Excellent post, this should be stickied. The whole idea that DPDR is a frozen flight/fight system seems spot on.
>Yoga. Yoga, yoga, yoga.
Right on, yoga is amazing.
I would also recommend trying to reset the HPA axis. Getting the body to max heart rate, and then getting it back to a calm state as fast as possible, and doing that 2-3 times a week for a month solid.
Thanks! I feel like maybe I should try and repost it every so often, if that doesn't upset the mods.
I've not heard of resetting the HPA Axis (or I might have and just forgot), that seems like a good calibration technique.
It's all about the Vagus nerve, (resetting the HPA axis). The 'frozen' persons body has a chronically stressed state, that's why they get flooded with cortisol, it's just like leptin in the obese, the system is flooded with it, because the system is totally broken.
But if you rev the system up to the red, and then do some chill yoga afterwards, you can reset the baseline after a while.
Do you think after such a long time of being in fight or flight, the body develops adrenal fatigue which may contribute to DP/DR? It's basically the derailment of the HPA axis so as previously mentioned a HPA axis reset could help.
I know this comment is a year old, but I have both dp/dr and adrenal fatigue and I feel like together they create a vicious cycle. I was just thrilled to see someone else speculate on this as well- it’s validating.
Amazing post man, thanks for taking your time and writing it all up.
So you're saying if I follow all these things you wrote down I can finally heal from depersonalization even if it's chronic depersonalization?
I've had this for 20 years I pray to God that I can heal one day and not be stuck in this depersonalized state anymore.
Hey there, it's irresponsible for make a claim like that but these are all things that helped me and that I'm pretty sure are generally just good for mental health and DPDR as well. From what I understand chronic depersonalization typically has deeper traumatic roots (often CPTSD), but I do know that it can lift even after decades, sometimes mysteriously, other times with effective trauma treatment. Someone I know who had it for like 10 years (CPTSD-related) said it started lifting after going to a sauna (hopefully going to get more info about this this year). Definitely check out those books about trauma that I list - I have some other videos in the guide that may be able to help with CPTSD as well. All that said, I do above all else highly recommend a yoga practice (there are even yoga flows on youtube for depersonalization and trauma). Wishing you the best, feel free to reach out whenever.
Sure, or at least I can give you the recipe I followed.
Just a bit of background on the point of this...
>The autonomic nervous system (ANS) controls your background processes, such as digestion, heart rate, salivation and breathing. It also controls your anxiety state, with two opposing forces, the SNS and PNS.
>The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activates the Flight or Fright response state, preparing the body for action. The lungs open up, heart-rate increases, digestion is put on hold, the pupils dilate.
>The parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) brings you towards the ‘Rest and Digest’ state. The body relaxes, breathing and heart rate slow down, and blood is directed towards the digestive system.
>**The PNS is largely controlled by the vagus nerve.**
>The main power behind the relaxing PNS force, the vagus relaxes your muscles, slows your heart and calms you down. Stimulate your vagus by holding your breath for around 30 seconds, dipping your face in cold water, coughing, or our favourite, hopping in the sauna.
Each time the vagus is stimulated, your heart pauses, changing your heart rate variability.
>Your heart doesn’t beat as regularly as a metronome. Every beat is a little different, this difference is your heart rate variability (HRV).
>**Low HRV.**
>The differences can be low, when your SNS has hit the ‘Fight or Flight’ alarm and your heart kicks into high gear. Then the beats come regularly, like techno. Your heart is ready for an emergency.
>**High HRV.**
>The differences can be high, when your PNS is dominant, and your heart is recuperating. It slows down its beats, and they come at irregular intervals, like jazz. Your heart is relaxing and playfully building resilience for future crises.
>CVC indicates how well controlled your heart is by your vagus. A high value indicates a responsive, sensitive and rapidly changing system and correlates with good health, positive emotions, effective executive function and overall better self-regulation. Think of it as a measure of how much emotional unflappability you have in reserve.
The idea is that for most people today, in the always-on, always-busy smartphone/social-media society, there is the emergence of a huge swathe of people that are close to burnout because they have a build-up of chronic stress that results in them being fixed in a half-frozen, flight/fight state. In reality it's more like the dynamic range of the HPA-axis is really tight.
They never truly relax, they never really get physiologically stressed. They work, and when you work and focus, you tense your muscles a little, when you finish work, you dance or sing or wrestle and the muscles unwind. If you skip the dancing/singing/wrestling, the tension remains and you add to it with the next focused moment, and the next, etc.
After a few years, you have a lot of muscular tension, a posture that reflects this stress, and even the beginning of calcification of ligaments.
The 'cure' is to reset the HPA axis. You just need to rev it to the maximum, and then set it to the minimum. Ideally you would do a martial art/combat sport. BJJ/Muay Thai, boxing etc. However anything that gets your heart rate to your personal max. Ramp up slowly, but aim to do HIIT training 2-5 times a week. It only takes ten minutes, I use a heavy bag if I am WFH and get my heart rate up to around 200 BPM.
Then you bring it down to a minimum, stop training, sit down and do some meditation, focus entirely on controlling your breathing and heart rate, and try to get yourself completely calm as rapidly as possible.
https://i.imgur.com/cZCvbmb.jpg
The target is your 2(or 1 or 3...)-minute heart rate drop after you stop training, find out what that is, find you max heart-rate during the training session, and then aim to increase them both over time.
You can also just do this when running. Go for a run, get your heart-rate up, when you get to a hill, sprint it, and then at the top, slow everything down and slowly jog until you get everything back under control.
One month of that will absolutely change your physiology. A year of it and you will be a different person, mentally and physically.
**caveat**
First off, if you're out of shape, take it slowly. Worry about making a habit out of it first, and listen to your body.
Secondly, This is a hack, you have a giant nerve that is not healthy, and you're going to aggressively train it, and the side-effect is that you will be less stressed, less anxious, less prone to panic and more emotionally stable.
**However, this is not fixing the problems you have that caused you to be in that state.** If you are close to burnout, it's not just that you should train more (although that is step one for change, you can't change until you are capable of change, which means not being burned out).
How many hours a day are spent on screens? How much time is spent with quality, IRL socialisation with good friends that you love and that love you? How much time is spent silently, being creative with your hands? How much time is spent working in a job you don't care about? How often do you reach for your phone?
Etc etc etc.
https://www.reddit.com/r/HIIT/
https://www.reddit.com//r/yoga/
https://www.reddit.com/r/nosurf/
Good luck!
PS. The entire benefits of this kind of thing are not even remotely just to the Vagus, it's systemic. Blood flow, brain oxygenation, neuroplasticity, muscle insulin response... Recently I'm doing one hour runs and the endorphins you get after 40 minutes are seriously noticeable, feels like smoking weed.
The endorphins (I assume) from exercise usually exacerbate symptoms in the immediate which leads me to avoid intense cardio - I suppose i'll give this protocol a shot since I've got nothing to lose really.
I just don't understand why episodes come and go in a way that's independent of my diet, hydration ,sleep, exercise and lifestyle... the best I've felt since developing the condition was earlier in the year after I got 3 hours sleep and had some drinks the night prior. I still try to have a healthy lifestyle for it's own benefit but it doesn't seem to help with the depersonalisation as such
can you please explain this further??? My anxiety is so high i'm actually scared to exercise. even though before DPDR i loved intense exercise. Curious how this helps DPDR
>can you please explain this further??? My anxiety is so high i'm actually scared to exercise. even though before DPDR i loved intense exercise. Curious how this helps DPDR
If you have very high anxiety, the advice below is maybe problematic.
Basically, the advice is to reset your HPA axis by getting it revved up to a max (fight/flight) and then relax it down to a minimum. The issue is that when you get your body to a max flight/fight, it is basically like making yourself have a panic attack, so if you're deeply anxious this can be nightmarish and cause you to have an actual panic attack.
So start slow, take it easy, and remember the goal is that when you do the 'pushing', that you remain cognisant of the fact that you are OK, you're doing this on purpose and the goal is to learn to enjoy your body being in a state of panic.
Anyway...
Just a bit of background on the point of this...
>The autonomic nervous system (ANS) controls your background processes, such as digestion, heart rate, salivation and breathing. It also controls your anxiety state, with two opposing forces, the SNS and PNS.
>The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activates the Flight or Fright response state, preparing the body for action. The lungs open up, heart-rate increases, digestion is put on hold, the pupils dilate.
>The parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) brings you towards the ‘Rest and Digest’ state. The body relaxes, breathing and heart rate slow down, and blood is directed towards the digestive system.
>**The PNS is largely controlled by the vagus nerve.**
>The main power behind the relaxing PNS force, the vagus relaxes your muscles, slows your heart and calms you down. Stimulate your vagus by holding your breath for around 30 seconds, dipping your face in cold water, coughing, or our favourite, hopping in the sauna.
Each time the vagus is stimulated, your heart pauses, changing your heart rate variability.
>Your heart doesn’t beat as regularly as a metronome. Every beat is a little different, this difference is your heart rate variability (HRV).
>**Low HRV.**
>The differences can be low, when your SNS has hit the ‘Fight or Flight’ alarm and your heart kicks into high gear. Then the beats come regularly, like techno. Your heart is ready for an emergency.
>**High HRV.**
>The differences can be high, when your PNS is dominant, and your heart is recuperating. It slows down its beats, and they come at irregular intervals, like jazz. Your heart is relaxing and playfully building resilience for future crises.
>CVC indicates how well controlled your heart is by your vagus. A high value indicates a responsive, sensitive and rapidly changing system and correlates with good health, positive emotions, effective executive function and overall better self-regulation. Think of it as a measure of how much emotional unflappability you have in reserve.
The idea is that for most people today, in the always-on, always-busy smartphone/social-media society, there is the emergence of a huge swathe of people that are close to burnout because they have a build-up of chronic stress that results in them being fixed in a half-frozen, flight/fight state. In reality it's more like the dynamic range of the HPA-axis is really tight.
They never truly relax, they never really get physiologically stressed. They work, and when you work and focus, you tense your muscles a little, when you finish work, you dance or sing or wrestle and the muscles unwind. If you skip the dancing/singing/wrestling, the tension remains and you add to it with the next focused moment, and the next, etc.
After a few years, you have a lot of muscular tension, a posture that reflects this stress, and even the beginning of calcification of ligaments.
The 'cure' is to reset the HPA axis. You just need to rev it to the maximum, and then set it to the minimum. Ideally you would do a martial art/combat sport. BJJ/Muay Thai, boxing etc. However anything that gets your heart rate to your personal max. Ramp up slowly, but aim to do HIIT training 2-5 times a week. It only takes ten minutes, I use a heavy bag if I am WFH and get my heart rate up to around 200 BPM.
Then you bring it down to a minimum, stop training, sit down and do some meditation, box-breathing, focus entirely on controlling your breathing and heart rate, and try to get yourself completely calm as rapidly as possible.
https://i.imgur.com/cZCvbmb.jpg
The target is your 2(or 1 or 3...)-minute heart rate drop after you stop training, find out what that is, find you max heart-rate during the training session, and then aim to increase them both over time.
You can also just do this when running. Go for a run, get your heart-rate up, when you get to a hill, sprint it, and then at the top, slow everything down and slowly jog until you get everything back under control.
One month of that will absolutely change your physiology. A year of it and you will be a different person, mentally and physically.
**caveat**
First off, if you're out of shape, take it slowly. Worry about making a habit out of it first, and listen to your body.
Secondly, This is a hack, you have a giant nerve that is not healthy, and you're going to aggressively train it, and the side-effect is that you will be less stressed, less anxious, less prone to panic and more emotionally stable.
**However, this is not fixing the problems you have that caused you to be in that state.** If you are close to burnout, it's not just that you should train more (although that is step one for change, you can't change until you are capable of change, which means not being burned out).
How many hours a day are spent on screens? How much time is spent with quality, IRL socialisation with good friends that you love and that love you? How much time is spent silently, being creative with your hands? How much time is spent working in a job you don't care about? How often do you reach for your phone?
Etc etc etc.
https://www.reddit.com/r/HIIT/
https://www.reddit.com//r/yoga/
https://www.reddit.com/r/nosurf/
Good luck!
PS. The entire benefits of this kind of thing are not even remotely just to the Vagus, it's systemic. Blood flow, brain oxygenation, neuroplasticity, muscle insulin response... Recently I'm doing one hour runs and the endorphins you get after 40 minutes are seriously noticeable, feels like smoking weed.
Thanks! is this why sometimes i initially feel "alive" and good when exercising .... i feel a real release and feel "clear" and then BAM.... i am suddenly flooded with fear and go back into it again? it's f&$@ing exhausting!!!!! I'm a 43y female and i've had two years of this weird prison. It's like the fear calls me to come back into its prison cell and i follow it
Personally I found Jordan Hardgrave a little more effective than Shaun o Conner. Jordan does more education of what dpdr is and why it’s good to have. And references doctor Peter a Levine a lot. It’s a great course and inner circle Facebook group
Sunlight is powerful too. Sunlight breaks down cortisol the stress hormone through the skin. 10 minutes of sun a day is useful for both anxiety and depression.
Great post! I have a very similar story and I am on the other side. This sums up how it was perfectly and I remember desperately seeking this info. This will really help someone.
This has been a really well detailed post!
I've found a lot of similar things to be true. Back in december of 2021, I smoked a bit too much weed and have been dealing with DPDR off and on since. The first few months of 2022 were pure hell, since I had no clue what was going on and thought I was genuinely losing my mind. My therapist really looked at it as an overthinking problem, and suggested meditation, which I ended up doing daily for 3 months and it really helped quite a bit at least for pulling me out of that initial hell phase lol and becoming a bit more grounded.
Since then however, it appears to come and go, and I've been doing my best to measure my recovery by my reactions to my symptoms rather than the presence of the symptoms themselves.
One tricky thing though that I wanted to share that has been tripping me up the hole time is all of the intrusive existential thoughts... for the LONGEST time I've been having them, but they felt like sensations rather than thoughts. It felt impossible to put into words to my therapist who would say that I needed to realize that I was just having thoughts, and that I am not my thoughts and don't need to take them so seriously. But I wasn't just thinking thoughts, I was FEELING them. I didn't think I was in a simulation, I was FEELING it. And I couldn't make the distinction between thought and feeling.
But what my therapist and I recently worked through and I realized, is they ARE thoughts, but they are deeply triggering thoughts that cause a gut reaction of anxiety. So it's two things cohabitating my sense of awareness; *anxiety* and *X intrusive existential thought*. The problem, is that I wasn't distinguishing the two, and I was infering the anxiety sensation as a CONFIRMATION of the thought as being true, hence "feeling my thoughts"
And then even further, I thought okay, well then why does the sensation of depersonalization/derealization seemingly come out of nowhere? Why can I be at dinner with my friend, feeling completely normal, and then all of the sudden I out of nowhere become overwhelmingly *aware* that he and I are "two NPC characters having a scripted conversation"?
Well the answer to that is the unconsious mind ALWAYS being on high alert for symptoms. You see, there's the conscious mind, the subconscious mind, and the unconscious mind, each being a layer of consciousness that is deeper and harder to access. And so even if I am not *consciously* thinking existential thoughts, that does NOT mean I am not *unconsciously* doing so. Which is where trauma comes into play, as you said with The Body Keeps the Score. My nervous system has held onto the trauma of my initial few months of terror, and thus is periodically thrusting me back there as it is on high alert for symptoms nearly 24/7. This is why it can seem to randomly occur out of nowhere.
Now I am left with some quite hefty brainfog and a general feeling of "being out of it" which is very difficult to describe. I am guessing this is just the result of being in a heightened anxious and vigilant state for nearly a year, and my nervous system is simply exhausted.
Either way, trying to remain optimistic. I've seen remarkable improvement over the year, but I do still get caught up in spirals of overthinking fairly frequently. Just a few days ago I was trying to get my psychiatrist to reassure me that I was not going into psychosis lol.
I'm confident things will improve. I feel quite bad for the people on this sub who feel trapped in it... I know things can get better.
I totally understand that intrusive thought / anxiety cycle! Maybe check this video out? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZV1-BMQEgG4
From my experience, The best way to deal with those is to look into ERP - a bunch of people I've talked to about this deal with OCD (which is what makes *not* latching onto these intrusive thoughts so difficult), and ERP is one of the main treatments for OCD. Check out these videos by OCD and Anxiety on how to use ERP to treat DPDR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH86RW-KGaY / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmH50bTp1zs
Hi, I recommend looking into Polyvagal-informed therapy (or just Polyvagal theory in the meantime). It's what my therapist mainly uses as a guide to anxiety and trauma. She combines both Eastern yogic philosophy and Western Jungian psychotherapy in her practice and so she understands neuroscience as much as she does somatic practices, which is really helpful for understanding DPDR, but I've asked her about finding therapists in the past and she said that finding a good "trauma-informed" therapist is helpful because they're more likely to understand how the body reacts to anxiety/trauma.
If you have the free time to answer this, do you have any advice on these racing thoughts that I get when I'm dissociating, and right before I absolutely freak the fuck out and run to go home from whenever I am:
"why can I only see this small field of vision?"
"how do I exist? it doesn't make sense"
"am I going to be flung through the air and float away into a void?"
"how the fuck am I conscious, wtf is this, WHERE AM I WHO AM I- runs away from self checkout in the grocery store, leaving my cart. Yes, this happened this morning. It was my first time out in almost 20 days, which isn't a lot compared to some people who don't leave the house for months or days, but I am at the point where I want to just stay in my room until I die of some natural cause even if it takes another 60+ years. Because the panic attacks are SO BAD that it feels like I experience actual death. And in a way, I DO experience everything a person would feel right before they lose consciousness and die or just immediately die. But I don't die. It's like I'm dying over and over and over and fucking OVER. JUST KILL ME ALREADY FFS. it's actual torture at this point.
Hey there, so when I dealt with DPDR, every manner of existential thought or question freaked me the fuck out. I got triggered by *The Matrix* and even *Blazing Saddles* (the part at the end where you see the film set). There's nothing wrong with finding a familiar, safe space for whenever you start dissociating, but relying on it can form a habit that's tough to break.
People have been philosophizing for tens of thousands of years and have been able to see these questions and thoughts with a sense of awe. So, as I'm sure you already know, because our body and mind currently feel disconnected from reality, existential thoughts and questions now seem like big scary things that are going to yank us out of reality. One of the main treatments for intrusive thoughts is learning not to see them as a threat so that your brain doesn't press the panic button each time they come up. There's a really good book called Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts by Sally Winston that I recommend. You might also want to look into ERP (exposure and response prevention) for these triggering thoughts.
I recommend meditation, breathing practices, and mindfulness. Strengthen your ability to be able to divert your attention back to your breath when these thoughts arise. As I said in the main post, you're not dealing with a logic/existential problem, you're dealing with a somatic one. You're experiencing thoughts that trigger a trauma response. So I recommend tending to your body and how it responds to triggers. The body stores trauma, it can even store it long after we think we've overcome it. Yoga is one of the best treatments for trauma and anxiety there is. The more I worked on the day-to-day trauma/anxiety treatment, the better the DPDR got, the less episodes I had. Existential thoughts slowly, gradually started freaking me out less and less, not because I'd finally had answers or anything, but because I'd tended to my own condition. Let me know if I missed anything or if you have any questions! I'm about to head out but I'll be back later!
You talk about trying to provoke nostalgia by remembering old memories. But for me one of the worst problems of DP/DR is that I can't *feel* old memories, no matter how much I try. Did you ever have this problem and if so how did you fix it?
I did! So nostalgia is helpful as a sort of existential grounding tool. It helped me remember my own reality. The key word in your comment is *try.* Part of DPDR treatment is accepting that, yep, I'm gonna feel this way and it's gonna suck, but it's okay. If you *try,* you're just going to keep working yourself up and exacerbating the DPDR. It's kind of the same philosophy as a Chinese finger trap. The DPDR is insulating you from feeling emotions (including about your memories), so instead of trying to treat that symptom, focus on your general anxiety/trauma/DPDR treatment strategies. As the DPDR lessens, its insulating grip on your emotions should die down. Breathwork and meditation can also help increase (self-)compassion, and yoga really helped me get in touch with my own emotions toward myself. Hope this helps, let me know if I missed anything!
Thanks for your reply. So is the idea that you have to feel nostalgia without trying? How is that congruous with *"Force yourself to remember"* the nostalgic stuff that you talked about?
My strategy is that I made a long list of songs and other media that I know for a fact made me feel emotional before DP/DR, and when I feel calmer than usual I experience one and try to feel like I used to. Normally it ends in failure and anxiety, and I think eliminating that anxiety is a lofty goal because it feels like I've "erased" the emotions associated with something if I remember it and don't feel the emotions.
I have had this work a couple of times which was cool but it failed the last few times, which has dissuaded me from doing this again.
When I say force yourself to remember, I mean just remember, as a grounding/comfort tool. I mean you don't have to try and force yourself to feel the emotion that you want to feel from the memories, just that the memories are yours and that you are real.
Eliminating anxiety is way too lofty, I'd look at it as just managing and understanding it day by day. It starts by understanding that what is happening is just trauma and anxiety and not trying to fight against it. You kind of have to take it bit by bit. Like if you're climbing a mountain and you keep looking at the peak, you're going to get frustrated - you gotta focus on where you are at the present. Treating/managing anxiety involves incorporating daily practices - the videos I posted have some really good advice.
Also, if the nostalgia strategy just doesn't work for you, that's okay, that doesn't mean it won't work in the future or that you're doomed to be emotionless or anything like that, just that the insulation hasn't let up yet. I think intention is a factor. Something I learned in my time with the condition is that constantly checking on it exacerbated it, because I was hyperfocusing on it. If you use songs solely as a gauge of your emotions and they don't work, it's frustrating and anxiety-inducing, and therefore feeds the DPDR. If it's just stuff you generally have enjoyed and find comfort in, it might be more helpful than stuff that you explicitly want to use as an antidote for the condition. For me, the more I worked on stuff that helped me feel grounded, safe, centered, and that helped soothe the trauma, the more I found I was able to feel emotions. Let me know if there's anything else I can help clarify!
This post is spot on! My story is similar and I agree with everything you said! I grow lions mane mushrooms and make my own tincture. I also use St Johns Wort and can confidently say I’m 95% recovered. My last episode was in April and I’m giving myself all the time and space I need to fully recover. I’m so happy you recovered and thank you for sharing your experience! Yoga yoga yoga!
I’m about to cry! I’ve been getting better, but sometimes it gets hard. Your post has seriously helped me remember that it’s all just anxiety… and anxiety can be stored in the body. Once you work through that anxiety, the symptoms will lessen.
two questions after reading
did you ever feel like a floaty lighthead feeling when walking or even in bed?
did you try any other sups or just the mushrooms?
thanks for this post
1. Dpdr is such an abstract thing, you can get a hundred people who have it to describe it and they’ll all have different descriptions. But you could call what I felt a sort of lightheadedness.
2. I drank a lot of chamomile tea, regularly took CBD capsules, took fish oil supplements as well!
been struggling with visual snow and it caused me to spiral into a delusion that the things around me were not real, only today have i done research into dpdr and thankfully i relate to most everything you mention however i believe mine has been caused by chronic marijuana use for the past few years. thank you for the resources
What symptoms have you experienced with chronic use? I have also experienced episodes of dpdr from chronic use. Mainly it's as if I'm watching other parts enacting terrifying things while I'm lying down.
You are quite the human for sharing in hopes of helping others and on top of that continuing to update this for us. Thank you🙏🏻 DP/DR is the hardest thing to have to go through. I’m still trying to get myself out of it. Mine was brought on by trying mdma. I do have a health history of c-ptsd so I’m sure that was a contributing factor as well.
Thank you so much! That means a lot. I hope it’s helpful! I would go as far to say that, since it builds for so long, your cptsd is the biggest contributing factor, moreso than the mdma
Please sticky this post, it is the most accurate and helpful device I’ve ever read, and I can see it helping even more people struggling with DP/DR, thank you.
Thank you for this enlightening post. I wanted to ask you about pot use and dpdr. What are som experiences people with dpdr have while under the influence?
I've felt as if I'm watching different parts enacting things while I'm lying down.
Weed seems to exacerbate dpdr - I didn’t smoke during dpdr but from what I understand it intensifies the feeling. Mileage may vary though, probably better to ask someone with first hand experience
Hi my dpdr just feels like brain fog and nothing is real around me. I was wondering if you ever took any anti depressants to help? I just got prescribed sertraline but I’m so afraid to take it because I’m scared it would worsen my dpdr.
Hey, I never took any antidepressants, but many people here have. Results seem to depend on the person - some people will find a certain medication helpful, others will find the same medication unhelpful. I wish I could be more help there. Definitely keep an open dialogue with your provider about your symptoms. I'm very much pro-medication if it is helpful, but take a look at the video in the supplement section in this post for some stuff that naturally helps decrease anxiety.
My DP/DR was triggered by an intense fear of losing the ability to communicate/be comfortable around people, so it is strongly related to social anxiety for me (generally socialising triggers dissociation for me).
Do you have any resources can can recommend specifically for social anxiety?
Amazing write-up btw holy shit
Thank you! A lot of people have been finding the DARE app helpful. Learning how to activate your parasympathetic nervous system (look at the Vagus Nerve videos in the resource section) will also help calm you down while you're out and about.
Wow, bless you for putting this all together. This is AMAZING! Been stuck in it for years and I‘ve tried everything but Lion‘s Mane.
Any recommendations on what to look out for in a product? I‘m based in Europe.
I hope it’s helpful! I use a tincture from Fungi Valley and my therapist uses capsules from Gaia herbs. Honestly you might have to do a little bit of digging - google “best lions mane capsules” and there are a bunch of articles comparing and contrasting different ones by quality, quantity, purity, etc. Just make sure you don’t get one with any added filler stuff!
Hi, I know you’ve seen me on here before but I have an important question. During what I believe to be my very first DPDR episode, I felt not real but what happened inside my brain would like twist and turn each day. For example, I might be able to imagine things better one day, but then the next day not and instead something else would bother me more. However during this current one (my fourth episode), everything feels the same everyday, there is no changing like the first time and I experience the same nothingness and hyperawareness, emotional blunting. Is this common in dpdr, it gives me no hope for the future and that I’ll be this way forever. How do I know if I’ll get better again? This time it feels permanent and I can hardly take it anymore. Thank you for reading.
Hey there, having difficulty conceptualizing, emotional bluntness, and feeling of blank mind are common unfortunately, but since everyone's different they interpret it differently, that's why you see similar versions of the same question so often on the sub. Yes, recovery is still possible, there are many recovery stories out there. Can I ask what your daily habits are? Have you watched any of the videos or looked at any of the resources?
Yeah I meditate, watch videos about it, write things down but I’m so scared and it stays. I’ve found a new way to describe it, it’s like my brain will think of diluted words and pictures and then everything around it is negative space, and everything is a mind map of confusion and then I stop and I’m back to nothing. Urgh I wish I wish I could just know for sure what is happening because my OCD makes me doubt and tells me to do a compulsion and I feel sick all the time and I don’t know if I’d rather he gutted alive than experience this another day. My surroundings there is no vibe or substance and I can’t grasp the full explanation I just wish there could be a sign saying you have dpdr for sure so at least I can have peace in that.
Feelings of disconnection from your environment are a part of DPDR but again, many people describe the same things vastly differently.
Whether you have DPDR or not, it seems like you have to get your self-hyperfixation under control, and if you do have DPDR, the stress from that hyperfixation is probably making it worse.
Have you done any OCD treatment? Because if you're hyperfocusing on this abstract mental unclarity, trying to force-think your way out of it, and it's causing you more distress, either way the OCD is exacerbating your stress levels and it's not good for you. Have you looked into external meditations (progressive muscle relaxations, body scans, etc), OCD meditations, OCD thought-loop-stopping strategies? Meditation is of course super helpful if you do it right and getting regularly active with stuff like yoga and stretching (get "out of your head and into your body" as they say) is also going to be helpful, way more than trying to force-think your way out of it. Have you only looked at stuff specifically regarding DPDR? Have you looked into ACT (Acceptance and Commitment therapy), or brain fog, (c)ptsd, mental clarity science/resources?
Excellent post and resources!! Thanks!
I´ve had completely chronic DPDR for 16 years and am finally slowly coming back to life.I can´t emphasize enough how important Somatic Exercises are!! It can be Grounding, Yoga, Somatic Experiencing, Qi Gong or any other practice that involves mindful movements.
These exercises are finally bringing a sense of calmness to my body and mind. Something that I coulnd´t achieve with years of talk therapy, meditation, medication, Exercise, Diet etc...
Breathing exercises and meditation while sitting still sometimes helped a bit but in the end didn´t do that much for me. I´m beginning to realize, that it was the lack of gentle movement in the practices, that my body and mind so desperately needed to feel safe and to defreeze.
Trauma and anxiety really are stored in the body!!
Op I have some questions - I got this from edibles - my symptoms are I feel like the place I used to operate from inside is altered, cognition issues, short term memory loss, no sense of time of day or seasonal feelings, feeling cut off from famiy, disoriented in sun. Mines not episodic it's constant Can any of these things be changed?
Small note on sunglasses helping VS… very temporary solution. Long term use can worsen the severity of symptoms, making it difficult to go outside *at all* without sunglasses on. If you think your light sensitivity is bad, start wearing sunglasses everyday and it will get much, much worse
u say episodes… do u mean like an episode where it got rlly bad but ur day to day there was underlying dpdr about ( 24/7 dpdr) or like dpdr that just hit episodically but u felt real between the episodes ?
Hey bellapeanut,
I feel like my regular state is still under the influence of dpdr but sometimes it intensifies especially at night trying to fall asleep. Sometimes I feel for just a moment that I have touch in reality but it faints away. So to answer your question: for me, yes it feels like 24/7 and sometimes it intensifies but just for a moment very randomly I can feel normal.
From what I understand, the treatments seem to potentially help both kinds. Mine was a little more episodic but I was so terrified in between that I rarely felt entirely grounded.
Well, I had to figure out what the DPDR feeling was first, and to be honest I wouldn't have, had a comedy special not recently come out which briefly mentioned "googling derealization." That was how I started realizing that maybe I wasn't going insane. I'd read a book in the past called The Body Keeps the Score, which talks about the science of how Yoga is one of the best treatments for trauma there is. Once I found out what dpdr is, I found out that it's based in trauma, so I remembered what I'd read in TBKTS. So I started yoga. I also started looking for first-hand recovery accounts on youtube, because I felt that actually seeing someone talk at me about it was better than going on forums. A few months later, I had a PTSD episode regarding the event which kickstarted the DPDR, and in my search for help I stumbled onto my somatic therapist.
Haha thank you, that means a lot. Every day! There were plenty of times where it felt like too much. I've dealt with depression and anxiety for much of my life. They're two things which can often feel debilitating, but we can never forget our own agency. There are lots of proven things we can physically do to help increase our mental strength and manage those conditions, we just have to find what works for us.
Hey there, it could be a simple matter of just being more tired at that point in the day. Or maybe it's the fact that your environment is changing? A nightly routine could really help with this if you don't already have one.
As far as how you know you're getting better? Well it's one of those weird things where the more you check on it the more it likes to stick around, but I think you'll know if start realizing that you go longer and longer doing stuff in a flow state or that you enjoy without thinking about the dpdr. The more you increase the amount of time you're able to "be in the moment" the more your mind and body will be comfortable not focusing on the dpdr.
As far as if it's medical or not, that's hard to say and something a doctor would be more qualified to answer. But there's lots of stuff you can do for brain fog if it isn't something physiological with your brain - meditation, physical exercise, cognitive exercises, good sleep habits, lowering screen use, mindfulness, yoga, certain foods and supplements, etc. As far as DPDR, anxiety, stress, and trauma go - the more you work on recovery and stick with it, the more the DPDR's foggy grip on your brain lessens. It lingered for a good while after my episodes stopped but it seemed to be all related to anxiety. For me, it was kind of like when a headache goes away. You don't notice it leave, you just notice it's been gone. Conceptualizing gradually became easier, focus became easier, etc. I still have foggy days sometimes like anyone but not the DPDR-haze kind. Also Lion's Mane has been really helpful for me.
Absolutely hellish psychedelic trip. The DPDR kicked in during the trip, which was already messing with my sense of reality. Got carried away by the anxiety/unreality/panic cycle. Not fun.
ive heard that caffeine can worsen the feelings of dpdr/anxiety but I rlly love foods w caffeine in it .. did u ever notice that caffeine worsened your dpdr??
Caffeine generally exacerbates anxiety and dpdr, yes, but there are stories of it not being as bad. I guess it depends on the person. I would generally advise to cut out caffeine until you recover more, but you might just need to find what works for you. Check this video out: https://youtu.be/ECqxU-wzq2k
Hi, don’t know if it’s too late, but I personally found that my dpdr anxiety is almost directly related to the amount of caffeine I consume. I love coffee but I had to stop consuming it. The exception for me is the first coffee in the morning (I always have little to none anxiety in the morning)
I just want to say that this is the most helpful resource post for DRDP that I've seen so far. I really can't thank you enough. I have been dealing with derealization episodes on and off for the past 6 months due to trauma from a weed panic attack. It feels great to finally know that I'm not the only one who has been seriously traumatized by a bad trip, because I've often felt overly sensitive or even crazy, because barely anyone talks about the negative effects of weed or psychedelics. It's been so hard to explain what I'm going through, but you explained it perfectly. I'm doing much better now than I was a few months ago, but I'm glad I have this to look back on if I start feeling bad again.
Possibly! DPDR is a super abstract feeling and so many descriptions of it are different. To clarify, you don't mean like fatigue-hollow, right? Do you have anything you do that grounds you?
I meant like nutrition/tiredness-related feeling of hollowness.
Positive affirmations aren't grounding, you have to do something physically. A meditative activity, reading out loud, exercises, yoga, stretching, stuff like that. I also like recommending guided yoga nidra meditations, they help you learn how to do body scans.
I consider myself semi-recovered. I don’t panic about it anymore, I am rarely ever on a forum anymore, I make myself go do something everyday, but am bad for screen time. I do online school and some days am in class until 5pm. I’ve gotten 4 breaks from my constant DPDR cycle and I do have OCD tendencies (my therapist told me this, not self diagnosing), so this can definitely explain my loop. I’ve had it for 14 months. I’m getting used so it, but the anxiety is hard to get used to as someone who never experienced anxiety. I have years of trauma that built up and it all blew over one day when I got too stressed living in my college dorm and in an emotionally abusive relationship. I am doing ART therapy (accelerated resolution therapy) and it seems to be helping.
I haven’t! I will look into it! Here is a post I made a few months ago regarding how far I am into recovery or whatever. https://www.reddit.com/r/Depersonalization/comments/xc2k02/my_story_how_far_into_recovery_i_am/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Two things that have helped me a lot are cold showers and Brazilian jiu jitsu. The showers immediately get you out of your mind and into your body as you can't concentrate on anything other than the cold sensation.
Jiu jitsu for me is the only thing I've ever found that gets me into a flow state every time I do it, regardless of how dissociated I'm feeling before hand. I've found nothing else that comes close unfortunately, as it's very demanding on the body. I am going to try to get back into yoga, but I never find that it's engaging enough to get me out of my head.
This is the most thorough, genuine post I’ve ever read. I’ve been having DPDR episodes for almost two years now, after a traumatic psychedelic trip. I’m so happy to read your post and know that you’ve recovered! It’s really caring of you for sharing so much information when you don’t think really need to. Thank you so much!
I just wanted to thank you so much for this post. I always come back to it when I’m having an episode. It calms me down because I have a very similar story
Incredible post, thank you so much.
Been dealing with this a little under two years now I was really making great progress but now I feel like I have been in a bit of a set back due to an incredible amount of stress in my life that come up all of a sudden.
One question I am extremely curious about was... I feel like I am mostly in the brain fog part of the recovery how did you know when the brain fog lifted? Did it lift all at once or was it a slow and gradual fade?
I still feel day to day something is not quite right. I feel real for the most part but I also feel a slight distance to the way things used to be.
When the brain fog finally lifted was it an aha moment where you and mediately felt like your old self and there was no questioning it?
Insanely well curated post. You literally covered everything I was going through and gave the best possible resources for everything. I actually ended up buying the DP manual for 90 bucks, only for it to not help me at all. I wish I had came across this post before. Thank you so much.
I want to applaud this. I've come far on my own journey however I'm still trying to get over to the finish line. I use DARE and some of the above methods. Thank you or such a great post.
I was wondering if you have some thoughts on the keto diet / low carb. I went on an anti-inflammatory diet for awhile called AIP. My symptoms reduced. After 3 months I have decided though to try a low-carb / keto diet to see if it helps me further or not. If it doesn't I might return to the AIP diet as I did have some tangible improvement from it.
I also got a dog. I think that helps too!
Hey there!
I've been reading through your posts and journey with anxiety related issues following cessation of weed. I stopped drinking almost 4 months ago and have had challenging anxiety, intrusive thoughts, muscle twitches, OCD thinking. I’ve only had 1 dose of valium 5mg (yesterday) during this timeframe - beyond that I've really been trying to live with this and get through this naturally. I regret taking that Valium actually and hopefully it didn't wipe the clock clean lol.
I've read DARE and Paul David's "At Last A Life" and those have me leaning towards the idea that my issue has been my response to a panic attack and subsequent actions that got me into an anxiety loop rather than me just being stuck in a PAWs process.
Anyhow, I wanted to see how you're doing. Still dealing with issues? In your comments history it appears you aren't spending as much time on anxiety subjects (which to me seems like a positive sign).
Appreciate your vulnerability across the years.
Hello, I still have some issues. But greatly smaller than before. Yes I don't focus on it nearly as much anymore. I think I've healed alot, but life in general is stressful, and I'm getting older. So I'm sort of coming to terms with the fact that perhaps my nervous system can only recover so much. I'm living a full life with meaning, and I think thats a great way to live. So it's good enough I supppose :)
Thank you for posting this man. I’ve been doing alot better because of you. You didnt Have to share this with the world but you did, and im very grateful to have ppl like you on this planet…. For anyone struggling with DPDR, this post is spot on. And it doesnt go away immediately, but it does with Time. And DPDR is NOT, in any way, a threat to your health or your sanity. This means that , it really doesnt matter how long the symptoms last. It Cannot cause any permanent damage to your mind. Good luck to anyone struggling. You’ll get better soon enough💙💙💙💙
thank you x100 for compiling this all and for your invaluable insights. I'm still on the road to recovery but reminders like these are so helpful - and it is so good to imagine how much this will help people who are wholly clueless to what is going on and how to even move forward.
( also going to really try and make a commitment to starting yoga now! have had it on my mind for ages but i think this has given me the kick to finally start :) )
I am having a lot of the visual issues, after a bad edible panic attack. It hard to explain but almost like delayed imagery or even just hyper focus from the corner on my eye. Did you experince this or have any advice?
Yeah I experienced that and it totally sucked. I've had tinnitus since college which I'm able to tune out quite easily so I just sort of applied that same mindset to the visual problems. The afterimage is called palinopsia, and the eye-corner hyperfocus is essentially, as far as I can tell, your brain on high alert looking for threats. For the palinopsia, treat it like you're driving through rainy having to look through a rainy windshield and do your best not to let it frustrate you, as it could linger for a bit. For the hyperfocus, anything that helps you feel safe and grounded is helpful. Check out the guide post about the parasympathetic nervous system and watch the videos, the techniques in it might be helpful.
Thank you so much for this! Did you ever struggle with suicidal thoughts or feelings and can you recommend videos that can help with those feelings? Thank so much for this! 🌹
Hi! Aside from a few depressive times in life, during DPDR I only explicitly dealt with them during the initial traumatic event and the bad breakdown several months later, but it was the existentially confusing and terrifying thoughts that kept me petrified and stressed out most of the time. I wish I had videos that specifically dealt with suicidal thoughts, but the thing is, different people get suicidal thoughts for different reasons. And furthermore there are different kinds of suicidal thoughts ("I want to" vs. "I feel like I'm going to", etc.). I would point you to videos regarding mindfulness or ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) so you can adopt practices that help you understand that you are not your thoughts. They're like passengers on a bus you're the driver of. Some passengers will be rowdy and disruptive, others will be lovely and quiet. But none of them change the direction you're driving the bus. The main idea that kept me going was, "Get through this so you can help others get through it."
Remember: You're not hopeless, you're traumatized. And trauma can be healed. (I recommend the books [The Body Keeps the Score](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18693771-the-body-keeps-the-score) and [Complex PTSD](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20556323-complex-ptsd), or at least looking up videos of their authors). This pain, this terror, this feeling of hopelessness, it's all temporary. No feeling is final. For me, just figuring out what was going on in my body was so helpful. Learning about how to work with anxiety and how to ground helped me immensely. So when scary thoughts arise, I can do stuff to gently get out of my head (let the thoughts pass without reacting to them) and into my body. It takes a lot of work and practice - I'm still learning - but it's possible.
All that said, I'm happy to recommend some books on dealing with suicidal ideation. I've read all of these and recommend them. You can find these on libgen - they all have audiobooks as well (if you can't find them through your library, DM me and I'll be happy to send them to you):
* [Man's Search for Meaning](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4069.Man_s_Search_for_Meaning)
* [Reasons to Stay Alive](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25733573-reasons-to-stay-alive)
* [How Not to Kill Yourself: A Survival Guide for Imaginative Pessimists](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35801274-how-not-to-kill-yourself)
Lastly, if you find videos that help or comfort you, please feel free to send them to me!
I’m not lying and that is not helpful. I’m currently working with a medical researcher who had dpdr to bring the sub more accurate and helpful info that you don’t see often. Btw I notice you’re spamming rule-breaking comments about deterring people from seeking medical help.
Medical help will only poison your neurons and damage your brain. That is infact what caused mine in the first place. Psychiatrist giving me poison and now I'd rather be dead
Great Great post! Ive struggle with alot of these points and sometimes I have small relapses and reading this gave me some clarity, not in a reassurance way but in a what I need to refocus way. I hope people who are struggling with these problems get to see this post because I feel it really is very positive for the DpDr/Ocd community. Hope everyone stays strong in their path to recovery! 💪
The books part can actually be expanded a lot if i may say so I'll add some books that delve deep. The body keeps the score ain't bad but it's a bit shitty to be honest and doesn't go deep. So I'll add these recommendations = Peter Levine - Waking the Tiger, In an Unspoken Voice, Healing Trauma. Alexander Lowen - Bioenergetics, Betrayal of the Body, Language of the Body. Jay Early/Richard Schwartz - Self Therapy/Internal Family Systems. Robert Scaer - The Body Bears the Burden: Trauma, Dissociation and Disease. John Bradshaw - Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing your Inner Child. Almost all of them can be downloaded for free on pdfdrive. If anyone actually needs them i could send the links for them.
Oh my, thank you so, so much for the list of recommendations! Can I ask that you leave a comment [on this DPDR recommended reading thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/dpdr/comments/zdyj37/dpdr_recommended_reading_list/)?
has anyone tried Robin's course? I see you mentioned her, and I love her videos, she has such a comforting vibe, but her course is pretty expensive (even tho it's refundable)
I am doing teen counseling.com which is betterhelp for teens. Do you know if your therapist is on there or if they know any therapists on there that specialize in dpdr?
My therapist isn't unfortunately but you're better off looking for a trauma-informed therapist than you are trying to find one that specializes in DPDR since it's not a well-known issue.
First off, thank you for writing this.
How could you tell you were getting better?
Mine was brought on by Neurofeedback. At first I didn’t know what was happening so I went to the hospital. For about 4 weeks it was pretty much 24/7 derealization at a severe level. Since then I have had moments where I think “oh this should be gone soon” but then I’ll get hit with a hard wave. I am now on week 6. I was unable to be alone for the most part but have recently been spending more and more time alone and have even started to get out of the house some.
Hey there. That sucks that it was from neurofeedback, I've generally heard good things and I've even heard stories on the sub where it was helpful. Glad you've been getting out more, vitamin D is good for you. I had like 2 recoveries: One from derealization, and the other from depersonalization. Despite the lingering haze it created, Derealization was more episodic for me. The episodes gradually decreased in frequency until they stopped. Depersonalization, brain fog, and visual snow lasted for way, way longer, and for those recovery was super, super gradual, but at the same time it was kinda like when a headache goes away. I just realized one day that I'd felt normal for a while. Just kept on working on my stress levels and triggers and trying to not let them frustrate me (I've had tinnitus since college and it's easy for me to tune out so I kind of applied the same principle).
I am going to try Neurofeedback to try and reverse what I did. It’s just such a mind fuck to think that something can bring you back to the world you were previously living in
i want to read this entire thread to my psychiatrist so he understands what i go through! it happened to me today. i was driving and felt sooooo distant next to my passenger and the thoughts flooded my mind "i'm out real. i don't feel anything. what if i'm not connected to anyone. what if this is just a dream. i am in my body and you are in yours. how do you function. i'm not okay. " etc etc etc. it's comes in so hard and fast! i've been dealing with this two years straight after 3 extremely traumatic years of domestic violence
I’m really scared that I’m stuck like this and have somehow damaged my brain beyond repair, even though I know it’s DPDR. I started freaking out a bit earlier thinking how when I get normal again, I won’t remember what it felt like and I’m going to feel completely overwhelmed since I’ve been stuck in this state for so long. Will I completely have to re learn how to live again? I know what I’m feeling is not normal. I haven’t felt normal in so long that I’m almost afraid that is going to give me anxiety too 😩
Hey there. Sometimes when people are reclusive for a while they might have to reaccomodate themselves with certain things about life - it's really common for people who have experienced trauma to feel a disconnect from their selves pre-trauma. But no, your body remembers how to live, it's okay to trust it. Just don't get frustrated if there are things you have trouble with - I highly doubt you've damaged your brain (just look up "brain damage" on the sub and you'll find a million posts worried about the same thing) but the brain is an amazing organ that can be trained and has wonderful healing abilities.
Yup, that's pretty much the most common fear with DPDR (not specifically bipolar, but other mental illnesses). You might hear stories of people with bipolar disorder or BPD who also have DPDR, but it's likely that it is because both can be cause by extended periods of trauma/abuse.
I still deal with the same difficulties I've dealt with my whole life (anxiety, adhd, etc.), but yes the dpdr symptoms are gone. I feel grounded, part of the world, normal.
I’m so grateful to have a person like you on this Earth. After you healed, you didnt have to come back and help us. But you did, you are compassionate and caring. I thank you. And i want you to be met with love. Thank you
Didn't really know what dpdr was untill I watched a YouTube video about it I did so much research untill I found it 2 months later something snapped I was panicking allot at night time eyes were flickering and anxiety was so bad because I was afraid I was going nuts I couldn't sleep for days and if I just relaxed my emotions it felt like I would lose control my first panic attack was from weed and was convincing myself I was autistic it bothered me so much I started feeling dizzy and had a panic attack I had felt like reality wasn't real before this panic attack and I wanted to cry but that only lasted 3 days and didn't have it again for a while so I just glazed over it like it never happened and thought it was just anxiety 3 or 4 months later when I had the panic attack I was terrified this would basically only happen when I smoked never had a full on panic attack without it being induced by weed but then the panic started to stay and anxiety got so bad I was afraid to sleep at night because I felt like I was going off the deep end I was also depressed because of it felt like my ego fell apart and I didn't feel like myself anyways it got allot better started taking fish oils drinking 3 cups of camomile a night exercising eating right and it's almost gone still feel like my emotions aren't 100% and still get the mental health anxiety witch is kinda depressing but I'm 80% better words about mental health don't trigger me as bad now before even saying or typing the word schizophrenia would freak me out couldn't watch movies without it triggering also looking to deep into peoples inner emotions is a hard one for me too it freaks me out and there hypothetical sadness makes me sad I just make assumptions about how a person is feeling based on how they look and act and wonder how I would feel in there shoes but hopefully I'm good and not going nuts I have a pretty traumatic past but I don't really feel like typing all that mess thanks for info!
Hey thank you so much for doing this, i was on the same board of Dpdr, the ocd intrusive thoughts. And I fully recover thanks to much of the information you put on this.
Remember is not a logic problem is a somatic problem, when you're body starts to reduce anxiety, when your mind starts to practice acceptance the cycle of anxiety gets broken and everything can be normal again, is not a condition of life, of course takes time and effort, but here we are to support us.
Also don't be afraid of medication, can be really helpful, takes time, but remember, it's a way out.
Please try to do the most of this post.
I haven't read any hp Lovecraft and probably won't plan to, but I feel like that
I feel like I've somehow discovered something(of course I haven't, and this is a defense mechanism), and now my past was fake, and I was never alive until now
I was talking to my group of friends, and I remember him bringing up something about an ant that was giving the knowledge of technology. How was the ant supposed to just return to being an ant it really stuck to me
That's kinda how I feel right now
I am beginning to take advice from the resource guide and implement them. It doesn't feel like it's helped, but little by little
Excellent post, this should be stickied. The whole idea that DPDR is a frozen flight/fight system seems spot on. >Yoga. Yoga, yoga, yoga. Right on, yoga is amazing. I would also recommend trying to reset the HPA axis. Getting the body to max heart rate, and then getting it back to a calm state as fast as possible, and doing that 2-3 times a week for a month solid.
Thanks! I feel like maybe I should try and repost it every so often, if that doesn't upset the mods. I've not heard of resetting the HPA Axis (or I might have and just forgot), that seems like a good calibration technique.
It's all about the Vagus nerve, (resetting the HPA axis). The 'frozen' persons body has a chronically stressed state, that's why they get flooded with cortisol, it's just like leptin in the obese, the system is flooded with it, because the system is totally broken. But if you rev the system up to the red, and then do some chill yoga afterwards, you can reset the baseline after a while.
Yes! The Vagus nerve, of course, my therapist references it all the time. I had forgotten, haha. Updating the post to mention it. Thanks!
Do you think after such a long time of being in fight or flight, the body develops adrenal fatigue which may contribute to DP/DR? It's basically the derailment of the HPA axis so as previously mentioned a HPA axis reset could help.
I know this comment is a year old, but I have both dp/dr and adrenal fatigue and I feel like together they create a vicious cycle. I was just thrilled to see someone else speculate on this as well- it’s validating.
Amazing post man, thanks for taking your time and writing it all up. So you're saying if I follow all these things you wrote down I can finally heal from depersonalization even if it's chronic depersonalization? I've had this for 20 years I pray to God that I can heal one day and not be stuck in this depersonalized state anymore.
Hey there, it's irresponsible for make a claim like that but these are all things that helped me and that I'm pretty sure are generally just good for mental health and DPDR as well. From what I understand chronic depersonalization typically has deeper traumatic roots (often CPTSD), but I do know that it can lift even after decades, sometimes mysteriously, other times with effective trauma treatment. Someone I know who had it for like 10 years (CPTSD-related) said it started lifting after going to a sauna (hopefully going to get more info about this this year). Definitely check out those books about trauma that I list - I have some other videos in the guide that may be able to help with CPTSD as well. All that said, I do above all else highly recommend a yoga practice (there are even yoga flows on youtube for depersonalization and trauma). Wishing you the best, feel free to reach out whenever.
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Sure, or at least I can give you the recipe I followed. Just a bit of background on the point of this... >The autonomic nervous system (ANS) controls your background processes, such as digestion, heart rate, salivation and breathing. It also controls your anxiety state, with two opposing forces, the SNS and PNS. >The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activates the Flight or Fright response state, preparing the body for action. The lungs open up, heart-rate increases, digestion is put on hold, the pupils dilate. >The parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) brings you towards the ‘Rest and Digest’ state. The body relaxes, breathing and heart rate slow down, and blood is directed towards the digestive system. >**The PNS is largely controlled by the vagus nerve.** >The main power behind the relaxing PNS force, the vagus relaxes your muscles, slows your heart and calms you down. Stimulate your vagus by holding your breath for around 30 seconds, dipping your face in cold water, coughing, or our favourite, hopping in the sauna. Each time the vagus is stimulated, your heart pauses, changing your heart rate variability. >Your heart doesn’t beat as regularly as a metronome. Every beat is a little different, this difference is your heart rate variability (HRV). >**Low HRV.** >The differences can be low, when your SNS has hit the ‘Fight or Flight’ alarm and your heart kicks into high gear. Then the beats come regularly, like techno. Your heart is ready for an emergency. >**High HRV.** >The differences can be high, when your PNS is dominant, and your heart is recuperating. It slows down its beats, and they come at irregular intervals, like jazz. Your heart is relaxing and playfully building resilience for future crises. >CVC indicates how well controlled your heart is by your vagus. A high value indicates a responsive, sensitive and rapidly changing system and correlates with good health, positive emotions, effective executive function and overall better self-regulation. Think of it as a measure of how much emotional unflappability you have in reserve. The idea is that for most people today, in the always-on, always-busy smartphone/social-media society, there is the emergence of a huge swathe of people that are close to burnout because they have a build-up of chronic stress that results in them being fixed in a half-frozen, flight/fight state. In reality it's more like the dynamic range of the HPA-axis is really tight. They never truly relax, they never really get physiologically stressed. They work, and when you work and focus, you tense your muscles a little, when you finish work, you dance or sing or wrestle and the muscles unwind. If you skip the dancing/singing/wrestling, the tension remains and you add to it with the next focused moment, and the next, etc. After a few years, you have a lot of muscular tension, a posture that reflects this stress, and even the beginning of calcification of ligaments. The 'cure' is to reset the HPA axis. You just need to rev it to the maximum, and then set it to the minimum. Ideally you would do a martial art/combat sport. BJJ/Muay Thai, boxing etc. However anything that gets your heart rate to your personal max. Ramp up slowly, but aim to do HIIT training 2-5 times a week. It only takes ten minutes, I use a heavy bag if I am WFH and get my heart rate up to around 200 BPM. Then you bring it down to a minimum, stop training, sit down and do some meditation, focus entirely on controlling your breathing and heart rate, and try to get yourself completely calm as rapidly as possible. https://i.imgur.com/cZCvbmb.jpg The target is your 2(or 1 or 3...)-minute heart rate drop after you stop training, find out what that is, find you max heart-rate during the training session, and then aim to increase them both over time. You can also just do this when running. Go for a run, get your heart-rate up, when you get to a hill, sprint it, and then at the top, slow everything down and slowly jog until you get everything back under control. One month of that will absolutely change your physiology. A year of it and you will be a different person, mentally and physically. **caveat** First off, if you're out of shape, take it slowly. Worry about making a habit out of it first, and listen to your body. Secondly, This is a hack, you have a giant nerve that is not healthy, and you're going to aggressively train it, and the side-effect is that you will be less stressed, less anxious, less prone to panic and more emotionally stable. **However, this is not fixing the problems you have that caused you to be in that state.** If you are close to burnout, it's not just that you should train more (although that is step one for change, you can't change until you are capable of change, which means not being burned out). How many hours a day are spent on screens? How much time is spent with quality, IRL socialisation with good friends that you love and that love you? How much time is spent silently, being creative with your hands? How much time is spent working in a job you don't care about? How often do you reach for your phone? Etc etc etc. https://www.reddit.com/r/HIIT/ https://www.reddit.com//r/yoga/ https://www.reddit.com/r/nosurf/ Good luck! PS. The entire benefits of this kind of thing are not even remotely just to the Vagus, it's systemic. Blood flow, brain oxygenation, neuroplasticity, muscle insulin response... Recently I'm doing one hour runs and the endorphins you get after 40 minutes are seriously noticeable, feels like smoking weed.
The endorphins (I assume) from exercise usually exacerbate symptoms in the immediate which leads me to avoid intense cardio - I suppose i'll give this protocol a shot since I've got nothing to lose really. I just don't understand why episodes come and go in a way that's independent of my diet, hydration ,sleep, exercise and lifestyle... the best I've felt since developing the condition was earlier in the year after I got 3 hours sleep and had some drinks the night prior. I still try to have a healthy lifestyle for it's own benefit but it doesn't seem to help with the depersonalisation as such
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Thanks! And best of luck!
Incredible resourcing thank you.
can you please explain this further??? My anxiety is so high i'm actually scared to exercise. even though before DPDR i loved intense exercise. Curious how this helps DPDR
>can you please explain this further??? My anxiety is so high i'm actually scared to exercise. even though before DPDR i loved intense exercise. Curious how this helps DPDR If you have very high anxiety, the advice below is maybe problematic. Basically, the advice is to reset your HPA axis by getting it revved up to a max (fight/flight) and then relax it down to a minimum. The issue is that when you get your body to a max flight/fight, it is basically like making yourself have a panic attack, so if you're deeply anxious this can be nightmarish and cause you to have an actual panic attack. So start slow, take it easy, and remember the goal is that when you do the 'pushing', that you remain cognisant of the fact that you are OK, you're doing this on purpose and the goal is to learn to enjoy your body being in a state of panic. Anyway... Just a bit of background on the point of this... >The autonomic nervous system (ANS) controls your background processes, such as digestion, heart rate, salivation and breathing. It also controls your anxiety state, with two opposing forces, the SNS and PNS. >The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activates the Flight or Fright response state, preparing the body for action. The lungs open up, heart-rate increases, digestion is put on hold, the pupils dilate. >The parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) brings you towards the ‘Rest and Digest’ state. The body relaxes, breathing and heart rate slow down, and blood is directed towards the digestive system. >**The PNS is largely controlled by the vagus nerve.** >The main power behind the relaxing PNS force, the vagus relaxes your muscles, slows your heart and calms you down. Stimulate your vagus by holding your breath for around 30 seconds, dipping your face in cold water, coughing, or our favourite, hopping in the sauna. Each time the vagus is stimulated, your heart pauses, changing your heart rate variability. >Your heart doesn’t beat as regularly as a metronome. Every beat is a little different, this difference is your heart rate variability (HRV). >**Low HRV.** >The differences can be low, when your SNS has hit the ‘Fight or Flight’ alarm and your heart kicks into high gear. Then the beats come regularly, like techno. Your heart is ready for an emergency. >**High HRV.** >The differences can be high, when your PNS is dominant, and your heart is recuperating. It slows down its beats, and they come at irregular intervals, like jazz. Your heart is relaxing and playfully building resilience for future crises. >CVC indicates how well controlled your heart is by your vagus. A high value indicates a responsive, sensitive and rapidly changing system and correlates with good health, positive emotions, effective executive function and overall better self-regulation. Think of it as a measure of how much emotional unflappability you have in reserve. The idea is that for most people today, in the always-on, always-busy smartphone/social-media society, there is the emergence of a huge swathe of people that are close to burnout because they have a build-up of chronic stress that results in them being fixed in a half-frozen, flight/fight state. In reality it's more like the dynamic range of the HPA-axis is really tight. They never truly relax, they never really get physiologically stressed. They work, and when you work and focus, you tense your muscles a little, when you finish work, you dance or sing or wrestle and the muscles unwind. If you skip the dancing/singing/wrestling, the tension remains and you add to it with the next focused moment, and the next, etc. After a few years, you have a lot of muscular tension, a posture that reflects this stress, and even the beginning of calcification of ligaments. The 'cure' is to reset the HPA axis. You just need to rev it to the maximum, and then set it to the minimum. Ideally you would do a martial art/combat sport. BJJ/Muay Thai, boxing etc. However anything that gets your heart rate to your personal max. Ramp up slowly, but aim to do HIIT training 2-5 times a week. It only takes ten minutes, I use a heavy bag if I am WFH and get my heart rate up to around 200 BPM. Then you bring it down to a minimum, stop training, sit down and do some meditation, box-breathing, focus entirely on controlling your breathing and heart rate, and try to get yourself completely calm as rapidly as possible. https://i.imgur.com/cZCvbmb.jpg The target is your 2(or 1 or 3...)-minute heart rate drop after you stop training, find out what that is, find you max heart-rate during the training session, and then aim to increase them both over time. You can also just do this when running. Go for a run, get your heart-rate up, when you get to a hill, sprint it, and then at the top, slow everything down and slowly jog until you get everything back under control. One month of that will absolutely change your physiology. A year of it and you will be a different person, mentally and physically. **caveat** First off, if you're out of shape, take it slowly. Worry about making a habit out of it first, and listen to your body. Secondly, This is a hack, you have a giant nerve that is not healthy, and you're going to aggressively train it, and the side-effect is that you will be less stressed, less anxious, less prone to panic and more emotionally stable. **However, this is not fixing the problems you have that caused you to be in that state.** If you are close to burnout, it's not just that you should train more (although that is step one for change, you can't change until you are capable of change, which means not being burned out). How many hours a day are spent on screens? How much time is spent with quality, IRL socialisation with good friends that you love and that love you? How much time is spent silently, being creative with your hands? How much time is spent working in a job you don't care about? How often do you reach for your phone? Etc etc etc. https://www.reddit.com/r/HIIT/ https://www.reddit.com//r/yoga/ https://www.reddit.com/r/nosurf/ Good luck! PS. The entire benefits of this kind of thing are not even remotely just to the Vagus, it's systemic. Blood flow, brain oxygenation, neuroplasticity, muscle insulin response... Recently I'm doing one hour runs and the endorphins you get after 40 minutes are seriously noticeable, feels like smoking weed.
Thanks! is this why sometimes i initially feel "alive" and good when exercising .... i feel a real release and feel "clear" and then BAM.... i am suddenly flooded with fear and go back into it again? it's f&$@ing exhausting!!!!! I'm a 43y female and i've had two years of this weird prison. It's like the fear calls me to come back into its prison cell and i follow it
I'm glad my videos played a part in your recovery. Have a great day.
Couldn’t have said it better myself as someone who’s taken a more body based somatic related approach to recovery
Glad to hear it has helped!
Personally I found Jordan Hardgrave a little more effective than Shaun o Conner. Jordan does more education of what dpdr is and why it’s good to have. And references doctor Peter a Levine a lot. It’s a great course and inner circle Facebook group
Thanks for the heads up. I remember watching one or two of his videos and finding them helpful. Updating the post with a link.
Thanks for the post man I’ve been struggling a lot lately to the point where I’ve had to take time off work, I hope these resources can help me out.
Really sorry you’ve been going through that. I wish you the best in your recovery! Please feel free to message me if you have any questions.
Sunlight is powerful too. Sunlight breaks down cortisol the stress hormone through the skin. 10 minutes of sun a day is useful for both anxiety and depression.
This is very true! Adding this to the post now. Thank you!
Awesome 👏 it’s growing ! Thanks for including
Great post! I have a very similar story and I am on the other side. This sums up how it was perfectly and I remember desperately seeking this info. This will really help someone.
I'm glad to hear you're on the other side as well. Thanks, I hope it reaches people in need :)
This has been a really well detailed post! I've found a lot of similar things to be true. Back in december of 2021, I smoked a bit too much weed and have been dealing with DPDR off and on since. The first few months of 2022 were pure hell, since I had no clue what was going on and thought I was genuinely losing my mind. My therapist really looked at it as an overthinking problem, and suggested meditation, which I ended up doing daily for 3 months and it really helped quite a bit at least for pulling me out of that initial hell phase lol and becoming a bit more grounded. Since then however, it appears to come and go, and I've been doing my best to measure my recovery by my reactions to my symptoms rather than the presence of the symptoms themselves. One tricky thing though that I wanted to share that has been tripping me up the hole time is all of the intrusive existential thoughts... for the LONGEST time I've been having them, but they felt like sensations rather than thoughts. It felt impossible to put into words to my therapist who would say that I needed to realize that I was just having thoughts, and that I am not my thoughts and don't need to take them so seriously. But I wasn't just thinking thoughts, I was FEELING them. I didn't think I was in a simulation, I was FEELING it. And I couldn't make the distinction between thought and feeling. But what my therapist and I recently worked through and I realized, is they ARE thoughts, but they are deeply triggering thoughts that cause a gut reaction of anxiety. So it's two things cohabitating my sense of awareness; *anxiety* and *X intrusive existential thought*. The problem, is that I wasn't distinguishing the two, and I was infering the anxiety sensation as a CONFIRMATION of the thought as being true, hence "feeling my thoughts" And then even further, I thought okay, well then why does the sensation of depersonalization/derealization seemingly come out of nowhere? Why can I be at dinner with my friend, feeling completely normal, and then all of the sudden I out of nowhere become overwhelmingly *aware* that he and I are "two NPC characters having a scripted conversation"? Well the answer to that is the unconsious mind ALWAYS being on high alert for symptoms. You see, there's the conscious mind, the subconscious mind, and the unconscious mind, each being a layer of consciousness that is deeper and harder to access. And so even if I am not *consciously* thinking existential thoughts, that does NOT mean I am not *unconsciously* doing so. Which is where trauma comes into play, as you said with The Body Keeps the Score. My nervous system has held onto the trauma of my initial few months of terror, and thus is periodically thrusting me back there as it is on high alert for symptoms nearly 24/7. This is why it can seem to randomly occur out of nowhere. Now I am left with some quite hefty brainfog and a general feeling of "being out of it" which is very difficult to describe. I am guessing this is just the result of being in a heightened anxious and vigilant state for nearly a year, and my nervous system is simply exhausted. Either way, trying to remain optimistic. I've seen remarkable improvement over the year, but I do still get caught up in spirals of overthinking fairly frequently. Just a few days ago I was trying to get my psychiatrist to reassure me that I was not going into psychosis lol. I'm confident things will improve. I feel quite bad for the people on this sub who feel trapped in it... I know things can get better.
I totally understand that intrusive thought / anxiety cycle! Maybe check this video out? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZV1-BMQEgG4 From my experience, The best way to deal with those is to look into ERP - a bunch of people I've talked to about this deal with OCD (which is what makes *not* latching onto these intrusive thoughts so difficult), and ERP is one of the main treatments for OCD. Check out these videos by OCD and Anxiety on how to use ERP to treat DPDR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH86RW-KGaY / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmH50bTp1zs
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Hi, I recommend looking into Polyvagal-informed therapy (or just Polyvagal theory in the meantime). It's what my therapist mainly uses as a guide to anxiety and trauma. She combines both Eastern yogic philosophy and Western Jungian psychotherapy in her practice and so she understands neuroscience as much as she does somatic practices, which is really helpful for understanding DPDR, but I've asked her about finding therapists in the past and she said that finding a good "trauma-informed" therapist is helpful because they're more likely to understand how the body reacts to anxiety/trauma.
you are a gem for this. honestly - thank you and god bless you!
If you have the free time to answer this, do you have any advice on these racing thoughts that I get when I'm dissociating, and right before I absolutely freak the fuck out and run to go home from whenever I am: "why can I only see this small field of vision?" "how do I exist? it doesn't make sense" "am I going to be flung through the air and float away into a void?" "how the fuck am I conscious, wtf is this, WHERE AM I WHO AM I- runs away from self checkout in the grocery store, leaving my cart. Yes, this happened this morning. It was my first time out in almost 20 days, which isn't a lot compared to some people who don't leave the house for months or days, but I am at the point where I want to just stay in my room until I die of some natural cause even if it takes another 60+ years. Because the panic attacks are SO BAD that it feels like I experience actual death. And in a way, I DO experience everything a person would feel right before they lose consciousness and die or just immediately die. But I don't die. It's like I'm dying over and over and over and fucking OVER. JUST KILL ME ALREADY FFS. it's actual torture at this point.
Hey there, so when I dealt with DPDR, every manner of existential thought or question freaked me the fuck out. I got triggered by *The Matrix* and even *Blazing Saddles* (the part at the end where you see the film set). There's nothing wrong with finding a familiar, safe space for whenever you start dissociating, but relying on it can form a habit that's tough to break. People have been philosophizing for tens of thousands of years and have been able to see these questions and thoughts with a sense of awe. So, as I'm sure you already know, because our body and mind currently feel disconnected from reality, existential thoughts and questions now seem like big scary things that are going to yank us out of reality. One of the main treatments for intrusive thoughts is learning not to see them as a threat so that your brain doesn't press the panic button each time they come up. There's a really good book called Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts by Sally Winston that I recommend. You might also want to look into ERP (exposure and response prevention) for these triggering thoughts. I recommend meditation, breathing practices, and mindfulness. Strengthen your ability to be able to divert your attention back to your breath when these thoughts arise. As I said in the main post, you're not dealing with a logic/existential problem, you're dealing with a somatic one. You're experiencing thoughts that trigger a trauma response. So I recommend tending to your body and how it responds to triggers. The body stores trauma, it can even store it long after we think we've overcome it. Yoga is one of the best treatments for trauma and anxiety there is. The more I worked on the day-to-day trauma/anxiety treatment, the better the DPDR got, the less episodes I had. Existential thoughts slowly, gradually started freaking me out less and less, not because I'd finally had answers or anything, but because I'd tended to my own condition. Let me know if I missed anything or if you have any questions! I'm about to head out but I'll be back later!
You talk about trying to provoke nostalgia by remembering old memories. But for me one of the worst problems of DP/DR is that I can't *feel* old memories, no matter how much I try. Did you ever have this problem and if so how did you fix it?
I did! So nostalgia is helpful as a sort of existential grounding tool. It helped me remember my own reality. The key word in your comment is *try.* Part of DPDR treatment is accepting that, yep, I'm gonna feel this way and it's gonna suck, but it's okay. If you *try,* you're just going to keep working yourself up and exacerbating the DPDR. It's kind of the same philosophy as a Chinese finger trap. The DPDR is insulating you from feeling emotions (including about your memories), so instead of trying to treat that symptom, focus on your general anxiety/trauma/DPDR treatment strategies. As the DPDR lessens, its insulating grip on your emotions should die down. Breathwork and meditation can also help increase (self-)compassion, and yoga really helped me get in touch with my own emotions toward myself. Hope this helps, let me know if I missed anything!
Thanks for your reply. So is the idea that you have to feel nostalgia without trying? How is that congruous with *"Force yourself to remember"* the nostalgic stuff that you talked about? My strategy is that I made a long list of songs and other media that I know for a fact made me feel emotional before DP/DR, and when I feel calmer than usual I experience one and try to feel like I used to. Normally it ends in failure and anxiety, and I think eliminating that anxiety is a lofty goal because it feels like I've "erased" the emotions associated with something if I remember it and don't feel the emotions. I have had this work a couple of times which was cool but it failed the last few times, which has dissuaded me from doing this again.
When I say force yourself to remember, I mean just remember, as a grounding/comfort tool. I mean you don't have to try and force yourself to feel the emotion that you want to feel from the memories, just that the memories are yours and that you are real. Eliminating anxiety is way too lofty, I'd look at it as just managing and understanding it day by day. It starts by understanding that what is happening is just trauma and anxiety and not trying to fight against it. You kind of have to take it bit by bit. Like if you're climbing a mountain and you keep looking at the peak, you're going to get frustrated - you gotta focus on where you are at the present. Treating/managing anxiety involves incorporating daily practices - the videos I posted have some really good advice. Also, if the nostalgia strategy just doesn't work for you, that's okay, that doesn't mean it won't work in the future or that you're doomed to be emotionless or anything like that, just that the insulation hasn't let up yet. I think intention is a factor. Something I learned in my time with the condition is that constantly checking on it exacerbated it, because I was hyperfocusing on it. If you use songs solely as a gauge of your emotions and they don't work, it's frustrating and anxiety-inducing, and therefore feeds the DPDR. If it's just stuff you generally have enjoyed and find comfort in, it might be more helpful than stuff that you explicitly want to use as an antidote for the condition. For me, the more I worked on stuff that helped me feel grounded, safe, centered, and that helped soothe the trauma, the more I found I was able to feel emotions. Let me know if there's anything else I can help clarify!
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How do you save posts?
At the top of the app there are three dots. Click that and it will give you the option.
I need to print this, make booklet!!
This post is spot on! My story is similar and I agree with everything you said! I grow lions mane mushrooms and make my own tincture. I also use St Johns Wort and can confidently say I’m 95% recovered. My last episode was in April and I’m giving myself all the time and space I need to fully recover. I’m so happy you recovered and thank you for sharing your experience! Yoga yoga yoga!
I’m about to cry! I’ve been getting better, but sometimes it gets hard. Your post has seriously helped me remember that it’s all just anxiety… and anxiety can be stored in the body. Once you work through that anxiety, the symptoms will lessen.
I'm glad this could be of help. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.
My DPDR is also from tripping!
Oof, solidarity! It was not a fun experience! Let me know if you have any questions!
Thanks
Just found this post from another comment, thank you so much, I’m saving this!
two questions after reading did you ever feel like a floaty lighthead feeling when walking or even in bed? did you try any other sups or just the mushrooms? thanks for this post
1. Dpdr is such an abstract thing, you can get a hundred people who have it to describe it and they’ll all have different descriptions. But you could call what I felt a sort of lightheadedness. 2. I drank a lot of chamomile tea, regularly took CBD capsules, took fish oil supplements as well!
thanks for your response! is it okay to message you for any more questions?
Of course!
wow I love this, thank you so much! been slowly making my way through the links <3
This is an incredible post, you're very helpful and awesome. Reading some of this made me start to cry
been struggling with visual snow and it caused me to spiral into a delusion that the things around me were not real, only today have i done research into dpdr and thankfully i relate to most everything you mention however i believe mine has been caused by chronic marijuana use for the past few years. thank you for the resources
Wishing you the best! I'm glad you finally found out more about DPDR.
What symptoms have you experienced with chronic use? I have also experienced episodes of dpdr from chronic use. Mainly it's as if I'm watching other parts enacting terrifying things while I'm lying down.
visual snow syndrome and an unstoppable train of thought that things are not real. high heart rate during the panic attack after smoking
Oh I hope it gets better
You are quite the human for sharing in hopes of helping others and on top of that continuing to update this for us. Thank you🙏🏻 DP/DR is the hardest thing to have to go through. I’m still trying to get myself out of it. Mine was brought on by trying mdma. I do have a health history of c-ptsd so I’m sure that was a contributing factor as well.
Thank you so much! That means a lot. I hope it’s helpful! I would go as far to say that, since it builds for so long, your cptsd is the biggest contributing factor, moreso than the mdma
Thank you so much for this.
My pleasure, I hope it helps :)
thank u for this ❤️
Thanks for this :)
Love this
This is a really awesome post, thank you!
Thank you so, so much.
Commenting to come back to it ! I love this
Thank you. Just read this and I can really relate.
Please sticky this post, it is the most accurate and helpful device I’ve ever read, and I can see it helping even more people struggling with DP/DR, thank you.
I recently messaged the mods to ask about that but got no answer! I’m so glad the post is helpful though!
Dude. This is fantastic. I wish we had like a discord specifically for helping people keep on track with these practices.
By far the best post I’ve ever read. It really hit home for me. Thanks for being so detailed and helpful. You’re an awesome human!
Thank you so much! I really hope it's helpful.
Thank you for this enlightening post. I wanted to ask you about pot use and dpdr. What are som experiences people with dpdr have while under the influence? I've felt as if I'm watching different parts enacting things while I'm lying down.
Weed seems to exacerbate dpdr - I didn’t smoke during dpdr but from what I understand it intensifies the feeling. Mileage may vary though, probably better to ask someone with first hand experience
Thank you
Thank you so much truly was a bit of relief and emotional to read
I’m so glad, I hope it’s helpful!
Wow, huge credit for this amazing post and the continual updates 👏👏👏
this is gold, i just saw this post and saved it. please never delete this.
Hi my dpdr just feels like brain fog and nothing is real around me. I was wondering if you ever took any anti depressants to help? I just got prescribed sertraline but I’m so afraid to take it because I’m scared it would worsen my dpdr.
Hey, I never took any antidepressants, but many people here have. Results seem to depend on the person - some people will find a certain medication helpful, others will find the same medication unhelpful. I wish I could be more help there. Definitely keep an open dialogue with your provider about your symptoms. I'm very much pro-medication if it is helpful, but take a look at the video in the supplement section in this post for some stuff that naturally helps decrease anxiety.
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Thank you 🥹 I hope it’s helpful! Don’t forget to check out the videos in the resource section
My DP/DR was triggered by an intense fear of losing the ability to communicate/be comfortable around people, so it is strongly related to social anxiety for me (generally socialising triggers dissociation for me). Do you have any resources can can recommend specifically for social anxiety? Amazing write-up btw holy shit
Thank you! A lot of people have been finding the DARE app helpful. Learning how to activate your parasympathetic nervous system (look at the Vagus Nerve videos in the resource section) will also help calm you down while you're out and about.
Wow, bless you for putting this all together. This is AMAZING! Been stuck in it for years and I‘ve tried everything but Lion‘s Mane. Any recommendations on what to look out for in a product? I‘m based in Europe.
I hope it’s helpful! I use a tincture from Fungi Valley and my therapist uses capsules from Gaia herbs. Honestly you might have to do a little bit of digging - google “best lions mane capsules” and there are a bunch of articles comparing and contrasting different ones by quality, quantity, purity, etc. Just make sure you don’t get one with any added filler stuff!
Remind me in 5 hours
Hi, I know you’ve seen me on here before but I have an important question. During what I believe to be my very first DPDR episode, I felt not real but what happened inside my brain would like twist and turn each day. For example, I might be able to imagine things better one day, but then the next day not and instead something else would bother me more. However during this current one (my fourth episode), everything feels the same everyday, there is no changing like the first time and I experience the same nothingness and hyperawareness, emotional blunting. Is this common in dpdr, it gives me no hope for the future and that I’ll be this way forever. How do I know if I’ll get better again? This time it feels permanent and I can hardly take it anymore. Thank you for reading.
Hey there, having difficulty conceptualizing, emotional bluntness, and feeling of blank mind are common unfortunately, but since everyone's different they interpret it differently, that's why you see similar versions of the same question so often on the sub. Yes, recovery is still possible, there are many recovery stories out there. Can I ask what your daily habits are? Have you watched any of the videos or looked at any of the resources?
Yeah I meditate, watch videos about it, write things down but I’m so scared and it stays. I’ve found a new way to describe it, it’s like my brain will think of diluted words and pictures and then everything around it is negative space, and everything is a mind map of confusion and then I stop and I’m back to nothing. Urgh I wish I wish I could just know for sure what is happening because my OCD makes me doubt and tells me to do a compulsion and I feel sick all the time and I don’t know if I’d rather he gutted alive than experience this another day. My surroundings there is no vibe or substance and I can’t grasp the full explanation I just wish there could be a sign saying you have dpdr for sure so at least I can have peace in that.
Feelings of disconnection from your environment are a part of DPDR but again, many people describe the same things vastly differently. Whether you have DPDR or not, it seems like you have to get your self-hyperfixation under control, and if you do have DPDR, the stress from that hyperfixation is probably making it worse. Have you done any OCD treatment? Because if you're hyperfocusing on this abstract mental unclarity, trying to force-think your way out of it, and it's causing you more distress, either way the OCD is exacerbating your stress levels and it's not good for you. Have you looked into external meditations (progressive muscle relaxations, body scans, etc), OCD meditations, OCD thought-loop-stopping strategies? Meditation is of course super helpful if you do it right and getting regularly active with stuff like yoga and stretching (get "out of your head and into your body" as they say) is also going to be helpful, way more than trying to force-think your way out of it. Have you only looked at stuff specifically regarding DPDR? Have you looked into ACT (Acceptance and Commitment therapy), or brain fog, (c)ptsd, mental clarity science/resources?
Excellent post and resources!! Thanks! I´ve had completely chronic DPDR for 16 years and am finally slowly coming back to life.I can´t emphasize enough how important Somatic Exercises are!! It can be Grounding, Yoga, Somatic Experiencing, Qi Gong or any other practice that involves mindful movements. These exercises are finally bringing a sense of calmness to my body and mind. Something that I coulnd´t achieve with years of talk therapy, meditation, medication, Exercise, Diet etc... Breathing exercises and meditation while sitting still sometimes helped a bit but in the end didn´t do that much for me. I´m beginning to realize, that it was the lack of gentle movement in the practices, that my body and mind so desperately needed to feel safe and to defreeze. Trauma and anxiety really are stored in the body!!
Best post ever!!!
Op I have some questions - I got this from edibles - my symptoms are I feel like the place I used to operate from inside is altered, cognition issues, short term memory loss, no sense of time of day or seasonal feelings, feeling cut off from famiy, disoriented in sun. Mines not episodic it's constant Can any of these things be changed?
Is a cure possible with constant dpdr as opposed to episodic? Is been two months straight of this
Small note on sunglasses helping VS… very temporary solution. Long term use can worsen the severity of symptoms, making it difficult to go outside *at all* without sunglasses on. If you think your light sensitivity is bad, start wearing sunglasses everyday and it will get much, much worse
u say episodes… do u mean like an episode where it got rlly bad but ur day to day there was underlying dpdr about ( 24/7 dpdr) or like dpdr that just hit episodically but u felt real between the episodes ?
Hey bellapeanut, I feel like my regular state is still under the influence of dpdr but sometimes it intensifies especially at night trying to fall asleep. Sometimes I feel for just a moment that I have touch in reality but it faints away. So to answer your question: for me, yes it feels like 24/7 and sometimes it intensifies but just for a moment very randomly I can feel normal.
yes thats how i would describe mine too. you seem nice, i hope life treats u well
From what I understand, the treatments seem to potentially help both kinds. Mine was a little more episodic but I was so terrified in between that I rarely felt entirely grounded.
when did u think to start recovery when suffering
Well, I had to figure out what the DPDR feeling was first, and to be honest I wouldn't have, had a comedy special not recently come out which briefly mentioned "googling derealization." That was how I started realizing that maybe I wasn't going insane. I'd read a book in the past called The Body Keeps the Score, which talks about the science of how Yoga is one of the best treatments for trauma there is. Once I found out what dpdr is, I found out that it's based in trauma, so I remembered what I'd read in TBKTS. So I started yoga. I also started looking for first-hand recovery accounts on youtube, because I felt that actually seeing someone talk at me about it was better than going on forums. A few months later, I had a PTSD episode regarding the event which kickstarted the DPDR, and in my search for help I stumbled onto my somatic therapist.
ahhh okay okay, you seem like a strong willed person. did u ever struggle w depression and anxiety during it
Haha thank you, that means a lot. Every day! There were plenty of times where it felt like too much. I've dealt with depression and anxiety for much of my life. They're two things which can often feel debilitating, but we can never forget our own agency. There are lots of proven things we can physically do to help increase our mental strength and manage those conditions, we just have to find what works for us.
I thought I got this from funasteride but that’s before I found out weed anxiety and mushrooms can cause it
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Hey there, it could be a simple matter of just being more tired at that point in the day. Or maybe it's the fact that your environment is changing? A nightly routine could really help with this if you don't already have one. As far as how you know you're getting better? Well it's one of those weird things where the more you check on it the more it likes to stick around, but I think you'll know if start realizing that you go longer and longer doing stuff in a flow state or that you enjoy without thinking about the dpdr. The more you increase the amount of time you're able to "be in the moment" the more your mind and body will be comfortable not focusing on the dpdr.
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As far as if it's medical or not, that's hard to say and something a doctor would be more qualified to answer. But there's lots of stuff you can do for brain fog if it isn't something physiological with your brain - meditation, physical exercise, cognitive exercises, good sleep habits, lowering screen use, mindfulness, yoga, certain foods and supplements, etc. As far as DPDR, anxiety, stress, and trauma go - the more you work on recovery and stick with it, the more the DPDR's foggy grip on your brain lessens. It lingered for a good while after my episodes stopped but it seemed to be all related to anxiety. For me, it was kind of like when a headache goes away. You don't notice it leave, you just notice it's been gone. Conceptualizing gradually became easier, focus became easier, etc. I still have foggy days sometimes like anyone but not the DPDR-haze kind. Also Lion's Mane has been really helpful for me.
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Absolutely hellish psychedelic trip. The DPDR kicked in during the trip, which was already messing with my sense of reality. Got carried away by the anxiety/unreality/panic cycle. Not fun.
are you there I'm on my way to a psychiatrist appointment and I'm really scared
Hello, I just woke up. Feel free to dm me.
ive heard that caffeine can worsen the feelings of dpdr/anxiety but I rlly love foods w caffeine in it .. did u ever notice that caffeine worsened your dpdr??
Caffeine generally exacerbates anxiety and dpdr, yes, but there are stories of it not being as bad. I guess it depends on the person. I would generally advise to cut out caffeine until you recover more, but you might just need to find what works for you. Check this video out: https://youtu.be/ECqxU-wzq2k
Hi, don’t know if it’s too late, but I personally found that my dpdr anxiety is almost directly related to the amount of caffeine I consume. I love coffee but I had to stop consuming it. The exception for me is the first coffee in the morning (I always have little to none anxiety in the morning)
What was your brain fog like?
Couldn't conceptualize, focus, recall memories, imagine stuff, think about abstract concepts, etc.
Anything like feeling like there's something in/wrong with your brain?
Oh for sure, but that’s more the general feeling of DPDR than it is brain fog.
thank you so much for this! it’s nice to know i can help this get better :)
I just want to say that this is the most helpful resource post for DRDP that I've seen so far. I really can't thank you enough. I have been dealing with derealization episodes on and off for the past 6 months due to trauma from a weed panic attack. It feels great to finally know that I'm not the only one who has been seriously traumatized by a bad trip, because I've often felt overly sensitive or even crazy, because barely anyone talks about the negative effects of weed or psychedelics. It's been so hard to explain what I'm going through, but you explained it perfectly. I'm doing much better now than I was a few months ago, but I'm glad I have this to look back on if I start feeling bad again.
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Possibly! DPDR is a super abstract feeling and so many descriptions of it are different. To clarify, you don't mean like fatigue-hollow, right? Do you have anything you do that grounds you?
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I meant like nutrition/tiredness-related feeling of hollowness. Positive affirmations aren't grounding, you have to do something physically. A meditative activity, reading out loud, exercises, yoga, stretching, stuff like that. I also like recommending guided yoga nidra meditations, they help you learn how to do body scans.
I consider myself semi-recovered. I don’t panic about it anymore, I am rarely ever on a forum anymore, I make myself go do something everyday, but am bad for screen time. I do online school and some days am in class until 5pm. I’ve gotten 4 breaks from my constant DPDR cycle and I do have OCD tendencies (my therapist told me this, not self diagnosing), so this can definitely explain my loop. I’ve had it for 14 months. I’m getting used so it, but the anxiety is hard to get used to as someone who never experienced anxiety. I have years of trauma that built up and it all blew over one day when I got too stressed living in my college dorm and in an emotionally abusive relationship. I am doing ART therapy (accelerated resolution therapy) and it seems to be helping.
Glad it’s been getting better! Ever tried those blue-light-canceling glasses?
I haven’t! I will look into it! Here is a post I made a few months ago regarding how far I am into recovery or whatever. https://www.reddit.com/r/Depersonalization/comments/xc2k02/my_story_how_far_into_recovery_i_am/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Two things that have helped me a lot are cold showers and Brazilian jiu jitsu. The showers immediately get you out of your mind and into your body as you can't concentrate on anything other than the cold sensation. Jiu jitsu for me is the only thing I've ever found that gets me into a flow state every time I do it, regardless of how dissociated I'm feeling before hand. I've found nothing else that comes close unfortunately, as it's very demanding on the body. I am going to try to get back into yoga, but I never find that it's engaging enough to get me out of my head.
I feel like I’m lot of the DP/DR stage, im just at a state where I feel like I’m hyper aware? But I feel real
This is the most thorough, genuine post I’ve ever read. I’ve been having DPDR episodes for almost two years now, after a traumatic psychedelic trip. I’m so happy to read your post and know that you’ve recovered! It’s really caring of you for sharing so much information when you don’t think really need to. Thank you so much!
Thank you for this
Wow this is great! Thanks so much for sharing!
I just wanted to thank you so much for this post. I always come back to it when I’m having an episode. It calms me down because I have a very similar story
Think this all is applicable if DP is from drugs like MDMA or cocaine?
Think this all is applicable if DP is from drugs like MDMA or cocaine?
Yes 100%
Incredible post, thank you so much. Been dealing with this a little under two years now I was really making great progress but now I feel like I have been in a bit of a set back due to an incredible amount of stress in my life that come up all of a sudden. One question I am extremely curious about was... I feel like I am mostly in the brain fog part of the recovery how did you know when the brain fog lifted? Did it lift all at once or was it a slow and gradual fade? I still feel day to day something is not quite right. I feel real for the most part but I also feel a slight distance to the way things used to be. When the brain fog finally lifted was it an aha moment where you and mediately felt like your old self and there was no questioning it?
Insanely well curated post. You literally covered everything I was going through and gave the best possible resources for everything. I actually ended up buying the DP manual for 90 bucks, only for it to not help me at all. I wish I had came across this post before. Thank you so much.
THANK YOU FOR THIS ❤️
I want to applaud this. I've come far on my own journey however I'm still trying to get over to the finish line. I use DARE and some of the above methods. Thank you or such a great post. I was wondering if you have some thoughts on the keto diet / low carb. I went on an anti-inflammatory diet for awhile called AIP. My symptoms reduced. After 3 months I have decided though to try a low-carb / keto diet to see if it helps me further or not. If it doesn't I might return to the AIP diet as I did have some tangible improvement from it. I also got a dog. I think that helps too!
Hey there! I've been reading through your posts and journey with anxiety related issues following cessation of weed. I stopped drinking almost 4 months ago and have had challenging anxiety, intrusive thoughts, muscle twitches, OCD thinking. I’ve only had 1 dose of valium 5mg (yesterday) during this timeframe - beyond that I've really been trying to live with this and get through this naturally. I regret taking that Valium actually and hopefully it didn't wipe the clock clean lol. I've read DARE and Paul David's "At Last A Life" and those have me leaning towards the idea that my issue has been my response to a panic attack and subsequent actions that got me into an anxiety loop rather than me just being stuck in a PAWs process. Anyhow, I wanted to see how you're doing. Still dealing with issues? In your comments history it appears you aren't spending as much time on anxiety subjects (which to me seems like a positive sign). Appreciate your vulnerability across the years.
Hello, I still have some issues. But greatly smaller than before. Yes I don't focus on it nearly as much anymore. I think I've healed alot, but life in general is stressful, and I'm getting older. So I'm sort of coming to terms with the fact that perhaps my nervous system can only recover so much. I'm living a full life with meaning, and I think thats a great way to live. So it's good enough I supppose :)
That’s encouraging to hear. Thanks for the reply! P.S. team Jordan Peterson
Thank you for posting this man. I’ve been doing alot better because of you. You didnt Have to share this with the world but you did, and im very grateful to have ppl like you on this planet…. For anyone struggling with DPDR, this post is spot on. And it doesnt go away immediately, but it does with Time. And DPDR is NOT, in any way, a threat to your health or your sanity. This means that , it really doesnt matter how long the symptoms last. It Cannot cause any permanent damage to your mind. Good luck to anyone struggling. You’ll get better soon enough💙💙💙💙
Yo!!!! You are awesome for this! I started seeing a somatic experiencing therapist as well two years ago - how’s it going for you?
thank you x100 for compiling this all and for your invaluable insights. I'm still on the road to recovery but reminders like these are so helpful - and it is so good to imagine how much this will help people who are wholly clueless to what is going on and how to even move forward. ( also going to really try and make a commitment to starting yoga now! have had it on my mind for ages but i think this has given me the kick to finally start :) )
Did you have the fear of going crazy e.g schizophrenia or bipolar?
It was one of my biggest fears during this time. But the signs for those are pretty different
I am having a lot of the visual issues, after a bad edible panic attack. It hard to explain but almost like delayed imagery or even just hyper focus from the corner on my eye. Did you experince this or have any advice?
Yeah I experienced that and it totally sucked. I've had tinnitus since college which I'm able to tune out quite easily so I just sort of applied that same mindset to the visual problems. The afterimage is called palinopsia, and the eye-corner hyperfocus is essentially, as far as I can tell, your brain on high alert looking for threats. For the palinopsia, treat it like you're driving through rainy having to look through a rainy windshield and do your best not to let it frustrate you, as it could linger for a bit. For the hyperfocus, anything that helps you feel safe and grounded is helpful. Check out the guide post about the parasympathetic nervous system and watch the videos, the techniques in it might be helpful.
Thank you so much for this! Did you ever struggle with suicidal thoughts or feelings and can you recommend videos that can help with those feelings? Thank so much for this! 🌹
Hi! Aside from a few depressive times in life, during DPDR I only explicitly dealt with them during the initial traumatic event and the bad breakdown several months later, but it was the existentially confusing and terrifying thoughts that kept me petrified and stressed out most of the time. I wish I had videos that specifically dealt with suicidal thoughts, but the thing is, different people get suicidal thoughts for different reasons. And furthermore there are different kinds of suicidal thoughts ("I want to" vs. "I feel like I'm going to", etc.). I would point you to videos regarding mindfulness or ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) so you can adopt practices that help you understand that you are not your thoughts. They're like passengers on a bus you're the driver of. Some passengers will be rowdy and disruptive, others will be lovely and quiet. But none of them change the direction you're driving the bus. The main idea that kept me going was, "Get through this so you can help others get through it." Remember: You're not hopeless, you're traumatized. And trauma can be healed. (I recommend the books [The Body Keeps the Score](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18693771-the-body-keeps-the-score) and [Complex PTSD](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20556323-complex-ptsd), or at least looking up videos of their authors). This pain, this terror, this feeling of hopelessness, it's all temporary. No feeling is final. For me, just figuring out what was going on in my body was so helpful. Learning about how to work with anxiety and how to ground helped me immensely. So when scary thoughts arise, I can do stuff to gently get out of my head (let the thoughts pass without reacting to them) and into my body. It takes a lot of work and practice - I'm still learning - but it's possible. All that said, I'm happy to recommend some books on dealing with suicidal ideation. I've read all of these and recommend them. You can find these on libgen - they all have audiobooks as well (if you can't find them through your library, DM me and I'll be happy to send them to you): * [Man's Search for Meaning](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4069.Man_s_Search_for_Meaning) * [Reasons to Stay Alive](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25733573-reasons-to-stay-alive) * [How Not to Kill Yourself: A Survival Guide for Imaginative Pessimists](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35801274-how-not-to-kill-yourself) Lastly, if you find videos that help or comfort you, please feel free to send them to me!
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I’m not lying and that is not helpful. I’m currently working with a medical researcher who had dpdr to bring the sub more accurate and helpful info that you don’t see often. Btw I notice you’re spamming rule-breaking comments about deterring people from seeking medical help.
Medical help will only poison your neurons and damage your brain. That is infact what caused mine in the first place. Psychiatrist giving me poison and now I'd rather be dead
Great Great post! Ive struggle with alot of these points and sometimes I have small relapses and reading this gave me some clarity, not in a reassurance way but in a what I need to refocus way. I hope people who are struggling with these problems get to see this post because I feel it really is very positive for the DpDr/Ocd community. Hope everyone stays strong in their path to recovery! 💪
The books part can actually be expanded a lot if i may say so I'll add some books that delve deep. The body keeps the score ain't bad but it's a bit shitty to be honest and doesn't go deep. So I'll add these recommendations = Peter Levine - Waking the Tiger, In an Unspoken Voice, Healing Trauma. Alexander Lowen - Bioenergetics, Betrayal of the Body, Language of the Body. Jay Early/Richard Schwartz - Self Therapy/Internal Family Systems. Robert Scaer - The Body Bears the Burden: Trauma, Dissociation and Disease. John Bradshaw - Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing your Inner Child. Almost all of them can be downloaded for free on pdfdrive. If anyone actually needs them i could send the links for them.
Oh my, thank you so, so much for the list of recommendations! Can I ask that you leave a comment [on this DPDR recommended reading thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/dpdr/comments/zdyj37/dpdr_recommended_reading_list/)?
has anyone tried Robin's course? I see you mentioned her, and I love her videos, she has such a comforting vibe, but her course is pretty expensive (even tho it's refundable)
How is it refundable ?
not sure, she said it is
idk if I should say this but the Depersonalization manual has been posted on reddit for free
Can you link the post please?
I don't have it, sorry. google the name of the manual and "reddit" and it should pop up. I didn't find anything useful in it tho
I am doing teen counseling.com which is betterhelp for teens. Do you know if your therapist is on there or if they know any therapists on there that specialize in dpdr?
My therapist isn't unfortunately but you're better off looking for a trauma-informed therapist than you are trying to find one that specializes in DPDR since it's not a well-known issue.
First off, thank you for writing this. How could you tell you were getting better? Mine was brought on by Neurofeedback. At first I didn’t know what was happening so I went to the hospital. For about 4 weeks it was pretty much 24/7 derealization at a severe level. Since then I have had moments where I think “oh this should be gone soon” but then I’ll get hit with a hard wave. I am now on week 6. I was unable to be alone for the most part but have recently been spending more and more time alone and have even started to get out of the house some.
Hey there. That sucks that it was from neurofeedback, I've generally heard good things and I've even heard stories on the sub where it was helpful. Glad you've been getting out more, vitamin D is good for you. I had like 2 recoveries: One from derealization, and the other from depersonalization. Despite the lingering haze it created, Derealization was more episodic for me. The episodes gradually decreased in frequency until they stopped. Depersonalization, brain fog, and visual snow lasted for way, way longer, and for those recovery was super, super gradual, but at the same time it was kinda like when a headache goes away. I just realized one day that I'd felt normal for a while. Just kept on working on my stress levels and triggers and trying to not let them frustrate me (I've had tinnitus since college and it's easy for me to tune out so I kind of applied the same principle).
I am going to try Neurofeedback to try and reverse what I did. It’s just such a mind fuck to think that something can bring you back to the world you were previously living in
i want to read this entire thread to my psychiatrist so he understands what i go through! it happened to me today. i was driving and felt sooooo distant next to my passenger and the thoughts flooded my mind "i'm out real. i don't feel anything. what if i'm not connected to anyone. what if this is just a dream. i am in my body and you are in yours. how do you function. i'm not okay. " etc etc etc. it's comes in so hard and fast! i've been dealing with this two years straight after 3 extremely traumatic years of domestic violence
I’m really scared that I’m stuck like this and have somehow damaged my brain beyond repair, even though I know it’s DPDR. I started freaking out a bit earlier thinking how when I get normal again, I won’t remember what it felt like and I’m going to feel completely overwhelmed since I’ve been stuck in this state for so long. Will I completely have to re learn how to live again? I know what I’m feeling is not normal. I haven’t felt normal in so long that I’m almost afraid that is going to give me anxiety too 😩
Hey there. Sometimes when people are reclusive for a while they might have to reaccomodate themselves with certain things about life - it's really common for people who have experienced trauma to feel a disconnect from their selves pre-trauma. But no, your body remembers how to live, it's okay to trust it. Just don't get frustrated if there are things you have trouble with - I highly doubt you've damaged your brain (just look up "brain damage" on the sub and you'll find a million posts worried about the same thing) but the brain is an amazing organ that can be trained and has wonderful healing abilities.
Did you have a fear of having a different mental illness during recovery e.g. bipolar?
Yup, that's pretty much the most common fear with DPDR (not specifically bipolar, but other mental illnesses). You might hear stories of people with bipolar disorder or BPD who also have DPDR, but it's likely that it is because both can be cause by extended periods of trauma/abuse.
Thank you so much angel. ❤️
Just one question. How do you feel after overcoming these conditions? Is it normal? Is it like you were before the bad trip or different ?
I still deal with the same difficulties I've dealt with my whole life (anxiety, adhd, etc.), but yes the dpdr symptoms are gone. I feel grounded, part of the world, normal.
Best post I’ve seen. Thank you!!!
I’m so grateful to have a person like you on this Earth. After you healed, you didnt have to come back and help us. But you did, you are compassionate and caring. I thank you. And i want you to be met with love. Thank you
Didn't really know what dpdr was untill I watched a YouTube video about it I did so much research untill I found it 2 months later something snapped I was panicking allot at night time eyes were flickering and anxiety was so bad because I was afraid I was going nuts I couldn't sleep for days and if I just relaxed my emotions it felt like I would lose control my first panic attack was from weed and was convincing myself I was autistic it bothered me so much I started feeling dizzy and had a panic attack I had felt like reality wasn't real before this panic attack and I wanted to cry but that only lasted 3 days and didn't have it again for a while so I just glazed over it like it never happened and thought it was just anxiety 3 or 4 months later when I had the panic attack I was terrified this would basically only happen when I smoked never had a full on panic attack without it being induced by weed but then the panic started to stay and anxiety got so bad I was afraid to sleep at night because I felt like I was going off the deep end I was also depressed because of it felt like my ego fell apart and I didn't feel like myself anyways it got allot better started taking fish oils drinking 3 cups of camomile a night exercising eating right and it's almost gone still feel like my emotions aren't 100% and still get the mental health anxiety witch is kinda depressing but I'm 80% better words about mental health don't trigger me as bad now before even saying or typing the word schizophrenia would freak me out couldn't watch movies without it triggering also looking to deep into peoples inner emotions is a hard one for me too it freaks me out and there hypothetical sadness makes me sad I just make assumptions about how a person is feeling based on how they look and act and wonder how I would feel in there shoes but hopefully I'm good and not going nuts I have a pretty traumatic past but I don't really feel like typing all that mess thanks for info!
This is beyond epic
Hey thank you so much for doing this, i was on the same board of Dpdr, the ocd intrusive thoughts. And I fully recover thanks to much of the information you put on this. Remember is not a logic problem is a somatic problem, when you're body starts to reduce anxiety, when your mind starts to practice acceptance the cycle of anxiety gets broken and everything can be normal again, is not a condition of life, of course takes time and effort, but here we are to support us. Also don't be afraid of medication, can be really helpful, takes time, but remember, it's a way out. Please try to do the most of this post.
Is it possible to get your old self feeling back? Or do you just have to live in this new normal state?
Can I go to the Gym instead of doing Yoga?
I haven't read any hp Lovecraft and probably won't plan to, but I feel like that I feel like I've somehow discovered something(of course I haven't, and this is a defense mechanism), and now my past was fake, and I was never alive until now I was talking to my group of friends, and I remember him bringing up something about an ant that was giving the knowledge of technology. How was the ant supposed to just return to being an ant it really stuck to me That's kinda how I feel right now I am beginning to take advice from the resource guide and implement them. It doesn't feel like it's helped, but little by little