Derealisation worse than ever, I'm going mad, I must be!

[hannah26]

I feel out of myself today and very aware of my body, but like I'm not really in it! I'm scared I'm gonna lose it and end up in hospital or a mental ward. I feel like I can't touch things because they look odd, I feel unreal and bloody scared (excuse the langauge).

What's going to happen to me? Will I ever get better? Is this it for me, a scared girl frightened by everything, constantly worrying about what I feel like and what's happening to me. I don't think I can do that. I'm exhausted as it is trying to find the strength everyday just live everyday life. Everythings so detatched and I used to be such a happy go lucky person, always happy and smiling so I'm told and fun to be around.
Does it make me sound weird that sometimes I feel like I'm going to be swallowed up by my brain and my thoughts nd it will never end! I want to see the world as I used to and more than anything I want to feel completely relaxed, not even every day but once or twice a week I want to slob on the sofa and think of nothing but what I'm watching. Its just so flipping hard when I feel scared and anxious!

Has anyone got any advice for me... Whatever it is I will appreciate it so much!
Thank you
Hannah x x

[bertone902]

hi hannah you taking nay meds , trust me your not on your own im 22yo male and i get the exact same symptoms too :) your not in any harm or anything
pm me and ill chat to yah about it more if yoou like :) :)

[oh no_1]

i had no feelings or emotions for 3 weeks :(
still off work even though came back (ALL AT ONCE!!!!)

[owls]

I always feel like I don't know where i'm at, like everything is unfamiliar but I know my name, birthday and my home address but I still have this feeling like i don't know who I am. You just have to get through it.

[vitabelle]

i know how you feel ur not alone. i suffer with dp/dr constantly so ican sympathise. you need to distract yourself the best you can i know its hard x

[NoPoet]

Hi, you're thinking about this all wrong.

If you think "when will I go back to how I used to be", this is worse than stagnation - this is taking a backwards step. Time is always moving forwards, life is moving on, and you need to come to terms with this.

The feelings will stop being strange and frightening when you stop resisting them. As I have said a number of times here, derealisation and depersonalisation are normal defence mechanisms. They're like a "safe zone" your body puts you into to protect you from overload. They are not and never will be prophets of doom. Why would you fear being in a safe zone?

Once you learn to trust yourself and carry on as normal, you can start getting on with your life. There's a saying:



“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”



You have new eyes, you're just so busy being afraid of them that you aren't using them. Your world view has changed - start exploring it!

[hannah26]

Helli,

Thank you for all your replies they really are appreciated!

Psychopoet thank you for your reply again. I understand what your saying, but surely you can see from my point of view. One day I was walking around happy with life and living. The next thing everything looks odd and I'm scared of just being here.
Therefore going from "normal" to "strange" in a short space of time and not really knowing why was very scary. I didn't know that my body has tried to makie itself a safe zone so the bad thoughts and scary feelings came thick and fast everyday all day for weeks. My thoughts have become habit as they do when you have anxiety and panic. And now they are hard to break!

As you know when someone has anxiety disorder/panic attacks it doesn't matter if the feelings are normal they become abnormal and disstressing. I'm trying hard to resist them and learn to ignore and live as normal but its hard.
I have these moments of thinking, there's no escape from this, its not a dream I can't just wake up and it will all go and that freaks me out. It doesn't happen all the time like it did and I am really trying to not focus on it and sometimes I'm successful but other times I can't ignore it.
You say also about seeing the world through new eyes! What exactly do you mean? My eyes most of the time are blurry and make me scared because everything seems different. I would love to be able to embrace this feeling and go forward but I don't know how.

Thanks again
Hannah x x

[NoPoet]

Hi Hannah,

Some people develop their illness over a long period of time. Others, like yourself (and me) suddenly find that WHAM, they're stricken and unable to live a normal life. It is not a worrying factor that your derealisation came on suddenly as that seems to happen to a lot of members here, although I realise it will seem scarier if it suddenly happens. The truth is there are a lot of reasons why it could happen, most of them nothing to worry about - I would only really be concerned if you'd received a head injury before the derealisation kicked in.

Even though it is your body, you can't say for certain what has been going around in your subconscious unless you have been completely happy and confident with no nagging fears or worries playing on your mind. Someone who has conditioned themselves to spot hidden negative thoughts will still miss more than they catch since it needs constant vigilance. It is likely that something more has been going on behind the scenes.

As for combating negative and upsetting thoughts, whether they are rational or not doesn't matter - it doesn't help to know they are not real, you have to understand that they're not real - this is a significant difference, it's not just wordplay. You need to lose your fear of these thoughts, and rather than fighting them off, you let them through and try to relax as you tell yourself "These thoughts are harmless, they are symptoms of an illness which I am recovering from every day". They will break through in the end, so you need to recondition yourself so they don't provoke fear and distress.

This is difficult and takes a lot of time and effort. You need to be vigilant because the negative schemas (thought patterns) are working most of the time, they don't take much time off, and the early days - where you need to spot these thoughts and think of ways to prove them wrong - are among the hardest.

So: vigilance, confidence, trust that you will come through this and you will be okay. Anxiety's entire existence is aimed at convincing you there is an ongoing threat. You must train yourself to believe that you can face whatever threats exist, and you need to also understand that anxiety presents you with constant, false catastrophies. Anxiety MUST keep you scared so it can survive. If you replace fear with self-confidence and pain with the belief that you can and will get better, the anxiety will die. It will fight you, but eventually it will die.

EDIT: "New eyes" means to see the same things but to interpret them differently. Imagine a winter afternoon, where it's pitch black by 4pm. Imagine that you would normally be grumbling and unhappy because it's so dark and you can't see where you're going and it's cold and the weather is always crap, but at least there are no rainclouds, although it'll probably rain tomorrow.

Now imagine that same scene, except you are a year down the line and you have been recovering, learning to interpret things in a positive way rather than looking for negatives. It's still dark at 4pm, but instead of complaining, you understand that the shortest day of the year has already passed which means it is getting darker later every single day. You realise it's colder than usual because the sky is clear, which means it is going to be a beautiful, still night with lots of stars. You can cope with it getting dark early because it's only a couple of months til spring when the evenings are long and the weather starts calming down. When you look at the sky you see a beautiful shade of ultramarine blue and you can see the city lights on the horizon, and there are a couple of planes crossing the sky. You spend a couple of minutes just looking at it, not really giving a crap if anyone wonders what you're doing. Maybe they'll look and see the same thing you're seeing.

That's seeing with new eyes.

[mandshere2000]

Wow psychopoet your reply had me mesmerised, to have DP/DR explained the way you do
and the advice you give out is brilliant, you really have made me think about things so much more in terms of seeing situations not so negative....I have suffered from DP/DR
on and off for years and have at times been terrified like Hannah and really have thought
I was losing my mind, lack of sleep being one of my biggest triggers and also lots of life traumas in childhood and life in general
Thank you so much for your brilliant advice and I for one will be keeping this post to look back on to keep my thoughts positive
Manda xx

[NoPoet]

Thanks Mandshere, glad it helps.

I think it gets across the vast gulf of difference between someone who is ill and living in fear, and someone who is coming to terms with themselves and using their brainpower to notice and take part in the world. I think some people who read it will realise they are not as recovered as they thought they were - it is a sobering moment to realise that, but you need to make the choice to start doing things in the right way.

If you think like the first example you are living life completely wrong. If you are trying to behave like the more optimistic example, you are doing it properly. While this might sound harsh, there are times in life when things are simply black or white, yes or no, right or wrong. You need to know where the boundaries are so you do not cross them.

[busybee09]

Hi Hannah,

Im having a real bad time at the moment with depersonalistion. It started since the end of the world crap 21st december, i hada huge tension build up and now i feel weak and just out of it.

I seem to be okay ish at work but when i get homeand im with myself thats whne it starts again :(

I'm sure this sensation will pass for us it will just be a matter of time and patience. x