Long-term depersonalization (20 years), severe symptoms and self-harm thoughts — looking for people with similar experiences.
I have been suffering from DP/DR for 17 years now, and last Saturday I just felt totally defeated and broken. Somehow I started to ask AI for help, (Gemini if that matters) but any other of the big ones will do I'm sure.
I have sat for almost a week just asking and asking, about this and that, been talking about old traumas etc. It then started learning me about "ACT" (acceptance and commitment therapy) and I've started to understand myself completely. But as soon as I forget something or have a question, I go back to it, like a 24/7 psychologist, to see that I'm on the right path, reporting in on my experiences, asking for guidance through it.
I don't want to give you false hopes now by telling you my own progress, but it has been soo helpful to me this far, that I just have to tell others who's struggling with DPDR.
I don’t knkw what flair to add but I feel like I’m crazy and im really scared.
I don’t know much about either depersonalization or derealization but my psychologist said I have similar symptoms when I last saw her. She said she thinks it might be stress induced but I haven’t been stressed about anything more then usual, I had a really rough time with mid exams (im still in school) but that was ages ago and it was happening in really small periods before.
It kinda started bad when I started birth control but I stopped that after the first week as it was making me manic but I’ve noticed that ive kinda had some symptoms before that such as not feeling real or like not knowing who I am.
I have autism so I’m not sure if that factor kinda influences the not understanding who I am but I just don’t know what im supposed to compare myself to, to know what I’m actually feeling and I feel like I keep having to tell myself im real and alive.
Im really scared about this and I don’t feel real, like I can talk and do stuff but it’s not me doing it and I feel like I can’t actually make any decisions fot myself. I can’t describe it i dont even knkw whag im feeling and it makes me feel like throwing up all the time. It feeling like im viewing everything through like one of those GoPro videos and everything looks small and I can’t think straight, for example I sat a test on human bio (my best subject im the top of my class and I don’t find it hard, averaging around 80-90%) and I ended up getting a 53%, I studied everything we had learnt in class and it felt like an easy test like I wrote so much for each question and I felt like I fully understood everything being asked. The same had been for my other subjects but I wasn’t as worried coz I don’t try as hard for those ones but it was still a drastic decrease.
I don’t know if those are even the symptoms but at this point I don’t even know what my symptoms are im just writing this hoping im getting what I’m feeling right. I don’t feel like myself, im not usually a very emotional person it’s usually just masking from being autistic and I handle things very well but i feel like I’m in someone else’s skin or like broken or like something is missing and im so emotional and won’t stop crying.
I’ve written all this but I don’t know how I have I don’t understand anything or how literally anything works like not just reading but I don’t understand the foundations or how to be alive or see or how I am here but not being all technical but just nothing makes sense and I don’t understand what things are (being from music, furniture, organisms, minerals) and I don’t understand how im writing this this doesn’t feel like me
Any answers wpuld help, even if it’s not an actual answer but I want someone to respond so I knkw someone real has seen this
I was on a walk with my mom and we come back at nigh 11 pm, and we enter our courtyard and the card we have sits a few meters from where my dad usually keeps it, whatever and i suddenly look at it and it IS NOT MY car, ours is horter -this one is long and older and may i even say uglier, i was speechless, i tell mom this is not the car, i cant recognize it and shes laughitng abnd being like yes thats it, we had it for 10 years and yes the time matches , but the car how it looks IT IS NOT, i feel like im going crazy, i can swear this one looks like an older model, longer, the doors now have locks...that one didnt have locks (like older models to put keys)- it feels like im going crazy.. please someone..im 22 i never had such things happen..i dont undertsand anything...and eveyrhting else looks the same, nothing feels difefrent EXCEPT THE DAMN car , and i know its different bcz i never liked long cars, so i liked ours...
I keep experiencing on and off scary feelings of Impending doom, life/me not feeling real, and I just feel really scared and exhausted. I do have depression anxiety and autism so I’m hoping it’s just that as I know depersonalisation/derealisation happens as brains way of coping with stress/anxiety’s etc. But it’s just making me more stressed and my health anxiety can’t help but think somethings wrong with my brain/brain tumour or I’m slowly dying/loosing my mind I’m terrified. It keeps happening multiple times a day and I just want to live my life normally again and yeah I am on 50mg of sertraline so I think I might need to up the dose maybe that will help
Everyday for the entire day it feels like a nightmare, I wake up, open my eyes, and immediately feel like my existence gets stuck in a tunnel. Everything feels 2d and I'm scared that I'm hallucinating everything, almost like a Boltzmann brain. I feel 100% detached from the world, I'm scared this is a simulation and I'm the only real person. I don't know what I am, where I am, what this is, I feel completely lost. I am so scared of existing and death, there is no safe space. I'm scared this is a simulation because then when I die someone can just unplug it and I will be gone forever, completely erased.
It seems like society is all zombies just working all day, watching shows, achieving "goals" that mean nothing, but I do the same thing, so what is there to do? Even if everyone was "real" in the sense that they have a consciousness, they aren't. If there isn't a "soul" or a "god" then we are all just chemicals, atoms and neurons, and whatever other materialistic things that make up the universe. Love, feelings, happiness, thoughts, aren't real. They are just chemicals and atoms. We are all "zombies"
Which would then mean everything that I feel isn't real either which makes me feel empty and alone, I want things to be real. I wish I could feel like everything's okay but I don't. And I truly think it is. I wish god was real or some type of creator with good intentions but all religion seems man-made. I don't know anything and nobody does, all I can feel is fear.
I'm scared of death and I'm scared to live, to exist or not to exist is terrifying. As I'm writing this I feel completely detached, I'm confused and scared. It feels like some distorted movie that I'm looking at. I don't feel like I'm experiencing it - it's just happening. It feels so surreal that I can see anything, and I am existing at this very moment. I wish I knew what I'm experiencing but I don't have an answer, I wish someone had an answer. I'm scared of the universe when I die what's going to happen, just nothing forever? I don't want to be nothing forever, but I don't want to be something forever, forever is terrifying. Everything seems scary and I don't know what I want.
That whole text above is what I wrote in my journal - that's how I feel.
For backstory, I've had these thoughts since I was 10. I started thinking about death and the universe and I started freaking out, this lasted for around 6 months. I was put on Zoloft and I was on it for 5 years until this year, 8 months ago I stopped it cold turkey,
I read that it affected height, and I'm short which also has something to do with my depression and isolation. This whole year I've been home all the time, I don't go to school, barely see friends, I've basically been bed rotting the past year.
The Zoloft helped for 2 years, although when I think back I was still scared of everything, and I don't know when my dpdr started. But I think it really went downhill last summer I smoked weed for the first time with my cousin and had a panic attack, I thought I was going to die, my chest was warm, my body got tingly, and that started another existential problem for me. It then feels like a blur since then.
Around a month and a half ago I was up all night, I drank an energy drink and I was standing in the living room with my mom and I thought how I felt so disconnected from everything, I went back to my room and my heart rate went to the sky, I had a crazy panic attack, went to the ER, and ever since then it's been getting worse and worse.
I went to a new psychiatrist 2 weeks ago he prescribed me Prozac, hydroxyzine, and propranolol, when I went to the ER they told me I had an irregular heartbeat and I read online I shouldn't take those medications while on it. So everyday I was checking myself, my heart would feel weird, I would freak out, and go to the ER. I've been to the ER twice since I had the panic attack 2 months ago.
I'm scared I'm going to lose my mind, my uncle and grandpa both had schizophrenia, I'm scared that the weed might have brought it out and I'm becoming schizophrenic. I just started therapy 2 weeks ago, I'm not sure what kind of therapy and if he specializes in cases like mine. I want to switch therapists.
I also see videos on TikTok that freak me out, like an illuminati conspiracy theory and all the comments are talking about how we're in a simulation, I saw one video that used science and a study to prove that we're in a simulation and that still stuck with me. There's more I could write but this is getting wayyy too long, I just need help, I'm very scared and very confused.
I'm outside and it feels like I have brain damage, I'm completely detached, I feel like I'm forgetting things, I feel like I'm half conscious, I don't know what's going on
Last year I lost almost 13-15 kg in 15 days since than I am getting thinner day by day and everyone from my teacher to friends parents and even shopkeeper near my house pointed that am i unwell and my family just to eat well I can't eat properly like I am from middle class family so I can afford good protein reach food and also I am feeling so lonely these days like no one really cares about me I don't have reliable friends and my 3 friend and I got separated last clas so I can't make friends in new class so I sit lonely alone for some reason I have not went to school for 60 days and I have to caught of to class mates or I will fail but problem is for financial problems I can't get my self books and book have changed so new tutorials are not on yt also I feel like so stressed out I am 15 and like skeleton can't do push up and I can't do squirts either what should I do :(
im 24 gonna turn 25 on 3rd july and i feel like life is completely passing me by i am mostly having this same routine every single day office home home office nothing ever changes anymore im skipping meals cuz eating alone just feels like a chore and i end up just drinking water and going to bed i got no girlfriend and honestly nobody has ever looked at me that way i got few friends but everyone makes excuses they show theyre busy but theyre not i see them hanging out on social media later without me so basically having no friends but more enemies at this point people at work just whisper when I walk past i cant sleep on time but i wake up at 7 am by default even on weekends my body just forces me to be awake to experience more of nothing i spend my saturdays staring at the ceiling watching the shadows move across the wall my phone only vibrates when the battery is low or a spam bot messages me i forgot what it feels like to have someone ask how my day was or to actually look forward to tomorrow pls tell me if this is normal or if im just broken because it hurts so much just existing like this
Does this happened or have this happened with anyone else
Hi everyone,
I’m a 28-year-old female and I’m looking to see if anyone has gone through something similar because I’m honestly scared and feel like I’ve become a different person.
A little background:
I’ve always been a very emotional person. If I heard about something sad happening, I would cry. If a family member got hurt or sick, I would immediately panic and worry. I would get excited about trips, my jewelry business, working out, or even watching movies.
Over the past several weeks (after my week of a full blown migraine attack), something changed.
The headaches themselves are much better than they were at the beginning. They aren’t full-blown migraines anymore—it’s more of a mild pressure or light headache most days—but emotionally I don’t feel like myself.
The biggest thing is this overwhelming emotional numbness.
For example:
My dad was in a car accident, and I felt almost nothing emotionally.
My grandpa was hospitalized, and I knew I cared, but I couldn’t actually feel the emotions.
I can still feel anxiety, nervousness, and sadness to some extent, but excitement is almost gone.
I don’t really care about things I used to look forward to.
I want to start working out again, but I don’t feel motivated because nothing feels rewarding.
When I watch videos or hear emotional stories, I know they should affect me, but it’s like there’s a disconnect between my brain and my emotions.
The weird part is that I don’t necessarily feel depressed. I still want to get better. I still care about my family logically. I still have goals. It’s just like my emotions are muted.
Some additional information:
The headaches started after what seemed like a migraine cycle.
They’ve improved a lot, but this emotional blunting hasn’t.
I’m very sensitive to medications.
I haven’t started my prescribed migraine preventive medication because I’m worried about side effects.
Sleep is okay most nights.
No recreational drugs or alcohol recently.
I’m wondering:
Has anyone experienced emotional numbness during or after migraines?
Could this be part of migraine recovery?
Has anyone had headaches cause derealization, emotional blunting, or feeling disconnected from their own emotions?
Did your emotions eventually come back?
If this happened to you, how long did it last?
I’ve been really worried because I don’t feel like myself anymore, and I’d love to hear if anyone has experienced something similar.
Thank you for reading.
Feeling my whole body is has like magnet like senstjon and heavy dont feel sensory good stimuli
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Feel like I have a ballloon being pumped up
Its 247
Please help me if you have had anything similar to this. Im 23 and I've had this for as long as I can remember. My biggest problem isn't just anxiety or overthinking—it's that I'm constantly aware of my own awareness.
Instead of simply doing things, I become aware that I'm doing them. If I'm thinking, I notice that I'm thinking. If I'm talking, I become aware of my own voice and the words I'm saying. If I'm looking in a mirror, I'm not disturbed by my reflection—I become intensely aware that I'm perceiving myself, and that feeling itself becomes distracting and uncomfortable.
During conversations, I sometimes focus more on the fact that I'm speaking than on what I'm trying to say. It's like the "person speaking" becomes more noticeable than the thoughts I'm trying to express, so forming natural sentences becomes difficult.
I also had this as a child. When I was asked to read aloud in class, I often couldn't understand what I had just read because my attention was occupied by the act of reading and hearing my own voice instead of processing the meaning.
The same thing happens during sports. Instead of naturally focusing on the ball or the game, I'm aware of myself playing—my posture, my movements, how I'm about to hit the ball. I never feel completely immersed in the activity. It often makes me feel self-conscious and unnatural.
Strangely, this almost disappears when I'm deeply engaged in a difficult cognitive task, like solving a challenging math problem. In those moments I don't think, "I'm solving this problem." I simply solve it. For a while, I feel mentally free and fully absorbed in what I'm doing.
My mind also has a constant internal narrator. I don't just have thoughts—I often "hear" them in words, almost like I'm silently explaining everything to someone else inside my head.
This isn't really about worrying about what other people think of me. It's more like my attention automatically turns inward, and I become aware of my own thinking, perceiving, and acting instead of simply experiencing the outside world. That's the part I find exhausting and disruptive.
Weed made me literally another person, I became dumber and changed a lot of my views in life. It’s like the old me is gone, I been trying to think what can I do to be the same as before I try to imitate myself from the past. I don’t even know how to act really, I’m stuck thinking if people gonna realize that am I a lot different. For context I’m 20 years old and smoked like 2 months ago. I just some different point of views on what I should do or what someone did to become myself again. “I am not asking for medical advice.
TLDR:
- do other people with dissociation use lanyards /physical signifiers that they have a disability
- If i use a sunflower lanyard i feel like i’ll be misusing it as i’m not using it for accomodation reasons (except perhaps it might help people be more patient when i’m struggling ?) , more i want to use it to see if it improves fatigue caused having to pretend to be not mentally ill.
- do other people who dissociate and don’t have autism dissociate due to sensory input, find it hard to emote or control their expressions when dissociating, and experience difficulty talking / become nonverbal. Trying to figure out whether these are normal dissociation things or not :’)
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I’m currently trying to convince myself it’s okay to use a sunflower lanyard and was wondering if anyone else who struggles with dissociation uses a sunflower lanyard or any other physical indicator that they have a disability?
I have had chronic dissociation for almost 10 years and it’s completely changed how i think, function and relate to people. I think a part of me thinks i function quite well so why do i need the lanyard? I don’t want extra help/support. I know dissociation can be debilitating for allot of people, but personally i feel my dissociation is around because my brain knows i need to be high functioning despite the negative things in my life.
However another part of me thinks maybe it would help take some pressure off. Sometimes i find socializing incredibly tiring due to brain fog /dissociation, my brain literally can’t keep up with people without incurring extra fatigue, and the fatigue and dissociation can make it hard to even attempt to emote normally because i’m trying to mask the fact that i feel weird and tired and my brain is struggling. I also find loud environments trigger dissociation and brain fog, verbal instructions can be hard for me, and i can be quite slow communicating sometimes.
I don’t necessarily need help from people, how i exist currently is fine, but I don’t like feeling like i have to “pretend to be normal”, and hide my cognitive issues, it’s so so tiring, but i don’t think that’s the point of the lanyards. I do sometimes dissociate to a degree that is worrisome and makes me quite vulnerable to other people if they were to have ill intent, and it can shut down my ability to communicate either partially or fully, but that’s not frequent, but i guess it would help to have the lanyard with some cards on to explain to people that i have lost my thinking and communication skills temporarily.
Unrelated but do other people also dissociate like this ? I talked to a GP about my dissociation a while back and they said it sounded more like autism causing dissociation than just dissociation by itself :’) i haven’t given it much thought because i just assumed this was typical dissociation but if non autistic people don’t dissociate like this maybe i should look into it.
For context - sunflower lanyards are used to signify to people you have a hidden disability, i think it’s often used for people with conditions like autism, learning disabilities, pots or seizures so they can access accommodations easier or get help when needed either in an every day sense, like if you’re in a shop or school or airport, or if they are having a lapse in their health it can help people understand that they have a disability and how to help them. I don’t know if they’re used so much by people with mental health issues tho, which is not to suggest they shouldn’t be, i just haven’t heard of it before.
Has anyone experienced depersonalization post-break up? If so, what was it like and how did you cope with it?
For me, it comes on when I feel an overwhelming emotion(like sadness or confusion). My nervous system feels like it freezes and my fingers and toes start to tingle, so nothing I touch feels real.
Wondering if anyone has had a similar experience and what’s helped.
i’ve been taking accutane for almost 4 months now on a low dose of 20 mg. before accutane, i’ve never really had any diagnosed mental illness, im a very anxious person, very sad in general and have felt some random waves of derealization here and there but not like this.
about a few weeks after starting accutane i felt like i had already completely lost myself. it felt like i had no control over me, my actions, what i was saying and doing and everything felt like a dream and i was just living on command. i felt lifeless and like i couldn’t feel any of the good and happy emotions but all of the bad emotions were completely heightened.
but it’s not just that and idk if it’s just me but mt eyes are CONSTANTLY very always watery, i can start crying at any moment (i never used to cry) everything seems blurry, and i can’t remember stuff like my memory is being very severely affected i can’t remember more short term stuff but it’s scary.
i still don’t know if these feelings of derealization/depersonalization are connected to or caused by the accutane but i feel like smth is completely messing with my head.
if anyone else experienced smth like this pls help i don’t know what to do
Im so tired of this. I keep waking up to a blank mind. My inner monologue vanished (the voice you hear to those people who have inner monologues and it stopped for you, it cut out my way of understanding, remembering and analyzing) idk what to do anymore. Life has been so tough i cant move and think properly everytime i wanna socialize its blank and it wasnt like this b4
So… 5 years ago now I overdosed reallllyyy hard in December. It’s left me with long lasting PTSD and I don’t think I’ll fully get over it. Like mentally I feel like I’m over it but like it just spirals sometimes lmao.
So… it was about 2:30 PM on an either a Thursday or Friday. I was in class high off my ass, like usual for me back then, BUT today was different… I brought a shit ton of pills I had never done before and decided to mix all of them together. I don’t suggest that chat… does not end very well. (DRUGS ARE BAD IN GENERAL PLS BE SAFE) but blah blah blah**.** So I was in class and I started feeling something. It felt amazing but just as the amazingness felt the random feeling of doom kicked in.
After this… I ended up having a lot of things happening to me. Seizures, think I flat lined at one point… and hallucinating (the worst part imo). The last thing I remember happening before coming back to reality was me pushing myself away from a desk. It was completely furnished and looked like your regular ol’ gaming station you’d have in your mid to late 20’s. I had pushed myself away from a screen that said “Game Over” on it in that old school 90s blocky text…
Ever since then, around the same time the OD happened, I would get this mild sense of derealisation but it would always go away within a month or two at the most. It had been almost 6 months since it hit me the first time and this shit just hasn’t gone away. Talked to my therapist, doctor, everyone and they all say “Oh it goes away eventually” and I say “Oh that’s some bull shit”.
Like… it’s to the point where I’m genuinely feeling mentally numb. And when it gets kinda bad I even feel physically numb… like I would slap myself and not even feel it… Hell I was half tempted to try smoking weed again but I’ve read that could make things worse :(
All day, every day. If im awake, im dp'ing. I hate every second im alive, i just want to be normal again. How do i stop this
I’m 24m, and I have been dissociated/ disconnected from myself for a long time now. Every experience I have feels distance and far.
I can’t focus, I can’t feel, and I can’t stay present. I feel like a walking ghost half the time and I find it incomprehensible that people perceive me as an actual person. I’m starting school in the fall and I’m afraid the dissociation will ruin the future I have lined up for me.