r/derealization

this feeling of dread and impending doom is taking over me—i’ve constantly had this dream-like feeling. when my day ends, and it’s night—i feel like i just woke up 1 hour ago, “how is it night already?”

i came back from a 1-day trip, and i’m laying in bed right now, and i can’t process anything. its like it NEVER happened. i know it did, of course, but it feels like it.

i dont wanna die. i dont want time to pass without me feeling anything. this dream-ish state of mine is really messing with me.

The dream-like state started after this; 20-ish days ago, i was laying in bed, using my phone. i decided to annoy my mother, and while doing so—i accidentally dropped my heavy phone, and its corner hit me on the temple of my head. ow. but, yeah, the dream-like state and sleep anxiety started after this. idk if its called a temple, its the soft part on the side of everyone’s head. sleep anxiety also started after this.

a month or two ago, i felt like i had this heart problem, i was so insistent on it. i cried myself to sleep every night over it. my parents knew it was just a muscle pull. we went to a doctor—it was indeed just muscle pull and acid refelux.

PS: i have high anxiety—sleep anxiety comes along with it. I also get panic attacks. i’m 16.

I feel soo much detached from reality. I had a very heavy masturbation habit as a child. I started around about 7 ish and indulged in masturbation every single day until 20. I ejaculated everyday since age 9.

I haven't done any drugs

All I did was masturbation every single day as a kid. I ejaculated numerous times.

I feel soo detached that I'm sure I've ruined ny mind / brain. I feel I'm not part of this life.

I'm soo scared. I haven't been abused or anything I just feel detached.

hello im male 20 yo and i took a 10 mg indica edible almost 3 weeks ago (19 days ago) and kinda panicked when it peaked after an hour when i was in public, went to my friend's house where it peaked for 2 hours, rested up, went to an edm concert, and still feel the drunk feeling ever since. it was the first day of my internship the next day and i felt like everything was either far/near to me - and i wasn't really the best at communicating with people. i couldn't find the right word to what i want to convey to people alot and it's pissing me off because it's my dream to work in business administration that involves talking to people.

up to now, i still have the said feeling, and i def feel it more when i'm at the desk in my internship. for the past few days its been hella less tho. im worried that i lost some cognitive abilities and i feel like i fucked up my future. i recently was admitted to a top university as a budiness major (which requires public speaking ofc) and i feel like im dumbed down right now lmfao. however, i am still able to function normally - the past weeks, i've gone on a mini hike, beach with friends, laughed with friends, practiced for my driver's license, wrote essays at my internship, etc. i also went to LA and Vegas with my family and I’m still able to function normally—there’s just that fucking haze that lingers. it's also important to note that i feel like myself and i still feel the same love towards my family and friends. idt ive ever had a panic attack either.

although it got better for the past few days i def still have an annoying mf brain fog. i lurked the r/ dpdr and saw ppl have it for months and years and its scaring tf out of me. ive drank liquid iv and idk if that helps. also, it wasn't my first time taking edibles (third time - felt the same kind of high before when i took the same kind of edible and it gradually disappeared after a few hours. i also use hybrid carts occassionally.) any advice? ik i shouldn't lurk but is there anything really i can do? i was also prescribed wellbrutin for weight loss but idk if i should take it.

i try not to focus on it too much but the brain fog pisses me off because i know im confident when it comes to public speaking.

This weird feeling I can't explain. When I'm outside it feels like I'm still inside and the sun is one giant electric light lighting up all the static objects around me. I feel like I'm living in some sort of simulation, or like I'm living in an underground bunker that is made to appear as the outside world but really isn't. Feel weirdly disconnected from people, to put it bluntly it feels as if they're all NPCs and not conscious. I barely feel like a human myself. It's almost as if reality is slipping away from me. I wonder if the world was always like this, but I’m just beginning to develop awareness of it being what it is? I mean nothing makes sense. This world doesn't make sense, living doesn't make sense. Nothing has any purpose. It's not distressing but it's very frustrating being here when you don't understand why you're here and everything seems like one giant joke

I deeply apologize if this is hard to read, the brain fog makes it really hard to type well and formulate my sentences.

A couple months ago I was in an EXTREMELY stressful relationship. Every day was constant pain and worry. Some time in the middle of it I started feeling off. Over the next couple weeks it progressively got worse and worse. Things started feeling unreal around me and it was scary. By the time the relationship ended (some time in may I think) things felt incredibly unreal and it’s very anxiety inducing. My brain is very foggy and I’m not sharp like I used to be. I can’t play certain games anymore because all my skill and brain power is gone. My sense of time is also really weird and my memory is completely fucked. Everyday blends together and I can never tell how long ago certain events occurred. I miss what it was like to feel normal. I’m very very young and it has ruined my life.

If this doesn’t go away then I would rather die. I hate it so much and I want my old life back. I read up on it and I believe the intense stress from the relationship caused it. I hate myself for not ending it sooner. God that shit was hard. I really hate this and hope my brain can go back to normal. If anyone has any advice PLEASE give it to me.

For me I’d go how to disappear completely by Radiohead

I have schizophrenia, I knew the risks.. I wish I listened. It opened a portal I can’t close. I was already suffering from this and it only made it so so so so much worse. I can’t ignore or make this go away. I can’t unknow what I knoww.

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

The weekend of June 20-21, I (M18) smoked w my then gf at a park, using a pen. Then the next day, Sunday, I smoked a blunt with my brother. Ever since then, I’ve slowly been getting those quick flashes where I feel like I’m detached from reality.

Fast forward to today, I’m out with my friend who happens to be a smoker. I see him use a pen, and I suddenly get that feeling again. I didn’t even inhale anything, I simply saw him take a puff. And ever since then, it’s been coming back.

Was I laced or smth 😭😭 why did it mess me up this bad. I was going good for a few days, maybe a week, without feeling this way. But suddenly just simply SEEING someone smoke makes it start again? Is this purely psychological?? Is there any way to help this??

I lowkey shouldn’t have done it w bad anxiety.

Consumi marihuana desde los 16 años casi 17, el primer año casualmente poco a poco fui subiendo hasta terminar consumiendo todos los días, casi 5 años diariamente, a los 23 años tuve una enfermedad llamada influenza tipo A, a raíz de eso la dejé por una semana aproximadamente, al querer volver a fumar un domingo, creo que me excedí y me dio un ataque de pánico relacionado a mi enfermedad yo creía que me estaba quedando sin respirar porque se me había inflamado la garganta, entonces a raíz de eso pensé en ir dejándola definitivamente, después de este acontecimiento fui al hospital como 5 veces llegando con la misma preocupación de que no podía respirar (todo me salía normal ) algunas veces mis ataques me daban sin fumar y otras cuando fumaba, en ese tiempo solo fumaba wax ya que creía que no me hacía tanto daño en la garganta, a raíz de ese episodio pasé como 1 mes y medio obsesionado con mi respiración, sentía que no podía respirar automáticamente, también tenía sensibilidad a la luz pero más que todo la obsesión con la respiración, gracias a Dios pude superar ese mes y medio y progresivamente fui saliendo de eso ya sin fumar nada, cuando yo me regreso a casa de vacaciones, ya Tenía como 10 días de estar funcionando normal y 2 meses y días aproximadamente limpio sin fumar y por esa razón, estaba de vacaciones y eso, opté por darme un respiro disfrutar la vida nuevamente, los primeros días me la pasaba jugando videojuegos, volví a tomar, sali de fiesta como tres veces en menos de dos semanas, y empecé una dieta para bajar de peso algo fuerte, a los 5 días de haber estado de vacaciones empiezo a notar que mi sensibilidad a la luz había vuelto, también noto que mis ganglios estaban un poco inflamados, entonces me comencé a preocupar de nuevo esta vez pensando que tenía alguna enfermedad grave, cabe destacar que otra vez la última vez que salí de fiesta al otro día amanecí con la sensibilidad a la luz peor y de nuevo la nubleza mental, así he pasado como un mes, hasta hace unos 10 días que empecé a sentirme como en un sueño, sin sentimientos, al principio solo me preocupaba estar teniendo alguna enfermedad grave, luego me aparecieron videos de esquizofrenia síntomas y eso y me obsesione nuevamente, me sugestione, a tal punto que no tengo delirios, ni veo cosas, ni escucho cosas, pero por ratos si me asusto pensando que estoy quedando loco y también siento que las cosas se menean raro, también sigo con sensibilidad a la luz no puedo enfocar, entonces pueden realidad no se si puede ser posible que si esté en esquizofrenia o se deba a algo que me dejó el uso excesivo de la marihuana, aún sigo en síntomas

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

I only smoked 4 or 5 times ever but still got derealization and I never greened out or anything so if stop now would it go away? If not what can I do to make it go away

I get this overwhelming feeling like I’m severed from Earth and my surroundings. It’s almost like there’s a wall between me and everyone else. Sound feels muffled and I can’t easily understand words like I suddenly don’t speak English. My thoughts don’t feel like my own and everything around me feels wrong somehow. My family feels weird like in a creepy movie or video game. I get quite anxious and I don’t want to speak. One word answers feel exhausting. All my brain wants to do is stare at things. I feel empty inside and I can’t feel anything other than anxiety.
It’s kinda freaky but I don’t know if it’s actually DR/DP or something else.

For context, I’m an 18 year old guy who had never done weed in his life. About 5 days ago I bought a weed brownie off a vendor during a trip to CDMX. I took maybe 1/4th of it, and got very high and ended up throwing up. I think I greened out(?), anyways, about 2 days after, I developed what I’m almost certain I’d derealization, the feeling of existing in the third person, as if I’m wearing a vr headset or something and everything was fake and I felt like a ghost yadayadayada

Anyways it’s been about 5 days and it has not gone away. It comes in phases and usually lasts around 30 min to an hour and happens maybe every 2-3 hours?

I’m just wondering how long this is going to last because I feel like I am going insane and idk if I can go through this n much longer it is truly the worst feeling I’ve ever felt in my entire life. The feeling of feeling that nothing is real is terrifying.

I am just extremely terrified as I’ve heard stories of it lasting YEARS and I have no idea how much THC was in that brownie (I think 1.5 grams??) and I don’t know if I can go through this for much longer it is a terrifying thought and a horrible expirence please help nobody in my life is giving me a straight answer and I am very scared thank you

So I am 17 years old and have been experiencing 24/7 derealization for 2 and a half years now. I have tried so many things such as certain medications, meditation, grounding excersizes, and so on. I’ve also tried to ignore and accept it and it got me nowhere. I don’t know what to do now and life absolutely sucks because of it. It’s affecting relationships, school, others around me, and more. Please let me know how I can fix this and get out of it.

Hi everyone. I'm 18f and I've noticed a very specific pattern with my DPDR.

Every month, about 7 days before my period starts, my DPDR gets much worse. Then during my period, it stays really intense. So for around 2 weeks every month I feel much more disconnected and unreal.

Along with that, my anxiety and panic get much worse too. I also become very sensitive to light and sound, and I feel dizzy. Once my period ends, everything gradually starts improving again until the next cycle.

My periods are regular, and this same pattern happens every single month.

Has anyone else experienced DPDR that gets significantly worse before and during their period? Did you find out if it was related to hormones, anxiety, migraines, or something else? I'd really appreciate hearing your experiences because it makes me feel like I'm the only one dealing with this.

Last year around this time i got high for the very first time with some freinds. I had tried it before but only in “pen’s” and would do a very minimal amount so i would barely feel anything. But i had decided to try gummies and have a pen at the same time. I had felt great until we got back to my freinds cottage and i started to trip out. I felt like i was seeing my world from a 3rd person perspective. I also had thoughts of “what’s a human” and “what am i doing here” etc. I couldn’t even function.

The day after i started to experience feeling like i wasn’t even real. I wish i never did it cause i haven’t been the same since. It’s also like i had finally been woken up in a sense, i finally realized that i am genuinely living a life and my brain hasn’t turned off since.

It’s been over a year now and i still don’t feel real. At social gatherings i get lost in thought, feeling like i have to do something in order to feel real but nothing helps. It also keeps me up at night, the thought of not knowing why i am here. I can sometimes try and not have anxiety or these thoughts but it doesn’t last for long.

I am wondering if anyone has any tips on how to deal/cope with derealization. I also haven’t seen a doctor for how i am feeling so i might just be self diagnosing.

Last night, friend and I took 2.5 tabs while the other friend was just smoking 🥦 with us. Right after we finished it, that same friend started to describe hallucinations that are similar to ours. Is it possible that he hallucinated because of placebo or is there an underlying mental issue that causes this? This is not the first time it happenes, it happenes almost every time we smoke and he seems to be unable to build tolerance.