ReiTheySay

Everyone's experience is different. I started getting DPD when I was 16, too.

I'm glad you still go on about your day and get things, and engage in activities! Keep that up

I feel like a lot of people who get DPDRD start developing obsessive thoughts which may be is one huge factor in feeling worse.

I would recommend reading about dealing with OCD, not saying bc you have it, but because generally people with anxiety can benefit a lot from learning how to deal with obsessive thoughts. Trust me on this.

I hate the disorienting feeling, too. I get the unexplained lightheadedness and nausea, too.

My advice would be, don't try to fight it, live with it. Take a step back mentally for a second, acknowledge how you feel, how your brain feels. After that, accept it; as in don't react much to it as much as possible. It may sound hard esp at the beginning but it's doable. Then, go on about your day. Let it accompany you when it insists. There's nothing you can do to change the way you feel, you are.

That, and learning from online resources how to deal with obsessive thoughts, especially helpful with getting panicked when you remember "it" again (I used to be that way so I know), a lot lies in the way your brain reacts at moments like that, and figuring that out eventually can help tremendously.

And compassion for yourself. You've got it.

 

Hey leminaseri,

Would you perhaps like to share as to why this particular video killed your hope?

 

I am suffering from depersonalization-derealization disorder, and I am diagnosed with it, as a disorder on the spectrum of dissociative disorders. I haven't got it from drugs or (for most part) anxiety, but from a prolonged childhood abuse that I suffered, and in my case it is completely trauma-related. It means that I cannot just solve it by relieving my anxiety, even though relieving my anxiety helps, but that I have some other background issues to tackle. It does not mean that I am doomed with this disorder, it just means that my path to recovery is somewhat more complicated - but not impossible!

 

I have to say that I see nothing wrong with what this guy is saying. He allows for other possible causes of depersonalization to exist, but he is pointing out to what he suffers from, and that is what he is mostly talking about through his channel, from what I understood, based on this one video. It does not have to refer to you. Also, you should only rely on a good therapist to tell you what you suffer from, and by no means assume on your own what kind of DP do you have.

 

Best,

A.

 

 

 

Hey there,

Can I ask if your childhood trauma was a rather obvious possible cause or did you have to dig in?

Did you remember experiencing some form of DPD as a child?

Doesn't that kind of give you an idea of the nature of what you feel, having been two years?

I'm sorry it's still a problem for you. I hope you managed to deal with them better. I personally think it's a form of anxiety, having experienced anxiety manifesting in endless ways myself.

Interesting. I've never thought about it or seen it this way. I get how it can be seen this way as an autistic person.

Honestly, it feels like one of these terms that in ten years or so they find a different alternative to. It feels like an umbrella term that is not accurate to be honest.

And it is a little disturbing to think "personality disorder" does suggest there's something wrong with the personality/person as a whole or how it functions as a whole where a lot of times it's aspects of it, or not even necessarily "personality".

I think it's also the connotation it has. Comes from the doctors themselves. 

Btw, 15 minutes to diagnose? terrible doctor. I have had my own share with them. Most recent doctor I went to needed 2-3 sessions to try to diagnose me (then decided he really couldn't, at least he knows his limits)

Good points Chip & Where. I think when you realize that societal norms extend to the psychiatric industry and nothing is an exception, you don't take everything from their point as an absolute.

Hey Rei, I am not DPd atm, but I still have a problem with my reflection...it is almost triggering for me, if I look too long at the mirror, I can feel the DP hovering over me, but then I do not get DPd...I have the same problem with photographs, so it is not just a reflection thing...perhaps it has more to do with identifying with oneself, than with DP? Idk, this is just some wild guess, I didn't put much thought into it, but I was intrigued by your account...

It was almost triggering for me not too long ago. Although it still can come and go, the triggering aspect. I used to be the same with photographs too. I don't react to them the same I did before DP though. Nothing at all is the same before it but somehow it gets better.

Can you elaborate on having to do with identifying oneself?

I've read a study before on DP patients where I think the parts of the brain responsible for identifying faces doesn't function normally as well as the emotional memory

Brain researchers  say the eye is the window to the soul, and  if you have a soul, that it resides in the temporal lobe of your brain.  They also say the temporal lobe is "exquisitely prone to insult"

My temporal lobe was insulted when I was 17.   Immediately  following my first exposure to cannabis, I had powerfulI temporal lobe seizures.  I lost my emotions and also lost limbic resonance.

https://en.wikipedia...imbic_resonance

I could no longer relate to my mirror image as I once had.  The damage in my limbic region  was clouding my vision.  I developed recurrent major depression featuring severe insomnia and anxiety

from this incident and I continued to experience focal temporal lobe seizures for decades thereafter. I also experienced frequent ocular migraine aura.

40 years later, I had an EEG which showed I had significant pathology in my dominant temporal lobe. That damage had occurred when I was 17.

At 57, I was told I was disabled from an event which had occurred 40 years earlier.  I had retired early, so I just added the disability check to my monthly income.

I had ECT in 2014, which seems to have cured the depression.  The focal seizures stopped somewhere in the mix.  Life goes on.

Thank you for sharing

I still remember this from messaging you a couple years ago. I actually had EEG and brain MRI done since then and they found nothing. My psychiatrist was almost confident I had epilepsy and was quite confused when I came back with the results that he actually told me he couldn't help me.

Bizarre how they came up with the conclusion of disability 40 years later

I can't help but wonder how science hasn't gotten to this yet. Especially with 'concrete' brain pathology in regard to it...