Keeping it real in the depersonalisation/derealization hang out thread

[JeepersMcoy]

Following a thread in Chat where a few people have said they suffer from depersonalisation and derealization issues I thought it would be nice to move the conversation to somewhere a bit safer and out of the Chat traffic. It has really helped me to just hear that there are other people out there who feel how I feel and I would love to be able to come and share good days and bad days with you all.

Biscuits, cakes and nibble are provided along with a selection of hot and cold, alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages (all dietary requirement catered for). Pull up a chair and and together we can attempt to hold onto some semblance of reality.

Thanks bursar! :)

It sounds terrifying telling people about it all and keeping a friendship like that. I am in awe! Having a couple of friends I can ask out for a coffee or go to the cinema with is like my ultimate dream I think. It makes me feel shaky and panicky just thinking about it though.

Hah, just think with my career and your social life we are like one actual functioning human being

Jeepers
Well done on cafe
I very rarely eat outside of my house, can manage coffee.
I have a friend I try and meet up with once a month for a coffee. She struggles with anxiety so we both have an understanding of how the other feels.
Have known each other for 25 years so feel very safe out together.
I'm lucky to have her

Sounds like a nice friendship Room :)

My period of sleeping more or less well seems to be over. I've had several nights now of waking up from nightmares at 1-2 am and not being able to settle back afterwards. It really drags my whole mood and functioning down so fast. Feeling very uncomfortable in my skin today, ugh.

Lack of sleep is awful Bursars
You have my sympathies.
It exacerbates every negative aspect of a day/mood.
I applied for a job today, I felt all productive for about five minutes.
Am currently ignoring the worry that I might actually get it and have to engage outside of my little bubble.

Anyone with DID here?

Well done to those of us making steps out to the big wide world. I'm starting to appreciate that actually, being dissociative has helped me to function in work/study/life. Because if I hadn't been able to dissociate, then I might have ended up in an even worse state than I have been. By dissociating I have been able to lock off multiple traumatic events, maintain a productive connection with the workforce and parent my daughter well enough for her to seem (apparently) unscathed by having had a traumatized mother. I don't think I could have done that if I wasn't dissociative. I would have been utterly consumed with trauma and unable to function; instead, I've been able to function to a good enough (not brilliant, but good enough) standard and deal with the trauma little bit by little bit.

But yes, it's very exhausting to achieve this. Sympathies for anyone struggling to sleep.

Room Good luck with the job application, although I fully understand the worry! It's very brave of you.

Alice I don't have a proper diagnosis of it (haven't had a proper assessment, although the Pottergate Centre recommended one), but do have many DID symptoms.

themost I think you're right. It's a coping mechanism, and sometimes works very well.

I managed to sleep a bit better with the help of some antihistamins last night. Made myself leave the house for a bit today, and muddling along.

Well done on the job application room! Just doing that bit is awesome :)

I think you are right as well themost. I can certainly see how it has helped me to function and keep a family and career going even when life has me on the floor. It is an amazing coping mechanism for when you just need to survive.

It also has it's uses on a day to day basis I must admit. I recently found out I have a reputation at work for staying cool in a crises and was told the other day I give of an aura of always being in control. I credit this to my ability to just dissociate when I get stressed and go into automatic. I can have people falling apart around me, but to me none of it really seems real and I am just watching it like a film or something. If it gets really stressful I sort of have a bit of me that separates from my body and gets on with screaming incoherently and crawling under tables while the rest of me carries on with life. It never really crossed my mind that to the outside observer, who can't see inside my head, this makes me look super unruffled and calm!

I feel like I am doing quite well at the moment and am only having milder feelings of disassociation (like I am riding in my body sometimes, looking out through my eyes). I am feeling really tired at the end of the day though. I feel like I'm trying to change a habit of a lifetime and it is exhausting holding myself together sometimes. I am journalling a lot and this really helps me address my feelings head on rather then pushing them away and allowing myself to disassociate.

Jeepers I was walking out in the town today, doing some chores, and had some time to kill before a GP appointment, and thought about you and your cafe visit. You inspired me to call in for a spontaneous cappucino! :) It wasn't very busy and the coffee was nice.

I use comfort eating and binging (often also purging) as a coping mechanism too. GP has just given me contact details of a local eating disorder charity. I've been googling them and getting anxious staring at the phone number...

Hi all

I agree being disconnected helps me. It definitely makes life easier to navigate.
I'm another one who is considered 'cool and calm in a crisis'.
I think it's a mixture of me being generally an all round capable kind of person and a lack of caring.
Or, not quite not caring but the situation not impacting me emotionally.
I put things, people etc behind me easily. It's not conscious but I'm surprised at how little loss, rejection etc affect me.

Job I've applied for would suit me better.
I've been signed off from my current position for months.
My energy goes into me and DCs and day to day life but I feel guilt for not working much.

My mental health / recovery doesn't always fit with 9-5 living.

We had heavy rain earlier alongside sunshine, it smelt wonderful.
My pleasure in it was fleeting (three deep breaths before I didn't care anymore IYSWIM)
The fact it even registered with me was rare.
It was a good three breaths

I am glad you enjoyed your cappuccino Bursar. It is nice to have inspired something!

A good three breaths sounds like something to savour Room (it would also make a good name for an album I think). :)

I think I am sometimes a little bit too good at putting things and people behind me, or at least seeming to. I am starting to realise that though on the surface I am not feeling stuff it is all there boiling about underneath. I am just so good at hiding it that even I sometimes don't realise it is there.

I told my therapist today that my ultimate aim is to make and maintain a normal platonic friendship. Just admitting to myself that I need that and that my not caring about having friends is not real seems like quite a big step. I have just not cared and pushed anyone who tried to be friends with me away for so long I genuinely believed that was who I was and how I would always be. Maintaining a friendship just felt like this terrible chore with things I had to do that I didn't have the energy to do and stuff I was supposed to feel that I just didn't feel. I am now realising that if I can just reconnect with myself and find a way to feel connected to other people that would actually be quite nice.

Yes, I'm also seen as the `go to' person in a crisis. It comes from being able to not feel things, to not care about anything. Sometimes I feel ashamed of this and think that I'm not normal because I don't have feelings. People that I know have lost their lives and I feel nothing about it. My feelings are starting to come back though, after several years of being deadened. Three years ago, the only way I could feel anything was to self harm and draw my own blood. Better that I felt pain than nothing at all; it was the only way I could check I was still alive. It has taken me a while to learn what emotions are again - to be able to recognize and name the feeling that I am having. Didn't recognize happy when I first felt it! Had to think about it for a while! Anyone seen the kids movie Inside Out? Now I too have talking emotions .

I'm with you Room, that you can find pleasure in the seemingly smallest of things; perhaps it will be happiness for three breaths today, four breaths tomorrow and it will keep growing from here. That's what happened with me - it was the bright yellow of daffodils in the park that started giving me feelings back again.

Jeepers , I isolated myself from others for a long time, enjoyed my cultivating my very independent persona. But that cracked after a while, and I have found that I now really enjoy the company of others who have been through difficult and life changing experiences. They tend not to judge, for they have been there themselves; they have given me proof that you can come out the other side because they have done it. I now have people that I can trust and can be myself around, and they won't judge me. Those friendships are precious and I value them very much but I was only able to build them after I started opening up and talking.

I've been thinking about your post a lot interestinglife. I have never physically self harmed, but I have often found myself wanting something awful to happen to me. Something that will force me to feel something even though it will hurt. In the past I have self sabotaged and done things that have directly caused bad things to happen.

At least one of these is something I am so ashamed of I couldn't bring myself to admit it even anonymously as I know people would be appalled. I have put myself in very dangerous situations, left good jobs, moved cities on a whim. Thinking about it now it was/is a form if self harming. Like you described I do these things in the desperate need to feel something, anything.

Of course the irony is that when something awful does happen (like my mother's illness and death) all it does is make me retreat even further!

I must admit that I don't think I'm very good in a crisis. I think I often go to a freeze response when I get overwhelmed, so end up being overly passive and just stare at things.

I've managed to have a couple of really quite nice days. We've been doing little happy things with DH, going out for lunch etc. Out of my comfort zone, but not too difficult. I'm feeling a bit wiped out by it all now though. My voices are starting to get more loud and noticable, so I better try to take things more slowly tomorrow.

Glad I found this thread. I've been suffering terribly since giving birth to DD 4 months ago.

Hi jelly. Welcome to the thread!

How is everyone today. I am really not feeling good today. I slept badly last night for a variety of reasons and today I am feeling really stuck in my head. I have spent a lot of the day in bed or in the bath, sort of in and out if myself. It feels like an awful effort just getting my body to move and keeping my mind in reality.

Jeepers, I think I'm at a point, or at least am approaching a point, where I am no longer waiting for - and looking forward to - the next thing that is going to cause me pain. Because being in emotional pain was my normal it was comforting, it was what I knew and I'm frightened to let myself feel happy because I don't know how to behave happy, if that makes sense. I know how to behave in pain because I lived that way for several years. I wonder if self sabotage is a way of keeping ourselves in familiar emotions? Self sabotage causes us to feel painful emotions, which are good because pain is better than nothing. But if something good looks like it might happen, then I'll self sabotage because I am familiar with pain and I don't know how to behave with and be comfortable with happiness. Just musing about it, might be talking nonsense!

Glad you have had a few nice days Bursars, tiring though they have been.

Jelly I had a traumatic birth with my DD, leaving me with a number of dissociative problems (that were then exacerbated by a run of other very difficult experiences, so I never really had time to get over that first one of the birth). I self harmed after the birth and had no positive feelings about her for a number of years. Happy to report that DD is a wonderful, lovely, happy, well adjusted child and we have a very close and affectionate relationship despite the tough beginning. Do you have good support from partner/family/friends? My problems were made much worse by the attitude of my then husband, and I had no family or friends due to living abroad and moving cities. It was a good GP that eventually got me the help I needed.

I think you are into something there interesting. Currently my life is pretty good and settled, but I find myself feeling like it is inevitable that something awful will happen sooner or later. It is almost like I just want it over with as the waiting for the bad thing to happen is agony. I am having to learn how to just enjoy the fact that right now things are OK. I just don't know how to live like that anymore.

jelly I had a pretty rough pregnancy and birth as well. It also overlapped with my mother's cancer returning after 3 years in remission. I can genuinely say I barely remember the first year of dd's life, and what I do remember was pretty grim. I was so lucky that my husband is and was amazing. He took care if everything at home pretty much and had 3 months parental leave so I went back to work when dd was 5.5 months. Going back to work early saved me I think. It is taboo to admit, but though i love dd more than i can express, there have been many times when I have regretted having a child. I have done the very best I can to be a loving parent, but it has been hard. She is now 4 and I am finally starting to be able to truely say that I am more glad to have her than not. She is amazing, happy, bright and everyone who meets her adores her.

My only regret now is that I didn't seek medical help for myself after she was born. But to everyone else I looked like a capable, loving parent, so I just kept struggling on.

I had a very bad night. I feel it's my own fault, because I had been reading something abuse related, and then had had a few glasses of wine in an attempt to relax. I don't really know what all went on (luckily I didn't wake anyone up), but I "came to" sitting in a cold bath in the middle of the night, shaking like hell and not really knowing why I was there. Got myself dried off and crawled under the duvet (luckily DH was very warm), but took me ages to stop shaking.

Actually still feel a bit shaky today, although otherwise I'm feeling fine. Haven't made it outside, but washing sheets and trying to be generally useful in the house.

Jelly I'm glad that reading the thread has been helpful. I don't have a baby, so can only imagine what an upheaval it can be. I hope you're getting some help with how much you're struggling.

Jeepers I'm sorry you didn't feel too well yesterday. Hopefully today is a bit better? The goal you told your therapist sounds like a really important one. It might well take its time, but great that you're recognising you want that! :)

Gosh, that sounds a bit scary bursar! I'm glad you are OK today.

I am feeling better today. Back to work, so that helps to force me into moving and and focus on things outside of my head. I just feel sort of hungover after a bad day, and my IBS was also really bad yesterday so my insides are bit bruised. I did sleep better last night, so I think that helped. I still feel that urge to just crawl into bed and hide under the covers until the world goes away.

I'm glad you managed a better day yesterday, and the work routine is helping.

I think I used to get scared and panic in the past when I had blanks in my memory or felt I didn't know why and when I'd done what etc. But knowing more about dissociation and all the therapy must be helping at least a bit, because I'm more easy with it these days. Yes it's disorientating, and I'm glad it doesn't happen that often these days (I think), but as long as I haven't done anything stupid or been hurt in any way there's no actual harm in it, really.

But me and DH are TTC at the moment... I must admit I do worry how the nighttime me would manage to feed/change/soothe a baby if I'm very sleep deprived and dissociated. I think it would all work out one way or another. But I do worry.

That sounds scary Bursar, the coming to in the bath.
I lose time/blackout but very rarely.
Only at home luckily.
I'm never out for long enough for it to happen outside.
I tend to psyche myself up, get in the car, go do whatever needs doing, then straight home to decompress.

I like 'decompress' Room. A good description :)

Good luck with the TTC Bursar! I think I mentioned up thread that I really don't remember much of dd's first year. She was a terrible sleeper (had phases of waking every half and hour!) due to digestive problems. I was just on hormone fuelled automatic pilot. You do it because you have to and eventually it gets better. Great support from DH was vital to getting me through in one piece, so do make sure you have him ready for doing his bit. I have a friend whose husband never changed a single nappy and never once got up in the night to help out.

I breastfed so had to deal with most wakings, but dh did every single night-time nappy. He never once even suggested sleeping in another room and was always by my side when things got tough. All I had to do all day was get me and dd through the day in the same shaped pieces we started in. He did all the washing and cooking and stuff. I just about managed it :)

Decompress is a good word, yes! How do you all do that when getting back to the safety of home? I have a bad habit of decompressing by comfort eating, which sometimes goes into a proper binge. I do have all kinds of healthier methods that I try, but none of it works quite so well.

I hope my DH would be the same, Jeepers, he's usually very supportive and is very keen on having kids. :)

I'm confused and frustrated because of this:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/2618825-How-can-you-prove-you-havent-been-seen-by-a-Dr

The mystery psychiatrist situation seems very confusing bursar. I hope you are OK and this isn't making you too anxious.

It's hard when you end up doubting yourself when the chances are it's simply a case of mistaken identity and basic human cock-up on the psychiatrists part. I would definitely get a copy of all the notes from this alleged meeting. You can then check dates and times and see whether the info matches with your case.

Whatever the outcome it sounds like you need to be referred back.