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.

Thank you . I'm feeling pretty content today so I'm going to make the most of it

Flower changing meds or the doses can really make a mess of your mind and body, so I really feel for you. Derealisation definitely sucks. I'm glad you're feeling better today. :)

I feel a bit like I'm tripping today, but it's probably something to do with strong antihistamins (hayfever season). It's quite nice really, since I dont have anything important to do anyway. Might just have a nap.

I'm glad today is better Flowers

I spent the day napping. Got up around 2pm in order to be vaguely present when DCs got home from school.
Listened to music while cooking dinner and I'm now wrecked from getting all reminiscent.

Hi flowers. I am glad you are feeling a bit better today. I wish I could tell you how to make it stop, but I suspect we all have to find our own way to a degree. It is so hard though.

Sometimes you just need a nap day room

I am having thoughts going round my head this week that I can't really tell whether they are really how I feel and perfectly reasonable or if I am just having a crazed moment. I have a history of doing things spur of the moment because I just get oddly obsessed and it seems sensible at the time but later I can see it was actually not that sensible at all. I am trying to just sit tight and not do or say anything that I might not agree with next week. I am doing a lot of journalling and putting all the thoughts in the hope that this will sort of earth them. I'm not sure if that makes sense. I find it scary when I get like this as I hate not feeling able to trust my instincts.

Jeepers journalling and reflecting on it sounds like the healthy way to try to make sense of things.

I had counselling today, and have been in a bit of a state since then. I keep sort of semi-flashbacking to a very upsetting scene from a very long time ago. I can't seem to shake it off or centre myself in the here and now. I've had some food and a long shower, made myself comfortable, and hoping to distract with some telly soon. I'm meeting some friends tomorrow, and really hope that (along with the anxiety of going out) will provide the perfect distraction.

Hope friends are distracting you Bursar

Very busy week here.
Feast or famine.
Luckily mostly positive, potential house move, some freelance work, trip organising.
Has involved lots (for me) going out, interacting etc. So far so good.
One more 'big' thing that I'm not looking forward to regarding work but not freaking out yet, so good enough.

Had to cancel counselling due to car being in garage so need to deal with that.
I could have got a taxi or bus. In theory I could have.
In reality I wasn't able to.

Am glad its Friday, I like the DC being home.

Jeepers
Earthing your thoughts makes perfect sense to me

Hi all. I hope you don't mind if I join in. Looooong history of mental illness- classed as Bipolar at one point, many many years of self harm, chronic anxiety, feeling joyous one minute and low the next.

I hope somebody knows what I mean but I feel like my whole life is lived in my head. Eg I hear songs and they send me off into dreamland and I'm not grounded in the reality I'm in. My brain is forever somewhere else.

I'm on 20 mg escitalopram, a total of 120 mg propranolol a day and cocodamol daily for body pains.

So tired of living with this and fighting it. I also have other health problems and it's all very hard.

Hey Marvin

I think my thinking is similar, I definitely live in my head.

When I try to explain my thought process I liken it to a never ending firework.
The main bit goes off, then ten bursts off that, ten off those ten individual bursts, etc etc, multiplying constantly.
The colour of someone's shoe (or whatever, absolutely anything,smell,taste,texture) will catch my eye and WHOOSH..... Off I go.
It's exhausting and very hard to sustain the energy needed.
Today I'm in a good mood so I'm all fizzy but I can't go out when I'm like this (except to certain friends houses) because its very hard not to be vocal.
In my happy head, I'm screaming MY GOD, LOOK,LOOK HOW ABSOLUTELY FUCKING GLORIOUS THE SUNSET IS!!!! LOOK!!!
And I have the urge to share that with everyone
I'm conditioned enough to behave in public but its a constant effort to real myself in.

It's either that style of thinking or a complete cut off, nothing there. Totally disconnected from everything and everyone.
I'm like a robot that comes up against a wall and just keeps walking.

Thank you for sharing with me your experience, i can relate.
I get totally euphoric over little things like seeing the moon or kissing my son goodnight and worry that if I say it loud everyone will think I am mental.

And my brain just jumps off in all directions all day. I will see something about some actor and then poof off I go remembering all the other things he has done, and a certain film, and the entire plot, and a song from the film, and that reminds me of an old friend.... Meanwhile I've done my whole shower routine not paying one bit of attention to what I'm doing, it's so bloody annoying!! I wish I could stop it.

I feel like I am a bit crazy

I sometimes like, even love it. I have to be hyper vigilant because I can 'chase' the buzzy feel.
Though also, like you... I find it disconcerting.
It's very hard to focus.
My head is a full time job.

Ditto. When I feel euphoric it's a wonderful feeling, but only a minor thing will bring me crashing down. And because my head is so busy I often lose sight of myself and reality, if you know what I mean? I have to work very hard to keep sight of myself. Which in itself I find confusing and disturbing.

Have you ever had a diagnosis, by the way? I'd be interested to know if you did. I am very often not fully honest about my state of mind, to myself let alone anyone else, as I feel if I acknowledge it I will end up a fully paid up mental patient again.

No diagnosis.
Have been told I'm probably bi-polar by a previous GP.
My current GP and CMHP don't seem to want to diagnose me as I'm very good at coping.
I function well day to day and I guess the NHS is stretched enough.

I don't often admit my own state of mind either.
I'm so used to being me and managing my head, it's only recently that I've realised how much juggling I do.
I get burnt out, currently on long term sickness absence from work.
I can cope with me, DCs and our little life.

And due to my fizzy head, I'm wide awake at nearly 4am

My firework thinking is overwhelming, sometimes negatively. Or, not quite negative, not sure how to describe it.
An example is we had a takeaway the other night. (this particular time it didn't happen but if I'm gloomy it would have)
As I'm dishing up, there's lots of different shapes and sizes of food container. I'm aware of that but abstractly. DC are floating about, cutlery, chatting etc. So far, so normal.
But I'm being dragged back to the containers. And I'm already talking myself down, it's fine, don't focus. Go sit, eat, shhh, shhh. I'm almost trying to placate myself.
And then it's almost like a part of me says.... Just one thought, it'll be fine. Just one and I'll stop.
Like some comedy addict.
And I'll be off.
I'll start with how the containers are stackable.
I love the neatness of how they stack.
I'll realise the small joy I'll get from having neat rubbish when we're finished.
Then I'll picture them in the restaurant,all in a corner,new and shiny, ready to be fitted with their matching lids.
That would be enough if I was in good form.... My thinking would have pinged off.
But when I'm not feeling too good its like a rogue thought creeps in.
It makes the piles too high, the stack wobbles, it makes me think of not just the first restaurant but all the others.
And the rogue thought gathers momentum until I have never ending stacks of containers, from every restaurant in my town, county, England, Europe etc etc
And they're all in my head, endless towers of the bloody things!!
I'm very visual so what was a treat for me and DCs turns into this terrifying nonsense.

Gosh, that was quite a waffle

Ha! Love the stacked containers.

I feel like I am permanently stuck in wistful daydream land. I watched a few mins of the Eurovision semis the other night and when I noticed 'Slovenia' at the bottom of the screen I started thinking about what Slovenia must be like and imagining the people and the landscape and their lives and so it went for every different country that came up. And then I imagined this other life for myself where I am a marine biologist living in Aruba and make up this whole dream life (I can even hear the wind in the palm trees) and then suddenly my mum said something to me and I realise I'd totally left the room again, which happens a zillion times a day.
Do you have anything that helps ground you? I find yoga and meditation helps but I have an inflammatory condition and at the moment I'm often exhausted or in pain and don't do it. I also collect stones, rocks and crystals (nerd alert) and I find that looking at them and holding them helps somewhat.

God I sound like a total loon.

Hope you got some sleep!! Are you on any medication that helps?

Hi Marvin welcome to the thread!

So much of what you are both saying reflects my experience. I am constantly amazed on this thread that there are other people out there that feel like this.

I also get the euphoria feelings. It is like being on pills. Everything seems almost too wonderful, painfully perfect. I can find myself just standing there staring at a flower in awe of how amazing it is, or just overwhelmed by how great life seems in that moment. Of course it is usually followed by a crash sooner or later where everything is just flat and empty. I hate the ups and downs from one extreme to the the other. It is so exhausted and I never know when I start the day how I will be feeling by the end of the day.

I also live in my head a lot and can struggle to escape. I don't mention this to other people, even dh doesn't know, but I have a whole other world with elaborate stories. Think epic fantasy type things. I have lived out stories in this world from as far back as I can remember. It was my escape as a child. I sort of live this second life in my head. And it is still an escape now. I am there pretty much everyday. On my most disconnected days it is like I get trapped in it and can't stop playing out my internal stories and focus on the real world. Sometimes i am afraid I will lose track of which world is real and my secret will come out. Sometimes I want to give it up and other times I feel like I would be bereft without it, it is so much a part of me.

I have had a diagnosis of depression and anxiety in the past but never went back to the gp to follow it up. I have never been able to talk honestly to a gp of even a therapist about my mental state. I have coped and functioned. At my worst points I have sought therapy through charities or privately so it hasn't ever been on my record. Part of my issues is a complete phobia of trusting people and obsessive need to be independent and deal with stuff on my own. In some ways I think I have also been lucky that even when I had severe derealization and everything looked like it had been cut out of bits of paper for a couple of weeks, I didn't actually feel at all scared by it. In fact in a odd way I sort of enjoyed it and found it really interesting. I think I was so disconnected emotionally at times like that I didn't feel any need to go get help or tell anyone about it.

Hi Jeepers!

Interesting what you mention about childhood because I wonder if maybe this originates to a degree from there- I was v lonely as a kid and spent a lot of time hiding under tables and therefore lived a lot in my head. And I've never left! I had an imaginary friend and spent a lot of time on my own. And even though my hubby is my best friend and we have a huge bond (it's like I have known him forever) I haven't lost that living in my head thing, although I do tell him about it. He is really great at listening. Maybe you should open up at home too, it might make you feel less alone.

I totally get everything you say, the flower wonder really jumped out at me, that's me to a t!

I will read properly once I've got my head on the right way around, but re. diagnosis, I've had a few in my time... GAD, depression, panic disorder, social phobia, bulimia, borderline personality disorder... I've looked into trying to get a proper assessment for a dissociative disorder, but I'd have to go private for that and can't really justify the cost.

I don't think I fit the criteria for a lot of those diagnoses, not anymore at least, by the way. Especially the BPD one doesn't really sit right with me. I don't really identify with most of what I read about it - mostly just the dissociation bits!

I am having some severe anxiety attacks with depersonalization thrown in for good measure.

I gave a history of severe mental illness but been meds free for 12 years - had two complete breakdowns and a post partum psychosis.

At the moment I am writing my dissertationI am going through the menopause and I am still getting over a serious illness from the beginning of the year.

I don't want to go to the GP as meds would affect my ability to do my job.

So..I am waiting until I finish my degree ( only three weeks to go) and I will see how I get on - things will hopefully improve.

Sorry about that - I just wanted to write it down.

This is my first post on this thread.

When I talk to people about my anxiety they seem genuinely surprised - apparently I give the impression I am a confident person. Smoke and mirrors smoke and mirrors .

Welcome tiger :)

It does sound like you have a lot going on. Hopefully once you have you dissertation done you will have some more headspace to start to deal with you head...um...if that makes sense.

I also come across as super confident and capable. I have a real reputation at work for being a cool head in a crises and getting stuff done. Whenever I have mentioned that I am have suffered with severe anxiety and am currently having therapy for my social anxiety issues people are astounded. I am just really good at riding through it and putting on a front even when I am a gibbering wreck inside. Apparently this is quite common in people suffering with disassociation and derealization.