Before this happened I had extreme panic and anxiety everyday that would happen in every situation. I got meds but I was even too scared to try them and every time when I was about to try it I would get so much panic that I couldn’t even take it. When my severe DPDR started I remember the day where I head extreme panic for 5 hours. Could I have prevented this if I just chemically protected myself with Benzos I always blame my self and tell myself why didn’t u just took benzos that day but I never tried them before and was scared of the effect and now I feel like I’ve done worse to myself by not taking anything and it’s too late… :(

I don’t know how to put this in to words but the fact that I have a consciousness isn’t recognizable anymore, it’s like I’m inside something that I don’t know anymore. I also feel my brain anymore it’s like i turned in to a flying consciousness. Like I don’t see myself anymore as a person I feel like I’m just the consciousness without anything. It’s hard to explain but when I’m in the living room I feel like I’m just a object placed in the living room that can see the whole living room. I don’t have a sense of my body. What can I do to ease this it’s been 8 months without any type of relief. When I try to sleep it’s like I turn in to nothing and not even sleep feels like something that I recognize.

Hey everyone, I wanted to explain my DPDR symptoms and ask if anyone else has the same ones, because I feel like nobody experiences what I do.

My symptoms are extremely strange. I constantly feel as if I only consist of my eyes, and as if there are no bodily processes or electrical signals left in my body anymore. I have no physical sensations at all anymore, and I can't even feel my breathing. I do not feel my breathing at all anymore—it feels as if I cannot feel any air entering my lungs or my body. It is also as if I cannot feel air on my skin anymore, so when I walk and wind touches my skin, it feels as if there is nothing there at all.

It is especially extremely strong in the morning after waking up, because I have no muscle awareness or body sensation at all when I wake up. I also do not feel my stomach or abdomen at all, even when I eat a lot. It feels as if my stomach is transparent or not there.

I also do not feel my muscles at all anymore. I don't feel yawning, stretching, body positions, interoception, or proprioception. It feels as if I don't even have bones anymore. I am completely convinced that I could break something in my body and I would not even react. Even when I hit or press extremely hard against my bones or very sensitive areas that would have caused 100% pain before, I do not feel it. It feels as if my body and bones are hollow and made out of nothing. The only pain I still somewhat feel, but in a heavily changed and reduced way, is superficial skin pain when I pinch myself very strongly, but even that is about 85% weaker than before.

I also no longer know where my hands or other body parts are unless I am looking at them. When I move my hand while looking at it, I can see that it is moving, but I cannot actually feel where it is or what position it is in. If I move my hand or any other part of my body without looking at it, I completely lose the sense of where it is and how it is moving. It feels as if my brain no longer receives any information about the position or movement of my body parts, and I can only rely on vision to know where my body is. This makes it extremely difficult to walk or move properly, because I have no internal sense of movement or position, which also severely limits and impairs me in daily life.

Another symptom that scares me a lot is that I can't feel my eyes anymore. When I roll my eyes or intentionally squeeze them shut, I still see the entire room as if my vision is permanently fixed in one position, and as if my real vision is being overlapped by a screen or by another static image that is constantly in front of me. Because of this, my consciousness always feels like it is in front of me instead of inside my head.

Regarding my vision, if I intentionally make my eyes go out of focus, I no longer feel it physically. Instead, I can only observe it within my own visual field, as if I were a camera that can switch between blurry and sharp focus without any physical sensation in my eyes. I also see my own eyelids within my visual field when I squeeze my eyes shut on purpose, which makes me question how this is even possible. It feels as if my vision is no longer connected to my brain in real time, as if it is heavily delayed or completely separate from it, and as if my sight is something external that is constantly being projected in front of me against my will.

When I intentionally move or rotate my body in space, I no longer feel the rotation in my head. Before this started, I would normally feel dizziness or a kind of shifting sensation in my brain, like everyone else. Now nothing feels like it is moving at all, and I only see the movement within my visual field, as if it were static. Even when I watch videos with fast movements or flashing lights, my brain would normally react with physical sensations, but now it feels as if the entire world is static and everything I see is frozen, even though I logically know that everything in the world is moving normally.

Another extremely frightening symptom is that I can no longer feel my brain inside my head. I have no sensation of having a head or even a body anymore. It's as if all sensations inside my head are gone. For example, when I shake or move my head, I no longer feel any internal sensations inside it. Every second is extremely terrifying because I feel like all the important human sensations that make a person feel human—such as pressure sensations inside the head or the feeling of changing position when bending over—are no longer there. It's as if there is nothing inside my head, and as if I no longer have a centered position inside my head and body where my "self" exists. It's as if my body still exists, but I am no longer centered inside it.

My vision is always in front of me, and I can't focus it anymore. It feels as if I am a camera that is constantly moving without any physical sensations. When I close my eyes, I don't feel anything from my body. I have no thoughts, no feelings, no ideas, no spontaneous thoughts, and no motivation.

When I close my eyes at night, the darkness I normally see feels as if it is physically in front of me, like a spatial object rather than an internal visual field. It feels like a thick black wall in front of me instead of an internal perception. Even when I rub my eyes and normally would expect to see visual “lights” or patterns, these are no longer generated properly in my perception or feel disconnected from my mind.

When I think about the world and the fact that I am a real human being, my brain can't comprehend or process those thoughts. It's as if the experience of being human has been erased from my mind.

Ever since I entered this state, I no longer feel headaches or exhaustion. I can stay awake for days without feeling tired, as if the sensation of tiredness has been completely removed from my brain. It's not normal insomnia where you simply can't fall asleep. It's as if the sensation itself is no longer accessible, and my brain can't even produce it anymore.

Instead of feeling effort or tiredness, I only feel a sinking sensation in my body, as if I can no longer move properly and my brain can only access things from one very small area. I also can no longer see mental images in my mind. If I see anything at all, it's only very far in the back of my head, extremely small, and even that doesn't always work.

Going back to my vision, my vision feels two-dimensional, as if I were a flat screen. For example, when I look into the sun or at bright lights, I can see the glare within my vision, but I no longer feel the brightness inside my head or in my eyes. The best way to describe it is like filming the sun with a slightly greasy iPhone camera—you can see the long streaks of light on the camera, but of course the camera doesn't actually feel them.

This 2D feeling does not only affect my vision, but my entire consciousness. I have had tinnitus my whole life, which I used to always feel in my ear, but even the tinnitus now feels as if it is no longer real, or as if it has become two-dimensional. It feels extremely weak and muted, as if it were a heavily dampened cloud. Even the sounds I hear no longer properly enter my brain. It feels as if I can hear things, but only in 2D—they do not enter my consciousness anymore, but are only perceived externally by me. This is extremely terrifying. The same applies to every single possible sensation in the same way.

I also experience physical sensations very differently now. For example, when I touch my skin, it feels dead. When I grind my teeth together, I can barely feel it anymore. I can't even feel my back. I can sit at my PC for hours without feeling pain or any kind of discomfort. My consciousness feels as if, every single time I relax, close my eyes, and try to drift away, it restarts, and I could forget that I'm even a human being.

I feel trapped by the fact that I am a human being and that I have a body. The fact that I experience the world from the first-person perspective feels extremely foreign and almost unbearable. It's as if nothing inside of me communicates with anything else anymore, and the only thing left of me is this flat first-person perspective. Behind that perspective, it feels as if there is nothing left of me. Seeing and logical thinking are the only things I still have.

My memory has also become extremely bad. When I try to think about past experiences or memories, they no longer feel like real human memories that I actually lived through. Instead, they feel like flat, factual images that are being retrieved from a single point somewhere in my brain, without triggering any emotional response.

Ever since I entered this state, everything I have done feels as if it never actually happened to me, and I have almost no sense of time anymore.

It also feels like my lived experience is no longer continuous. Whenever I close my eyes or stop actively focusing on trying to mentally “hold onto” a moment or a memory, everything feels like it resets after a few minutes. It then feels as if my consciousness starts again from zero, as if I only exist from the present moment onward and everything before that has been erased.

I also no longer feel hunger or appetite, and eating feels like nothing.

I am also afraid that this might not even be DPDR anymore, because it feels extremely physical and has been constant 24/7 for 9 months. I cannot escape it even in sleep, and it is present every single second.

At a neural level, it feels as if networks in my brain that used to exist are no longer accessible or no longer present. I no longer feel like a complete human being, and even when I try, I do not feel like a fully functioning person anymore. It feels as if nothing human is left in my subjective experience anymore.

It feels as if my higher-order, complex consciousness is no longer accessible, and I am only left functioning through automatic bodily processes and visual perception. My lived experience feels reduced entirely to these two aspects only.

Summary of symptoms (key points)

• Severe depersonalization / derealization
• No body sensations (interoception, proprioception)
• No breathing sensation
• Loss of muscle/body position awareness
• Loss of sense of hands/limbs without vision
• Hollow body feeling / no internal body awareness
• Severe reduction of pain perception
• Visual disturbances (2D vision, static perception, external projection feeling)
• Eyes feel disconnected from sensation/control
• No vestibular sensations (no dizziness/movement feeling)
• No feeling of brain/head / loss of inner head sensations
• Emotional numbness / no motivation / no feelings
• No mental imagery (or extremely reduced)
• Severe memory distortion (flat, unemotional recall)
• Loss of time perception
• “Reset” feeling of consciousness after short time periods
• No hunger or appetite
• No fatigue or tiredness sensation
• Tinnitus feels detached / unreal / muted
• Sounds feel detached from consciousness
• Sleep not restorative in normal sense
• Constant 24/7 symptoms for 9 months
• Feeling of reduced or fragmented consciousness
• Feeling of being only perception + automatic body functions

Hey everyone, I wanted to explain my DPDR symptoms and ask if anyone else has the same ones, because I feel like nobody experiences what I do.

My symptoms are extremely strange. I constantly feel as if I only consist of my eyes, and as if there are no bodily processes or electrical signals left in my body anymore. I have no physical sensations at all anymore, and I can't even feel my breathing. I do not feel my breathing at all anymore—it feels as if I cannot feel any air entering my lungs or my body. It is also as if I cannot feel air on my skin anymore, so when I walk and wind touches my skin, it feels as if there is nothing there at all.

It is especially extremely strong in the morning after waking up, because I have no muscle awareness or body sensation at all when I wake up. I also do not feel my stomach or abdomen at all, even when I eat a lot. It feels as if my stomach is transparent or not there.

I also do not feel my muscles at all anymore. I don't feel yawning, stretching, body positions, interoception, or proprioception. It feels as if I don't even have bones anymore. I am completely convinced that I could break something in my body and I would not even react. Even when I hit or press extremely hard against my bones or very sensitive areas that would have caused 100% pain before, I do not feel it. It feels as if my body and bones are hollow and made out of nothing. The only pain I still somewhat feel, but in a heavily changed and reduced way, is superficial skin pain when I pinch myself very strongly, but even that is about 85% weaker than before.

I also no longer know where my hands or other body parts are unless I am looking at them. When I move my hand while looking at it, I can see that it is moving, but I cannot actually feel where it is or what position it is in. If I move my hand or any other part of my body without looking at it, I completely lose the sense of where it is and how it is moving. It feels as if my brain no longer receives any information about the position or movement of my body parts, and I can only rely on vision to know where my body is. This makes it extremely difficult to walk or move properly, because I have no internal sense of movement or position, which also severely limits and impairs me in daily life.

Another symptom that scares me a lot is that I can't feel my eyes anymore. When I roll my eyes or intentionally squeeze them shut, I still see the entire room as if my vision is permanently fixed in one position, and as if my real vision is being overlapped by a screen or by another static image that is constantly in front of me. Because of this, my consciousness always feels like it is in front of me instead of inside my head.

Regarding my vision, if I intentionally make my eyes go out of focus, I no longer feel it physically. Instead, I can only observe it within my own visual field, as if I were a camera that can switch between blurry and sharp focus without any physical sensation in my eyes. I also see my own eyelids within my visual field when I squeeze my eyes shut on purpose, which makes me question how this is even possible. It feels as if my vision is no longer connected to my brain in real time, as if it is heavily delayed or completely separate from it, and as if my sight is something external that is constantly being projected in front of me against my will.

When I intentionally move or rotate my body in space, I no longer feel the rotation in my head. Before this started, I would normally feel dizziness or a kind of shifting sensation in my brain, like everyone else. Now nothing feels like it is moving at all, and I only see the movement within my visual field, as if it were static. Even when I watch videos with fast movements or flashing lights, my brain would normally react with physical sensations, but now it feels as if the entire world is static and everything I see is frozen, even though I logically know that everything in the world is moving normally.

Another extremely frightening symptom is that I can no longer feel my brain inside my head. I have no sensation of having a head or even a body anymore. It's as if all sensations inside my head are gone. For example, when I shake or move my head, I no longer feel any internal sensations inside it. Every second is extremely terrifying because I feel like all the important human sensations that make a person feel human—such as pressure sensations inside the head or the feeling of changing position when bending over—are no longer there. It's as if there is nothing inside my head, and as if I no longer have a centered position inside my head and body where my "self" exists. It's as if my body still exists, but I am no longer centered inside it.

My vision is always in front of me, and I can't focus it anymore. It feels as if I am a camera that is constantly moving without any physical sensations. When I close my eyes, I don't feel anything from my body. I have no thoughts, no feelings, no ideas, no spontaneous thoughts, and no motivation.

When I close my eyes at night, the darkness I normally see feels as if it is physically in front of me, like a spatial object rather than an internal visual field. It feels like a thick black wall in front of me instead of an internal perception. Even when I rub my eyes and normally would expect to see visual “lights” or patterns, these are no longer generated properly in my perception or feel disconnected from my mind.

When I think about the world and the fact that I am a real human being, my brain can't comprehend or process those thoughts. It's as if the experience of being human has been erased from my mind.

Ever since I entered this state, I no longer feel headaches or exhaustion. I can stay awake for days without feeling tired, as if the sensation of tiredness has been completely removed from my brain. It's not normal insomnia where you simply can't fall asleep. It's as if the sensation itself is no longer accessible, and my brain can't even produce it anymore.

Instead of feeling effort or tiredness, I only feel a sinking sensation in my body, as if I can no longer move properly and my brain can only access things from one very small area. I also can no longer see mental images in my mind. If I see anything at all, it's only very far in the back of my head, extremely small, and even that doesn't always work.

Going back to my vision, my vision feels two-dimensional, as if I were a flat screen. For example, when I look into the sun or at bright lights, I can see the glare within my vision, but I no longer feel the brightness inside my head or in my eyes. The best way to describe it is like filming the sun with a slightly greasy iPhone camera—you can see the long streaks of light on the camera, but of course the camera doesn't actually feel them.

This 2D feeling does not only affect my vision, but my entire consciousness. I have had tinnitus my whole life, which I used to always feel in my ear, but even the tinnitus now feels as if it is no longer real, or as if it has become two-dimensional. It feels extremely weak and muted, as if it were a heavily dampened cloud. Even the sounds I hear no longer properly enter my brain. It feels as if I can hear things, but only in 2D—they do not enter my consciousness anymore, but are only perceived externally by me. This is extremely terrifying. The same applies to every single possible sensation in the same way.

I also experience physical sensations very differently now. For example, when I touch my skin, it feels dead. When I grind my teeth together, I can barely feel it anymore. I can't even feel my back. I can sit at my PC for hours without feeling pain or any kind of discomfort. My consciousness feels as if, every single time I relax, close my eyes, and try to drift away, it restarts, and I could forget that I'm even a human being.

I feel trapped by the fact that I am a human being and that I have a body. The fact that I experience the world from the first-person perspective feels extremely foreign and almost unbearable. It's as if nothing inside of me communicates with anything else anymore, and the only thing left of me is this flat first-person perspective. Behind that perspective, it feels as if there is nothing left of me. Seeing and logical thinking are the only things I still have.

My memory has also become extremely bad. When I try to think about past experiences or memories, they no longer feel like real human memories that I actually lived through. Instead, they feel like flat, factual images that are being retrieved from a single point somewhere in my brain, without triggering any emotional response.

Ever since I entered this state, everything I have done feels as if it never actually happened to me, and I have almost no sense of time anymore.

It also feels like my lived experience is no longer continuous. Whenever I close my eyes or stop actively focusing on trying to mentally “hold onto” a moment or a memory, everything feels like it resets after a few minutes. It then feels as if my consciousness starts again from zero, as if I only exist from the present moment onward and everything before that has been erased.

I also no longer feel hunger or appetite, and eating feels like nothing.

I am also afraid that this might not even be DPDR anymore, because it feels extremely physical and has been constant 24/7 for 9 months. I cannot escape it even in sleep, and it is present every single second.

At a neural level, it feels as if networks in my brain that used to exist are no longer accessible or no longer present. I no longer feel like a complete human being, and even when I try, I do not feel like a fully functioning person anymore. It feels as if nothing human is left in my subjective experience anymore.

It feels as if my higher-order, complex consciousness is no longer accessible, and I am only left functioning through automatic bodily processes and visual perception. My lived experience feels reduced entirely to these two aspects only.

Summary of symptoms

• Severe depersonalization / derealization
• No body sensations (interoception, proprioception)
• No breathing sensation
• Loss of muscle/body position awareness
• Loss of sense of hands/limbs without vision
• Hollow body feeling / no internal body awareness
• Severe reduction of pain perception
• Visual disturbances (2D vision, static perception, external projection feeling)
• Eyes feel disconnected from sensation/control
• No vestibular sensations (no dizziness/movement feeling)
• No feeling of brain/head / loss of inner head sensations
• Emotional numbness / no motivation / no feelings
• No mental imagery (or extremely reduced)
• Severe memory distortion (flat, unemotional recall)
• Loss of time perception
• “Reset” feeling of consciousness after short time periods
• No hunger or appetite
• No fatigue or tiredness sensation
• Tinnitus feels detached / unreal / muted
• Sounds feel detached from consciousness
• Sleep not restorative in normal sense
• Constant 24/7 symptoms for 9 months
• Feeling of reduced or fragmented consciousness
• Feeling of being only perception + automatic body functions