[Tim Couch 1999]

I’ve suffered from various anxiety disorders since 2010, but my story with DP/DR doesn't really start until 2017.

In early 2017 I developed Panic Disorder. One of the symptoms of my panic attacks was derealization. I only experienced derealization whenever I was having a panic attack. At this point, I never experienced depersonalization, and I didn't even know what it was. But that would change in December 2017.

One day I woke up and everything just felt off. I didn’t know what it was, but the way I was perceiving the world was so different. It was like I was seeing through everything, figuratively speaking. A strange new symptom was that my mind seemed severed from my body. It took a few days, but I found out I was experiencing depersonalization. I was fortunate to get a quick diagnosis because many people go years and years without ever learning that they're experiencing depersonalization.

It struck me as odd that I was experiencing depersonalization without the presence of a panic attack. Like I said before, I would only experience derealization whenever I had a panic attack, so I didn't understand why I was experiencing depersonalization with no panic attack. You'll often hear that DP/DR is a symptom of anxiety, so reading that just added more confusion.

Interestingly, with the onset of depersonalization, my panic attacks disappeared. I still experienced high anxiety episodes, but they were no longer in the form of panic attacks with physical symptoms. All of this was accompanied by a loss of feel-good chemicals in the brain. I started to suffer from a very mild form of depression, as a result of not having as many of these chemicals. I always suspected that this depersonalization experience was a result of this.

I went on to struggle with depersonalization for the majority of 2018. Luckily it began to fade in late 2018, and for the next few years I would say I was mostly recovered from depersonalization (some would call it a 90% recovery.) Depersonalization was barely background noise in my life. It rarely flared up, and usually only did the day after a night of heavy drinking. Other than that, I would only notice it if I decided to focus on it, then I could notice that my mind was still severed from my body - but this didn’t cause any distress. During this time, I still lacked the feel-good chemicals I was talking about earlier, but I didn’t care all that much.

Fast forward to February 2022, and this is where everything would change.

One night I had a lucid dream, something I had never experienced before. It was crystal clear awareness that I was in a dream. Again, this is something I had never experienced before. I really didn’t like being aware that I was dreaming, as it scared me for some reason.

When I woke up, I had a really bad anxiety attack. Since my mind was still in the process of waking up, I was still in a dreamlike state. For some reason this caused me to think that I was actually dead. I became convinced that I had died and passed on (I actually believed this for a few minutes.) Since I was experiencing nothing but pure terror, I thought to myself “well, you’re clearly not in heaven.”

I finally snapped out of it a few minutes later, but everything changed after this moment. The emotional trauma from this experience clearly messed up my neurochemistry, as I was never quite the same from that moment on. I suffered new anxiety symptoms, and my Pure OCD (previously unmentioned) was as bad as ever. This all led to some DP/DR episodes.

The DP/DR episodes went like this: I would experience really high anxiety that would heighten to a point where it would turn into DP/DR, but only momentarily, and then I would come back down from it. This is obviously what’s known as “episodic DP/DR.”

Then came April 2022. One day I had another high anxiety episode that eventually reached a point where it turned into DP/DR, only this time the DP/DR never turned off...

From that point on, I’ve seemingly been stuck in this state of DP/DR. I say seemingly because sometimes I will feel decently normal, but I'm not able to tell if I'm still experiencing a milder form DP/DR, or if it's actually gone temporarily.

Interestingly, this new bout of DP/DR appears to have been accompanied by a loss of even more of those feel-good chemicals I was talking about earlier. There is a clear lack of chemicals that would normally calm me down. It’s made it impossible to "think" my way out of DP/DR, something I used to be able to do. I can't rationalize with myself anymore. I only used to feel this way after a night of drinking, but now it’s every day.

One thing I find weird is that my DP/DR seems to be different than most peoples. Almost everyone reports experiencing emotional numbness, yet I've never experienced that. Many people also report feeling like an outside observer to their thoughts and actions. But again, I've never really experienced that. My main symptoms are the following: my surroundings will feel unfamiliar, my body will feel completely foreign (like it's a shell), and my consciousness will feel separate from my body. At it's worst, the entire earthly experience feels like it's brand new. It's hell to experience.

And that's my entire story with DP/DR.

Now that I've shared my DP/DR story with everyone, I have one major question for the forum. Given everything I’ve laid out, do you think I have primary DP, or just a form of the anxiety DP? I honestly can’t tell, and it’s become another OCD ritual in my head, where I’m constantly coming to different conclusions each time.

Sorry for the long post, but I felt it was crucial to give as much context as possible to get reliable answers.

 

[Chip1021]

Let me ask you a couple of questions.

In your mind, what difference would it make to you if you were told that you had “primary DP” vs. “anxiety DP?” After all there are people out there who don’t even acknowledge such a distinction.

How do you know that your brain is lacking in “feel-good chemicals?” We definitely have a strong tendency to locate these problems in our brains, when it might be the case that you are simply dissociated from yourself and the experience of your body and your surroundings. That is what DPDR is, after all.

Many of us on this forum experience this issue constantly, and there are a variety of possible explanations for that. But I think most of us would agree that focusing on it so much will typically exacerbate and fuel it further. And it seems to me that is exactly what you are doing right now. My suggestion would be to try to focus on other things as much as possible for awhile. There’s no guarantee that it will “cure” you, but if you do that consistently, you might get your answer that either this is “primary DP” or it does not matter, because you are out living your life and you don’t even care anymore.

 

[leminaseri]

Let me ask you a couple of questions.

In your mind, what difference would it make to you if you were told that you had “primary DP” vs. “anxiety DP?” After all there are people out there who don’t even acknowledge such a distinction.

How do you know that your brain is lacking in “feel-good chemicals?” We definitely have a strong tendency to locate these problems in our brains, when it might be the case that you are simply dissociated from yourself and the experience of your body and your surroundings. That is what DPDR is, after all.

Many of us on this forum experience this issue constantly, and there are a variety of possible explanations for that. But I think most of us would agree that focusing on it so much will typically exacerbate and fuel it further. And it seems to me that is exactly what you are doing right now. My suggestion would be to try to focus on other things as much as possible for awhile. There’s no guarantee that it will “cure” you, but if you do that consistently, you might get your answer that either this is “primary DP” or it does not matter, because you are out living your life and you don’t even care anymore.

you seem to be a lil bit inspired from my last pm to you

 

[Tim Couch 1999]

Let me ask you a couple of questions.

In your mind, what difference would it make to you if you were told that you had “primary DP” vs. “anxiety DP?” After all there are people out there who don’t even acknowledge such a distinction.

How do you know that your brain is lacking in “feel-good chemicals?” We definitely have a strong tendency to locate these problems in our brains, when it might be the case that you are simply dissociated from yourself and the experience of your body and your surroundings. That is what DPDR is, after all.

Many of us on this forum experience this issue constantly, and there are a variety of possible explanations for that. But I think most of us would agree that focusing on it so much will typically exacerbate and fuel it further. And it seems to me that is exactly what you are doing right now. My suggestion would be to try to focus on other things as much as possible for awhile. There’s no guarantee that it will “cure” you, but if you do that consistently, you might get your answer that either this is “primary DP” or it does not matter, because you are out living your life and you don’t even care anymore.

To me it would make a big difference. It seems like it would be much easier to treat Anxiety DP because there is a clear and direct cause for dissociating. You treat the anxiety and the DP would disappear. Primary DP seems like more of a mystery, and would be harder to treat as a result.

I say my brain is lacking "feel-good chemicals" because I don't experience euphoria like I used to. I describe it as a minor form of depression. Maybe lacking "feel-good chemicals" isn't the reason for this, but that's my best guess from an amateur perspective. I would also say that my dissociating is most likely a result of a physiological problem. For example, it gets worse when I haven't eaten in a long time and I get fatigued. There are many things like this that can make it worse or better, and I don't believe it's psychosomatic.

And yes, I'm obsessed with my DP/DR at the moment, like most people who have this are. I would just like to know what it is I'm dealing with. It's frustrating how little is known about it. It's also much more difficult to deal with than anxiety or depression.

 

[Chip1021]

To me it would make a big difference. It seems like it would be much easier to treat Anxiety DP because there is a clear and direct cause for dissociating. You treat the anxiety and the DP would disappear. Primary DP seems like more of a mystery, and would be harder to treat as a result.

I say my brain is lacking "feel-good chemicals" because I don't experience euphoria like I used to. I describe it as a minor form of depression. Maybe lacking "feel-good chemicals" isn't the reason for this, but that's my best guess from an amateur perspective. I would also say that my dissociating is most likely a result of a physiological problem. For example, it gets worse when I haven't eaten in a long time and I get fatigued. There are many things like this that can make it worse or better, and I don't believe it's psychosomatic.

And yes, I'm obsessed with my DP/DR at the moment, like most people who have this are. I would just like to know what it is I'm dealing with. It's frustrating how little is known about it. It's also much more difficult to deal with than anxiety or depression.

Yeah, I agree, we are all obsessed with this who are on this forum. Who wouldn’t be? It’s kind of difficult to just pretend that your life hasn’t been completely destroyed after all. I was basing my assessment simply off of what you had said in your original post, but now it seems there is more too it than simply being anxiety-fueled (my condition is similar; psychological factors don’t tend to change the feeling much, but organic conditions can result in drastic changes, especially certain weather conditions).

This is one of the issues with seeking understanding from others for a condition that is ultimately just a syndrome. We can only respond according to whatever information you relay to us, and the way you describe it, the language you are using, influences our responses to you.

In the final analysis, not even a novel-length post will be able to give us all the details we would need to “correctly” diagnose your problem; your experiences are your own, and the English language only goes so far in being able to capture the substance of these strange internal states of existence. Nobody will be able to understand your situation better than you can. If anxiety does not seem to be an issue for you, or if it doesn’t seem to have much or any effect on this condition, then the explanation and answers you are seeking probably lie elsewhere.

 

[Tim Couch 1999]

Yeah, I agree, we are all obsessed with this who are on this forum. Who wouldn’t be? It’s kind of difficult to just pretend that your life hasn’t been completely destroyed after all. I was basing my assessment simply off of what you had said in your original post, but now it seems there is more too it than simply being anxiety-fueled (my condition is similar; psychological factors don’t tend to change the feeling much, but organic conditions can result in drastic changes, especially certain weather conditions).

This is one of the issues with seeking understanding from others for a condition that is ultimately just a syndrome. We can only respond according to whatever information you relay to us, and the way you describe it, the language you are using, influences our responses to you.

In the final analysis, not even a novel-length post will be able to give us all the details we would need to “correctly” diagnose your problem; your experiences are your own, and the English language only goes so far in being able to capture the substance of these strange internal states of existence. Nobody will be able to understand your situation better than you can. If anxiety does not seem to be an issue for you, or if it doesn’t seem to have much or any effect on this condition, then the explanation and answers you are seeking probably lie elsewhere.

I would say that psychological factors do change the feeling for me. Whenever I feel more hopeless, the DP gets much worse. And when I feel optimistic that there's a way out, it seems to make the DP better, much better actually. This was the case when I dealt with panic disorder in 2017. When I first developed it, I thought I would have debilitating panic attacks forever, and that made them worse. Then all it took was learning that there was a way out via acceptance and progressive exposure, and the fear of panic attacks was cut in half, and became MUCH less of a problem.

There's no question that anxiety is what led to my current bout of DP/DR, but what I can't figure out is if it's now primary DP, or if it's still technically Anxiety related. I know there's no way of knowing if anyone on here could give a correct diagnosis, but I thought I would give it a try.

 

[Chip1021]

Well, now I’m just confused, lol. First it sounded like you were obsessed with labeling this thing, so I suggested not to focus on the label because it was giving you anxiety. Then you said you are almost certain that this is physiological, not psychological, and so I corrected myself. And now you are saying it is significantly changed by psychological factors and that you just really need this label. If being optimistic about recovery reduces this feeling significantly for you, and feeling hopeless makes it much worse, it seems like you already know exactly how to get out of it (or at least make it better). So which answer would you prefer that would make you more optimistic: primary DP or anxiety DP?

Whichever answer you give, that’s the one you definitely have, I’m 100% confident of that!

 

[Tim Couch 1999]

Well, now I’m just confused, lol. First it sounded like you were obsessed with labeling this thing, so I suggested not to focus on the label because it was giving you anxiety. Then you said you are almost certain that this is physiological, not psychological, and so I corrected myself. And now you are saying it is significantly changed by psychological factors and that you just really need this label. If being optimistic about recovery reduces this feeling significantly for you, and feeling hopeless makes it much worse, it seems like you already know exactly how to get out of it (or at least make it better). So which answer would you prefer that would make you more optimistic: primary DP or anxiety DP?

Whichever answer you give, that’s the one you definitely have, I’m 100% confident of that!

I meant I think the underlying cause of my DP/DR is due to something off with my physiology (e.g. hormonal imbalances, leaky gut, heavy metal toxicity, lyme disease etc.) rather than something just being wrong with me psychologically, with no physical cause.

What I said about the psychological factor was just to point out that my experience with DP can be affected by psychological things, but that doesn’t mean that I think it’s a purely psychological problem.

Feeling optimistic about my situation isn’t something that I can just believe when I want to. There has to be a certain process of thoughts that make me feel good about things, or else doubt will creep in.

It’s very possible I don’t even have DP/DR disorder and this is yet another example of my Pure OCD convincing myself of something. I have believed INSANE things about myself because of my Pure OCD. That said, I feel DP'd most of the time, so this feels fairly real.

I’m beginning to confuse myself as I'm typing this. I don't even know what I have. Maybe I’m just in denial about having primary DP, as that would be harder to get rid of, judging by history.

 

[Chip1021]

I don’t mean to try to confuse you. I’ve gone through the ringer with all those ideas as well. The way I see it, instead of focusing on the “what is the REAL truth about my condition,” instead I try to ask myself, what works? What makes it better? What makes it worse? Ideally it would be nice to have that answer located in the structure of the body, which is how modern people “know” that what they have is “real,” but all psychological conditions (and many “physical” illnesses) are defined by experiences, thoughts, feelings, or behaviors. So whether I “really have” DP or not is a moot point. I joined this forum because, in all my research about all the strange experiences I’ve had since being a child, the people on here resonated most closely with my own.

 

[GoacaEblac]

Man, it's so sad that you have this problem. I had this feeling once in my life when I was high. I felt good for a few seconds (as usual), but then I felt like it wasn't my body and everything was so physical. That I was just an object, I had nothing inside me. I looked at the knife in the kitchen and suddenly thought, "What if this hand is just cutting this heart." As if it wasn't my hand or my heart! I barely had time to do it. Something stopped me. Right after that, I decided to do treatment anxiety. I'm fine now, but I still remember that awful moment. Maybe you should get inpatient treatment for a while, too.

 

[Tim Couch 1999]

Update: I'm almost certain I have the anxiety version of DP.

I've noticed my DP/DR fades whenever I have debilitating anxiety & obsessions about other things. For the first 3 months of this experience, I was focussed only on the DP/DR, and that is what I had debilitating anxiety about.

But since then, other themes have come along, and they seem to take up all of my thoughts and energy. The debilitating thoughts and feelings about DP/DR become very easy to brush aside, and the thoughts about the new obsession becomes debilitating. I think this means I have a form of OCD. Either way, I think it's important to make the distinction between anxiety DP and primary DP. I don't believe I have primary DP, the mysterious kind that has no relationship to anxiety.

All of that said, the DP/DR is still kinda there if I decide to focus on it, but it no longer consumes me.
This realization is why I haven't been as active on here the last 3-4 months.

 

[Dashvpopka]

Regarding whether you have primary DP or a form of anxiety DP, I can understand how frustrating it can be not to have a clear answer. However, it's important to remember that labels aren't always necessary to find ways to cope with and manage your symptoms. It might be helpful to focus on what techniques or strategies have worked for you in the past and to seek out support from others who have gone through similar experiences.
You can also check out the best kratom vendors in your area. While I don't have any personal experience with that myself, I've heard that doing thorough research and reading reviews can help you find a reputable vendor. It's always important to prioritize your safety and well-being when trying out new things.