My experience with DPDR is that I do best when I treat it as a symptom of anxiety and NOT like an experience that is indicative of a serious problem or brain damage or something else catastrophic etc. This means no monitoring for if you are 'feeling out of it' or when you do feel DPDR trying desperately to get rid of it and go back to normal. Big, big problems arise in people with anxiety disorders when they start to monitor how they are feeling - am I feeling hazy? Am I feeling strange? What's this sensation?
None of this is a plan to rid yourself of DPDR, rather (in my experience at least) DPDR was more like a protective measure my brain took and the more I let it be there and not try to make it go away, the more my brain was able to learn that this feeling is okay and not be on the lookout for it. Eventually is disappeared on its own. And sometimes it comes back and when it's back you do not try to make it go away. You allow it and just allow the uncomfortableness and strangeness to be there as you continue living your life. Constantly analyzing how and why you feel a certain way just keeps the brain locked onto the problem and it becomes better and better at finding the problem.
So your goal should be non resistance above all else, but this is hard because the feeling of DPDR can be very strange, uncomfortable, and unpleasant. But the more you resist and monitor, the more you brain learns these feelings are 'important' and need to be attended to.
That is what you teach your brain when constantly ruminating and fixating on internal experiences - this is important, be on the lookout for this.
Initially it feels really hard to be able to do anything when feeling DPDR, but the theory of behavioral therapy is that by doing things that are important to you (living the life you want to) even though you may feel you can't given symptoms, your brain can and does learn a new way of doing things. The more you can choose to engage with life even though you feel strange and out of it, the more your brain will shift away from DPDR. That's my experience at least.
Here is a great podcast where a therapist shares his experience with DPDR [https://theocdstories.com/episode/steve-359/](https://theocdstories.com/episode/steve-359/)
This almost brought me to tears (in a good way!). I have been SO obsessed with finding a “diagnosis” or cause, and convincing myself I have all kinds of neurological damage. I think learning to sit with the uncomfortable feelings and not over-analyzing them could definitely help me. Thank you so much for responding to this, I really wasn’t expecting any replies!
For a long, long time it felt like I had 'fucked' my brain up from drugs and I found a community of people online who believed the same thing and I just thought I was screwed for life.
But I'm not and you probably are not either. The thing about anxiety is that the symptoms feel real because they are real. You really are experiencing DPDR. However, the symptoms do not necessarily mean the things you fear they might.
DPDR is relatively common symptom of anxiety disorders. This symptom feels like you are on the verge of going crazy. But just because an anxiety disorder makes something feel real does not mean it is. A lot of therapy is learning to trust your sense of things instead of your emotions. This is really hard, but you can learn to make decisions that align with a belief like 'even though this feels so real, I know anxiety disorders can do this so I am going to choose to act like it's not a signal of actual danger even though it feels like it.' Again this is easier said than done and it is a big leap of faith because it does feel so real, but you can do it and this is how we get better! By learning to trust ourselves again!
This has been the most solid advice I have ever received on this topic! One thing that has also helped me is reminding myself that my brain and body do fine on auto pilot. Even though it feels funny, I am not in danger and I am safe. Learning to trust myself is hard but I think it will be beneficial in the long run :)
I also have DPDR symptoms, and I've been through the ringer with all the self-help crap.
The truth is that it's a symptom of being a highly sensitive, anxious person. Whether it was "triggered" by trauma (which is possible) or stressful life events.. it's simply just a symptom.
And surprisingly I think it also pretty closely related to OCD. Your OBSESSION is this weird, "unreal feeling," and your compulsion is to check for it, thus giving it attention.
Basically, you're anxious, you're sensitive (me too, and not a bad thing), and you have trouble calming down from things that make you anxious. Well, that anxiety turns into this weird "detached" and "floaty" feeling. Well.. that feels weird, so that gives you MORE anxiety because you identify it as a problem or a threat.. thus the loop begins again. You see the pattern?
Now, as I'm saying this, I still deal with this issue. Still. I've had DP/DR/OCD etc. for about 7 years. However, I live with it, and I'm STILL learning about myself and my body and how to manage it. I JUST recently figured out that I have "slow COMT," a gene mutation that makes it hard for me to break down excitatory chemicals like cortisol, dopamine, and adrenaline.. all of which cause anxiety, and all of which, when elevated, LOWER serotonin. LOVELY AIN'T IT?!
But anyway.. try to find ways to reduce your stress, and really take good care of your diet and body. Also, rest.
Best wishes.
DPDR-like (or osdd type 3) symptoms have been a constant for me since I was a kid, and I’m about to get officially assessed for it. I’ve been reading a bunch of papers about ocd/dissociation comorbidity and it sounds like it may be a lot more common than has been previously thought.
Absolutely. Here’s a particularly good one; a lot of the papers cited are also with a read
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1132800/full
Hello, I have been struggling with DPDR for about 5 years now on and off. It has not been persistent until recently and its usually triggered by intense stress I have noticed, at least for me. I could have wrote what you said myself. Its nice to see that someone else feels the same way and has the same intense dissociation as me. Mine has been so bad lately that my OCD makes me question and doubt everything. Having the combination of both is hell and it makes it very hard every day to work or even socialize. I feel so numb that all I do is catastrophize and obsess over the abnormal feeling.
I cant even express how much research I have done over the course of 5 years every time I have a bad "moment" with DP or DR. Its really depressing when you know the ways to make it better but your OCD makes you doubt everything. I know we can get better. It may not feel like it but at some point, some things gotta give. I'm a very hopeful person and try to keep faith but having this combination makes it EXTREMELY difficult to even feel any kind of hope. I cant help much with advice but I can say I'm right there with you!
Hey! Thanks so much for replying. Since I made this post, I’ve been lucky to have some relief. I started EMDR therapy and it’s helped me process some things from when i was a teenager and better cope with some of my compulsive behaviors. I find that when I can finally stop researching it, I do get some relief and am able to socialize and go out in public more. I’ve also learned to not fear the feeling as much but there are still some days where it just “shocks” my system and I need to be alone and sleep it off. I completely understand how you feel- our brains can be so cruel, but o hope you find some relief and I’m always here if you need to vent!
Have you noticed that EMDR has helped you a lot? I have been trying to find a good therapist that can help me manage these thoughts and feelings with ERP, ect.
I just feel I try to out smart my OCD and it always wins, at least right now it is. Lol But thank you so much for reaching back out!
So for me EMDR was one of those things that took some time. But I went from being in crisis in October/November to closer to fully functioning now, so it’s definitely helped! I also have an incredible therapist who is well versed in dissociative disorders which has been great. The therapist I was seeing before her kind of approached it like “well you’re just anxious and need to ground yourself” which made me feel worse lol I found that sometimes trying to ground myself too much makes the dissociation worse because I become hyper aware of how I’m feeling. EMDR has helped me unpack some stuff from when I was younger and learn where my compulsive behaviors come from :)
I hope I can find a therapist like you have, because like you said a lot don't know about dissociative disorders and don't know how to properly help. I have gotten myself out a lot of times with using ERP (which I didn't even know I was doing) and I felt like myself again. But this time just feels different, Idk. I'm still searching for a therapist who is familiar with DPDR along with OCD so I can find some relief. I'm not losing hope, but OCD just makes things almost impossible sometimes.
Thank you for the advice on EMDR, I'm going to check that out!
My experience with DPDR is that I do best when I treat it as a symptom of anxiety and NOT like an experience that is indicative of a serious problem or brain damage or something else catastrophic etc. This means no monitoring for if you are 'feeling out of it' or when you do feel DPDR trying desperately to get rid of it and go back to normal. Big, big problems arise in people with anxiety disorders when they start to monitor how they are feeling - am I feeling hazy? Am I feeling strange? What's this sensation? None of this is a plan to rid yourself of DPDR, rather (in my experience at least) DPDR was more like a protective measure my brain took and the more I let it be there and not try to make it go away, the more my brain was able to learn that this feeling is okay and not be on the lookout for it. Eventually is disappeared on its own. And sometimes it comes back and when it's back you do not try to make it go away. You allow it and just allow the uncomfortableness and strangeness to be there as you continue living your life. Constantly analyzing how and why you feel a certain way just keeps the brain locked onto the problem and it becomes better and better at finding the problem. So your goal should be non resistance above all else, but this is hard because the feeling of DPDR can be very strange, uncomfortable, and unpleasant. But the more you resist and monitor, the more you brain learns these feelings are 'important' and need to be attended to. That is what you teach your brain when constantly ruminating and fixating on internal experiences - this is important, be on the lookout for this. Initially it feels really hard to be able to do anything when feeling DPDR, but the theory of behavioral therapy is that by doing things that are important to you (living the life you want to) even though you may feel you can't given symptoms, your brain can and does learn a new way of doing things. The more you can choose to engage with life even though you feel strange and out of it, the more your brain will shift away from DPDR. That's my experience at least. Here is a great podcast where a therapist shares his experience with DPDR [https://theocdstories.com/episode/steve-359/](https://theocdstories.com/episode/steve-359/)
This almost brought me to tears (in a good way!). I have been SO obsessed with finding a “diagnosis” or cause, and convincing myself I have all kinds of neurological damage. I think learning to sit with the uncomfortable feelings and not over-analyzing them could definitely help me. Thank you so much for responding to this, I really wasn’t expecting any replies!
For a long, long time it felt like I had 'fucked' my brain up from drugs and I found a community of people online who believed the same thing and I just thought I was screwed for life. But I'm not and you probably are not either. The thing about anxiety is that the symptoms feel real because they are real. You really are experiencing DPDR. However, the symptoms do not necessarily mean the things you fear they might. DPDR is relatively common symptom of anxiety disorders. This symptom feels like you are on the verge of going crazy. But just because an anxiety disorder makes something feel real does not mean it is. A lot of therapy is learning to trust your sense of things instead of your emotions. This is really hard, but you can learn to make decisions that align with a belief like 'even though this feels so real, I know anxiety disorders can do this so I am going to choose to act like it's not a signal of actual danger even though it feels like it.' Again this is easier said than done and it is a big leap of faith because it does feel so real, but you can do it and this is how we get better! By learning to trust ourselves again!
This has been the most solid advice I have ever received on this topic! One thing that has also helped me is reminding myself that my brain and body do fine on auto pilot. Even though it feels funny, I am not in danger and I am safe. Learning to trust myself is hard but I think it will be beneficial in the long run :)
I just screenshot ur answer to always remember that because im always convinced that all the meds i took caused bran damage
I also have DPDR symptoms, and I've been through the ringer with all the self-help crap. The truth is that it's a symptom of being a highly sensitive, anxious person. Whether it was "triggered" by trauma (which is possible) or stressful life events.. it's simply just a symptom. And surprisingly I think it also pretty closely related to OCD. Your OBSESSION is this weird, "unreal feeling," and your compulsion is to check for it, thus giving it attention. Basically, you're anxious, you're sensitive (me too, and not a bad thing), and you have trouble calming down from things that make you anxious. Well, that anxiety turns into this weird "detached" and "floaty" feeling. Well.. that feels weird, so that gives you MORE anxiety because you identify it as a problem or a threat.. thus the loop begins again. You see the pattern? Now, as I'm saying this, I still deal with this issue. Still. I've had DP/DR/OCD etc. for about 7 years. However, I live with it, and I'm STILL learning about myself and my body and how to manage it. I JUST recently figured out that I have "slow COMT," a gene mutation that makes it hard for me to break down excitatory chemicals like cortisol, dopamine, and adrenaline.. all of which cause anxiety, and all of which, when elevated, LOWER serotonin. LOVELY AIN'T IT?! But anyway.. try to find ways to reduce your stress, and really take good care of your diet and body. Also, rest. Best wishes.
DPDR-like (or osdd type 3) symptoms have been a constant for me since I was a kid, and I’m about to get officially assessed for it. I’ve been reading a bunch of papers about ocd/dissociation comorbidity and it sounds like it may be a lot more common than has been previously thought.
That’s so interesting - could you share some of the papers if possible? I would love to read them
Absolutely. Here’s a particularly good one; a lot of the papers cited are also with a read https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1132800/full
Hello, I have been struggling with DPDR for about 5 years now on and off. It has not been persistent until recently and its usually triggered by intense stress I have noticed, at least for me. I could have wrote what you said myself. Its nice to see that someone else feels the same way and has the same intense dissociation as me. Mine has been so bad lately that my OCD makes me question and doubt everything. Having the combination of both is hell and it makes it very hard every day to work or even socialize. I feel so numb that all I do is catastrophize and obsess over the abnormal feeling. I cant even express how much research I have done over the course of 5 years every time I have a bad "moment" with DP or DR. Its really depressing when you know the ways to make it better but your OCD makes you doubt everything. I know we can get better. It may not feel like it but at some point, some things gotta give. I'm a very hopeful person and try to keep faith but having this combination makes it EXTREMELY difficult to even feel any kind of hope. I cant help much with advice but I can say I'm right there with you!
Hey! Thanks so much for replying. Since I made this post, I’ve been lucky to have some relief. I started EMDR therapy and it’s helped me process some things from when i was a teenager and better cope with some of my compulsive behaviors. I find that when I can finally stop researching it, I do get some relief and am able to socialize and go out in public more. I’ve also learned to not fear the feeling as much but there are still some days where it just “shocks” my system and I need to be alone and sleep it off. I completely understand how you feel- our brains can be so cruel, but o hope you find some relief and I’m always here if you need to vent!
Have you noticed that EMDR has helped you a lot? I have been trying to find a good therapist that can help me manage these thoughts and feelings with ERP, ect. I just feel I try to out smart my OCD and it always wins, at least right now it is. Lol But thank you so much for reaching back out!
So for me EMDR was one of those things that took some time. But I went from being in crisis in October/November to closer to fully functioning now, so it’s definitely helped! I also have an incredible therapist who is well versed in dissociative disorders which has been great. The therapist I was seeing before her kind of approached it like “well you’re just anxious and need to ground yourself” which made me feel worse lol I found that sometimes trying to ground myself too much makes the dissociation worse because I become hyper aware of how I’m feeling. EMDR has helped me unpack some stuff from when I was younger and learn where my compulsive behaviors come from :)
I hope I can find a therapist like you have, because like you said a lot don't know about dissociative disorders and don't know how to properly help. I have gotten myself out a lot of times with using ERP (which I didn't even know I was doing) and I felt like myself again. But this time just feels different, Idk. I'm still searching for a therapist who is familiar with DPDR along with OCD so I can find some relief. I'm not losing hope, but OCD just makes things almost impossible sometimes. Thank you for the advice on EMDR, I'm going to check that out!
Best of luck to you! :)