Depersonalization: what's been your experience?

[bazou]

I've been 'depersonalizing' since I was a child. I remember being a kid and the feeling of "am I really here? Is this really me?" like I was outside my body. It happened daily. This started so early for me that most of my life, I thought it was normal. I thought everyone had these weird things happen. Like a brain short-circuit. I really did. Only later in life when I gained more knowledge and emotional intelligence did I start telling myself "girl, that ain't right'. But then the shame kicked in so I just kept it to myself.

My question is this has continued to happen to me in adulthood. I never monitored it to see if there was a pattern. I can't say it happens often now, but sometimes it will, out of nowhere. I'm just learning about this. Do any of you have a similar experience and are these short episodes usually directly linked to something or just random?

[silentrhino]

this is an issue for me, I get flashes of watching myself f rom the outside at the weirdest times, just usually feeling the bullcrap of life coming on strong and me unable to cope. I have to watch myself during those times, it usually means a self harm episode is brewing.I don't tell anyone about it.

[bazou]

this is an issue for me, I get flashes of watching myself f rom the outside at the weirdest times, just usually feeling the bullcrap of life coming on strong and me unable to cope. I have to watch myself during those times, it usually means a self harm episode is brewing.I don't tell anyone about it.

Are you able to ground yourself and bring yourself back? How long does it last?

[Blueberry]

I think I did something like that as a child and teenager. I started pretty young though, under 10 years old. I would wonder if I was really me, or whether I might not be somebody else. Or what if I had been born someone else. I remember it used to concern me quite a bit. Once I asked my mother if she ever asked herself those kind of questions. She looked at me oddly and said she did not. So I felt even odder and confused.

These feelings / thoughts did go on into adulthood because I can remember voicing them in a smallish group of 'spiritual healing' I ended up in with my then T as group leader / guru. (Very bad experience.) She didn't really understand when I mentioned these thoughts. The others looked at me as if I was talking nonsense. But I don't think any of them were traumatised.

I don't do this any more though. I haven't worked on it directly (even though I have of course worked on grounding) and it's gone away on its own. 

[bazou]

I think I did something like that as a child and teenager. I started pretty young though, under 10 years old. I would wonder if I was really me, or whether I might not be somebody else. Or what if I had been born someone else. I remember it used to concern me quite a bit. Once I asked my mother if she ever asked herself those kind of questions. She looked at me oddly and said she did not. So I felt even odder and confused.

These feelings / thoughts did go on into adulthood because I can remember voicing them in a smallish group of 'spiritual healing' I ended up in with my then T as group leader / guru. (Very bad experience.) She didn't really understand when I mentioned these thoughts. The others looked at me as if I was talking nonsense. But I don't think any of them were traumatized.

I don't do this any more though. I haven't worked on it directly (even though I have of course worked on grounding) and it's gone away on its own.

I remember being a toddler and doing this. I don't remember much else, funny enough. However, this feeling I know well, i'm intimate with. I remember a time when it would happen several times a day.

I'm in the process of coming to terms with the severity of what I endured. Until just a few years ago, I didn't refer to it as abuse. I just had a tough childhood and a mother that was "nuts". And to this day, most people around me still see it that way. But a few select few now know what is going on with me. My sister and I have slowly started talking about it. As I sit here, I'm still absorbing the level of emotional abuse we went through.

I lived my adult life pretending I had dealt with it, and hiding from the world what was going inside. Last year though, I started having nightmares and flashback about something that happened to me unrelated to the parental abuse, which I had suppressed for 20 years (I was raped when I was 18 by someone close to me and never told anyone until a year ago)... and remembering. And there is where this journey down the rabbit hole began...

As I sit here, I'm having anxiety. I'm hearing "they didn't ask for all this, why are you writing all this, shut up already, nobody wants to hear it". My inner-critic - I just learned 24 hours ago that's what it's called -is a brutal, nasty piece of work.

I'm rambling. I opened these floodgates a few days ago and now I can't stop talking   

Anyway, all this to say, this place is wonderful and EXTREMELY insightful. I am learning a lot about myself, my pain and this process reading about all of your experiences. Thanks for that, all of you reading

[joyful]

The first time I remember wondering if I really existed, if i was really here, if I was a real person or if everything was a dream was when I was in first grade. Sometimes the feeling seems constant. it's honestly terrifying sometimes, it feels like you're drowning inside your head.
I read somewhere that people with severe depersonalization (so me and all of you that have posted) are so extremely self-aware that they doubt their own existence? and I've also read that victims of abuse are very self-aware, because they always have to be monitoring everything tiny that they're doing to avoid further abuse.
Another thing: as victims of abuse we didn't feel like real people. (at least me).
Those are kind of my detached ideas about the subject.. I have a hard time grounding, but am working on it. This is on my mind a lot.

"they didn't ask for all this, why are you writing all this, shut up already, nobody wants to hear it"

Yes we do! talk as much as you want! 

[Blueberry]

I second the motion, talk as much as you want, Bazou. Hey, you even started this topic! But even if you hadn't what you're saying is relevant and interests me too. 

[bazou]

Thank you, all of you. Sincerely . I'm really enjoying my experience here. It's just very new to me to be surrounded by people that: 1. are even at all interested in listening to me, 2. can pretty much say all this for me as everything I've read on here till now resonates so profoundly with me.

This journey started over a year ago, but the past week has been particularly intense since my epiphany of reading about C-PTSD. I'm also overworked, lacking sleep and exhausted, so feeling overwhelmed. But I'm starting to feel more peaceful today and just understood why this morning.

I never told anyone about this stuff. None of it, especially not the depersonalization. I didn't know what was wrong with me. I've been surrounded by mental illness my whole life and I was so afraid to be diagnosed with a mental disorder because I felt everyone around me would abandon me. Again. My mother (one of my abusers) is ending her life alone, and miserable, and bitter, and in so much pain. I was terrified of becoming her.

Now I know I can work through this. It's not a life sentence. And as hard as now is, this will get better.

But to come back to the depersonalization, joyful, you put into words something I've never been able to explain. I completely related to what you are saying.

This:

I read somewhere that people with severe depersonalization (so me and all of you that have posted) are so extremely self-aware that they doubt their own existence?

That is EXACTLY how it has felt to me. These episodes wouldn't last very long. They were frequent as a child, and lessened as I got older, but they never lasted more than 10 minutes at a time. However, the feeling was so intense, that initially, when I'd get catapulted into this 'other dimension', I would actually go off on these tangents of  "what if this whole universe thing is really just some big ogre's LSD trip?". Depending on the time in my life, those tangents would change and would be more or less comedic (I'm a huge goof and that also comes out in my darkness if that makes any sense), but ultimately, for those few minutes, I would question if I even really existed. It was messed up, to say the least.

I still get them on occasion. My last one was about 3 months ago.

[silentrhino]

Hi Bazou, Unfortunately I have used self harm to ground myself.  That is how I have coped, my T knows that and I am working towards other methods.  It can last a few minutes, a few days or longer.  It takes a while to return to the integrated whole (whatever that even means)  I don't even feel anything when I get in that state it's complete detachment unrelated to substances or other artificial means.  It's probably close to being a zombie. 

[Kizzie]

I used to look in the mirror when I was young and wonder if I was real because I couldn't connect with myself, feel/find my self.  If I heard myself on tape or saw myself on video I would play it over and over again to try and see me.  It was just the strangest thing ever and I never told anyone about it. 

I didn't even realize I was depersonalizing until about 2 years ago when I was out on my own in a grocery store.  I had this brief panicky feeling that I was not safe, that I would somehow be outed. Lights became too bright, sound too loud, motion irritating and this feeling of distance and tunnel vision came over me.  I could not wait to get into the car and get home.  I knew about having CPTSD and depersonalization and derealization by then so I was able for the first time to understand what had happened.

After that  when I felt it starting to happen I would name what was happening (ooops, I am distancing), and try to see why I might be feeling that way. There were two main things that seemed to trigger me; fear of falling apart in public, and feeling like an outsider for most of my life, different than everyone.  Once I allowed myself to acknowledge that this is why I was depersonalizing I would try and stay put and look around.  I began to see that people were NOT staring at me, but were busy with their own chores and lives. By people watching and not focusing on my discomfort and fear, I started to see that not everyone has it together, not everyone is comfortable or happy.  I would talk to my self about being safe, that I was not going to fall apart in public and if need be I could get in the car and head home.  And I would try and focus also on what I like about being out - the smell of fresh brewed coffee or baking cinnamon buns in the mall for example. Little by little it has helped and I stay present when I am out now. I know though that if I am in a stressful situation (e.g., traveling to a new city) I may depersonalize and that's OK, at least now I know how to help my self come back.

Hope this helps   

Added - I realized that it doesn't sound in my post above like there's much of a difference between dissociation and depersonalization so thought I'd add something to clarify.  In dissociating I go away inside myself, but I am in my self.  With depersonalization I feel disconnected from my body/self, and there is a sense of floating, disorientation which is often paired with derealization and everything feels quite unreal outside of me.  These symptoms can be hard to describe, but hopefully that captures it 

[radical]

Wow, what a great subject, thank you everyone for being so honest.

I started having occasional periods of depersonalisation as a child.  I couldn't have put them into words, and I wonder how many people have been misdiagnosed due to talking about  experiences depersonalisation.

What I have experienced during these times is very close to some aspects of the 'trips' associated with hallucinogen-use, not hallucinations, but a weakening of the ego barriers which usually tightly codify experience, a  degree of loss of 'I am, that is' etc. which can allow for a different experience of experience, if that makes sense.  They have been few and far between for me, compared to other kinds of dissociation, but I have felt destabilised by them.

I don't think brief periods of depersonalisation are dangerous in themselves, but I do believe that people who are signifcantly de-selfed by abuse should tread warily with going deeply into some meditative practices, and philosophies  which seek to de-couple ego from experience.  There is a wisdom among some Buddhists that practitioners need to have a strong ego, to safely 'lose' or disidentify with their ego.  Imo, people who have experienced significant interpersonal abuse, particularly fwan or freeze types, may need to do a lot of work on issues around boundaries, self-esteem, enmeshment, avoidance, identifying abusive behaviour, assertiveness, escapism, loneliness, and unhealthy relating to others from a position of being de-selfed (Ie submissiveness, fawning, doormat syndrome, codependence etc.), before or simultaneously with, these kinds of deeper practice. My experience was that many problems related to my fawn-freeze trauma response were worsened, not just by the practises, but by trying to embody the philosophy, in the absence of healthy ego boundaries.   It is also important to know the difference between depersonalistion and 'awakening'.   

[bazou]

Hi everyone, thanks for sharing your experiences, I just got caught up on reading all of them. I depersonalized today for the first time in a few months. I was at the dentist, lying on that chair while they were cleaning my teeth. I had nothing else to do but think, so of course, my mind went ape *. I started thinking about everything that has happened the past couple weeks, the state of my marriage, and then panic took over and I started imagining the feeling if things don't work out. Once I started feeling like I was going to cry, I tried to get out of my head. As soon as I tried to come back to the present, I was catapulted into the dreamlike feeling I know so well.

I have no issues bringing myself back. I've been doing it for so long, it's a piece of cake. I talked myself off the ledge as I always do, and came back into my body. I've been able to do that fairly easily for years.

I've just always been so afraid of it. For a long time, I thought it was a symptom that something was VERY wrong with me. That I was irreversibly damaged. That I had some sort of mental disorder that cannot be fixed and would only get worse. I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders these days that I know this is not a death sentence.

[Kizzie]

I like your description Radical, it does feel kind of like a trip or altered state which I guess it is.  I wonder if dissociation tends to be more common than depersonalization? I know I also did/do far more of the former and not as much of the latter.

Interesting too about meditation and ego boundaries, I have definitely had the experience of tapping into a negative stream of consciousness by trying to mediate and feeling overwhelmed and destabilized rather than relaxed.  I don't know that I lost my self so much as I was overwhelmed by being swept into this accumulation of hot lava (trauma) flowing under the surface.  I found I needed to dip in and out of it slowly, to titrate my exposure to the trauma.  Whatever the reason, it's frightening and disheartening when one of the most recommended self-help strategies is mediation and it ends up making some of us with CPTSD feel feel worse. 

Bazou - Great to hear you are able to get back into your body when depersonalization comes over you.  It took me a while to learn to do that, and the same for dissociation.  I know what you mean about how unsettling and frightening it is though.     

[bazou]

Bazou - Great to hear you are able to get back into your body when depersonalization comes over you.  It took me a while to learn to do that, and the same for dissociation.  I know what you mean about how unsettling and frightening it is though.     

I guess it's simply because I've been doing it for so long. I remember as a kid - when it was happening daily, sometimes many times a day - I'd bring myself in and out of depersonalization as easily as tying my shoes. Geez, I'm just remembering this now...

Question: I'm still learning about all this stuff. There are big gaps in my life that I don't remember. Is that because I was in a dissociated state during those times?

[Kizzie]

Very likely depersonalizing and/or dissociating Bazou - same for me as well.  I've heard people refer to this as Swiss Cheese memory.  Very unsettling!  My H can remember minutia from specific yrs while I could not remember entire blocks. Looking at pictures helped me piece things together (although I should mention it was triggering too).