derealisation/depersonlisation

[BasilCat]

Hi Christineplus3, I too suffer with depersonalisation, or, as I call it, feelings of unreality. I have been this way on and off for almost 2 years now. I find it very, very difficult to cope with and it doesnt help when it comes to driving, as you can appreciate. But I make myself go out every day and walk a bit further. I walked almost a mile round a Wetlands Centre today which was very good going I think, given that just before Xmas I would hardly walk out of the information/cafe building and didnt want to walk away from my car either.

Maynooth I agree with what you are saying completely. I am not as scared of the feeling as I was which is good but it is still with me, to some degree most days, some days are worse than others, some are better.

Have any of you been to www.anxietynomore.co.uk ? The man that wrote the website had anxiety for 10 years and only came through it when he found out properly what was wrong with him, and of course why he felt the way he did. He talks a lot about depersonalisation and says that just like all the other anxiety symptoms, we shoud accept it and NOT fight it. The more we fight our feelings, the worse they get.

But I think that I have recently been making the mistake of, everytime I go anywhere, I am looking to see if the unreality has gone!!! And thats not accepting it, is it?!! So I should just go out and not "check" if the unreality is there or not but just get on with what I am doing, regardless.

Its not easy. But I am getting better, slowly but surely.

Love Shirley
x x x

[BasilCat]

Hi Christine, How are you doing today? I hope you are ok. I have been "ok" and been to see the Psychologist again. She had found another book in Borders book shop just by chance about overcoming unreality and depersonalisation. There cant be many such books around, can there? So I am going to see if I can find it although we dont have a Borders Book Shop around here.

I hope you have had an ok day.
Love Shirley
x x x

[BasilCat]

HI Nikk, I think I will look for the book you mention too and buy whichever one I find first. I have had months and months of unreality - its not good is it, though I think the intensity has got a bit less recently.

Hope you are ok.
Shirley
x x x

[memyselfandIT]

hello all, unfortunatley i just spent 20 mins typings my whole story on this but for some reason i accidently pasted a chart on to this box and there is no way of getting it of so i clicked back and lost it all, lol ANYWAY...to sum up i have debilitating and stomach wrentching derealisation and depersonalisation steming from aggressive agrophobia. i would love to chat to anyone about it and see if theres a way to beat this!!

[Anne59]

Hi,
Just read your message Nik, and would just like to say my partner who has had depression for the past last 11 years and was perscribed anit-depressants has now been told it isnt depression - he has depersonalisation disorder. He is being perscribed a new medication that has just out.
Anne

[Anne59]

Hi Nikk,
My partner who has suffered from depression for the past 11 years and has been on medication and in all that time none of the medication really helped him. He has now been diagnosed with De-personalisation Disorder and has now been given the chance to try some new drugs that have just come onto the market.
So theres hope,
Anne

[guardian angel]

I read the book and would just like to throw in my twopenneth...I got a lot of reassurance from the premise that derealisation exists on something of a continuum, that it can be mild through to multiple personality experiences for instance. I also appreciate books such as this one and Claire Weekes (although they are radically different in many ways) that promote acceptance, I'm sure fighting the symptoms, checking for them, analysing them etc actually promotes them, tricky beggars that they are these symptoms try to have us damned both ways.

My problem with the book is probably the same as it is with many such self-help books in that they see too much wood in the trees. There is always a danger that practitioners in any area over-identify cases when they are using a treatment model. There is one case in particular in the book where the patient is described as not presenting with multiple personality disorder for instance but before the end of the case history they are being treated for, and explaining their problems, in the language of someone who does.
I hope anyone who reads the book gets lots from it but if there's one thing I want to take away from it, it's that derealisation feelings are completely normal, they're actually useful and reasonable responses to stress in it's many guises. What I would hope people don't get from it is a sense that the situation is any more dramatic than that, however bad their symptoms may feel (trust me, I've been as bad as it can get).
Overall the book was useful but the one thing I'm learning about anxiety is that it is our bodies way of dealing with life's unfairness. Much of it comes from our own unfair treatment of ourselves. I wouldn't want a book that is trying to be helpful to become yet another way of beating ourselves up.

XX Hayley

[ollyisthebest]

Thankyou Nikki, I will get this book for my son, he has been suffering derealisation for over a year now and is at the end of his tether. Jill

[snicker_n_snark]

I totally agree with a previous post. I only feel like me when I'm half drunk.
I feel like I actually see things, people, places. I can feel. I can remember. I can think properly and functionally.
It's actually quite sad.
I wish I hadn't done the stupid things I did to get this way.
I know what my trigger was. And I can keep away from it easily enough. But if I ever get to the "EXPOSURE" phase, I'm sunk.
Cause it's illegal.
....I wish you all luck guys. We deserve it.

[BasilCat]

Hi Hayley (if you see this) I am 100% confident that fighting, Monitoring, checking and analysing our symptoms does promote them. Its this inward thinking and looking inward all the time that brings on the unreality - according to Paul David etc etc. And yes it is meant to be there to "give is a break" from all the stress etc but as you know its one of the most scariest things ever. Its taken me the best part of 3 years to get to where I feel 90% or 95% cured from it. I have had it before these last 3 years too. It has ALWAYS gone completely though this has been my longest ever episode. I sympathise with anyone who is troubled with this, really I do. But the Paul David and Claire Weekes books have really helped me.

Shirley