r/Depersonalization

I've been dealing with this since I was around 17. One day I woke up and everything felt unreal. I was conscious, functioning, but nothing felt like it was actually happening to me. It lasted days and I was terrified. I couldn't get out of bed.

Got diagnosed with anxiety and depression. Started on Lexapro. The DP/DR eventually faded, but the depression and anxiety stayed, and I've been on some form of medication ever since, switched a few times, currently on vortioxetine (Brintellix) 15mg. Already tried 20mg, already switched before.

The thing is, I started medication at 17 and I'm 24 now. I don't know what it feels like to be an adult without meds. I can't tell what's the depression, what's a side effect, what's the medication working, what's it not working. It's all blended together in my head and my memory.

I've been in therapy for about 4 years with a psychologist I genuinely trust. We've identified the roots and it all makes intellectual sense. But understanding it hasn't changed how I feel. I've been stuck in that same place for over a year now.

Last few weeks have been the worst in a while. No energy, can't focus, brain fog, sadness with no specific trigger. Had the thought of "I can't take this anymore." Not in a self-harm way, but in a "I don't know how to keep living like this" way.

I also carry guilt because I don't lack anything materially. I have a family that loves me, access to good treatment, a support system. And still I feel like I've spent most of my adult life feeling worse than okay.

What I'm actually looking for: has anyone here started with DP/DR young, ended up on the depression/anxiety/medication track for years, and felt completely lost about what's actually you underneath all of it? Did anything break through the plateau ? a different med, a different type of therapy, something else?

I have a psychiatrist appointment tomorrow. I'm not looking for "go see a doctor." I'm looking for people who've been in this fog for years and found some clarity.

I cant even tell what I will do in these unusual questions because I've never put any thought in them! I used the same website to test my self like 4-5 times and I always got either Istj or Intp and I even went through some videos on how to tell the difference and guess what; either some dont apply, some do apply..its usually 75/50 or 50/75. (I even used another app and it said Im ISTJ...how can someone get the 3 different MBTI's?!?) Im also usually in the present moment so does that have anything to do in it?(Not overthinking, only if I got a intresting topic to think about.) Im not even naturally curious, I only make my self ask questions about a topic because I know it will help me understand it better OR if I truly dont understand something. I also do not like schedules (I prefer not to use them unless ruly nessecary but if thats the case then Im fine with adapting). For ex:If I got too much stuff to complete then I create a "schedule" on what to study first or I just make everything in order and complete everything like that.(BTW I spent like 3 hrs trying to find out which one am I and I still cant figure it out; I even wasted my hrs meant for my school hw..) any advice helps!

I feel like my being is split in two. The observer and the experiencer. It's like I'm too aware my mind is controlling my body as if there is a pilot in a mech suit. However, I do not experience distress from this in of itself as I believe this to be true objectively. I believe we are all actors in a play, except some rare people know they are acting while others are immersed in the contextual role of their character. The people who know they are acting notice how other people don't realize this is a play, and we're all actors. This secret knowledge that other people are ignorant of makes us awkward at the very least or at most in extreme panic. When you are fully immersed in the role of your character, there is no conscious friction or lag between you and the play. Everything goes smoothly in sync. This is why for the people with dpdr, other people seem to operate on autopilot as if they are NPCs. Everything for them is on script automatically.

Now, dpdr without distress is simply the objective acceptance that this perception is actually true because we do not have access to unfiltered reality. I know everything here exists. However, I don't believe it's real in the same way other people are convinced it is real. The following is scientific truth. Everything we perceive is a representation our mind reconstructs from the information our sense organs deliver to our brain for processing. For example, let's say I have a picture of a city street taken from a camera positioned on a sidewalk. Then I physically go to the exact same spot on the sidewalk that picture was taken from and look at the street through my eyes. Every regular person would say those are different things because one is just a picture and the other is an in person view. I, on the other hand, know they are both, in fact, a type of picture. One picture is taken by a camera through a lens. The other picture is taken by our brain through our eyes. The mind takes that picture and synthesizes it for our ego as the user interface of our experience. Although, unlike the isolated picture of a camera, every sense we have a perception of is a continuous emulation from the mind.

Depersonalization-derealization without distress is the reconciliation we are within as well as are a simulation.

I (23F) am currently battling severe health anxiety while also battling DP/DR and panic attacks. I’m currently panicking as I write this and don’t want to turn to the internet anymore. I’ve unfortunately learned that the hard way.

About 9 years ago when I was a junior in high school, I started developing severe derealization episodes. They were terrifying and everyone around me made me feel like I was going absolutely insane any time I tried to say anything.

I sought out therapy through my school therapists — though they were all college seniors doing internships for the schools disability programs — and found no luck there either. I was spiraling. Granted, if I was 21 about to finish college and a kid said this to me, I would also have no idea what to do.

Finally, my mom believed something truly wrong was going on with me (had a traumatic incident involving CPS) and she put me in art therapy. I finally got diagnosed, things started feeling okay and I started getting my life back.

Fast forward to my first two years of college and I keep having panic attacks so bad that I automatically start thinking my chest pains are symptoms of a heart attack. And that’s where this all started.

I found a new therapist and psychiatrist that I loved, got medicated, and have been working on my mental health ever since. I rarely have DR spells anymore, but I’ve noticed them coming back more recently, all focused around my health anxiety. I could have a dull leg pain, my hands could have pins and needles, I could get a PERIOD CRAMP and think the worse case scenario (blood clots, tumors, lung cancer, heart problems).

Currently, as in right now in this moment, I took a deep breath and noticed my back had this sharp stabbing pain if I inhaled too much. I had to fight the urge to look it up, but failed, and then thought I had a pancoast tumor because the internet said my symptoms SORT OF lined up.

Then I immediately am gone. My flight and fawn kicks in and my nervous system removes myself from my body and I am suddenly dissociating and disoriented again. The only way I can get myself back is to distract myself through mindless scrolling or a TV show as grounding techniques tend to make things worse for my anxiety.

This is only getting more intense now, and while my other generalized anxiety and most of my DP/DR spells have drastically decreased, I am still constantly thinking that I am about to die.

If anyone has any advice for me on how to not panic immediately if I get the teeniest pain in my body, PLEASE share. I’m getting desperate at this point. My panic attack med (propranolol) is not helping me like it used to :(

Hi I am turning 18 in a month or two and ig I should be able to consult a psychiatrist by myself now. I had been feeling unreal since 2020 or 2021 (I cannot remember exactly).

Sometime after my father passed away due to cancer in 2022, my mother took me to a child psychologist (not a psychiatrist) when I was 14 and I feel like my condition was pretty much neglected. She just told me to drink more water and keep a diary. This did not help at all. Till now I have been living like this, feeling detached with reality and fun activities don't feel like 'fun' anymore.

I have gotten used to it by now, I even forgot about this feeling for sometime now and it feels like my entire life has been like this from the start and that this is normal. Can anyone help?

Hello. Really hope posting this isn’t insensitive in any way.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had relatively short periods or episodes or whatever several times a day where I don’t recognize familiar places or people (parents, friends, celebrities, etc.) but I realize that I must know them. I’ve also felt a lot like I’m detached from my eyes and on autopilot, especially during certain activities. I’ve also heard it described as a glass wall between your eyes and the world which can make vision fuzzy or distorted, which I have experienced. Looking back I’ve experienced this as long as I can remember, but I really only figured out it could be something bad when I was struggling really bad with another condition, which two professionals have supposed is due to some early trauma that I can’t recall.

What makes me uncertain is that it hasn’t necessarily been distressing every time. It has been somewhat distressing when I walk into class and I don’t recognize anyone but despite the frequency, it was only scary every couple times until I found out that it could be something wrong. I understand dpdr causes extreme distress and can distort vision beyond the fuzzy/glass wall that I’ve experienced, so I do not think that I have that but I’m wondering if depersonalization can persist without dpdr and, if so, if this is what it feels like.

I just don’t know how to process this and no one responds to these things anyways (I know I sound like I’m whining but I’m a little emotional so just bare with me I guess)

I’ve been assaulted many times before but when I moved away from my family and started dating someone for the first time and fell completely in love, I thought I put it all behind me. So when my partner assaulted me it just kind of broke my brain. Not even what he did, but the fact that it happened AGAIN after I had already mentally closed that chapter and also completely placed my trust in him. It’s the fact that I was completely blindsided that I find intolerable. That I wasn’t prepared, that I lost control. I cannot separate what he did from myself and I’ve been immersed in this intense dissociative fog for the last year and a half. I have severe symptoms, I feel like it’s daytime when it’s nighttime, nothing feels real, etc. I think I feel an incredible amount of shame and self blame and I need to let my body process that so I can relax. When I cry and get insanely emotional I feel better after for about 20 minutes, even *almost* normal (one time), then the fog sets in again. And I do exposure therapy and my symptoms have definitely improved, (I have agoraphobia. When I leave the immediate area the derealization/depersonalization gets wayyyyyyyy worse and it’s terrifying). I’m just crashing out a little bit this morning because I don’t think my current therapist knows how to help me (she’s not a trauma therapist) and I have an appointment with a new one (yay) but I’m just frustrated and feel like I’ve wasted so much time despairing about being incurable. I haven’t felt normal or present for so long. I’ve missed out on developing friendships and even a new relationship because I’m so emotionally withdrawn and when I try to connect with people my head gets foggy and I have to go home even though part of me is still screaming for connection.

I guess I want to know if other people feel this way because it’s truly such an isolating feeling. And also if anyone who has been groomed their whole life and had the agency beaten out of them knows how to practice creating room for their emotions without attacking yourself like it’s YOUR fault you can’t feel your emotions I guess that would be helpful too. Not fixed, just advice.

dude i scrolled through all reddit and i can’t seem to find anyone who gets triggered by something similar.

TRIGGER WARNING: passage of time, existential dread, extreme nihilism(?), liminal, and vent

I can’t look at my photos when i was a baby, bc i get an intense feeling of dread. nostalgia is a very weird feeling for me. i experience emotions in a very unusual way that makes me almost unable to identify them.. jeez this will be difficult to explain.

so seeing photos specially from the 80s 90s and the 2000s, makes me feel really uneasy, dizzy and nauseous. it’s like seeing a present that doesn’t exist anymore. everything has changed so much. what makes it worst is seeing some of my now deceased loved ones, and thinking they’re not here anymore. people grow up, some of them dies, others are being born, and technology progresses. that’s simply passage of time right?

everytime i see vintage photos i’m stuck in a feeling of kenopsia. everything’s gone, and it’s just a “burning memory” on those who are still alive recalling. it’s an awful nihilistic feeling.

i recently have watched a ps2 game gameplay. and it sent me into an episode. something as absurd as that. just thinking about the kids who played the game in the 2000s, and now they’re absolutely moved on. and i associate this feeling with kenopsia with this exact quote: “you can go back to the past but NO ONE is there anymore”.

this also feeds my simulation theory / existential OCD. i’ve had this feeling buildup for YEARS too. it’s not something new for me. i had it even when i didn’t had dpdr, but when i got dpdr, it started feeling x100 times more liminal and agonizing.

why does the past feel like another inexistent universe? why my memories feel unreal? heck i even doubt if they actually happened or if they just randomly appeared in my brain…

i feel like i’m stuck in a simulation.

sorry if this confused you. i can’t even understand my own feelings and why they make me feel this way. i’m just so confused on how my mind works, i hate myself. not only for this but on all aspects of life, i feel like the weird and defective one. i just get this feeling of unreality that literally has me drowning and i can’t seem to do anything about it, because no one has this, i went through multiple therapists, and when i talk about these kind of feelings, they just look at me like what 🤌🤌. why why why why whyyw hywhyw why

La primera vez que sufrí una despersonalizacion fue al fumar hachis. Yo llevaba ya mucho tiempo fumando, pero de un dia para otro, siempre que fumo me pasa como que estoy fuera de mi cuerpo, sin ser capaz de controlarlo del todo y sin ser capaz de sentir cosas como el tacto. Es una sensación que no habia sentido nunca, y tras informarme un poco del tema he visto que es despersonalización

He de decir que aunque me pasa esto, soy capaz de controlarlo y no sobre pensarlo para que no vaya a más.

Aún así, he dejado de fumar por esto. Mi pregunta es, ahora que voy a ir a Amsterdam, podré comer trufas sin que esto me pase? Alguien sabe algo de este tema? No se si las trufas también van a activarme este efecto

Ive struggled with dissociation throughout my life, but it usually passed in a couple hours, a day or two sometimes. N it was always triggered by something. I have generalised anxiety disorder and cptsd.

A month ago my 3 year first relationship ended one morning out the blue in a horrible way, and two days later I had an accidental benzo overdose as I had mixed it with weed and couldn't breathe properly. That fear I felt of dying sent me into a flurry, that mixed with an involuntary blood test I had to undertake at the hospital (I have a horrific needle phobia and had to be held down) and my relationship breakdown has seemingly sent me into my first episode of depersonalisation/derealization.

I keep feeling like im about to die, every wrong feeling feels like my hearts about to stop. I can't get rid of the weird vision, it got a little better at some point but has gotten worse over the past 3 days.

I feel like im not real, I feel like my body isnt mine and that im not a person anymore. Im not psychotic, I know this is untrue, its just how it feels. I can't concentrate on what people are saying to me, everything feels foggy and like im just watching everything happen on tv, I can't remember my days. I haven't felt ok in a month, the anxiety has decreased as the first week or so was just 24/7 anxiety and bordering a panic attack. The feelings im feeling are so jarring and anxiety provoking that I can't seem to get out of the loop of small stressors making everything worse, ignoring the feelings im feeling. Everytime I think im getting better I get worse. Things look scary, things i would've otherwise enjoyed and used to find love in. Going out with friends, watching movies, talking to people, going on walks with my dogs (they're being taken care of still!), playing games. Even mundane things like lying in bed have become terrifying in a way I never want to feel again.

I feel lost, I am safe and I have no intentions of harming myself as i still have hope that i WILL get better and i am not going to let this win!! But the suicidal feelings have been lingering, the worry that this is permanent and that im going to be like this forever. That my life will never be the same, that even if i do get rid of it its only a matter of time before I get stressed out and it all comes back.

Im looking for some answers, things I can do that might help speed up the process of recovery as I know it's possible. Some hope from other people's stories that things can get better! Any advice or just even assurance is appreciated as this is my first time going through this, and in all honesty im scared. Im only 20, and i start university in September, I want a good life and I dont want to let this get in the way.

Thank you :)

Sometimes i feel like im living as someone else, like someone i was assigned to and im just controlling them. i just feel im not myself, like im just a bunch of cells or vessel that controls my human body. best way i can explain it is that its like VR.

anyone know how to fix this? it causes some anxiety attacks for me

hi, first off im not a native speaker so please excuse me if my English isnt always on point.

im 19 years old and i think i suffer from DP. I dont really know when it stardet and at first i didnt know what was going on.

after a bit of time i slowley realized that i do have something and it isnt normal. i stardet doing research and stumbled across DP. Since i am/was a heavy weed user (like daily for almost a year) it kind of made sense to me, since the internet said that weed is a known trigger for DP.

So i stardet to smoke less weed, and it kind of got better, but im also just 14days clean.

I took 2cb in May last year, and i had a bad trip. i remember not remembering who i am and the world around me didnt make any sense anymore. Combined with my weed usage, it messed with my head alot i think.

now im trying to heal myself from it. it honestly f*cks my brain so hard. i dont know who i am when i look in the mirror. i sometimes feel like i dont even know my gf even tho i know i love her with all my heart.

I could use some help or advice on how to heal from this, i dont know what to do anymore.

(sorry about my English as i said i am not a native speaker)