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.

Hi everyone. I've still been mostly on the side of hyper rather than down. Feeling happy about diet and exercise and life in general.

BUT for some reason I watched myself take extra medication the other night. I was feeling fine, happy. I don't know why I did it. It felt like complete auto-pilot. I didn't think it was bad, but a friend convinced me to have it checked with my GP, who sent me off to A&E.

So I spent last night in A&E. I was fine. I found it very odd that they wanted to admit me. I was being all calm and reasonable, and I thought these days you couldn't get admitted even in a bad crisis. It was all very strange. I feel perfectly fine and healthy! I've been told to go back to A&E if I have any more "dissociative episodes", whatever that means.

But I'm happy happy happy today.

Hello, I'm glad you went to a&e and got it checked bursar. I don't think we are always the best judge of what is reasonable when disassociating. I wonder if they checked you in because you were so calm about it, if that makes sense.

Hi can I join your thread? I have bad anxiety and am agoraphobic. I do work but finding it hard to get there at the moment. Have done CBT and it helped for a bit, I just want to sleep all the time.

Jeepers maybe you're right about the calmness. They didn't actually admit me eventually. They would have preferred me to stay, but didn't try to force me to, and I really didn't feel it was necessary at all. (And I had important plans and everything that I didn't want to mess up.) The Dr's opinion was that if I might do potentially harmful things while not even knowing that I'm upset, not wanting to do them, and not feeling fully in control, then I can't guarantee that I'm safe. That's fair enough, but really this isn't a new problem. I'm as safe as I've always been, and I've managed to stay alive and not hurt myself badly this far.

Welcome GoodMythical. I'm sorry you're finding things hard right now.

I hope everyone is enjoying the bank holiday weekend, or at least not having to suffer through it. I got a lot done with all my energy yesterday, but I think that's caught up with me today. I'm feeling very tired, and have just been pottering around the house, taking things easy.

Thinking about what you say Bursar reminds me of how I have always felt amazingly calm when I am having my strongest depersonalisation and derealisation experiences. I have read that a lot of people find it scary, but I never have (I suspect this is why I never sought help when looking back I really needed it most) I have always found it sort of interesting I guess. In fact when I was seriously suicidal, in that I would have happily chucked myself under a train had one been about, I felt like I was happier, calmer and thinking more clearly than I ever had before. This may sounds really odd, but it seemed that I saw everything completely as it was, like everything was suddenly clear and true and killing myself seemed the most logical and sensible thing. Like I would be mad not to. I was such an amazing feeling it is hard to describe, I sometimes wish I could feel that clarity again, just without the suicidal bit....obviously.

Anyway...moving swiftly on. I have had a lovely day. The sun is shining and dd has been out with a friend so DH and I have had a day just floating about the house together. I have done some writing and lots of washing. Simple things :)

Welcome to the thread Goood. Hope i haven't just put you off

Not at all. I had an unusually good day going to a friend's bbq this afternoon. Didnt feel nervous or anxious at all even though there was only a couple of ppl we knew. Big step for me.

Hi all
Will catch up properly soon.

Welcome Goood

All is well enough here. Still on holiday until Thursday.
Very very buzzy but not too giddy, so far.
Am expecting to be completely wrecked by the time I get home, so will zonk for a couple of days

Hello

I felt terrible last night - I felt as if I wasn't really here and my heart felt like it was in my neck throttling me. I was a bit trembly and teary too. DH thinks it is the adrenaline still surging through my body thinking I am still writing my dissertation. I sent it off at 3pm yesterday and took to the sofa with a big blanket and crap Telly. I cried into the pillow...

Feeling a bit better today. Taken the children to the local park with a picnic for four hours and now sat in my garden watching them play nicely

Hello can I join please ?

I have severe depression, hoping reading other people's experiences and getting my thoughts out in the open will help?
Completely lost, drained and not liking my current thought process about life and things in general.
I'm on ads but seem to have to little effect.

I dont find ads help that much. The only thing that helps is diazepam and I won't be prescribed that any more as was on it four months a while ago.

I am happy to have found this thread, although I cannot pretend to have read it all. I am only just now coming to terms with the fact that I have been experiencing some degree of depersonalisation and/or derealisation for about two decades. I had a mental health crisis and it was whilst I was in treatment for this that I learned about the words depersonalisation and derealisation. I read a bit about them and thought but that's just normal, right?

Now that I am aware of the depersonalisation/derealisation symptoms I notice that they come and go in synchronicity with the level of stress I am under. It is sort of interesting. I do not have much of a cure but I do have a couple of grounding techniques which can get me through the worst episodes.

In common with several posters in the part of the thread that I have read, I have also abandoned the supermarket shop on more than one occasion.

Take care everybody.

I do home deliveries now for shopping as I cant cope with the stress of superstore shopping. They make me feel aweful.

Hello everyone.

erinaceus I can really identify with that! When I started reading about depersonalisation and dissociation, it was an eye-opener to realise this wasn't how everyone saw the world, how everyone thought! So weird.

shotwithmyown sorry you had such a rough night. Blanket, sofa and crappy telly sounds like a good strategy, though. Glad to hear today's a bit better so far.

Welcome tiredoflife. I can never tell myself if ADs make any difference or not, but DH and GP seem to think I'm a bit better when on them, so I stay on them.

I have nothing important to do today, and feel really at loose ends somehow. Not tired, so can't try to sleep the day away. Not motivated to actually get anything non-urgent done. I've got both counselling and a follow up re. the hospital thing with the GP tomorrow, and feel pretty nervous.

Hello erin and tired.

I can also totally identify with the revelation that this isn't actually normal. It was such a relief to me when I found out that feeling the way I did wasn't just an inevitable part of life. I had just assumed that everyone felt like this and they were all just way better at just dealing with it than me. When I started reading about depersonalisation and derealisation it made me feel that rather than just having to suck it up and get on with life there was a possibility that things could be different. It's nice to know that my brain is just a bit squiff right now and I'm not fundamentally crap at life.

bursar that sounds like a netflix sort of day to me :)

I am up and down at the moment. On the one hand i am really enjoying work right now and home and family are great (dd is being adorable at the moment). On the other hand I really struggle with allowing myself to just be happy and enjoy it. I have to really remind myself that there is not a fixed quota of happiness I am allowed, that things being good doesn't inevitably mean that something awful will happen. I am working a lot on being aware of my habit of catastrophising.

Thank you for the welcomes ,

How do you all do it? I mean carry on with everyday life? I can't seem to suck it up and carry on anymore, , my day has been in total meltdown , all because my only pair of Jeans have just vanished ?? I only have one pair as i cant bring myself to buy/order a large size out of sheer embarrassment, Ive ripped the house and basically just broke down. I'm still in tears about it now but the only positive I can gain is from is from the urge of wanting to harm myself, I actually didn't do it,

I'm sorry I know I sound completely pathetic, I'm 29 and so sad at the thought of being like this for the rest of my life it's no way to live

To be absolutely honest tired I don't always carry on with everyday life. I have been known to end up curled up in a sobbing ball because I can't find the thing I am looking for or simply don't know what to make for dinner. I have days where it takes everything I have just to keep awake and not hide myself under the bedcovers.

It is getting better since I found a therapist that I get on with and have been doing CBT. I have realised that it doesn't have to be like this forever and that is a big help.

You are not pathetic and you don't have to suck it up and carry on all the time. Sometimes it's OK to just have a bad moment or day and crawl into bed for a bit. Being kind to yourself is hard, but sometimes needed.

Yes its ok to have these days. Do it if is what you need to do.

Thanks for the welcome everybody. I appreciate it.

It is a shock to get my head around this. I am finding it deeply troubling to be honest, to know that not everybody experiences the world from this detached and disconnected place. Realising that the moments when I feel connected (personalisation? realisation?), which are sort of glorious and terrifying simultaneously, are how it is most of the time for most people. This makes me feel all topsy-turvy.

I wonder what a RL meet up would be like. Would we all stand there looking at each other quizzically and asking "are you really real? am I?"

tiredoflife - I definitely have days when I can't carry on the normal stuff. I try to be kind to myself on these days. I decide the world won't end if I take a day off for collapsing. I drag a duvet downstairs, make a nest for myself on the sofa, and just do whatever gives me any comfort.

Psychotherapy and counselling have been invaluable for me too.

erinaceus hehe, maybe we'd all just really kick into auto-pilot and act all super fine, and come away feeling confused that all these capable and brilliant people are supposed to same ones who write that they struggle so much...

Hi all.
Finally sitting down after busy few days.
Have no energy. I'm wrecked.

tiredoflife
I am often to be found under a blanket.
I nest up too and only do essentials.
When I'm bad, I can't do a thing beyond basics like feeding the DC.

Haha bursar's I imagine it being just like that. We would all know that we were internally absolute wrecks but to anyone outside the group we would look like a bunch of super capable people. Assuming we didn't all collapse with anxiety and none of us actually make it there.

We went on an impromptu camping expedition this weekend. We went to a really nice little site just a couple of miles from home so it was super stress free to get to. Dd was amazing, she just made loads of friends with other children there and had a really great time. It was so nice to see her playing with new people. It also forced me and dh to go and talk to other people as well. It was lovely and I am really proud of myself for talking to new people in a sociable and not weird at all sort of way. I feel like being able to just say hello to strangers and introduce myself, and not freak out, and have a really nice time is a huge step forward. It's like there is this whole new world of socialness opening out in front of me.

Assuming we didn't all collapse with anxiety and none of us actually make it there.

Oh gosh. I had not thought of this.

It's like there is this whole new world of socialness opening out in front of me.

Without knowing how to say congratulations without sounding patronising, erm, congratulations on being a bit sociable. These are big risks that we take and they do not come easy. Not to me, anyway.

I think I made myself really poorly yesterday to get out of a family meal.....

I developed vomiting and diarrhea and stomach cramps so I couldn't go. Tbh I had an inkling it might not happen as I couldn't 'visualise' it.... Ok that sounds really crazy I know but I have to visualise social occasions as part of my coping mechanism.

Christ that sounds completely bat shit...

Yep.... Bat shit

Makes sense to me shot. That's why going to totally new places, or not having proper set plans is really anxiety provoking for me. I can't visualise and practice them in my head.

Today's anxiety for me is a window cleaner guy coming over "around midday". First of all, I've never met him. Second, I hate the vagueness of his timing. Thirdly, I'd have another place to be at 1pm, and can't know in advance if I'll be able to get there in time. Grrrr.