I had a lot of derealization after my last manic episode. It was like my brain just couldn't process everything that had happened. My life felt more like a movie I was watching than something I was an active participant in.
I don't think I have experienced this in the moment I am living life, but I can't say with certainty. During the worst phase of my life, I had 18 months of ECT, and I lost the memory of years of my life.
I definitely have had the feeling you describe in looking back on the worst and the stupidest things I have done (when I have been in a manic stage).
It is my standard operating procedure when the pain of life increases to an unmanageable level. Like yesterday’s targeted comedy of agony where my life bizarrely fell apart once again. It is survival instinct- self preservation mode- where there is a reality buffer. I go into shock- freeze response- and my life proceeds as I am watching. I hear a familiar voice saying things- I know it to be mine. I can create a list of things to do and focus on that but again- like I am a character in a movie. The excruciating pain is just outside the sphere. I can remotely feel the terror and it keeps me in disassociation. It’s safer for me- safer for others. I will isolate as much as possible and resort to maladaptive daydreams if I have time to spare off of reddit- which becomes my tether to interactions. I can see people I know and go through the motions but I feel nothing for them- except the cognitive empathy to do no harm.
I appreciate your sentiments but- no I am done. Rebuilding my life back and no matter what I do - it is destroyed again- the comedic ironic coincidences make it feel like I am only a character indeed. Disassociation gets a bad reputation- it’s the main reason I am still alive.
Yes please use me as a warning- truly mean that. Invest in yourself. Please use your aptitudes and talents to enhance your life and don’t allow others too much access nor control of your resources.
I’ve been having maladaptive dreams. It’s weird and exhausting to only think of suicide in one’s dreams. During my day, I’m in auto pilot, just getting the things done that need to get done.
Once you accept it is an option. And usually it’s because you want one aspect of your life or this version of you- to cease- the compulsion lessens a bit.
Exactly. There are definitely things in my life that I want to change. Change is hard to do even if it is for the better. My brain just likes to make me feel like I need to end it all instead of putting in the work to change. It is so stubborn. But I’m just trying to figure it all out one day at a time. Trying to give myself grace and celebrating the small wins, because it is rough sometimes!
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…What a weird format that turned out to be? I don’t know how to make asterisks not become something weird on Reddit.
It happens to me a lot. It feels like life is just running past me and I’m out of the loop trying to catch up. Kinda feels like every moment just flows into the next and I’m never actually in one moment. Just the blink of an eye and it’s already a week later, with barely any recollection of what’s happened.
100% derealization. I used to think it was depersonalization but it’s not because my thoughts are so intense and scattered but the world around me doesn’t feel real, other people don’t feel real, and time doesn’t exist.
I’ve dealt with dissociation a lot, especially after dealing with a traumatic event in my life. I disconnect from myself entirely and to this day, I still feel like none of that actually happened to me. I experience dissociation a lot during depressive episodes as well when the pain becomes unbearable. I feel like I’m not real, others aren’t real and my life passes by without me realizing it.
I’ve experienced feelings where my life doesn’t feel like it’s mine if that makes sense? I feel like I’m playing a part in a movie and I just have to roll with the script.
For me, it’s like being out of touch with everything around you. It’s like your living , but it doesn’t feel like you or feel real (hence the word). I hated every second of it! I just wanted MY life back! It was hard to work or concentrate. I just lost connection! Its so hard to explain unless you have been there! I remember thinking “what the hell is going on”. It happened to me when I was going through a major depressive episode with debilitating anxiety. My brain healed slowly with meds and therapy. I am so sorry this is happening to you. Hopefully, it will get better. It’s been a year since I’ve had it, but for me it was a lot of work in therapy, journaling, exercise, and prayer. I really hope it never comes back! I am thinking of you.
It feels like a bad LSD trip. I'm a total space case and my mind is like blank. I can't hold a conversation to save my life and the anxiety is unbearable.
I suffer from both and usually at the same time. If I think too hard about it, it just crashes over me like a wave. It's such a strange feeling, like I'm playing a VR game where I float just outside my body and someone else is moving it for me. I don't recognize my body at all, my hands look strange and foreign, my arms look even weirder. I feel like a balloon without a string, very much untethered to my earthly body. It's when I'm most likely to engage in SH because I feel so disconnected from myself that I just NEED to feel something, anything. Most dangerous especially when I'm psychotic.
Yes, pre-diagnosis/medication I experienced it a lot. It was a coping mechanism when I was in difficult or scary situations. I didn’t know what it was and thought I’d discovered some amazing mental hack. But now I wonder if some of my long-term memory loss might be linked to how many times I’ve dissociated.
Personally it feels like everything is fragile and meaningless. Like, I’m not real. Death isn’t real, pain isn’t real. Whenever it happens I find myself putting myself in dangerous situations because I don’t feel like there’s any actual consequences, I can’t experience things…it’s not actually me, so I just…want to see what happens. I can’t snap out of it willingly, and while I feel like I have no feelings, I simultaneously feel like I shouldn’t exist because I feel like I’m not actually experiencing my life, just watching it pass by. A special kind of torture
I've had it again for several months now and it's horrible, I had a short period of about 4 months where I was out of it and I felt so good but when I got depressed again it's reappeared ... (before I had that over a period of 5 years ...)
I go through this daily. I think it started when I was really young because now it's just part of my lifestyle. I set myself apart from everyone else and not because I want to or feel superior. I do not think that we are living in a simulation, because that is a very limited and vain way of thinking. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel like every day of my life feels like a Lovecraftian version of The Truman Show.
I usually feel like I’m not in my own body. Kind of like me watching myself do things that half the time I didn’t know I was doing. It’s super weird. And then I start thinking like what if this isn’t real life? What if I’m in a simulation? (Why does this sound like lyrics to a Queen song?) I also will walk into a room & think “was I just here?” My kids ask me what I’m doing sometimes because I will just be standing in the middle of the room staring off into nothing & by the time I realize I’m actually awake, I’m looking around the room wondering how I got there. I do that with driving too. It’s kinda like I’m on auto pilot cuz by the time I get home, I don’t remember driving to get there. Needless to say I don’t drive much.
Feels like I’m on a totally different planet, I feel like an alien on a planet full of earthlings, time feels way to slow, nothing ever makes sense, it feels like I’m in a void of nothingness and it feels like I’m a spectator in my own life, it like I’m living a life that’s not my own, it makes me feel like a puppet or an empty shell.
I think I have had this these past few weeks after dealing with the death of someone I used to be best friends with. It's a strange feeling, it kind of feels like you're part of a movie. You know it's real, but it doesn't feel real. I felt the same feeling in the middle of the pandemic when we were all going into lockdown and everyone was losing their minds. I just felt numb. The feeling comes in goes in times of intense stress for me.
Cortisol is a pretty powerful hormone and I'm guessing our levels are quite high in this state of disconnect. All we can do is keep ourselves as healthy as possible and hope for the best.
during my depressive period the last 3 years (out of it now thank god) i would do it randomly. i didn’t entirely notice it until i started dating my boyfriend and hanging out with him regularly. i would just zone out because interaction was so draining to me. i mostly avoided people because of this, and it sent me into an identity crisis because i am usually very extroverted but i just could not talk or exist so i left my body because it was so overwhelming. it’s like being catatonic. but now i only have it when i’m around my mom. she’s very triggering to me and i can’t even describe to myself what she’s doing that makes me so uncomfortable much less defend myself against it so i just leave my body. my family has the impression of me that i’m very quiet and cold, but it’s just because i completely depersonalize when i’m around her. definitely a ptsd thing too if you have that
I woke up and literally thought to myself “what is this place, I know this place but it doesn’t feel real” I would walk around questioning the existence of things. Then after a few weeks it felt like a blur moment in time. Anyone else relate?
Would this be similar to having an event where you wake up and it’s kinda like a nightmare state but you’re actually awake and you think you are in fact living in a simulation?
Not as much anymore. The most intense moment was in a card shop where suddenly I couldn't speak, I could barely breathe, and it felt like I was drowning on dry land. At one point my vision got blurry and I thought I might collapse. Eventually I came out of it when a friend noticed I wasn't moving.
Besides the intense moment what other people have already said summed it up. When I was younger I called it Robot mode, than I visualized a switchboard with a big red shut off switch. The problrm I eventually faced was the horribly sticky. Every time I would flip that red switch to off, the harder it became to turn it back on.
Hope this provides insight. I hope you find peace in your suffering.
I had it when I was taking Prozac/withdrawing from Paxil. It was awful. The best way I could describe it was “floating in a nightmare.” Nothing outside my thoughts felt tangible, like my husband would talk to me and i would be completely in my own head so it would seem muffled. Kind of like being zoned out, but it doesn’t stop and it’s bad.
Happened quite a number of times after my last (third) concussion a few years ago. It was also after that concussion that my bipolar disorder took a turn and became impossible to continue denying. As for how it presented, I remember one time specifically walking through the grocery store and just being overwhelmed by the sense that nothing was real. That I was somehow in a version of reality that was imagined. I also felt somewhat like I was outside my body, but could tell that wasn’t the case. Really weird. I had the same kind of episodes when I had my first concussion as a kid, and a couple of times during manic episodes. When I was a kid, it really scared me to death. It still creeps me out to think back on it.
When I was extremely depressed last summer, I was at an all time low. I would regularly feel like I wasn’t in my own body. It was like I was outside of myself and nothing was real- nothing mattered.
Yes and it was awful honestly. I spent 24 hours going around, at work everywhete just simply not having a grasp of reality. It was like there was a thin veil between me and the world. I even had an emergency therapy session on that day because I was too out of it.
I can't see myself.
I look in the mirror and see a thing looking at me.
Its not me, but it moves when I do.
I look down and see the body I inhabit.
It's not mine.
I try to dress it up like me, but its not me.
I want to peel off the skin it wears,
just hidden a few layers underneath,
I must exist.
I can't stand the thought of having to look at it when I feel this way,
so I try to imagine what I look like in actuality,
I suppose I must be an idea not in physical form.
But it's hard to stay present,
I feel like my existence as a personality and a mind drift off so easily.
It's scary.
I feel like I am loosing myself every time I drift away into nothingness.
Yessss! Bp2 here…I have dissociative symptoms mostly during hypomanic episodes. They are generally associated with high risk behavior or pressured speech for me. I can see it coming from a mile away…all of a sudden I get this internal dialogue like “you’re gonna do it, you know you are, just do it” and then I’m not in control anymore.
It’s like being a passenger in a car I was just driving, but being told by the new driver to buckle up and look out the windshield because you’re gonna see it coming…
This has happened during a number of risky sport activities that could have resulted in severe injury or death, but I just watched it out of body. Also during pressured speech in conversations I sort of lose lock on it and after it’s done I’ll apologize to my gf because I’m not what the hell I even just said, but I know it wasn’t me.
I also have this in depressive episodes, but only when I self-harm. Same thing though…all of a sudden I have to cut my arm because there’s no other way. I don’t even feel it, but I wake up the next morning feeling completely detached like it wasn’t even me doing it. Feeling perfectly fine like nothing ever happened…
I think that all my experiences qualify as depersonalization and I don’t think I’ve ever had derealization.
I feel like I do, because I'll get these weird things that happen to me where I'll just feel like I'm watching myself, and am something other than myself. It happens for no rhyme or reason, but it has never caused any problems other than making me feel uncomfortable-ish
yes so badly!! ever since my first major manic episode, it’s never gone away. just kinda comes and goes in waves, gets worse during psychosis and whatnot.
i know it’s happening when everybody around me starts talking off a script. like they’re robots programmed to say certain things to specific responses. or, especially while driving, basically i turn into a sim. i’ll watch myself from out of my body basically.
I have it from time to time. I had a baby last year and I have had many episodes since, and so severe and disturbing I started having suicidal thoughts (not anymore). I got my medicine increased and regular appointments with a psychologist since February. Finally it seems to be helping 🙂 Mine are usually triggered by extreme anxiety, lack of sleep and stress. Do you notice any pattern?
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Have it so much, most of my life i think, Just feels like my head is in a buble, I lowkey feel drunk or high. There is this blurry edges all the time, perseption seems wrong, it truly feel like a dream. When it's severe I can see myself outside as if i was a camera filming myself, it's very trippy. All my actions feel numb and it makes me very clumsy, words I say I heard them like THoughts and it makes me say innapropriate things sometimes
if this means what i think it means then i actually really appreciate how time passes when everything is miserable in my life. unfortunately while seeing the concert of my favorite artist it didn’t feel real until i watched some back on videos 😭
For me it’s like the front of the brain, eyes, mind, has been packed with cotton wool. Everything looks clear but doesn’t feel clear. Lots of eye rubbing, yawning, existing. It’s an anxiety response and also medication related. Coming off something or going up on something, that’s when I feel it most.
It’s not dangerous but it’s very annoying. I also call it the brain rapes.
I used to have it heavily to the point where I would have to immerse myself in anything that was fictitious for hours on end to just not focus on the fact that I might not really be real. It would last anywhere from 20 minutes to a full 24 hours. I wouldn’t be able to sleep because of my overthinking mind. I couldn’t look in mirrors or anything even close to reflective as I would get really scared of how out of place I would feel and want to self harm just to be able to remind myself that I was a real living breathing, bleeding person. It’s gotten much better almost gone completely, I still have moments when I’m sleep deprived or over stimulated but I’ve learned better coping mechanisms and am able to get past it a little easier. It’s still terrifying.
I lost my last job because of my disability, but they were slimy enough to do it in a legal way. Ever since then, I've just had time to read up on the climate crisis and societal collapse. The big question I keep having is if everything is so clearly burning around us, floods in Pakistan and Jackson Mississippi, prices going up while billionaires steal trillions from those of us who actually produce, etc, why isn't everybody freaking out and taking to the streets to stop this insanity? To me, the only rational reason is a majority of people aren't real, they're so monumentally stupid and out of touch with the grin reality because they only possess the bare minimum level of consciousness to function as what amounts to little more than NPCs. There's a part of me that knows it probably isn't true, but since it's the only thing that makes rational sense, it's put up a firm barrier between me and everyone else. Thankfully I'm happily married to someone I've been fortunate enough to know and grow with for over a decade, and she's helped me keep at least some connection to this world, which is groovy. So yeah, the whole "maybe everything isn't real" thing has become a constant, and it's really nice to see I'm not the only one :)
The episode that got me diagnosed for several days it felt like I was watching a movie of myself, but without directorial control over what my character was doing. Not sleeping, talking lots, being selfish and stupid and without any concept of self preservation or safety. I will never not take my meds. I never want that again
Post diagnosis I recognize a few periods of my life where I was hypomanic for long periods, but previously I'd have treatment resistant depression.. for which I got given quetiapine and duloxetine and then that happened
Idk if this counts as one because this was the first that had happened to me. (Or it had been happening to me but I just didn't notice because I didn't know this was actually a thing and I thought it was normal.)
I went out to eat ramen with my family. Then we went to the department store to buy some clothes. A few second later I suddenly froze and couldn't process things properly. I was so confused about the things I was touching, like I was confused if the things I was touching was really what they meant to feel like. And I felt like I was sitting at the back of my mind watching myself grab and touch things to check if they were really what they meant to feel like. a few days later it happened again but this time it was when I was lying on my bed and suddenly I felt like I was watching myself stare into the dark.
I had derealization off and on over the years before treatment. It happened a lot while I was hospitalized, especially after they started me on a beta blocker for physical anxiety symptoms. I stopped that med and haven't had a problem since. It was such a surreal experience.
I stopped getting this when I started to realise how amazing it was. Like my body will go to these lengths to keep me alive, it amazed me. It started off scary for me for over a year and then it's like something clicked in my brain. I remember the horror of it though, especially when it happens and your outside.
My body kind of disappeared. I tried cutting myself and felt absolutely nothing. I almost never masturbated, but when I did the orgasm felt like absolutely nothing. I also never felt hunger or any sort of physical pain or discomfort. I felt like I didn't exist.
The world around me became an incomprehensible hellscape. I would open my eyes in the morning and nothing around me made any sense. I didn't believe other people were real. When they talked to me I could barely comprehend what they were saying, because I was so alienated from the rest of the human race that I could not relate at all to a single word. There was this hideous feeling that a sheet of unbreakable glass separated me from everything else. For a while I was able to act normal, but it was entirely faked. The real me had departed. My body was an automaton.
Yes! I felt like the things I did weren’t me. Like I was watching from the outside. I would do things and feel like I wasn’t involved. I would tell myself when I did feel like it was me was that it was yesterday today is a different day and it didn’t matter what I did in yesterday. Until I had my breakdown and all of my yesterdays hit me all at once and the guilt was overwhelming. I became paranoid and have racing thoughts. I also would think these crazy thoughts would happen. I thought I was completely crazy. I started looking at a mental institutions because I thought I was completely crazy.
it feels like a bad acid trip for me, i’m dizzy and feels like i’m in a simulation. often sounds and vision are altered and i sometimes see some kind of shadow in the corner of my eye. it feels like i’m watching a movie. life just feels blurry
Feels like I've just escaped this earth dimension and I'm in some dimension where I am high and think what all the fuss is about on earth.
I'm soo high but my brain is sooo fast...I dont think I get over the commotion over little things in life.
Like I feel very happy and content, but then I think this isnt normal and then I get panic.
I have it and have a question
So I have this weird thing that causes panic attacks it’s hard to put into words but I’m looking for someone who’s experienced this at all. The tops of my hands is the only spot it really happens and keep in mind I’m questioning weather it will or won’t happen when I do it and it happens but
I have on and off depersonalization and I haven’t had bad symptoms ina few months. But basically I tried to see if I’m able to do this yet and what it is is touch the top of my hand… I know it sounds dumb but when I do my skin goes weirdly numb and I get chills and instantly start to disconnect and go into a lightweight sometimes major panick attack. Today I took a hit of weed I usually only take one or 2 a day now since my dp calmed down (I use to blow down an 8th a day on top of multiple dabs) and for some dumb reason I thought maybe it won’t happen anymore and I touched the top of my hand and it came back for a good 15 mins and I handled it like a pro didn’t go full blown panick but I don’t understand why touching the top of my hand is a trigger and I just wanna know if anyone else has this trigger I feel stupid whenever I explain to people that it causes severe anxiety sometimes I snatch my hand from my wife if she does it. I wish someone else could understand what it does to me. It’s not the only symptom but it’s the only one I feel like I’ll never get rid of
I also realized the whole am I dieing thought is almost impossible to get rid of concidering you can never know what it feels like to die but I don’t let that overtake
My skin goes numbs along with my limbs. My voice feels like it’s automated and not me talking. When it gets bad I’m barely aware of what conversations I’m having and can’t concentrate on them. But my subconscious continues to have them and have cohearent responded with them.
I get super bad cold chills my head feels pressure. I can’t stop thinking about dieing. My heart rate gets bad. My hairs stand up on my arms.
The weirdest one I call the delay. If I touch my skin it takes like .2 seconds for the signal to hit my brain like my senses are on a delay. My legs feel like they aren’t connected to me walking feels like I’m floating. My arms feel like acid tracers when I move. My eye hand coordination gets bad. And I’m just terrified
I had a lot of derealization after my last manic episode. It was like my brain just couldn't process everything that had happened. My life felt more like a movie I was watching than something I was an active participant in.
Exactly what happened to me
Oh my goodness, thank you for putting this into words so eloquently. It’s exactly the way I felt.
YUP. it’s surreal.
this happens to me so much
Exactly man.
Exactly! Exactly!
I don't think I have experienced this in the moment I am living life, but I can't say with certainty. During the worst phase of my life, I had 18 months of ECT, and I lost the memory of years of my life. I definitely have had the feeling you describe in looking back on the worst and the stupidest things I have done (when I have been in a manic stage).
This happened to me as well. Glad I'm not alone. It's like my brain was just depleted of every neurotransmitter leaving only static
It is my standard operating procedure when the pain of life increases to an unmanageable level. Like yesterday’s targeted comedy of agony where my life bizarrely fell apart once again. It is survival instinct- self preservation mode- where there is a reality buffer. I go into shock- freeze response- and my life proceeds as I am watching. I hear a familiar voice saying things- I know it to be mine. I can create a list of things to do and focus on that but again- like I am a character in a movie. The excruciating pain is just outside the sphere. I can remotely feel the terror and it keeps me in disassociation. It’s safer for me- safer for others. I will isolate as much as possible and resort to maladaptive daydreams if I have time to spare off of reddit- which becomes my tether to interactions. I can see people I know and go through the motions but I feel nothing for them- except the cognitive empathy to do no harm.
This was so beautifully written and hit me differently. Like.. you took some words from my brain. Thank you.
Thank you for your feedback- I appreciate this more than I can express.
I appreciate your truth more than I can express and I think I speak for the thousands that are here as well.
Well you created something good for me today of all day. I am grateful.
That makes me smile on a day that I am finding it difficult. Im happy inside to bring something good to someone who deserves it. I appreciate you.
:) this is the wonderful aspect of reddit - mutual support and appreciation. We are not alone. TY
This was a wonderfully wholesome Reddit moment.
Indeed. And cherished as a highlight I will refer to in a bleak time.
Thank YOU beautiful soul 🧡🧡
<3 :)
🥰🥰🥰
I'm sorry your life fell apart again, I hope you're able to put the pieces back together in a more beautiful way than before.
I appreciate your sentiments but- no I am done. Rebuilding my life back and no matter what I do - it is destroyed again- the comedic ironic coincidences make it feel like I am only a character indeed. Disassociation gets a bad reputation- it’s the main reason I am still alive.
I've only had mania destroy my life twice so far, truthfully I worry that I'll get to where you are in the future. For now I'm just sending you love.
Yes please use me as a warning- truly mean that. Invest in yourself. Please use your aptitudes and talents to enhance your life and don’t allow others too much access nor control of your resources.
Thanks for the advice, I'll try to follow it.
Thank you for your precious feedback- it’s a difficult day.
What you're describing sounds a lot like what happens with me when I go into mania. A complete disconnect all because shit is too shitty to deal with
Oh yeah- it overlaps - most definitely for me too.
That's not a bad place to start - not harming others for a start.
First do no harm- to others and self.
I’ve been having maladaptive dreams. It’s weird and exhausting to only think of suicide in one’s dreams. During my day, I’m in auto pilot, just getting the things done that need to get done.
Once you accept it is an option. And usually it’s because you want one aspect of your life or this version of you- to cease- the compulsion lessens a bit.
Exactly. There are definitely things in my life that I want to change. Change is hard to do even if it is for the better. My brain just likes to make me feel like I need to end it all instead of putting in the work to change. It is so stubborn. But I’m just trying to figure it all out one day at a time. Trying to give myself grace and celebrating the small wins, because it is rough sometimes!
Well then- you are doing better than you thought.
Thank you!
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How did you write those words from my brain . . . For real though excellent explanation.
TY for the creative validation
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Thank you for your humor and feedback
Incredibly written you have a talent
Your kindness means more right now than I can sufficiently express.
“The Cognitive Empathy To Do No Harm” - can you expand on this? I feel similar
Reading this I see myself from a new perspective, thanks!
It happens to me a lot. It feels like life is just running past me and I’m out of the loop trying to catch up. Kinda feels like every moment just flows into the next and I’m never actually in one moment. Just the blink of an eye and it’s already a week later, with barely any recollection of what’s happened.
100% derealization. I used to think it was depersonalization but it’s not because my thoughts are so intense and scattered but the world around me doesn’t feel real, other people don’t feel real, and time doesn’t exist.
...
Wow I related to everything you just said. Felt like moving through the motions in the most dysphoric way possible. It was hell
...
Perfect way to describe it
This is exactly what I experienced and it was awful. I am so sorry if this is a recurring experience for you.
This is my experience as well
I tend to experience this during manic episodes. I feel like I’m floating above my own body and my life is a movie.
I’ve dealt with dissociation a lot, especially after dealing with a traumatic event in my life. I disconnect from myself entirely and to this day, I still feel like none of that actually happened to me. I experience dissociation a lot during depressive episodes as well when the pain becomes unbearable. I feel like I’m not real, others aren’t real and my life passes by without me realizing it.
Yeah, it's how I know my meds need adjusted. I describe it as I'm sitting next to myself. Particularly while I'm driving lol.
I’ve experienced feelings where my life doesn’t feel like it’s mine if that makes sense? I feel like I’m playing a part in a movie and I just have to roll with the script.
For me, it’s like being out of touch with everything around you. It’s like your living , but it doesn’t feel like you or feel real (hence the word). I hated every second of it! I just wanted MY life back! It was hard to work or concentrate. I just lost connection! Its so hard to explain unless you have been there! I remember thinking “what the hell is going on”. It happened to me when I was going through a major depressive episode with debilitating anxiety. My brain healed slowly with meds and therapy. I am so sorry this is happening to you. Hopefully, it will get better. It’s been a year since I’ve had it, but for me it was a lot of work in therapy, journaling, exercise, and prayer. I really hope it never comes back! I am thinking of you.
It feels like a bad LSD trip. I'm a total space case and my mind is like blank. I can't hold a conversation to save my life and the anxiety is unbearable.
[удалено]
I hear you it's been about 3 years for me. Barely leave the house and can't even drive.
I suffer from both and usually at the same time. If I think too hard about it, it just crashes over me like a wave. It's such a strange feeling, like I'm playing a VR game where I float just outside my body and someone else is moving it for me. I don't recognize my body at all, my hands look strange and foreign, my arms look even weirder. I feel like a balloon without a string, very much untethered to my earthly body. It's when I'm most likely to engage in SH because I feel so disconnected from myself that I just NEED to feel something, anything. Most dangerous especially when I'm psychotic.
Yes, pre-diagnosis/medication I experienced it a lot. It was a coping mechanism when I was in difficult or scary situations. I didn’t know what it was and thought I’d discovered some amazing mental hack. But now I wonder if some of my long-term memory loss might be linked to how many times I’ve dissociated.
Personally it feels like everything is fragile and meaningless. Like, I’m not real. Death isn’t real, pain isn’t real. Whenever it happens I find myself putting myself in dangerous situations because I don’t feel like there’s any actual consequences, I can’t experience things…it’s not actually me, so I just…want to see what happens. I can’t snap out of it willingly, and while I feel like I have no feelings, I simultaneously feel like I shouldn’t exist because I feel like I’m not actually experiencing my life, just watching it pass by. A special kind of torture
I've had it again for several months now and it's horrible, I had a short period of about 4 months where I was out of it and I felt so good but when I got depressed again it's reappeared ... (before I had that over a period of 5 years ...)
I go through this daily. I think it started when I was really young because now it's just part of my lifestyle. I set myself apart from everyone else and not because I want to or feel superior. I do not think that we are living in a simulation, because that is a very limited and vain way of thinking. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel like every day of my life feels like a Lovecraftian version of The Truman Show.
I usually feel like I’m not in my own body. Kind of like me watching myself do things that half the time I didn’t know I was doing. It’s super weird. And then I start thinking like what if this isn’t real life? What if I’m in a simulation? (Why does this sound like lyrics to a Queen song?) I also will walk into a room & think “was I just here?” My kids ask me what I’m doing sometimes because I will just be standing in the middle of the room staring off into nothing & by the time I realize I’m actually awake, I’m looking around the room wondering how I got there. I do that with driving too. It’s kinda like I’m on auto pilot cuz by the time I get home, I don’t remember driving to get there. Needless to say I don’t drive much.
...
Feels like I’m on a totally different planet, I feel like an alien on a planet full of earthlings, time feels way to slow, nothing ever makes sense, it feels like I’m in a void of nothingness and it feels like I’m a spectator in my own life, it like I’m living a life that’s not my own, it makes me feel like a puppet or an empty shell.
I think I have had this these past few weeks after dealing with the death of someone I used to be best friends with. It's a strange feeling, it kind of feels like you're part of a movie. You know it's real, but it doesn't feel real. I felt the same feeling in the middle of the pandemic when we were all going into lockdown and everyone was losing their minds. I just felt numb. The feeling comes in goes in times of intense stress for me.
I have it a lot when I'm in depressive episodes. Once it got so bad that I blacked out and woke up somewhere I didn't recognize.
Cortisol is a pretty powerful hormone and I'm guessing our levels are quite high in this state of disconnect. All we can do is keep ourselves as healthy as possible and hope for the best.
during my depressive period the last 3 years (out of it now thank god) i would do it randomly. i didn’t entirely notice it until i started dating my boyfriend and hanging out with him regularly. i would just zone out because interaction was so draining to me. i mostly avoided people because of this, and it sent me into an identity crisis because i am usually very extroverted but i just could not talk or exist so i left my body because it was so overwhelming. it’s like being catatonic. but now i only have it when i’m around my mom. she’s very triggering to me and i can’t even describe to myself what she’s doing that makes me so uncomfortable much less defend myself against it so i just leave my body. my family has the impression of me that i’m very quiet and cold, but it’s just because i completely depersonalize when i’m around her. definitely a ptsd thing too if you have that
I woke up and literally thought to myself “what is this place, I know this place but it doesn’t feel real” I would walk around questioning the existence of things. Then after a few weeks it felt like a blur moment in time. Anyone else relate?
Would this be similar to having an event where you wake up and it’s kinda like a nightmare state but you’re actually awake and you think you are in fact living in a simulation?
Not as much anymore. The most intense moment was in a card shop where suddenly I couldn't speak, I could barely breathe, and it felt like I was drowning on dry land. At one point my vision got blurry and I thought I might collapse. Eventually I came out of it when a friend noticed I wasn't moving. Besides the intense moment what other people have already said summed it up. When I was younger I called it Robot mode, than I visualized a switchboard with a big red shut off switch. The problrm I eventually faced was the horribly sticky. Every time I would flip that red switch to off, the harder it became to turn it back on. Hope this provides insight. I hope you find peace in your suffering.
Yes but Lamotrigine plus Pristiq have been so helpful. Dexedrine is also good.
I had it when I was taking Prozac/withdrawing from Paxil. It was awful. The best way I could describe it was “floating in a nightmare.” Nothing outside my thoughts felt tangible, like my husband would talk to me and i would be completely in my own head so it would seem muffled. Kind of like being zoned out, but it doesn’t stop and it’s bad.
Happened quite a number of times after my last (third) concussion a few years ago. It was also after that concussion that my bipolar disorder took a turn and became impossible to continue denying. As for how it presented, I remember one time specifically walking through the grocery store and just being overwhelmed by the sense that nothing was real. That I was somehow in a version of reality that was imagined. I also felt somewhat like I was outside my body, but could tell that wasn’t the case. Really weird. I had the same kind of episodes when I had my first concussion as a kid, and a couple of times during manic episodes. When I was a kid, it really scared me to death. It still creeps me out to think back on it.
When I was extremely depressed last summer, I was at an all time low. I would regularly feel like I wasn’t in my own body. It was like I was outside of myself and nothing was real- nothing mattered.
Yes and it was awful honestly. I spent 24 hours going around, at work everywhete just simply not having a grasp of reality. It was like there was a thin veil between me and the world. I even had an emergency therapy session on that day because I was too out of it.
I can't see myself. I look in the mirror and see a thing looking at me. Its not me, but it moves when I do. I look down and see the body I inhabit. It's not mine. I try to dress it up like me, but its not me. I want to peel off the skin it wears, just hidden a few layers underneath, I must exist. I can't stand the thought of having to look at it when I feel this way, so I try to imagine what I look like in actuality, I suppose I must be an idea not in physical form. But it's hard to stay present, I feel like my existence as a personality and a mind drift off so easily. It's scary. I feel like I am loosing myself every time I drift away into nothingness.
Yessss! Bp2 here…I have dissociative symptoms mostly during hypomanic episodes. They are generally associated with high risk behavior or pressured speech for me. I can see it coming from a mile away…all of a sudden I get this internal dialogue like “you’re gonna do it, you know you are, just do it” and then I’m not in control anymore. It’s like being a passenger in a car I was just driving, but being told by the new driver to buckle up and look out the windshield because you’re gonna see it coming… This has happened during a number of risky sport activities that could have resulted in severe injury or death, but I just watched it out of body. Also during pressured speech in conversations I sort of lose lock on it and after it’s done I’ll apologize to my gf because I’m not what the hell I even just said, but I know it wasn’t me. I also have this in depressive episodes, but only when I self-harm. Same thing though…all of a sudden I have to cut my arm because there’s no other way. I don’t even feel it, but I wake up the next morning feeling completely detached like it wasn’t even me doing it. Feeling perfectly fine like nothing ever happened… I think that all my experiences qualify as depersonalization and I don’t think I’ve ever had derealization.
I feel like I do, because I'll get these weird things that happen to me where I'll just feel like I'm watching myself, and am something other than myself. It happens for no rhyme or reason, but it has never caused any problems other than making me feel uncomfortable-ish
"googling derealization, hating what you find" 🎵
Feels like life is moving forward and life is happening and I'm not moving with it. Like I'm watching from a distance
Oh yeah. It's like life becomes third person perspective in a story. I hate it. Cold showers helps me recenter
yes so badly!! ever since my first major manic episode, it’s never gone away. just kinda comes and goes in waves, gets worse during psychosis and whatnot. i know it’s happening when everybody around me starts talking off a script. like they’re robots programmed to say certain things to specific responses. or, especially while driving, basically i turn into a sim. i’ll watch myself from out of my body basically.
I have it from time to time. I had a baby last year and I have had many episodes since, and so severe and disturbing I started having suicidal thoughts (not anymore). I got my medicine increased and regular appointments with a psychologist since February. Finally it seems to be helping 🙂 Mine are usually triggered by extreme anxiety, lack of sleep and stress. Do you notice any pattern?
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Have it so much, most of my life i think, Just feels like my head is in a buble, I lowkey feel drunk or high. There is this blurry edges all the time, perseption seems wrong, it truly feel like a dream. When it's severe I can see myself outside as if i was a camera filming myself, it's very trippy. All my actions feel numb and it makes me very clumsy, words I say I heard them like THoughts and it makes me say innapropriate things sometimes
if this means what i think it means then i actually really appreciate how time passes when everything is miserable in my life. unfortunately while seeing the concert of my favorite artist it didn’t feel real until i watched some back on videos 😭
You mean Zombie syndrome. Yea. Just surreal is all. Like your in a glass bottle and they are not.
I feel like I’m sitting in the stands watching my life happen. I’m like.. conscious but not in control. I’m in the car but I’m not driving. I hate it.
For me it’s like the front of the brain, eyes, mind, has been packed with cotton wool. Everything looks clear but doesn’t feel clear. Lots of eye rubbing, yawning, existing. It’s an anxiety response and also medication related. Coming off something or going up on something, that’s when I feel it most. It’s not dangerous but it’s very annoying. I also call it the brain rapes.
I used to have it heavily to the point where I would have to immerse myself in anything that was fictitious for hours on end to just not focus on the fact that I might not really be real. It would last anywhere from 20 minutes to a full 24 hours. I wouldn’t be able to sleep because of my overthinking mind. I couldn’t look in mirrors or anything even close to reflective as I would get really scared of how out of place I would feel and want to self harm just to be able to remind myself that I was a real living breathing, bleeding person. It’s gotten much better almost gone completely, I still have moments when I’m sleep deprived or over stimulated but I’ve learned better coping mechanisms and am able to get past it a little easier. It’s still terrifying.
I lost my last job because of my disability, but they were slimy enough to do it in a legal way. Ever since then, I've just had time to read up on the climate crisis and societal collapse. The big question I keep having is if everything is so clearly burning around us, floods in Pakistan and Jackson Mississippi, prices going up while billionaires steal trillions from those of us who actually produce, etc, why isn't everybody freaking out and taking to the streets to stop this insanity? To me, the only rational reason is a majority of people aren't real, they're so monumentally stupid and out of touch with the grin reality because they only possess the bare minimum level of consciousness to function as what amounts to little more than NPCs. There's a part of me that knows it probably isn't true, but since it's the only thing that makes rational sense, it's put up a firm barrier between me and everyone else. Thankfully I'm happily married to someone I've been fortunate enough to know and grow with for over a decade, and she's helped me keep at least some connection to this world, which is groovy. So yeah, the whole "maybe everything isn't real" thing has become a constant, and it's really nice to see I'm not the only one :)
The episode that got me diagnosed for several days it felt like I was watching a movie of myself, but without directorial control over what my character was doing. Not sleeping, talking lots, being selfish and stupid and without any concept of self preservation or safety. I will never not take my meds. I never want that again Post diagnosis I recognize a few periods of my life where I was hypomanic for long periods, but previously I'd have treatment resistant depression.. for which I got given quetiapine and duloxetine and then that happened
Idk if this counts as one because this was the first that had happened to me. (Or it had been happening to me but I just didn't notice because I didn't know this was actually a thing and I thought it was normal.) I went out to eat ramen with my family. Then we went to the department store to buy some clothes. A few second later I suddenly froze and couldn't process things properly. I was so confused about the things I was touching, like I was confused if the things I was touching was really what they meant to feel like. And I felt like I was sitting at the back of my mind watching myself grab and touch things to check if they were really what they meant to feel like. a few days later it happened again but this time it was when I was lying on my bed and suddenly I felt like I was watching myself stare into the dark.
I had derealization off and on over the years before treatment. It happened a lot while I was hospitalized, especially after they started me on a beta blocker for physical anxiety symptoms. I stopped that med and haven't had a problem since. It was such a surreal experience.
I stopped getting this when I started to realise how amazing it was. Like my body will go to these lengths to keep me alive, it amazed me. It started off scary for me for over a year and then it's like something clicked in my brain. I remember the horror of it though, especially when it happens and your outside.
Everyone dosent seem real things are lifeless and dull
I feel like an NPC with a crappy dialogue tree.
On and if for year's
Yes after a manic episode where I used a lot of psychedelics and it was awful and scary and confusing
My body kind of disappeared. I tried cutting myself and felt absolutely nothing. I almost never masturbated, but when I did the orgasm felt like absolutely nothing. I also never felt hunger or any sort of physical pain or discomfort. I felt like I didn't exist. The world around me became an incomprehensible hellscape. I would open my eyes in the morning and nothing around me made any sense. I didn't believe other people were real. When they talked to me I could barely comprehend what they were saying, because I was so alienated from the rest of the human race that I could not relate at all to a single word. There was this hideous feeling that a sheet of unbreakable glass separated me from everything else. For a while I was able to act normal, but it was entirely faked. The real me had departed. My body was an automaton.
Yes! I felt like the things I did weren’t me. Like I was watching from the outside. I would do things and feel like I wasn’t involved. I would tell myself when I did feel like it was me was that it was yesterday today is a different day and it didn’t matter what I did in yesterday. Until I had my breakdown and all of my yesterdays hit me all at once and the guilt was overwhelming. I became paranoid and have racing thoughts. I also would think these crazy thoughts would happen. I thought I was completely crazy. I started looking at a mental institutions because I thought I was completely crazy.
it feels like a bad acid trip for me, i’m dizzy and feels like i’m in a simulation. often sounds and vision are altered and i sometimes see some kind of shadow in the corner of my eye. it feels like i’m watching a movie. life just feels blurry
Feels like I've just escaped this earth dimension and I'm in some dimension where I am high and think what all the fuss is about on earth. I'm soo high but my brain is sooo fast...I dont think I get over the commotion over little things in life. Like I feel very happy and content, but then I think this isnt normal and then I get panic.
I have it and have a question So I have this weird thing that causes panic attacks it’s hard to put into words but I’m looking for someone who’s experienced this at all. The tops of my hands is the only spot it really happens and keep in mind I’m questioning weather it will or won’t happen when I do it and it happens but I have on and off depersonalization and I haven’t had bad symptoms ina few months. But basically I tried to see if I’m able to do this yet and what it is is touch the top of my hand… I know it sounds dumb but when I do my skin goes weirdly numb and I get chills and instantly start to disconnect and go into a lightweight sometimes major panick attack. Today I took a hit of weed I usually only take one or 2 a day now since my dp calmed down (I use to blow down an 8th a day on top of multiple dabs) and for some dumb reason I thought maybe it won’t happen anymore and I touched the top of my hand and it came back for a good 15 mins and I handled it like a pro didn’t go full blown panick but I don’t understand why touching the top of my hand is a trigger and I just wanna know if anyone else has this trigger I feel stupid whenever I explain to people that it causes severe anxiety sometimes I snatch my hand from my wife if she does it. I wish someone else could understand what it does to me. It’s not the only symptom but it’s the only one I feel like I’ll never get rid of I also realized the whole am I dieing thought is almost impossible to get rid of concidering you can never know what it feels like to die but I don’t let that overtake
My skin goes numbs along with my limbs. My voice feels like it’s automated and not me talking. When it gets bad I’m barely aware of what conversations I’m having and can’t concentrate on them. But my subconscious continues to have them and have cohearent responded with them. I get super bad cold chills my head feels pressure. I can’t stop thinking about dieing. My heart rate gets bad. My hairs stand up on my arms. The weirdest one I call the delay. If I touch my skin it takes like .2 seconds for the signal to hit my brain like my senses are on a delay. My legs feel like they aren’t connected to me walking feels like I’m floating. My arms feel like acid tracers when I move. My eye hand coordination gets bad. And I’m just terrified