r/Depersonalization

Hi yall,
what jobs do you think someone who is managing what seems to be the peak of derealization

Hi everyone,
I'm a medical student and (mostly) former sufferer of DP/DR. I'm looking for two or three other people with DP/DR to participate in a quantitative EEG study that will try to identify common patterns in the brainwaves of people with this illness.
Participation will entail completing a psychiatric/medical/personal history questionnaire and about an hour of EEG recording in a New York City office.
I hope that it will lead to insights into DP/DR mechanisms and increased awareness within the medical community.

If you're interested or have questions, please message me.

Wishing all of you recovery and happiness.

TLDR: Anyone with DPDR and fully/mostly recovered go back to smoking weed or taking edibles?

I (26M) have now gone about 8 months without any weed or THC since deciding to stop when I was experiencing chronic DPDR symptoms.

I started smoking and overall just consuming THC around late 2023. I started off with 5mg edibles, then to carts, and then flower within the next year or so.

By 2025 I was smoking flower every evening after work, not a ton, always less than a quarter gram, but I would always get extremely high since I was taking huge bong hits.

I had smoked weed in my early teens, and by early teens I mean at 13, when I had a massive panic attack several times which led me to initially develop DPDR which lasted a couple years afterwards.

Interestingly enough, I didn’t develop DPDR immediately after the weed induced panic attacks (the ones I had when high), but instead…it started after I had a panic attack several months after initially smoking, with the panic attack being triggered by the fear of going “crazy” (this stemmed from seeing an article about weed induced psychosis). That fear and panic then triggered the DPDR which even more made me believe that I truly was losing my mind.

I felt like I didn’t know where I was, who I was, what was going on, and overall just felt completely out of my body.

I had been an extremely anxious person my whole life, and struggled with anxiety attacks when I was even younger, but this was my first experience with true panic.

This feeling would persist as long as I would think about it, it often would get better when I talked about it to someone, and whenever I was distracted (playing video games or watching a movie or show).

I eventually went to therapy, got on Zoloft at around 14-15 years old, and discovered drinking and nicotine around that age as well. I started vaping daily and drinking heavily on the weekends, which got heavier as I went into college (never drank during the day, but would get shitfaced at night like 3-4 times a week, sometimes more sometimes less).

After graduating college and getting a big boy office job, and things started to settle down, I started to seriously get worried about my relationship with alcohol. I always knew drinking heavily was bad…but I didn’t realize how bad until this time, but I still loved drinking and nicotine…and couldn’t imagine being fully sober.

This is when I really started thinking of weed as my “way out” of drinking and nicotine combined…without having to face full sobriety. So as I picked up weed again after all those years, it was actually amazing this time, and got me to stop using nicotine as well.

I would definitely “green out” (and get really anxious and “panicky” after smoking sometimes too), but I felt like I was “working through it”…like I was getting over my irrational fears, and over time I got used to how weed made me feel, and I would rarely get anxious anymore.

The problem was…I now couldn’t go an evening without smoking. If I didn’t smoke one night, I was physically fine, but mentally I was angry, annoyed and irritable. I also would just get too high so often that I would become “non verbal” and this would cause a lot of friction between me and my fiancée since I was essentially “clocking out” from our social time together every evening.

I also got to the point that I didn’t want to hangout with people unless smoking was involved, and even then if we did smoke I would often get so high I couldn’t interact normally.

Over time I started getting more and more derealized and depersonalized, and my anxiety got worse and worse specifically about existential stuff and my overall fear of death being looped into everything.

That’s when I stopped smoking entirely around 8 months ago, but now I am back to drinking after taking 8 months off of it as well. I know that escaping reality and being avoidant of the present isn’t a good thing, but I have a good paying steady job, I workout 3-5 times a week, I see friends every now and then on the weekends (usually with drinking and going out being the activity we do when we hangout), I have a happy long term relationship with my fiancé…someone I consider my best friend who I do everything with, but we both struggle with excessive drinking on the weekends, and we are back to considering some form of THC again as a potential “replacement”/damage control.

My DPDR is fading but still present at times, the derealization is entirely gone but now it’s just the depersonalization that’s there sometimes…usually just whenever I get over stimulated or anxious.

I think I may have undiagnosed ADHD that was simply brushed off as purely anxiety since I was a kid. I was always bad at school (basically from 2nd grade on), and it genuinely wasn’t until I started vaping in high school that I had the motivation to actually start trying and get good grades (always had trouble paying attention and never had the patience to read or do my homework, it always felt like pure torture sitting there in class, but once I had nicotine it was like knowing there was a little reward after every class made it easier for me to get through the day and actually have “excitement”)

I know now…the main issue for me is moderation, and all of this boring context I’m giving is a long winded way of me to ask people who have experienced weed induced DPDR (after smoking) to see if anyone has been able to return to weed? If so is there a controlled and more stable way of consuming that has worked for you? Maybe small dose edibles, only on weekends?

My head feels like it’s in this constant haze where I feel high without any emotion feeling. Also dizzy and blurry vision with headaches. I got the memory of a fish. It’s hard to watch or read anything because I can’t focus or give whatever I’m doing all my attention and then if I try to it makes my headaches worse. This shit started after I quit smoking. I’ve never felt like this while I was smoking and if i try to smoke now there’s no euphoria or any type of feeling with it just feeling out of it. It’s been going on for 3 years and idk what to do. I can’t live my life like this. What’s the point in doing things if I can’t feel pleasure from them ?

Bad memory, feeling like 2 different personalities/moods(?), dissociating(?) I would appreciate advice since it interferes with my school life/personal life.

Im not diagnosed with anything but I feel like im loosing my mind i told myself that I could figure myself out but I feel like im spiraling!!! Okay ill just copy and paste what I wrote, im sorry if this is the wrong sub reddit and im a teen so it could be hormonal?? But just read this and give me your opinions! Please

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Tw bad grammar?

I have bad memory and feel like 2 people sharing a body or maybe two personalities?

I dont know why my memory is bad but I struggle to remember a lot of things even my childhood(ik in my still in my childhood but like I mean from before to now) I only remember small parts or bits never the full story, and the small parts/bits i remember are colorless and are random.

I dont know if I have bad memory because my bully/ only friend back then choked me in my pool ? I know it can be dangerous to be choked? Or because ive went into a thing similar to a switch where I acted so energized I started hitting my head against the bus chair I think it gave me dopamine being hit. But these happend a while ago so idk?

Another thing similar to that dopamine is that when I felt that switch or whatever it is I felt like everything was a dream or unreal I would play rock, paper, scissors, slap. with people. (The game is to play rock paper scissors and the loser gets smacked) and I would play and purposely lose until my hand was bruised and purple, I enjoyed the pain? Feels odd to type but its true maybe its related to dopamine..?

Okay now with the 2 people sharing a body thing, I feel like their both me, but they act very different from one another for example one is more quiet speaks Coldly and only really says things to get their point across like straight forwarded?, when im like this i feel normal and when im with lets say teachers or authority figures I will smile or be polite. When im like this I get work done easily because I'm not distracted, also im like this with my family but a bit softer and with my sister or my pets im very kind or just the usual.

Then theres the other version, the version that has sabotaged my reputation, relationships, etc. When im like this I feel the switch I was talking about like im way more energized im feeling less real and everything Is either very bright or very "fake"(or both!). When im like this its like I want dopamine? Like I will say things that I shouldn't be saying, things that ruin my reputation and make me seem crazy, weird, etc. making fun of myself infront of others and making a joke of myself, sometimes the self joking? Like when im joking and making fun of myself it will get so intense I will feel physically sick but I just can't stop the words from spilling out of my mouth and when I realize what im doing thats when I look around to the weird stares. I feel like if it wasnt for me feeling unreal during rhis I would probably be able to snap out of it. But Idk.. also during this I am very easily distracted which makes it really hard to do stuff especially if it happens during a test😓😓

When im with my family during this switch (in private) I will just make random noises(like cat noises, I dont know why ive done those and its kinda unstoppable, like its controllable yes, but i like doing it?) and distract myself with my phone, if im in public ill also probably either use my phone or just daydream.

Anyways im just typing these out in hopes that maybe someone will help me find out what the fuck is wrong with me, and if you have any questions or need me to explain something better ill try my best I just need some genuine advice, i dont want to tell my parents since they already consider me a bit weird and odd, like yes they love me but they say that I sometimes act weird, okay im getting off track so yeah please advice🙏

reddit would be the last place where I'd be coming for this, but there's something I wanna discuss that I don't know where else I could. (small note: I'm not a fluent english speaker and my head feels kind of fuzzy righr at this moment so expect some typing mistakes)

not that I'm diagnosed with anything but I'm sure I have been experiencing dissociation for years now, since I was a kid. I remember experiencing what could have been derealization a few good years ago as a child as the best way I remember being able to describe it was reality not feeling real and like being in a dream, though I think I mostly experience depersonalization now. at least when it comes to frequent episodes that I can tell are this

I don't know if that's because that's something I've been living with constantly (I think I dissociate like at least once or a few times every week??) for a good while now but I really don't feel like it's nefessarily a bad thing at least in my experience? the only downside I see for myself is when it happens whenever I'm going through some extremely stressful situations like fights and dissociate and can't remember almost any of the details of what happened, but other than that I really don't understand. it somewhat helps me calm down and frees me from anxiety, and as someone who is very anxious 24/7 that's sort of a "break" for me. doesn't feel necessarily good but doesn't feel necessarily bad either. actually honestly sometimes it even feels kind of peaceful and makes me feel sleepy(?)

I see people always describing their experiences with dissociation as something terrible and sometimes even panicking but I just don't experience that as such a terrible thing and that makes me very confused because everything I see about dissociation when I look it up sounds like that

I'm not invalidating anyone's negative experiences, I'm just genuinely confused because it's mostly very chill for me

also, just to clarify, I'm already seeking professional help so I should be fine :)

hi everyone!

i was wondering how common this arc is? how many of you have "unlocked", so to speak, the DP part of your brain this way? did it cause you to quit?

this was the case for me. the weed itself isnt what had caused the panic (although i cant imagine being high helped), as at the time i was smoking regularly for about 15 months up until that point. i honestly didnt think that much of it and didnt know it was in fact a panic attack till later.
a few weeks go by (kept smoking), smoked again in the same environment, and thats when i had my first DP episode (was none the wiser at the time about what was going on). this caused me to quit cold turkey about 10 days later cause it kept happening. the real kicker is, weed was helping me quite a lot with other mental stuff, so this was a bummer :)

the first two months were the worst and i felt like i was living in a chronically depersonalized state. it did dwindle with time, transformed in a way, but hasnt really stopped. this all happened about 6 months ago, and i still struggle with it. some days its for a very brief period, and others it wont leave me alone. although ive gotten better overall.

would love to hear your experiences!

This is so weird like 1 year ago, I was still posting on Reddit abt this. My life was going better everyday, and I really thought I was going to recover. And, for a short period of time, thought I didn't fully recovered it was going better. But some event which I can't say for anonymity like destroyed all of it. Though I can't say the event I can say that my family really does bad things continuously (and like it never stopped, it was a ton of time in day) and so at first I wasn't focused on dpdr, rather on protecting myself. Now, I am away from that and I noticed that it just fucked me up. My dpdr is like really bad and so worse than before bc now I didn't have hope I don't even know why I am here writing this like everything is fake.

Hi fellas, How are you?

I am 27 and for some reason i don’t feel drunk anymore. When I drink I can feel that there is alcohol in my body and can get a headache if i drink too much but don’t feel anything. I loved coming home to have one beer and listen to old music. My favorite thing was adding a whiskey shot in my beer and just smoke a cigarette in the winters outside,Belmont if you are Canadian. I used to feel stuff, get lost in my mind, never felt the need to express or talk to people that much you know. It happened all of sudden and it’s been more than a year now.

I also don’t feel many emotions anymore be it watching movies, going out, playing video games, being with gf, being with friends. Nothing. I also don’t feel much stress or anxiety. I was recently in a fight, it wasn’t my fault but i didn’t feel anything. Like literally nothing. I was driving and some bike guy crashed, i helped him, he was fine but I didn’t feel anything. my memory has also become weak like my brain doesn’t want to register much stuff. I went to this trip with random group for 10 days, I had fun but didn’t feel anything. Sceneries didn’t inspire me, Didn’t feel the need to make connections. I don’t know how to explain. Radiohead playing in my head with any emotions rn.

Songs that had memories, took me on a ride every time i listen to, they don’t work anymore. Lyrics don’t hit, nothing is inspirational. Did something broke? i tell you i was in a bad phase for 3 years and in constant fear. One day I had an outburst and stuff happened, after few months of that this all started. I can’t even cry if i want to now. I have tried.

I was the kid who was effortlessly good at most things. I am not even evil. Like i believe the innate human desire is to help others.

I used to think I have many friends but seriously can’t talk to any of them. I can’t express even if i wanted to , i don’t want to talk to them. I tried therapy but i don’t want to go through it anymore. I just want to know will it be fixed? have you experienced this?

There are much more stuff i wish i could write, could phrase and explain better, but i don’t want to go and change and articulate better. I know this is a some sort of depression, idk. How long will it pass. I want to enjoy life. Music with nice company. Please You can ask me stuff if you want to.

So basically I was suffering from dpdr from March to July like I was not able to go out also when I think about that situation I get goosebumps

So idk why dpdr started there are two reasons

First one ~ I was not getting periods for like 5 months then I visited gynecologist and she give me some medi of progesterone so that was 10 days dose after 10 days like on 14th days my periods started in March and it was normal

Second one ~ I used cannabis like too much of it on holi and then I started playing laughing and all I was enjoying after sometimes everything went black and I thought I'm death or I'm having heart attack lol 😭 then after then I got very panic and started saying that I'm going to die cuz everything looked weird and blurry sounds felt heavy peoples touch felt strange and everything around me just felt extremely weird after that I was laughing crying then I reached home and sleep for 2 hours when I woke up all was ok but for 2 days I was feeling high little high okay and after that all was good and this also happen in March

After this incident I started feeling a little weird but I ignored it because I thought maybe something was wrong with my brain So one day when I was coming home after hanging out with my friend I held his hand and his touch felt exactly the same as it had when I was high on bhang Then I panicked again When I reached home I had the same heavy voice feeling and felt like I was going to die That same day my DPDR started and it just continued I was not able to look at myself in the mirror and it was really bad I could not even go outside ( on that day I skipped meal and I was only eating noodle and I thought this I was happening cuz of noodles )

So I tried treatment with several doctors and also took medication prescribed by a psychiatrist I was on Sertraline but I only took it for 2 days and stopped because I was feeling really bad After that in July I started improving and I was able to go outside attend college and now I also go for air hostess training I can hang out with my friends but when I sit outside I still sometimes feel weird and get scary thoughts about death These thoughts just come out of nowhere and I really want them to stop

I also notice that sometimes after eating a lot of noodles my DPDR comes back slightly and I get that weird disconnected feeling again Another thing I have noticed is that my symptoms get much worse around my period They usually start about 5 days before my period and one day before it can become so intense that when I look in the mirror I feel like I dont know who I am I then remind myself that it is me and try to calm myself down but sometimes I still feel scared of myself

Right now this is my main problem I am able to go to college training and meet my friends but these episodes are still bothering me and I dont know how to deal with them Has anyone experienced something similar or can anyone suggest what I should do

So, Im 17M and for as long as I can remember, I have this thing where I feel like I'm watching my life happen instead of living it. Like, I know what I'm doing and stuff, but it doesn't feel like I'm the one who's doing it. I don't know how to explain it, it's really hard. For example, say that I wanted to turn my TV on. I would think about turning my TV on, and I know I'm doing it, but when I actually go to do it, I don't feel like that's me doing it. It's so hard to explain, I'm so sorry if this is confusing.

And it's like, I've had this as long as I can remember, and my memory feels really bad as well. And I've just recently had a girlfriend, and we've been dating for like, a couple months now. And every single time that I go around her house or something, or she comes over to mine, or we just do anything, and I'm having a nice time, I'll go back home and I'll feel like none of that just actually happened. Like, I have to look back at photos and I have to be like, wow, that was actually me. It's really annoying and I don't know what it is, and I can't get rid of it no matter what I do.
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I'm only 17, and I don't really want a therapist because I don't want my parents getting involved in it or anything. So, yeah, I just need help. Its been YEARS and its not like its on and off i mean ive constantly felt like this to the point where i have no memory of what it feels like to not have it. anything will help please

Today i walked into my brother room and i completely forgot what i came there for, then i stand there for a few second like my brain just crashed is there a actual reason this happens?

Hi. I’m 15 years old and a female and I’ve dealt with derealization/DPDR before, but right now it’s probably the strongest I’ve ever experienced and I’m honestly terrified.

I want to say first that I do have support. I have a therapist, friends and family I can talk to, and I’m not relying on Reddit instead of getting actual help. I mainly want to hear from people who have actually experienced severe DPDR and understand how bizarre and frightening it can feel.

I also feel like I need to explain what my body and brain have been through, because this hasn’t happened in a vacuum.

I was born with a cleft lip and palate and I’ve had over 20 surgeries throughout my life. The past year in particular has been medically exhausting.

In August 2025, I had double-jaw surgery, which lasted around six hours and was a huge recovery.

Then in 2026 I had:

• February 2: surgery to have ear tubes placed.
• May 6: another surgery involving debridement, removal of an infected screw from my previous jaw surgery, and a tooth extraction.
• June 23: a major rhinoplasty and septoplasty for my cleft, plus a dermal-fat graft to my upper lip. That surgery lasted around 5½ hours.

The June surgery especially turned into a long recovery. I dealt with swelling, pain, stitches, changes in how breathing through my nose felt, dizziness/eye strain, a sinus infection that needed antibiotics, sleep disruption, and episodes of DPDR during recovery.

So for much of this year it has felt like surgery → recovery → another procedure → recovery → another major surgery → recovery, while also dealing with psychiatric medication changes.

Because I spent so much time recovering at home, I also developed a pretty extreme amount of screen time. There have been days where I’m on my phone for around 12–14+ hours. It became something to do while I was stuck recovering, but now I’m wondering whether that much constant stimulation is making it harder for my nervous system to settle down and whether reducing it could help my DPDR.

I’m also currently going through a medication transition with my prescriber. I’ve been taking Anafranil (clomipramine) 25 mg every other day temporarily as instructed, and the plan is to go back to Prozac, which helped me a lot in the past. I’ve had several psychiatric medication changes this year on top of everything else.

Then I traveled to Hawaii for vacation with my mom. Getting here was exhausting—I was awake for around 22 hours, had a lot of anxiety surrounding the trip, and suddenly went from my familiar home environment to being thousands of miles away.

I’m now extremely homesick.

My derealization feels almost like I’m living in a fever dream. I know who I am. I know where I am. I know my mom is my mom. I know Hawaii is real. It’s not that I actually believe anything isn’t real.

It’s the feeling.

Everything looks and feels strange, distant, foggy, disconnected and dreamlike. Familiar people sometimes don’t give me that automatic feeling of familiarity even though I obviously know exactly who they are. Time feels strange. My memory feels foggy. I keep desperately wanting everything to feel normal and familiar again.

And then I get frightened by the derealization itself.

I notice it → I get scared → I check whether I feel normal yet → I notice it even more → I become more anxious → everything feels even stranger.

I think I’m accidentally keeping myself stuck in a loop by constantly checking how I feel.

I’m also desperately missing home—my own bed, my pets, my normal surroundings, my routine, everything. I leave Hawaii next Saturday and I’ve literally started counting down the sleeps because thinking about going home comforts me.

I’m exhausted from being scared of my own perception.

If you’ve experienced really severe DPDR and eventually felt like yourself again, I would LOVE to hear from you.

What genuinely helped you?

Did cutting down extreme screen time make a difference? Did getting proper sleep and returning to a routine help? How did you stop checking every few minutes to see whether you “felt real” again? Did getting outside, doing normal activities, talking to people, exercise, hobbies, etc. help reconnect you with life?

And honestly, I could really use some comforting recovery stories. I’m only 15 and after so many surgeries, recoveries, medication changes and anxiety this year, I’m just tired and scared and want to feel like myself again.

Please don’t give me scary medical stories, emergency-symptom lists, or worst-case scenarios. Those make my anxiety significantly worse. I have adults and professionals in my life helping me with the medical side. I’m specifically looking for DPDR coping strategies, reassurance, and experiences from people who have actually come through a really severe period of derealization.

Thank you for reading all of this. ❤️

Hello all. I have been struggling with dissociation for as long as I can remember. I feel like I have been teleporting through all phases of my life and I am sick of not remembering things that are important to me. I recently got sober from all drugs and alcohol and with that came heavier dissociation, and a lot of confusing feelings and thoughts. I hardly remember getting sober, and it wasn't even my decision to begin with. Part of me feels like an angel took over my body because I was running myself in circles for so many years. I recently went on a family vacation, and the entire time I was dissociated, even during fun things. Sometimes I would get bad derealization at random times, and along with it I would feel pure terror or sometimes not know where I was or what I was doing for no reason at all. At one point I was talking to a family member, and then suddenly I didn't recognize her at all and felt terrified in that moment. I feel trapped in my mind and body and I feel like I have nowhere to go and no one to reach out to. I don't trust my family at all because they are the main source of my childhood trauma. I also had this really weird and confusing thing happen on vacation that I do not understand at all and I don't know who is safe to talk to about it with. I have no idea who I am or who the real me is. I am so confused all the time. I really just need someone to talk to who is educated on dissociation and help understanding what is going on.

I've start reading books for 2 years now. I've never felt so bad and fake. It seems it's not even my body anymore

Reposting this from r/weed since automod took it down, so I'm not sure if this fits here exactly but I'm stressed and hoping somewhere will have an answer.

Me and some friends hung out on Wednesday the 12th, it's Sunday the 16th now. It was me and my sibling's first time smoking, and the guy who brought the weed brought medi. We all got extremely high halfway through the day, fucked around for a good 6 hours before we went to bed.

Next day I'm tired and feeling some aftereffects. It's the day after, I didn't sleep well, I don't think much of it. Then the day after, I still don't feel right, but now I'm starting to get freaked out.

It's been 4 days since I got high now, and I just don't feel like I've returned to normal. I'm tryna stay calm about it, since the other two I smoked with are just fine, and the guy who brought the stuff says it's happened to him before and it WILL go away, but it's so hard not to stress.

I want to say it's gotten slightly better since Friday, 2 days after I got high, but I genuinely can't be sure.
It's a sensation of not being real, like I never fully woke up today. Kind of like the dreamlike state of being as high as I was without any of the fun. My body feels off, maybe detached, like I'm spectating. I feel a lot more like my brain than my body.
It's hard to put into words, but I hope that does it justice. I can function, I just don't feel like myself doing so, and it's causing me immense distress.

Is this normal? Any idea what it actually is?? WILL it go away?

Experienced ego dissolution last night. I went a little too heavy and the walls (and everything) turned too mushy putty and I melted into the universal consciousness.

The onset was kind of like seeing the exterior of objects like a cellophane veneer, like old school 8mm film. I was cross faded with an indica strain so I laid down and when my consciousness dipped towards sleep I could feel myself separate from my physical self/awareness. The more this occurred it was like I was melting into a white universal sea of light. Like computer code dissolving from the visible program into 1’s and 0’s and then fading away to nothing. I went back and forth for awhile, emerging back into my body and then back down into the sea. Think of those plastic wrap dip pools where they submerge bike parts and they come out painted with whatever weird design from the wrap, except my entire personhood and lived experiences, relationships, and responsibilities where the weird design.

It wasn’t an unpleasant experience although I did have moments of stress when I didn’t know which way to go and whether or not I would return to my life. There was absolutely nothing fearful about going into the sea. I didn’t want to leave my family though and made the intentional decision to stay.

I know that regardless I was going to wake up as myself, but as someone who struggled with s* ideation, this desire to inhabit my life was an important one.

Anyway, the walls are back to normal sheetrock and I’m firmly situated in my physical body. I don’t feel the desire to keep chasing a high that has been driving me.