[Scattered]

Although my DP has been waning I still experience it with anxiety or in new situations that make me uncomfortable. I was thinking about what puts me into these states and believe it has alot to do with my specific way of thinking and background. Is it possible to get DP or experience episodes of it because of low self esteem? My thinking is basically this "I hate myself, I'll never accomplish anything" then i may experience DP. I think it may be a psychological expression of secretly wanting to not be me. Because I don't want to live as myself experiencing reality now, I disassociate. This would be like a way of eliminating a self that I'm not satisifed with or believe is unable to cope with the world. Does this make any sense?

 

[Kerio]

It makes perfect sense, but I'd say it's less of 'not wanting to be me', but more of 'not wanting to BE HERE'. I think it's a lot like shrinking into yourself because you're terrified of getting hurt. That's not 'low self-esteem', because if you have DP, you have NO ESTEEM (LOL!!!). We question why we are ridiculed, we find no answer, we get frightened or angry. Very animal, heh.

And about 'I hate myself, I'll never accomplish anything', I think it's more a feeling of us knowing we CAN get things done....but fears from the past resurface, leeching and connecting to what we assume need to be done, and we get DPed.

Essentially, DP is a way of softening reality, which means it's not that we don't want to be us, our consciousness just took so much pain it retreated into a shell inside of us.

 

[= n]

I just tried to disagree with this post, and formulate a criticism but instead i find myself agreeing with it.

Although i think self esteem is more of an effect than a cause, i suppose from one perspective it may be because of our self esteem that our minds wander from us in this way. To preserve ourselves we have to run away, for whatever reason, probably traumatic. Low self esteem in general might contribute to DP/R but it can equally be seen as an effect of the compromises the disorder seems to force. Or alternatively cause and effect cannot be untwined and devour and give birth to each other endlessly in a spiralling downward descent.

Well perhaps not.

 

[Guest]

I've probably had low self esteem for my entire life. I've probably been terrified of other people since I was small. I was like this before I was dissociated.

I know not all DP'ers were like this, but most of them seem to have had drug-related onset. Seriously, if there was someone whose DP/DR didn't start after trauma/anxiety or drug use, I want to know...because as far as I know the onset of DP is absolutely preceded by one of these situations.

 

[= n]

There are some people here who claim their experiences started for no apparent reason (no trauma or drugs), i cant remember who.

To be honest though i have a hard time believing it (there is always the possibility of unconscious repression).

 

[enigma]

There are some people here who claim their experiences started for no apparent reason (no trauma or drugs), i cant remember who.

Though I suspect psychotropic meds (taken as an adolescent when mine began),it seemed to have no definite cause.

I believe low self esteem is a common personality trait among non-drug-induced dp/dr'rs. I certainly always had low self worth. Whether it's an actual causal factor,though, I couldn't possibly say.

e

 

[Guest]

There are, of course, people on here who have had far worse experiences than me and would have cause to repress their memories. I suppose it is possible to have no clear cause for onset, but it seems likely to me that it is an accumulation of things, genetic predisposition, blah blah...

Of course, we all love causality.

 

[sleepingbeauty]

It makes perfect sense, but I'd say it's less of 'not wanting to be me', but more of 'not wanting to BE HERE'. I think it's a lot like shrinking into yourself because you're terrified of getting hurt. That's not 'low self-esteem', because if you have DP, you have NO ESTEEM (LOL!!!). We question why we are ridiculed, we find no answer, we get frightened or angry. Very animal, heh.

And about 'I hate myself, I'll never accomplish anything', I think it's more a feeling of us knowing we CAN get things done....but fears from the past resurface, leeching and connecting to what we assume need to be done, and we get DPed.

Essentially, DP is a way of softening reality, which means it's not that we don't want to be us, our consciousness just took so much pain it retreated into a shell inside of us.

i gotta agree with all of this. i cant deal with the world. i feel like an alien. everything that people consider normal i consider to be foreign and i just cant get used to it. like i have hooves and everyone else has hands. so i dissociate to comfort myself. i also have ADD.. and i do think that ADD is almost the same as dissociation cause my mind wont allow me to concentrate on whats in front of me cause its just too complex for my hooves. filling out an application, paying bills, shopping for groceries, doing the laundry, cleaning the house. its like trying to eat birdseed with no beak. so my brain just shuts itself off and goes 'uh uh.. im not doing this. im going to stare at the walls and drift into a world of fantasy.' its so soothing that my brain doenst want to come back to the real world.

 

[Scattered]

Yeah thats what I'm getting at. The difficulty of living in a world that you don't understand and disassociating because its means you dont have to face a potentially harsh reality. When I'm faced with everyday life I don't like what I see so my mind wanders as a way of escaping the truth. The truth is that life is difficult and consists of alot of suffering regardless of what you do. Things don't always make sense or have meaning, I dont think in this way DP is delusional so much as its an exaggerated reaction to this truth. Religion may be the same albeit healthier reaction to this truth.

It's like if reality isnt what you want it to be you can always rebel against it. You can live in a fantasy world of your own making. But this just leads down the darker pathways of the mind and causes more suffering than what you're trying to escape from. Its ironic in that way.No matter how far you go down into the depths the truth will always find you. So the idea is to accept whats around you. But its difficult when you're natural reaction is to withdraw.

 

[Guest]

Hi Scattered

I suppose that "low self esteem" could cause feelings of DP/DR. I have very low self esteem and have had since I entered puberty many years ago. Because of the symptoms of DP/DR I have never been able to accomplish much, Particularly accomplishing anything that required an effort of "Will" as the DP/DR caused me to feel heightened levels of anxiety and depression and made me feel very confused. And it is not even so much even a matter of "Will Power," sometimes it is just being unable to understand the steps or do the actions necessary to accomplish something. Also I find it difficult to get a sense of an overview of things so I can't proceed methodically towards a goal becuase I find it hard to recognise the pattern to follow that leads to success and to a self esteem boosting feeling of accomplishment.

Personally I feel I had poor self esteem long before I began to experience DP/DR. Yet I can relate to what you are saying.

If one goes back in psychiatric history far enough one will find reference to a condition referred to as an "Inadequate Personality Disorder." For whatever reason (as I understand it) it is a situation where a person lacks ( or feels they lack) the strength of Character to interact with the external world effectively and in a satisfying manner because they are always feeling overwhelmed as they lack self confidence and have a very low tolerance of frustration, even the most trivial of frustrations sets them back. For some the bearing down of "reality" causes them to retreat from lifes field of battle and they begin, generally unconciously, to dismantle or deconstruct their sense of Self as their life force ("libido") is in retreat and withdrawing from interactions with the objects (people and things) in the external world. This can cause one to experience feelings of ""unreality" about the "things" (people and events etc) and even ones own sense of self if the retreat has gone that far. The "life force" is no longer invested in animating these things with "meaning." When life has lost all meaning for a person it also looses the feeling of being "real."

sincerely
john

 

[Guest]

Hmm..."Inadequate Personality Disorder..." its character is somehow familiar.