I thought I had depersonalization but I don't know anymore.

[OCDme]

So I've been going through this really horrible and mentally exhausting period of time where I feel like my consciousness doesn't exist. My thoughts just popup randomly but I am incapable of 'thinking' or being a conscious being. I looked up symptoms of depersonalization and most of them didn't match my symptoms. I don't feel that I'm someone else or I don't feel that I'm observing myself from a distance. I don't feel that I'm in a movie. I just feel that I just don't have 'consciousness' and thoughts just happen without my intents(not bad thoughts but ordinary mundane everyday thoughts). Can anyone tell me what this is?

[ana]

Do you feel like you don't exist? That is a symptom of depersonalisation. It happens to me all the time, like my consciousness doesn't exist, like nothing is real and I struggle to make sense of things when I get like that because that's a full-blown panic mode for me. I definitely think it's dp, don't worry. :)

[MyNameIsTerry]

Can you spot the need for control and the fear of lack of control in there? We can't control much of our subconscious thinking but we can control our conscious thinking. Subconscious thinking is driven by many things from input of sensations to memory recall (often very subtle) and works with the core beliefs and schemas we have built.

Many thoughts do just pop up randomly as that's how the human mind works just as we get intrusive thoughts. More recent research into Mind Pops shows this. We often don't realise subtle triggers to these thoughts.

The thing is, you notice all this when you have anxiety. Before my anxiety I wouldn't have questioned any of this but once I "noticed" it was like I couldn't get it out of my mind. The more anxious, the worse it tends to be as more anxiety is a spike to obsessive-compulsive disorders.

If you bring your anxiety down in general you will feel like this is less of an issue. I would also recommend Mindfulness meditation to you as it helps retrain how to feel about your thoughts.

As far as DP goes, I agree with ana. I've read or spoken to people on here with DP who have thought their minds weren't their own or from somewhere else, DR sufferers who have thoughts their loved ones just aren't who they thought they were, etc.

DP/DR are quiet common as responses to big panics or periods of high anxiety. It's the bodies way to escape the pain. Sadly, in the anxious it just brings another strange thing to be anxious about that we don't understand.

Try to ground yourself. There are exercises for this that are used to help with DP/DR.

[OCDme]

Thank you everyone for the replies. I should definitely look into mindfulness meditation. Also I noticed that I am extremely scared of sleeping because I dream A LOT every night and when I dream, the dreams themselves are not bad, they're just ordinary dreams but I'm not conscious in my dream but simply 'react' on instinctual/emotional level like when you're driving and you forget about your own existence and all your motions are 'automatic'. so when I dream, all my reactions and emotions are on 'auto-pilot' which really really freaks me out to death because I feel like 'who I am' doesn't exist anymore and I just become a souless zombie where everything is on 'auto-pilot'.

[MyNameIsTerry]

I remember having problems going to bed at night as I struggled letting go when sleep was trying to take over.

This is an area to apply acceptance because our bodies learnt from our earliest days how to run all the necessary functions when we are asleep or unconscious.

Dreams aren't within our conscious control so learn to accept dreams are allowed to just be dreams just as thoughts are just thoughts when it comes to intrusive thoughts. It's an expected auto pilot period otherwise we wouldn't be asleep and our bodies wouldn't be turned off enough to recuperate.