I do not have DPD, but my boyfriend does.
I cannot understand what it feels like, the personal struggles nor the day to day living.
But I am educated in psychology and thrive on research.
Depersonalization Disorder can be neatly categorized into the DSM-5 but it is not so cut and dry, like anything in the DSM.
DPD is first and foremost a defense mechanism, to protect the mind against unwanted pain, thoughts and feelings. For example, many people disclose child hood trauma, though there is no cause and effect there, there is definitely a significant correlation.
My theory is that the mind has a certain amount of emotional capacity or emotional availability that it can sustain. When trauma or intensely stressful life events occur, we use defense mechanisms to protect ourselves. Sometimes these defenses can be mature and healthy, other times they are not. When this occurs, we use a certain amount of our emotional capacity/availability to deal with this pain. In the case of child hood trauma, it takes a great deal of time to overcome that pain. I know this first hand. But life goes on, and both good and bad things will continue to occur. As more bad things happen, the more of emotional capacity is used until eventually you hit a point where there is so little left, that you begin to shut out all feelings of pain because you cannot handle it anymore, and you use defense mechanisms. At this point of severity, not only are you shutting out the bad, but the good as well. Whether this is do to monism of good and bad (cannot have one without the other, ergo cannot dismiss one without dismissing another) or fear that good will turn into bad, is subjective and definitely debatable.
This is the point where Depersonalization can occur. At a point of turning away emotions, reality, disassociating oneself to protect them self. To avoid the pain they cannot handle. The emotional availability is minimal to non-existent. But, it is not lost.
In the case of my boyfriend, he fears getting help because he fears the pain will return. But the exact opposite will happen. By working through the pain and the trauma, he will no longer need to use such a strong defense mechanism to protect himself, and will only need to use a small amount of his emotional capacity to deal with it. This expands his emotional availability to welcome emotions, and life. This also comes with stability. As negativity decreases in life, and stability increases it becomes easier to increase emotional availability.
Though I do not understand what it feels like to have DPD, I do understand defenses, the plasticity of the mind and effects that trauma can have.
From my observations, this is just one way in which defense mechanisms manifest themselves. Whether or not you agree that this is relevant to DPD is up to you, and i encourage your thoughts and opinions (in a respectful way). Like I said, I like research, research is helping me with my relationship with my boyfriend and understanding will make it easier.
interesting,this might sounds crazy,but im very straight farward weither its right or wrong but point out that this hole idea or emotions distroy your perception of reality seems old school i guess your idea would be to build your house on a rock or let the house deside if the rock is fit for this construction the rock being brain house emotions, and society sas it does, yes i sayed it. it begs the question wy people need to drink why people smoke or why people need coffee and in the end its a better way of dealing with situations , most well cocoon there problems with explanations of the past and were captive by these emotions but when i here these stores i think off obama care lol confused yet if are deapest conciouce really cared u think we would be past obama care. i guess u could say the same about mental health and the working of chemostry. in the mean time your most likely right.. A+ i hop this was food for thought but most likly u didnt see it on the table.. peace
and I really enjoyed reading ur post...I completely agree with everything u wrote there...to let u in on how dp feels like well it feels like hell because u are cut off from the world, urself and other people it's not a nice experience at all. So if you find ur bf not wanting to do much it's because he cannot connect to anything
Well said. You're BF is lucky to have you in his corner and secure attachments are essential to helping him to regain a more solid sense of himself. Thanks for sharing this.
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