Derealization/depersonalization...what can i do?

[V]

I thought i might give it a chance here to ask some people about this, since i know there are some brains on the forum involved in alternative medical treatment and other things, who might have some input..

For people who dont know about it this is basically what it is http://apt.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/11/2/92

I have for a month now on and off had this very unpleasant "syndrome" or whatever to call it (its not recognized as a mental disorder as far as i can understand), and it is starting to really affect my life and daily affairs. Thinking about it i have had it in milder form for quite a while possibly, but here around christmas until now it has some days been so bad so i got to the point of doubting my own existence or if i was even in control of my own life. AS i understand and experience there are 2 sides to it like they say in that link (and others)...one is the "unreality" side where everything around you just seems like it doesnt really exist, sometimes seeming like its all an animation of some kind, and the "personality" side, where you kinda slip away into yourself and feel like there is a box around you, and almost feel like someone is controlling you. Its not like hallucinations, its more like somehting that makes you feel totally stuck and not able to cope with your surroundings and even though essentially you arent getting crazy thoughts, you feel like you are going crazy cause of the way it affects you

Its very problematic, and im about to see my doctor about it tomorrow, but i got the feeling its not gonna help much. I have 2 freinds that dealt with this before in each their way and both tell me that psychiatrists cant help cause they dont recognize it as a mental disease, which it probably isnt so it makes sense that they dont, and that i have to be very careful about different medicine as it cant be predicted what works and what doesnt. I guess its also why theres not much help to be found, since there isnt just 1 drug that works for the majority that has this.

Does anyone know what i am talking about with this, and can give some ideas to what to do about it, cause im afraid to become desperate.

[Nat]

you, V, need a psy-OPchologist

i'm sure someone has real insight for you, but until then, it sounds like you're feeling the brunt of the unreal bullshit constantly crammed into your mind, even by the repeater people in your midst, they take it all in, and repeat it themselves

i would not recommend asking a doctor for advice, as they are one branch of the problem, they'll quite likely prescribe some mind numbing script which will make you feel washed out and remote from yourself, courtesy of pharma

are you able to get out into a wide space ? somewhere natural, away from the human termite mound ?

[V]

Hi matt, thanks for the answer. The problem is that im already in a state where i feel remote from myself, at the point at where it can get pretty scary...cause you can act and keep a facade like its all ok, but you dont really registrer that you are in control of yourself, you feel like another part of yourself is ahead of you. Its not as bad right now as i type as it has been earlier today, but i cant predict if i'll get worse again. Of course that doesnt mean that i want to be remote in just another kind of way, like some pharmaceutical product would do...really i dont feel like im mentally ill, but the change of my senses that im experiencing is very anxiety inducing at times, and even though i cant rule out some winter depression that plays into it, i think it comes from the de-realization and not the other way around.

About reality and not...well i dont know, i have adn have had all sorts of thoughts about what is reality but i do not panic about them as long as i feel a kind of rest in myself and surroundings...but with this unbalance it makes these thoughts very unproductive for me. Its a bit hard to explain. But yes i hope there is someone that knows some good way of diminishing this...ive read that omega 3 tablets work for some people, and certain vitamins but not for others...i'm trying both, but could be theres something entirely different that i could try that would be better...

and of course getting a bit away from ithe city and all is nice, but it hasnt really helped that much...i still feel like im trapped in a mental box of some kind. Actually i find that i want to try to be more out amongst people so i can get more used to this, but it is hard sometimes in supermarkets and other crowded places

[Nat]

sounds most unpleasant, V

[just0]

Conditions like this are all over "civilised" society, seems the more
"civilised" they get, the worse off they are.

I've come across information relating to this when I was doing some
research into the 'new age', meditation, 'higher states of conciousness'
groups. A lot of these kinds of groups promote a kind of spiritual darwinism
and some of these groups are subtly causing phycological problems such
as Depersonalization/Derealization/Dissociation which affect their followers.
Mind control, Trauma abuse, PsyOp's, call it whatever you want.

Although everyone experiences some kind of disconnection from everyday
reality from time to time, the practices that these groups promote can be
traumatic to the individuals psychological health resulting in conditions
such as Dissociation etc. Ritual/Trauma abuse could be underlying many
of the long list of psychological disorders but very often they are
misdiagnosed by the medical proffession.

These kinds of trauma's can develop in the family and are present in
various degrees troughout society, so I'm not suggesting you have any
inclination towards these particular kinds of groups, but the way these guru
cults operate give a good example of how it works. Plus there are a lot of
people on online forums helping ex-members reslove a sense of reality to
their lives through various methods, so I suggest looking into these kinds
of areas for some pointers.

http://www.dpselfhelp.com/
http://www.thrivingandhome.com/Dissociation.htm
http://www.ex-premie.org/best/Cornerstone/9977.html
http://www.suggestibility.org/isThereABottom.htm

Stay well away from psychoactive mediacation BTW, doctors who think
that might help, need more help than the patient IMO.

[Fintan]

It a complex issue and multi-causative, so here's a few points to consider:

First, the nutritional/environmental issues.

Excessive caffiene consumption or develpment of caffiene allergic toxic
response can cause depersonalization effects --as well as flight/fight
reaction and waves of non-specific anxiety. Another key mental state
trigger is aspartame.

Food is the other big environmental cause. Many foods are linked to
mood alteration --especially if there is a concurrent medical history of
allergic or autoimmune type conditions.

Finally, esoteric chemicals due to work-related exposure may be considered.

Social/Relationship/Psyche Causes

Stress is one of the major causitive factors. I'm not talking about specific
stress, but generalized stress which builds over years and overwhelms
the healthy self concept. This type of stress is endemic, and individual
response varies from the mania we call consumer culture to depression
and depersonalization.

Relationship or work-related issues can also trigger depersonalization.

Spiritual growth is another cause. What passes for normal in what we call
a culture has many individuals who have an unhealthy ego identification
with the body. This produces much of the stress-seeking mania we see in
modern culture.

Spiritual growth can result in a person developing a more balanced
relationship with self, but may in the short-term induce confusion, as
the sense of self changes. Classic high-risk ages for this syndrome are
around the ages of either 30 or 40. The confused state abates in time,
as the person reintegrates identity. Psychiatric practice demonizes the
transition process and attacks it pharmacologically.

No matter what the cause, the key therapeutic approaches are:

1) Diet. Low in sugar, high in nutrients and absent additives and
preservatives. Avoid milk, wheat. Watch for mood changes in response
to typically consumed foods and eliminate if suspected. In fact, fasting
for up to 60 hours with only tiny portions of 100% natural vegetable
broth can identify or eliminate a food cause. And it's good for you
anyway occasionally.

2) Oxygenation. Exercise to the point of mildly labored breathing for
seven to ten minutes twice or three times a day, helps body metabolism
to work optimally and activates lymphatic function (which benefits brain state).

3) Nature. Especially active nature. Such as spending an hour on the
banks of strongly running rivers, at a beach with strong waves/wind, or
up a local mountain with dramatic landscape. The action of nature
directly aids mental action and speeds mental healing.

4) Vitamin D. Lack of body-produced vitamin D is a big factor in general
health and mental health, in wintertime in the high lattitudes. Get a
fresh source of Vitamin D. In any event, get a little early morning sunlight
and pull your sleeves up. Very briefly looking at soft sun repeatedly for 1
second in 60 for five minutes can help to activate internal brain function.
Finally, take a handful of full-body sunbed sessions. F**k all cancer risk
in that, and it enables your body to make it's own vitamin D --for which
here actually is no 100% substitute. Wheat destroys the body's ability
to make Vitamin D in the skin, by the way.

5) Chill out. You have an awareness of yourself and you are on top of this.
Symptoms will resolve. Don't let your reaction make the whole thing worse.

[V]

Wow...had not expected such elaborative reply to this, thanks a lot

@Fintan - I have indeed not been the most healthy person for a long time. I basically have nott been doing all the things they say is good for you, and doing much of those that arent, and have also been warned about it. But this DR/DP came as such a dramatic reaction that i had not thought i would ever get to deal with...but this is the step thats needed towards changes then i guess. I actually thoguht of this as a result of some past drug use like amphetamines and ecstasy (something i never touch again)

I'm very glad you mention those details such as vitamin d and wheat, ive picked up you mentioning it before in audio shows slightly so will really try to watch out my diet. And indeed i do live at high latitudes here (denmark) but its never affected me like that before. What you say about stress i think makes sense too, and others have pointed it out but maybe i just think of it as worries and not stress. Also i have been cutting down on the coffee, and trying to get a better sleep pattern, at least getting up early and see some daylight and getting outside for longer walks. I didnt think about solarium, i will certainly consider it too.

@just0 - Sounds all very interesting with all that, i never come over it myself before..have had no past traumas i think, but will check out on what you say at a later time when im "functioning" better again

[Hocus Locus]

'V',

I would suggest you start to try to focus on your mental and physical state... first as a baseline. There must be a baseline, and it sounds like the turning of the year might have elicited some sort of change.

And if you cannot do anything you feel resembles 'focusing' -- face the mirror and try to explain in one long paragraph, what 'focus' means. If you cannot, you might be unable because of a lack in confidence that taking any advice, even such as this is, might help. Or you might sense a furious surge of some kind of activity -- which is what we feel when we strive, yet at the end of, say five minutes, you are not left with any coherent feeling of progress. 'What is focus?' Try to answer to yourself. But whether you succeed or not, you are in the world and you are alive and change is happening:

Because before the new year you had not posted this 'depersonalization' thread. So we have a a serious and scientifically reproducible piece of evidence that you not only matter, but you can (still) make things happen. If there is part of you that doubts this, leave this on the screen, go take a short walk, some exertion, then return to read it again.

You should be able to 'put yourself back' into near the same state you had been before the walk, and glancing at the words your mind just says 'yadda yadda' ok here I am. You may feel different, better or worse; other thoughts probably flowed during the walk. But here you are again.

If you sense any discomfort or confusion when trying to get 'back', (still) leave these words on the screen, take another walk and return. Try to get a handle on what's different. This is just to establish a baseline. And also the extent to which you are able or willing to act on external suggestions -- what is from my own point of view a reasonable and worthy test (though you might skim over it or not agree. So be it.)

Maintaining the feeling that you 'do not exist' or that 'way' you exist is 'changing' is probably not what is happening.

What is happening is that you are being freaked out because you think you are starting to explain it, but it does not make sense, or cannot.

That does not mean that's what it is -- any this-or-that it sounds like something is infringing on your conciousness! Just playing the odds -- SOMETHING in your environment or physical state is wrong. Something you can control..

Grab a piece of paper and make a list of everything in your environment you can change, from the air you are breathing (going outside and taking a long walk) to food (do you binge? what level of interest in eating do you have? What do you drink, do you drink simple fluids like water often enough?) are there any psychoactive substances caffine or other in your day to day and moment to moment life? This is not the place to discuss such things, but make any kind of change: if not what, place and amount. The object is to begin to voluntarily change your environment and habits in a methodical, scientific way which you can use to discover what the hell is going on.

For example -- the feeling you are in a box, a sense of unreality, might be a the first signs of some serious head state brought about by missing trace vitamins etc. in the diet, some toxin in the air, stagnant or corrupted air or food (if you live below street level carbon monoxide!)... or something. Air out your living space, even if it is 10 below. While you go galivanting about on the Internet looking for subtle clues and support from other people whose voices are appearing as words on the screen, the immediate environment that surrounds you as you sit there might be doing you in. ;-)

Look for bright, vibrant colors; look for patterns, trace them with eyes and fingers in the air; use your senses. Have conversations, real verbal ones with other people however you can. If you don't go out much, just go out and walk around. If there's no one to talk to, talk out loud to yourself. The reason I suggest conversation, whether with others (best) or yourself (ok if you really do it) because is it is a natural way to boost serotonin. And that is one of the major flow effectors of your stream of conciousness, aside from just 'being awake'. The act of forming words and talking. Typing does not hit all the little serotonin buttons that walking around, looking at things and talking does.

And don't worry about going insane. Whatever that means. I can already tell you're not. At least not in any way I've ever been, which is as much as anyone from a grunt on the street right up to a Nobel Prize winner, could ever say in all honesty.

___
First and only item in every to-do list I've ever found:

1. Try to find the other to-do lists I have made.

[V]

Thanks also for your reply locus

I get what you mean i think...i was thinking under some of these "attacks" that it is some kind of change that is happening and try not to panic about it, its just a lot of pre-coceived things i had that are changing. This could sure be a reaction to it. I have also been thinking that one of the causes is that on the education im on (social sciences), im not really following the potential i should and seem just going randomly towards things. This would also play a bit into what you say about trying to look at things more "scientifically" if i understand you right...trying to find a direction. But yes thats something i need to do and not something to bother BFN with. Thing about living mostly through one-way communication is for sure not very good, and i prefer to be in company most times instead of sitting at the comp. In fact i probably already cut down my screen time about 20% the last ½ year.

By the way i was at the doctor, and he was quite understanding about it and said many he spoke with had experienced the same things adn that stress like fintan says is usually a large factor in it. I did get the very mildest sedative drug, but it is only for relaxing to get to sleep early and properly which is a problem ive always had. But it is only gonna be for the short run. I will try to stick to those pointers ive gotten from the topic and see what it does, very happy about it.

[Nat]

...

[kathy]

Hi V

I can relate to how you are "feeling", as I too experience this from time to time. Actually I have gone through episodes such as this since I was very young.

It is as though I leave my body, everything around me is animated.

I too feel like someone is controlling me at time's, I feel I am in a "waiting room", but am not sure what I am waiting for.

I am acutely aware of the energies from other people, I doubt what I sense but it turns out my senses are mostly correct.

At times I have closed down, shut myself away in the box, as a protection, because I am vulnerable and very open to other people's energies, like a sponge I soak other's energies in. The "box" is a safe place, a place where I have learnt to care for ME and not neglect my own needs at the expense of others, which I have done for a long time.

I am aware that at times of stress I feel like you describe. What we have to do is learn to cope with stressful situations and with people who may be tapping our energy to feed their own needs.

Several years ago I spent a weekend on a Health & wellness weekend where I had Reiki sessions. The practitioner told me he could sense lots of energy from my heart Charka, my Solar Plexus Charka and my Base charka but the energy was weak below that, he said I needed grounding. I was grounded for awhile but in recent years I know I have gone way "out there", I relate this to a lot of pressure in my life but I bought myself a pair of ankle weights the other day to make sure I stay somewhat closer to earth. than I have been in recent years.

This might be of interest to you:

[Ormond]

[maverick]

Fintan.....

[Nat]

...

[Hocus Locus]

Also if your schedule is wayward and you have long spans of wake -- give attention to total intake of stimulants over the waking period. Actually add 'em up and note the totals. For example a can of Diet Coke has ~50mg. caffeine and nicotine are real eye openers and pretty well part of the human condition. Despite all the well-intentioned folk out there who say "Just give it up!" fact is if caffeine were to miraculously disappear from the world and all who use it went 'cold turkey', the Internet would start winking out right away and no traffic lights would still be in operation anywhere within a month. And don't even think of boarding an airplane.

But caffeine is a general system stimulant, so aside from the taxing of the body (a general elevation in what your heart rate would be otherwise) in the mind it can take awhile to flush out.

And if you crash in bed with lots of caffeine still in your system you will sleep but the quality and natural cycle of deep and REM-sleep may be disrupted. This applies to the presence of any mental stimulant. caffeine-megadosed, cocaine sniffing and amphetamine taking people do not get crazy due to the direct effects of the drugs themselves. They get crazy because over a time period spanning as little as 48-96 hours, they have been deprived of deep and REM sleep in sufficient quantities.

That is why the sleep deprivation techniques in use at Gitmo and elsewhere, in terms of real and lasting damage to the psyche and person, are not at all different from the use of 'baaad drugs'. Maybe much worse. Because there is real terror and angst mixed in with it. (It matters not how well fed: these people are BEING DAMAGED and SUFFERING. Why?)

If you drink (for example) caffinated sodas or coffee throughout the day, stock up on the no-caffeine versions and begin to mix them in towards the end of the day, so by the time you lay down the curve of stimulant in your system is already starting to taper off. If you are suffering from any measure of sleep deprivation -- which has as many weird and unique symptoms as there are intelligent minds in the Universe -- this simple experiment should begin to improve everything, become noticable in just a few days.

___
Everyday in the morning when you get up and you crawl out of bed
And you crawl out of bed and you crawl out of bed
Everyday in the morning when you get up and you crawl out of bed
And you look at the moon where the window is
And the stars shine, and the stars shine, and the stars shine
Everyday in the morning when you get up and you crawl out of bed

And way down below in the sun belt
And the telephones, and the telephone, and the telephones
And you look out the moon where the window is
Everyday in the morning when you get up and you crawl out of bed

And some of us breathe in the brown ground
Where the worms clown, where the worms clown, where the worms clown
Way down below in the sun belt
Everyday in the morning when you get up and you crawl out of bed

And every night when you lay down
You fall flat, you fall flat, you fall flat
Some of us breathe in the brown ground
Everyday in the morning when you get up and you crawl out of bed

So we're all asleep in the same dream
In the snort fort, the snort fort, the snort fort
And every night when you lay down
Everyday in the morning when you get up and you crawl out of bed

Santa Claus modified snow peas
On the sun roofs, on the sun roofs, on the sun roofs
So we're asleep in the same dream
Everyday in the morning when you get up and you crawl out of bed

If you look in the mirror it's your father's face
And the thin grin, the thin grin, the thin grin
It's Santa Claus pulling up snow peas
Everyday in the morning when you get up and you crawl out of bed

And there's tears in the bank and the credit card
In the back yard, in the back yard, in the back yard
If you look in the mirror it's your father's face
Everyday in the morning when you get up and you crawl out of bed

And once in a while when the wind blows
And the heart whines, and the heart whines, and the heart whines
There's tears in the bank and a credit card
Everyday in the morning when you get up and you crawl out of bed

But there's lint in the pocket and a breath mint
Or a car key, or a car key, or a car key
Once in a while when the wind blows
Everyday in the morning when you get up and you crawl out of bed

And your kid has a face like a walnut
From the ice cream, from the ice cream, from the ice cream
But there's lint in the pocket and a breath mint
Everyday in the morning when you get up and you crawl out of bed

Everyday in the morning when you get up and you crawl out of bed
Everyday in the morning when you get up and you crawl out of bed

~Leo Kottke, "Jack Wakes Up"