Derealisation, is there any hope for me?

[hannah26]

Hello,

I've been on this site quite a bit over the last 6 or so weeks, mainly because of one horrible symptom.
Derealisation!!
Oh my days its soooo horrible. I'll try to explain my personal experience.
Ok so about 6 or so weeks ago I started on citalopram and propranolol, three days in I had a terrible panic attack, called an ambulance which I promised myself I would never do, but I couldn't control myself. Got through it but the next day everything felt off, the world seemed different, scary odd.
After trying to carry on with the meds my Dr told me to come off of them which I did. But the derealisation and bad thoughts have stuck around!
I feel unreal, scared of my surroundings, anxious for no reason, it feels sometimes that the world has tipped and I'm not balanced anymore as though I'm slipping down the side of it. My body doesn't feel connected to my brain and I find myself looking at myself or my body, hands legs and thinking tgat they don't belong to me and I'm going to forget how to use them and how to function.

I'm so scared of losing control, panicking and feeling like I don't belong here on thsi world. I have had bad thoughts, like I'd be better of not here or it will go away if I wasn't here anymore. I've never had thoughts like that before, my fear of dying has stopped any thoughts of anything like that but now I can't stop them. I have a lovely family and used to be happy and confident. I just feel like I will never go back to normal and ill be this way for ever. What's the point of that, I can't handle it, its too much!

I just wondered if anyone had any experience of this or could give me some advice on how to handle these feelings. I'm having cbt its worked a bit but not a lot.
My mind won't recover and I'm scared.

Sorry for the long post and the whinging!!
Thanks
Hannah x x x

[twinflame94]

Derealisation is completely normal.. I've had derealisation where I felt like my eyes where more so on my forehead than where they actually are and I was totally seperated from my body. Sometimes I still feel like some of my body parts aren't actually mine. It does take time. I know it's frightening, but keep yourself surrounded by people & things that make you comfortable. My thoughts would be all over the place. Is this going to happen to me? Will I forever be like this? What's going to happen exactly? But you will be fine. So please try to relax, luv. With time and the right persistence, you will be okay. :)

[hannah26]

Thank you for your reply.
Its encouraging to know that others have been through it but got through it unharmed just a bit worse for wear!
I have a little sister she's 11 and an excellent little person (except when she's stropping) but I sometimes look at her and it feels like I've forgotton she's my sister and its like what's she doing here! But its for a few seconds but it scares me and then its like a rolling stone it goes on and gets bigger in my mind and scares me even more!!

Its bloody scary and makes me worried for my sanity and future!!

Thank you again x x

[casswhite]

I can't believe it hunny you have in every word described what I'm going through. I still can't get over it I thought it was just me with all these symptoms, even your ordeal with citalopram I went through the exact same thing, it's like I'm scarred from that time on meds. I'm going to c.b.t but it seems a very long progression. I am also having upsetting thoughts about ending, this really frightens me because I don't and never wanted to end it before :-(

I suppose we have to go with it will get better there is proof of that lol

Take care Hannah inbox me if you need a chat xx

[Anxious_gal]

I think the meds triggered it off. But now they are well out of your system.
I had a bad time on Cit too! I had awful racing thoughts and was highly paranoid.
I was lucky I had someone to calm me down and I was fine by the next day.
I would have called for an ambulance too if I was alone.
It was very freighting, like a panic attack but a million times worse.

I had some bad anxiety, I stopped sleeping which I think was my main problem.
I had racing thoughts, feeling unreal, I was shaking and vomiting .
This went on for days. Until I got a good nights sleep.
It did take longer to fully get better though.
I remember being so scared I was doomed to feel this way forever!
I didn't belive that anyone else ever felt this way or that i could get better.

Best thing to do is ignore the thoughts, the more you watch them the worse they get.
Just go about your day as best you can.

Try to get lots of sleep, eat well and drink water.
If you don't eat or sleep enough it makes things worse.

Therapy is always helpful. CBT can be very good.
I wish I knew how to fix it but all I know is that it does eventually get better.

[NoPoet]

Hi, derealisation is a defence method to prevent you from becoming mentally and emotionally overloaded. It is not a terrible sign of some weird illness. Sometimes being weak with illness, like when you are recovering from a bad flu, can seem to trigger the derealisation reflex, as can some medications and recreational drugs.

[hannah26]

Hello,

Thank you to everyone who replied, you don't know how much it means and how reassuring it is!

PsycoPoet, thank you for your reply. The thing is I'm not recovering from an illness, have not taken drugs and am on no meds. I feel happy and mostly relaxed but yet its still here. Out of the blue thoughts come in and then that's that I'm worrying and anxious. Is this normal in your opinion?

Thank you!
Hannah x

[Dantastic]

When I first developed Anxiety I had derealisation quite badly. I felt as though life was a dream and I often thought I was asleep and that I would wake up. I know what you mean about seeing yourself, I hate it when that happened to me! It gets stuck in my mind and all I can see in my thoughts is my own face!!!!! It really bugs me when that happens. Also I used to get the falling/slipping off the planet feeling 9even though I know that is literally impossible!!!). It was also like I was just going to fall over, always to the left for some reason. I would be walking down the street and I would feel as though I was going to fall over, like the ground was at a slant. As for the intrusive thoughts, don't even get me started on that! I don't have them as bad as I once did, but they still pop into my head from time to time. They are not nice and often scary and unpleasant. It is such a hard thing, but I guess in time and with help my anxiety will go, but after 14 year I am not sure when. :D

[lleksam]

It actually sounds like you're suffering from both depersonalization and derealization or collectively known as a dissociation.

This is your brains way of coping with extreme stress, it is a safeguard. Whenever someone says they have an outer body experience it is depersonalization, normally in high stress situations (e.g. rape, violent assault, surgery)

I often feel I'm not connected to my body, that the world is slightly delayed or I'm moving in a different time to others. It is unpleasant but not harmful and there are a number of grounding techniques you can use to help bring yourself back.

The problem is breaking the circle, you get anxious and that brings up the dissociative feelings, this in turns spurs on the anxiety and the loop continues.

[Gotagetthroughthis]

I really feel for you. What you explained is exactly how I have felt for long periods of time recently. I was in a permanent DR / DP state for months. If you read some of my threads and posts you will see. I have got some what better, I still dont feel 100% and I still feel there is difference in how I am seeing the world, like its still slightly dreamy or like im looking through tinted glass window at everything, like im not quite here. Its nowhere near as bad as it was and I do have periods where I stop thinking about how things dont feel right.

I think over time if you learn to relax and stop thinking about it things should gradually return back to normal.

Good to hear people thoughts on this and any tips on how they dealt with it and got better.

[Seffie]

I have had both derealisation & depersonalisation although it didn't last very long. In fact, for me it was the first sign that I was overwhelmed by stress & so it was like a red flag from my body to tell me to sort things out. The first time it happened to me I remember looking at myself in a mirror & although I knew it was me it was as though I was looking at someone else & I couldn't connect to the image. Had the same experience looking at my husband, part of me knew it was him but he looked like a stranger as well. Sometimes the world just looked different, almost too shiny or just like my vision had skewed. It is without doubt one of the scariest symptoms of anxiety because you think you're losing it but for me, once I found out what it was, I lost my fear of it, just totally accepted it as part of anxiety & it gradually disappeared. That was about 6 years ago & not had it since. Accept it as normal anxiety symptoms for you & don't fear it & hopefully it will ease with time & rest.

[omaghpanic]

Hi Hannah,

I'm someone who went through exactly what you went through. I had both depersonalisation and derealisation, and as the gentleman said above its called dissociation. I was at a stage i couldnt drive to work. It is the strangest most horrible feeling in the world. I became obsessed with looking at my hand, then i would say to myself 'thats not my hand'. Daily life was like looking through someone elses unfamiliar eyes. The things i wanted to seem familiar simply did not. I had no emotion, i couldnt cry, i couldnt laugh, i lay in a dark room for over a month, thinking i was going absolutely crazy. Now i was a fairly severe case, and it built up over a period of 5 years, before i discovered what was wrong with me, so i was really far gone. If i can recover after that, you most certainly will recover!I thought i was the only one that had this thing. The first thing I can assure you of, is that you will get better. I can gaurantee that. But the first thing you have to accept that this is not going to happen over night. I know this is really hard to do, but once you accept that you will get better and accept that it will take time the healing process can begin. Secondly, in my own personal opinion, run of the mill doctors are not well versed in this condition. I also was given citalopram (80mg), which completely knocked me out. The doctor did not tell me of any side effects, it was as if this was going to be an over night cure. Luckily i read the leaflet that came with the drugs and it informed that it would give me early side effects, such as further anxiety and depression - so in the early stages this is a natural way you will feel until your body get used to the drugs - again this is going to take a while. The only way you can heal from this thing is to try and stop thinking about it. As crazy as this sounds you need to train your brain to think about something else. Another thing is to get plenty of excercise, read, just do anything to think about something else. even if your brain only thinks about something else for a second, it will eventually build up more time not thinking about dissociation.The way i worked things, instead of thinking things will change tomorrow, write down how you are feeling today. Now i know this sounds crazy, but i had to say to myself, ok, this isnt going to go away overnight, in my case i gave myself a span of a month. I said i will try and stop thinking about how i feel now (although i was still thinking about it most of the time), and aim for a months time. In a months time i would write down how i was feeling (no matter how bad) and compare it to the last, sure enough, each month that went past, i wasnt feeling as bad, the improvement at times may only have been slight, but there was an improvement. Anyhow, i,m fully recovered and my hand is my own again! don't be scared of this, you will get better, you are not alone.

[Mark13]

The first time it happened to me I remember looking at myself in a mirror & although I knew it was me it was as though I was looking at someone else & I couldn't connect to the image. Had the same experience looking at my husband, part of me knew it was him but he looked like a stranger as well. Sometimes the world just looked different, almost too shiny or just like my vision had skewed.
If I may say so, that's a brilliant summary.

When I had acute depression, it started with depersonalisation, I felt like I was watching someone elses hands when I was filing for instance.

Still can't look at myself in the mirror for long. I'm really into photography, me and my wife take several thousand pictures a year, but I can generally look at lots of pics of myself without getting "weirded out".

Derealisation (although I didn't know what it was at the time, I thought I was "crazy" so I kept quiet) hit me at the age of 12 after a traumatic event (involving life-saving brain surgery). That derealisation is still with me 34 years later but I've learned to live with it.

[NoPoet]

Hello,

I've been on this site quite a bit over the last 6 or so weeks, mainly because of one horrible symptom.
Derealisation!!
Oh my days its soooo horrible. I'll try to explain my personal experience.
Ok so about 6 or so weeks ago I started on citalopram and propranolol, three days in I had a terrible panic attack, called an ambulance which I promised myself I would never do, but I couldn't control myself. Got through it but the next day everything felt off, the world seemed different, scary odd.
After trying to carry on with the meds my Dr told me to come off of them which I did. But the derealisation and bad thoughts have stuck around!
I feel unreal, scared of my surroundings, anxious for no reason, it feels sometimes that the world has tipped and I'm not balanced anymore as though I'm slipping down the side of it. My body doesn't feel connected to my brain and I find myself looking at myself or my body, hands legs and thinking tgat they don't belong to me and I'm going to forget how to use them and how to function.

I'm so scared of losing control, panicking and feeling like I don't belong here on thsi world. I have had bad thoughts, like I'd be better of not here or it will go away if I wasn't here anymore. I've never had thoughts like that before, my fear of dying has stopped any thoughts of anything like that but now I can't stop them. I have a lovely family and used to be happy and confident. I just feel like I will never go back to normal and ill be this way for ever. What's the point of that, I can't handle it, its too much!

I just wondered if anyone had any experience of this or could give me some advice on how to handle these feelings. I'm having cbt its worked a bit but not a lot.
My mind won't recover and I'm scared.

Sorry for the long post and the whinging!!
Thanks
Hannah x x x

Hello,

Thank you to everyone who replied, you don't know how much it means and how reassuring it is!

PsycoPoet, thank you for your reply. The thing is I'm not recovering from an illness, have not taken drugs and am on no meds. I feel happy and mostly relaxed but yet its still here.
Thank you!
Hannah x
You might feel like that some or all of the time, but from your first post it is clear there are still problems to be resolved, so no, it is not unusual at all to go through the derealisation thing. It's very hard to suffer a blip or apparent relapse after we think we're better.

Most of us will experience it to some degree; I used to think it was a depression thing, but I lost my fear of it several years ago.

In fact I just "snapped back" into myself when I had the blinding realisation that the world hadn't gone insane, I was simply seeing it with new eyes. That simple fact, realised in a burst of insight that just came to me out of nowhere (as my best ideas often do), eliminated any fear of derealisation/depersonalisation, and I have never even thought about them since.

[elvin1]

i have this constantly ive had it for at least 4 years and it dosent get any better im sick of it good luck