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