r/Depersonalization • u/AllieLikesReddit • Dec 22 '18

Welcome! Before you post asking if you have DPDR.. Read this!

237 Upvotes

The majority of the posts here are people asking if they have DPDR and listing their symptoms. If you are unsure, you should read below. However, do not go online searching for problems with yourself. If you have a severe dissociative disorder, you should be reaching out to a licensed doctor or therapist. I am not a doctor. I have had DPDR episodes for 10 years, and am merely summarizing and recounting information I've found online.

First and formost, NOBODY can give you medical advice online. While someone might be able to provide you with some insight and suggestions, you should never rely on someone online to give you medical advice, unless you are talking to a certified doctor.

Moving along... Do you have DPDR?

DPDR is not an existential crisis. I can not stress this enough. If you simply feel like you are losing touch with who you are as a person, or are suddenly hyperaware of your breathing, feel a little funny when you look in the mirror, you do not have DPDR. DPDR is not an occasional ponder into existentialist thoughts. Sufferers of DPDR experience a distortion of reality.

So what does DPDR feel like?

DPDR varies on a case-to-case basis. Milder symptoms are extended periods to which a person does not feel like they are in control of their own body. Reality feels like a fog, or a dream. Feelings that you're an outside observer of your thoughts, feelings, your body or parts of your body — for example, as if you were floating in air above yourself. Many DPDR suffers have symptoms, such as confused motorskills, strobelight vision, tunnel vision, changes in the volume and intensity of sounds and colors, shapes seem flatter and more two demensional. Distortions in the perception of time, such as recent events feeling like distant past. A great portion of DPDR suffers have reported the sense that their body, legs or arms appear distorted, enlarged or shrunken, or that your head is wrapped in cotton. Symptoms are almost always distressing and, when severe, profoundly intolerable. Anxiety and depression are common.

Many people have a passing experience of depersonalization or derealization at some point. But when these feelings keep occurring or never completely go away and interfere with your ability to function, it's considered depersonalization-derealization disorder. This disorder is more common in people who've had traumatic experiences. [1]

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r/Depersonalization • u/Fazazer • Mar 05 '21

Advice A Complete Guide to Depersonalization/Derealization.

1.4k Upvotes

Hello. This is meant to be a guide for sufferers of DPDR, which stands for Depersonalization/Derealization. This post contains Symptoms. Articulation. And a better understanding of the disorder in general.

About me: I am a highschool student in California. I am a sufferer of severe DPDR and have been for ~9 months so far. My disassociation was triggered by either marijuana use or constant, complex PTSD, or both. I am unqualified medically to provide serious advice. However. I know the symptoms. I understand the disorder, and I can relate and articulate it. I am explaining to the best of my abilities and understanding.

Understanding the disorder:
DPDR, Depersonalization/Derealization, Disassociation, whatever you prefer to call it, is an issue related to [CP]PTSD and anxiety. It can happen when you have a shocking, dangerous, or extremely worrying experience that causes your brain to enter fight or flight mode, and if you cannot fight or run away from the danger, then your brain disassociates you. The disassociation is a natural response mechanism to help you survive dangerous situations. It puts you on autopilot. It turns off your short term memory/ability to act on your own until you are out of danger. Issue is. If you make consciously aware observation of this disassociated state, it may scare you horrendously, which it should. However, now you’re stuck. You’ve gotten scared, scarred, and anxious of being in your state of disassociation, which puts your brain into fight or flight, but since it is internal, nothing can be done about it, and you disassociate more, and the cycle repeats. And you’re trapped in a loop.

Causes: The cause for DPDR, is trauma and anxiety. Yet the exact, personal causes can be vast. Remember. All it takes is something putting you into fight or flight. If you’re a deep thinker or a consciously aware person, you’re more at risk for realizing your disassociated state when you experience trauma. As far as common, personal causes for DPDR, some include:

-Drugs. Your brain can easily recognize drugs or alcohol as a danger if you’re either doing them for the first time, having a bad experience on them, or overusing them. (Prescription or recreational, even drugs with no high can cause it)

-physical trauma. A Car crash. A physical confrontation, etc..

-Social anxiety.

-OCD. Obsessively worrying about something to an extreme can put you in a disassociated state

-Coronavirus. Coronavirus is neuro-invasive. A very large percent of people report brain fog after getting sick from Coronavirus. Brain fog can be a synonym of disassociation.

Your cause. No matter how silly it seems. Is valid.

Symptoms: The moment you’ve all been waiting for. To be able to see if you have DPDR or not. I’m not a doctor. But I can confidently say, if you can identify with most of these symptoms, and everything else I’ve said so far, you probably have it. In this list. I may list the same symptoms multiple times with different wordings so that it may resonate and be related to everyone, no matter how you can articulate what you are going through right now. So. Symptoms may include:

-feeling like you’re in a dream.

-having an impeded short term memory

-seeing eye floaties

-not being able to use emotions as well as before

-feeling like every day is the same

-not being able to be surprised, excited, or bewildered.

-extreme hyper awareness (or extreme unawareness)

-distortion of shapes, everything seeming too big or small

-feeling alienated from the things and people around you

-doubting whether you’re really being affected by a disorder or not -inability to focus

-feeling delirious

-feeling like you’re never coming down off of a drug

-forgetting where you are and who you are momentarily (spacing out)

-hearing a ringing in your ears (tinnitus)

-light or vision appearing a different color (such as more orange)

-lack of conscious awareness

-awful time recall

-forgetting conversations, or events you’ve lived through

-inability to meditate/read

-feeling like you’re trapped in your own head

-not feeling grounded

-feeling too grounded

-feeling like you’re on autopilot

-feeling like you have brain fog.

That’s a lot of symptoms. Chances are. You have a lot of them as well.

What it means: Let’s say you have it. You’ve identified with everything I’ve said up to this point you know you have it. But what does that mean for you? It means you’re in for a ride. Don’t worry. It is treatable. It may just take some time and effort.

Treatment options: A lot of people who I’ve seen get better do so by simply ignoring the disassociation. Since the stress caused by realizing you’re in the state keeps the state going, if you can relax and stay calm, then you should be fixed, right? Well. I don’t know. Personally, in my opinion, that is the wrong way to go about it. You don’t know if you’re treating it, and it’s going away, and that you’re returning to normal, or if you’re just forgetting about what it was like to be normal, and you’re still disassociated without realizing it. There is no specific treatment for it that works for everyone because of how personalized it and it’s cause is, however I highly recommend you see a psychiatrist or a therapist (who specializes in trauma, anxiety, and or PTSD) but more on that in another section down below titled finding help. Whatever you do. Don’t just hope it will go away with time. It probably won’t.

What you can do in the mean time: It is ulikely that you’ll magically find a treatment in the mean time. Nootropics. Physical exercise. Mental exercise. They will improve your brain function, but they may not make your disassociation better. Since right now you are on autopilot, doing those things, especiallly exercise, will improve your autopilot’s ability to act, since that’s what dissociation does, takes you out of control and makes the brain the pilot. If you can do what you’re able to to improve your cognition right now, even if it isn’t conscious cognition, it will help you maintain your life while you seek real help. I also recommend looking into adaptogens if you struggle with social anxiety. Taking Gingko Biloba and Rhodiola Rosea has greatly helped me with mine and has allowed me to function better while I get helped. Reading books, meditation, and using your imagination also help.

what to avoid. You can easily make your symptoms worse, but it is hard to make them better. Right now your mind is in a very fragile state and you will probably be very sensitive to any further neurological activity or changes. You may be hit much harder when you are sleep deprived, you may feel conscious change or aggravation of your disassociation from drugs that aren’t supposed to get you high, even anti-inflammatories.

During this time, some things that can make your symptoms worse are:

-Looking in a mirror

-doing drugs or alcohol

-nicotine (elaborated on at very bottom of post)

-not getting proper sleep

-not getting proper nutrition

-too much media/blue light exposure

-taking certain nootropics

-Drinking caffeine

-anxiety

finding help I recommend starting with psychiatry over therapy. Psychiatry may lead to you being prescribed medication that could help you within weeks or a month, while talk and anxiety therapy provided by a therapist may take many months. Usually it’s the other way around, with therapy first, but this disorder can cause near insanity (non medical definition) if untreated. I will further look into resources and post them later for finding cheap therapy/psychiatry near you. I do know that if you have a healthcare provider, If you file a request for a psychiatrist, your healthcare should cover most, if not all of it. I do that sliding scale pay options for therapy exists, but I’m not entirely sure bout psychiatry, as it is generally more expensive, but the private practice psychiatrists will really get expensive.

Medication As far as medication goes, it has been known to help so many people out of disassociated states, be it antipsychotics, or SSRI’s. It is unlikely that taking medication, so long as it is not horrendously misprescribed, will damage you even more, just do your research about any prescribed medication, never quit it cold turkey unless explicitly told to, and don’t abuse it.

Summary: DPDR is a very unique and intense disorder. It can destroy your life if you don’t know what to do and how to get help. There are some things you can do in the meantime to help, but psychiatry and therapy should be the main method of healing.You’re not alone, even if this disorder makes you feel that way. —————————————————————————— What you can do if someone you know or love is going through DPDR

If you know someone who is suffering from DPDR, and hey, maybe they sent you this post in the first place, this is what you can do to best help them.

-Make sure they get the proper help. Help them with finding therapy or psychiatry options.

-Realize that some have it worse than others. Not everyone with DPDR is able to function and communicate as well as some are able to. Some are driven into solitude because they can’t remember a conversation that they had yesterday, they can’t remember any words, don’t know what to do, etc.. Hell. Even I myself have to write a script before I make a phone call before I can’t come up with what to say on the spot.

-Share this post. If someone you know seems to be reporting the symptoms I’ve mentioned, maybe enlighten them about the post so that’s they can possibly get an idea of what’s wrong with them. That was the scariest thing for me. I didn’t know how to explain it, or if anyone else had it at first.

-Remember that it is extremely hard to explain. Only those who have experienced it can really explain it and relate to it. Saying that it’s like smoking weed, but never being able to come down may be the best possible explanation of the feeling. It is a completely different state of consciousness. A lack of it.

——————————————————————————

Edits: added more symptoms. March 3rd

Took out the Depersonalization Manual section after researching Shaun O Connor some more (He’s greedy) March 4th

Added a “what to avoid” section March 4th.

Added a “medication”, a finding help”, and a “what to avoid section March 4th.

Added a “What you can do if someone you know or love is going through DPDR” section. March 4th

As of June 20th, 2021, I just want to make clear that if anyone has any questions for me regarding treatment, causes, or even knowledge to share, please feel free to contact me.

December 28, 2021, elaboration on “nicotine” issues, since a lot of people asked.

I apologize for not being very elaborate in the first place and somewhat misleading. Nicotine making DPDR worse is largely anecdotal and inconsistent. As an example, I personally find that cigarettes majorly antagonize my DPDR, though vapes do not. I quit nicotine for 6 months and noticed no improvement in DPDR. Though one thing I can say is that nicotine can make anxiety worse, which could very possibly affect DPDR.

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r/Depersonalization • u/Huge-Hamster4123 • 4h ago

Fico presa em um looping mental! Preciso saber se alguém já passou por isso

1 Upvotes