'I don't feel real' is this an autistic thing, an anxiety thing or something else altogether

[Alliwantisboozeforchristmas]

I hope it is okay to post and someone can help me. My autistic DD (12) has been saying on and off for years - that she doesn't feel real/is just an illusion etc. It's always worse when she is stressed/struggling.

She asked me today if this feeling was due to her autism and I honestly don't know (I'm NT and despite trying to look this up for her I haven't discovered much about this). She is also generally very anxious - has previously had treatment for OCD and has been referred back to CAMHs for general levels of anxiety. Maybe this feeling is due to her anxiety? She has a CAMHs appointment coming up soon so am keen to be a bit clued up before we go and speak to them. If you could shed any light on this I would be so grateful. 💐

Bumping because my DD feels this too and is waiting an assessment.

I would say it’s likely an anxiety-related type of ‘dissociation’. I’m not qualified to diagnose anyone though, I’ve just got a lot of personal experience of anxiety issues.

I used to feel this quite a lot during my childhood/teen/ young adult days. I felt as if I was in a dream, that life was a dream and I didn't feel real. I have ADHD and pretty sure I'm on the autistic spectrum too (undiagnosed).

What has helped me in recent years is working on my self esteem and doing things to help me feel more "embodied" eg yoga, mindfulness, exercise. Hope your DD is OK.

Thanks for the messages 💐.I will look up dissociation - I've not heard of it before.

I feel like this when I go out alone. I'm usually ok when I have someone with me but being outside alone triggers something that makes me feel like I am 'with' me rather than actually 'me' - I narrate my way around in my head to, sometimes telling myself what I have to do in order to be ok to walk past someone in a small space or join a busy queue. DD dissociates and talks in animal language.

Both of us seem to do this is high stress situations

@lookersnoopy this sounds very like DD. She also narrates things a lot. She finds this 'not feeling real' feeling very stressful though - not sure how to help her with it.

@lookersnoopy I've never had anyone word how I feel so clearly! Thank you !

I do this too but I've never told anyone. Whenever I have to do something alone, it's as if my brain finds comfort in pretending I have someone with me so I narrate things. Or more like I'm explaining things as I would to someone who has never done that thing before.

Not entirely related but on the topic of feeling like something is missing - I was recently shocked to find a Tiktok where an autistic woman was talking about how she had always felt incomplete/less than and so, when she was a child, she was convinced she'd had a twin who didn't make it. I've never talked about this as an adult but I made up the same backstory for myself and, based on the video comments, so did a lot of other autistic people. It was really eerie because I'd forgotten all about that until I saw the Tiktok.

www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/dissociative-disorders/

I also thought disassociation. My DD has similar problems.

Hello,
I used to have this when I was 11, 12 and 13 years old. It was linked to anxiety and I would say it’s a dissociative state and then de realisation occurs (I am now a psychiatric nurse, physician heal thy self!). I think it may be worse at this age due to hormonal changes occurring as well.

it was the early 80’s when I really suffered from this feeling of being unreal or that life was an illusion. I did try telling my mother but she was obviously briefly baffled and then dismissive towards me. I said that the feeling was linked to the Shakespeare saying “all the worlds a stage…… and so on”.

unfortunately I was a very anxious girls due to various pressures; strict emotionally unavailable parents, benign neglect despite parents wealth, unpredictable sneering remarks made by parents, a very strict primary school with academic pressure (I am dyslexic and discalulic). And then rampant bullying at secondary school, albeit without the academic pressures.

as above PP has said, I naturally became more embodied as a.way of reducing this hellish feeling, and found that certain movements and stimming decreased the anxiety or soothed me. I used to swim and enjoyed badminton as a distraction from the anxiety.

it also helped that a fiend of mine who I also think is on the spectrum told me she felt similar whilst having to do 1st year secondary school exams. It helped enormously to know I wasn’t the only person who felt like that.

Hope this helps.

I had a period of this when I was 16 years old. It came on after I tried cannabis for the first time and had a massive panic attack and hallucinations.
I felt like I wasn't me, and I was watching myself from the outside for around 6 months afterwards.
I believe it is disassociation.

I never told anyone at all, I just kept it to myself, and eventually, it went away. Terrifying, though.

@Angelina1972 and @ofwarren thanks for your posts this is really helpful. I am very grateful that my DD feels she can talk to me about it (it must have been very scary to go through it alone). But it is hard to know how to help her with it. I may have been guilty of being a bit dismissive in the past - not because I don't care but I was worried of feeding into it too much.

While I can be quite an anxious person I have lucky enough not to have had any mental health difficulties so it is all new to me on how to help support her. We are seeing CAMHS again now so hopefully they will be able to help us.

Thanks again for all the comments 💐

@Alliwantisboozeforchristmas

You don’t seem like the dismissive type at all. And this stands your daughter in good stead for managing these symptoms she is experiencing. XXX

@Alliwantisboozeforchristmas you need a psychologist for this. CAHMS sounds like the right place.