Does this stop?

Yes, it will absolutely stop and you will feel totally real again.

The whole experience is fueled by anxiety. It will stop when it's no longer fed by your obsessive fear.

It's not really about the content of the ruminations. You could be afraid of literally anything, like getting the thought of a pink elephant permanently stuck in your mind. It's not going to happen, and it's not any more likely to happen with existential fears. Lasting changes take a lot of work.

The first time you suffer something like this, you fear that there might not be an end to it and cling desperately to hope.

The experience is transformed the next time (if there is one), and the edge is taken off it, because you know you will come through on the other side.

So remember the moments from your day (however fleeting) when you stopped ruminating and felt a little more comfortable, and that will strengthen your hope and reduce your anxiety.

These moments will tend to occupy more and more of your day, until soon you completely forget all about those tedious and tiresome things which you have contemplated ten thousand times already and they completely evaporate from your awareness.

You might find some of my recent posts relevant, such as the following:

http://www.dpselfhelp.com/forum/index.php?/topic/85849-fully-recovered-from-severe-dpdr-only-here-to-help/

http://www.dpselfhelp.com/forum/index.php?/topic/85881-please-help-my-mind-come-to-a-conclusion/?p=564441

esiuol said:

I'm basically over the physical symptoms of dpdr but I feel like I ruminated so much about myself and the universe and existence etc and I'll never come back from that or quite feel like I'm 100% real. And I feel so scared when I think about how we exist etc and when I do it just sends me on a downward spiral again. Will I ever feel real again? Will I ever be comfortable with existing again? C

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For the longest time I was emotionless. Partly this was because I actively cultivated this non-attached and disengaged state for years. I was also depressed because my life goal (truth realization) had seemingly been frustrated by DP/DR. My value system was upside down and I was withdrawn from the "real world" and social connection. Ironically, I had a panic attack about my lack of emotion when I felt I my mind had been completely fried and blown up by anxiety. Then the floodgates of emotion opened, and DR lifted for a while.

Anxiety can be unconscious, bubbling beneath the surface. That's why even when conscious anxiety passes and you're in recovery, you can still experience DP/DR for a while, and it can emerge at random moments. [EDIT: I believe you do need to start feeling again to fully recover. Suppressing emotions can slow recovery and halt it in extreme cases.]

Your brain has been so overwhelmed with stress, traumatized even, that your brain said 'I don't give an f anymore' and dissociated. It takes some effort to break through that wall and reconnect with your emotions. You need to see that reality is safe and meaningful and that you are strong, and work to draw out your feelings and re-associate them with reality.

Anxiety isn't bad, and if you suppress it, you also sacrifice the positive feelings and shrink from being fully alive. Face real world situations that might stir up your natural emotions. Does anything at all make you feel even a trace of emotion? If so, you need more of that.

Didi said:

And when you don't feel anything at all you're doomed? I can't feel anxiety anymore..

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