. I have made efforts to go out every weekend, but it is awful. My sleeping schedule is so bad. I go to bed at like 5 a.m., wake up sometime in the afternoon and just spend the whole time obsessing over how I feel. I wake up and open my eyes and my brain is like "isn't it weird how you're a brain in a body?" and it makes me FLIP out. Literally FLIP.

Today was the worst I have felt this entire period. I am convinced I have psychosis or schizophrenia, either that or I will never be able to come out of this if it even is DPDR. I felt completely out of my body and had no physical anxiety, just tormenting thoughts. "What if you hurt someone? What if you hurt yourself because you cannot take it anymore? What if none of this is real? What if you believe your thoughts and you have psychosis? What if you are completely losing your touch on reality?" I was terrified because I had NO physical reaction to this. I felt like I was going insane. I could not even talk to anyone. I laid in bed and rocked myself back and forth and cried and told myself to stop. I went and paced around the house and went for a walk, but the world looked the most unreal it ever has, and I am terrified this is my life as I know it until I die. What if I believed those thoughts? What if I was in an episode of psychosis? I am terrified.

I ubered to my mom's house (because of course as if I wasn't going through enough, my car dies), and I just feel hopeless. All I want to do is lay on the couch or my bed at my boyfriend's and ruminate and fixate on my thoughts. I am terrified if I let go and just live my life that I am going to be ignoring something seriously wrong with me. I keep bawling my eyes out on the hour because all of my friends are out partying for Halloween, and I am stuck in the house crying about if I have psychosis or not. It feels so real. It feels like my life shattered right before my eyes, and it is over. I will never be able to get married, have kids, decorate my dream home, go back to school to be a nurse (I had to take a leave of absence), or drive again. I am going to be in a psychiatric hospital because clearly, I am a danger to myself and society and am eventually going to lose all touch with reality. I am literally TERRIFIED I believe that reality is not real. That I am in a dream or something. It feels so real that I believe that. I hope that's not confusing. I want my life to be real. I am also scared no one else around me is real. Earlier, my brain was like "can't go to your mom or boyfriend for comfort anymore because they're not real!" There is NO relief anymore. I sit and cry, obsessively watch YouTube videos and go on forums about DPDR and OCD, and play dumb Roblox games all day, and just sit around and wait for something to change. I just need to know that I am not going crazy and that nothing is wrong with me. I feel like there is no way out of this. I literally feel like I am the worst-case scenario.

Just to add, I started taking Lexapro last Friday. Today will be my 7th pill. Before that, I somehow finally tapered off of 20 mg of Cymbalta. The first few days were rough, and I was severely anxious, but I think I'm over that now.

SYMPTOMS:

- out of body feeling
- hands don't feel like mine (they can also appear really big sometimes)
- feels like I am watching a movie of my life play out before my eyes
- severe unfamiliarity with surroundings and family members
- scared to do literally anything -- go outside, watch TV, reintegrate back into society, especially be alone because what if I hurt myself?
- voice doesn't sound like mine, a lot of things sound distorted right now
- racing existential thoughts ("how am I alive, what if nothing is real, what if this is a dream, it feels like you're in a movie, no one else is real around you?")
- gruesome images, thoughts, and urges
- fatigue like I have never felt before
- hopelessness
- panic attacks that come out of nowhere
- impending doom
- confusion
- no perception of time, can't imagine tomorrow let alone ten years from now
- my memory is SCREWED

I hardly remember the day by the end of it and the memories feel like months ago

I have noticed that by the end of the day, i have trouble recalling images and over memory from the day. It feels extremely faded and as if it were MONTHS ago. It is so uncomfortable and scary. It makes me feel like what is even the point of doing anything if im not even mentally there or remember ANYTHING. Its so scary. Is this a symptom of dissociation?

I believe that dissociation shares a strong link with lack of sleep. Many people with Dpdr experienced trauma or anxiety which in turn leads to insomnia. Do any of you have a hard time sleeping?

Sometimes I’d disassociate on purpose (during distressing situations) and act like I’m an alien trying to figure out the human species. Once I even role-played an ant. I still do this but with random non distressing things such as looking at my cat and pretending I’m an alien visiting creatures of the Earth or some shit. Yes, this post is weird and unusual, I have autism.🔥 This thing I do on purpose makes me question my self and objective reality.