[wallacelav]

Kind of new poster and longtime lurker. Just saw that I had posted my first and only post back in 2016. As you can guess, I still have DPDR. Nothing has changed.

I am typing this post right after going to and back from the grocery store on foot and experiencing DPDR the entire time. I experience DPDR everyday--inside and outside, but primarily outside. My DPDR manifests itself as a feeling of being completely detached from my body and the environment. Walking outside has become such an arduous task--and its something I remember liking when it didn't give me panic attacks--almost a decade ago. I started having DPDR after a car accident 9 years ago. I just started somatic therapy and my provider believes that the DPDR stems from past childhood trauma that resurfaced after the car accident. We have only had two sessions, but I am just not hopeful anything will change, and I feel like I am throwing good money after bad trying to recover from this disorder.

The thing that frustrates me the most is the advice that I should carry on as usual; that I should just focus on everyday activities as a way of lowering my anxiety and thus relieving my DPDR symptoms. However, everything I try to do makes my DPDR worse. Everything that is supposed to treat my anxiety makes me more anxious and more depersonalized and derealized: yoga, walking, aerobics, etc. etc. I can't go to a single yoga class without having dpdr and feeling like I am about to faint in class. I have been doing yoga since January consistently and don't feel that my DPDR has decreased in the slightest. I can't walk outside without dpdr and feeling like I am going to pass out. The things that are supposed to be relaxing or not relaxing at all. Last weekend I walked near the lake with a friend and it took all my energy to act normal even though I felt like I was going to faint. And I love the lake. Nature is supposed to be healing, but being outdoors sends me into a panic. I would like to join a running club, but won't because I know how crippling my DPDR is. I used to bike but my bike sits here in my apartment because I am afraid that my DPDR will get too bad that I might get in an accident. And don't get me started about driving--I hardly drive anymore but have a car. Highways make me feel like passing out--and I used to love driving. I am a professor who has to give lectures as part of my profession--when I stand up in front of people, I feel like I am about to pass out, and it gets in the way of enjoying my experience. Fundamentally, this illness has blocked so many things I want to do and makes the things I do not enjoyable at all. So, no, I don't understand what it means to "just live your life."

So my question is--how am I supposed to reduce my anxiety when the things that are supposed to be anxiety-reducing cause so much anxiety for me? How am I supposed to heal this disorder when its what's getting in the way of doing the things I need to do to overcome it? I just feel like I am in a cycle that will never end. I have tried everything: talk therapy, exercise, medication, EMDR, neurofeedback. What else can I possibly do? My therapist wants me to try eating healthy as a way to heal this thing, but food is the only comfort I have--I can't find comfort anywhere else. This thing has taken so much of my life. I will be 35 in a couple years and its taken half of my 20s away and half of my 30s away. How am I supposed to live like this? What is the point of living if I can't enjoy it? I am not suicidal, I am just really asking a question.

 

[Chip1021]

Kind of new poster and longtime lurker. Just saw that I had posted my first and only post back in 2016. As you can guess, I still have DPDR. Nothing has changed.

I am typing this post right after going to and back from the grocery store on foot and experiencing DPDR the entire time. I experience DPDR everyday--inside and outside, but primarily outside. My DPDR manifests itself as a feeling of being completely detached from my body and the environment. Walking outside has become such an arduous task--and its something I remember liking when it didn't give me panic attacks--almost a decade ago. I started having DPDR after a car accident 9 years ago. I just started somatic therapy and my provider believes that the DPDR stems from past childhood trauma that resurfaced after the car accident. We have only had two sessions, but I am just not hopeful anything will change, and I feel like I am throwing good money after bad trying to recover from this disorder.

The thing that frustrates me the most is the advice that I should carry on as usual; that I should just focus on everyday activities as a way of lowering my anxiety and thus relieving my DPDR symptoms. However, everything I try to do makes my DPDR worse. Everything that is supposed to treat my anxiety makes me more anxious and more depersonalized and derealized: yoga, walking, aerobics, etc. etc. I can't go to a single yoga class without having dpdr and feeling like I am about to faint in class. I have been doing yoga since January consistently and don't feel that my DPDR has decreased in the slightest. I can't walk outside without dpdr and feeling like I am going to pass out. The things that are supposed to be relaxing or not relaxing at all. Last weekend I walked near the lake with a friend and it took all my energy to act normal even though I felt like I was going to faint. And I love the lake. Nature is supposed to be healing, but being outdoors sends me into a panic. I would like to join a running club, but won't because I know how crippling my DPDR is. I used to bike but my bike sits here in my apartment because I am afraid that my DPDR will get too bad that I might get in an accident. And don't get me started about driving--I hardly drive anymore but have a car. Highways make me feel like passing out--and I used to love driving. I am a professor who has to give lectures as part of my profession--when I stand up in front of people, I feel like I am about to pass out, and it gets in the way of enjoying my experience. Fundamentally, this illness has blocked so many things I want to do and makes the things I do not enjoyable at all. So, no, I don't understand what it means to "just live your life."

So my question is--how am I supposed to reduce my anxiety when the things that are supposed to be anxiety-reducing cause so much anxiety for me? How am I supposed to heal this disorder when its what's getting in the way of doing the things I need to do to overcome it? I just feel like I am in a cycle that will never end. I have tried everything: talk therapy, exercise, medication, EMDR, neurofeedback. What else can I possibly do? My therapist wants me to try eating healthy as a way to heal this thing, but food is the only comfort I have--I can't find comfort anywhere else. This thing has taken so much of my life. I will be 35 in a couple years and its taken half of my 20s away and half of my 30s away. How am I supposed to live like this? What is the point of living if I can't enjoy it? I am not suicidal, I am just really asking a question.

Your therapist sounds like a nut. I’ve noticed that, as of late, “childhood trauma” seems to be the all-purpose explanatory cause for every problem a person could have. Therapists have an uncanny ability to always find what they are paid to find. What reason does (s)he have to arrive at the conclusion that your childhood has anything to do with it?

From what you’ve said here, your DPDR began shortly after a car accident. Were you physically harmed in the accident? If so, how? These experiences can be the direct product of structural damage. Of course, it could also be anxiety as a consequence of that event as well.

With respect to your questions, your guess is as good as mine. “Just live your life” seems to work for some, but I’ve been trying to “just live my life” for the last 18 years since I developed this issue, and while that seemed to be moderately helpful in the beginning, the overall trajectory has just been downhill for me. I’d be curious to hear anybody’s suggestions for you. But mostly, I just wanted to respond to commiserate.

 

[wallacelav]

Your therapist sounds like a nut. I’ve noticed that, as of late, “childhood trauma” seems to be the all-purpose explanatory cause for every problem a person could have. Therapists have an uncanny ability to always find what they are paid to find. What reason does (s)he have to arrive at the conclusion that your childhood has anything to do with it?

From what you’ve said here, your DPDR began shortly after a car accident. Were you physically harmed in the accident? If so, how? These experiences can be the direct product of structural damage. Of course, it could also be anxiety as a consequence of that event as well.

With respect to your questions, your guess is as good as mine. “Just live your life” seems to work for some, but I’ve been trying to “just live my life” for the last 18 years since I developed this issue, and while that seemed to be moderately helpful in the beginning, the overall trajectory has just been downhill for me. I’d be curious to hear anybody’s suggestions for you. But mostly, I just wanted to respond to commiserate.

I am trying to be hopeful about this new therapist because, frankly, I am desperate and want to recover. And like you, I am highly suspicious about how prevalent childhood trauma has become as an explanation to all sorts of mental disorders. However, I am open to childhood trauma being at the root of DPDR because the first thing that came to my mind after the car accident was how upset my parents were going to be that I had just wrecked the car they had just bought and how disappointed they would be that it happened. That was the first thing on my mind--not even if I was okay or if my friend in the passenger seat was okay. Maybe it was shock, who knows. But that is where my mind went to. I just had so much shame about the accident being my fault, and I kind of still have shame about it till this very day. I grew up in a severely critical household (constantly hit and called stupid) and spent a lot of time in my bed doing maladaptive daydreaming trying to escape my life --which is why it might not be a far stretch to link my childhood to the onset of DPDR. Or maybe I've become just as nutty as my therapist is lol.

But this is what gets me-- the car accident wasn't severe. Everyone walked away fine. Many people have car accidents and don't get DPDR. But it was my first car accident, and my first car. I just wasn't physically or mentally prepared for that kind of thing to happen to me, even if it wasn't severe. It just was so unexpected. I had never been an accident ever. I was not physically injured after the accident, although I never went to get an MRI since I didn't want to go to the hospital. I didn't experience DPDR until I went to pick up the car after it was fixed and started depersonalizing/derealizing on the highway I had to take back home. Then DPDR started happening in the grocery store, in parking lots, in the classroom, at public events, etc. My DPDR seemed to be easing up until the pandemic, and now its constant again.

While the therapist thinks my DPDR is rooted in childhood trauma, her modality is not talk therapy, which I am completely over. I am exhausted talking about my parents, being bullied, exhausted talking about my depression, exhausted talking about anxiety, DPDR, etc. Her approach is somatic-based and includes things like grounding and tapping. The goal is to get my nervous system calmer--this is a tall order as I have experienced anxiety my entire life and its all my body knows. I will give this therapy a try. If I don't see improvement in a couple months, I will stop this form of treatment and try something else I guess. The amount of money I have spent trying to treat this thing makes me angry, but what else can I do.

 

[Chip1021]

I am trying to be hopeful about this new therapist because, frankly, I am desperate and want to recover. And like you, I am highly suspicious about how prevalent childhood trauma has become as an explanation to all sorts of mental disorders. However, I am open to childhood trauma being at the root of DPDR because the first thing that came to my mind after the car accident was how upset my parents were going to be that I had just wrecked the car they had just bought and how disappointed they would be that it happened. That was the first thing on my mind--not even if I was okay or if my friend in the passenger seat was okay. Maybe it was shock, who knows. But that is where my mind went to. I just had so much shame about the accident being my fault, and I kind of still have shame about it till this very day. I grew up in a severely critical household (constantly hit and called stupid) and spent a lot of time in my bed doing maladaptive daydreaming trying to escape my life --which is why it might not be a far stretch to link my childhood to the onset of DPDR. Or maybe I've become just as nutty as my therapist is lol.

But this is what gets me-- the car accident wasn't severe. Everyone walked away fine. Many people have car accidents and don't get DPDR. But it was my first car accident, and my first car. I just wasn't physically or mentally prepared for that kind of thing to happen to me, even if it wasn't severe. It just was so unexpected. I had never been an accident ever. I was not physically injured after the accident, although I never went to get an MRI since I didn't want to go to the hospital. I didn't experience DPDR until I went to pick up the car after it was fixed and started depersonalizing/derealizing on the highway I had to take back home. Then DPDR started happening in the grocery store, in parking lots, in the classroom, at public events, etc. My DPDR seemed to be easing up until the pandemic, and now its constant again.

While the therapist thinks my DPDR is rooted in childhood trauma, her modality is not talk therapy, which I am completely over. I am exhausted talking about my parents, being bullied, exhausted talking about my depression, exhausted talking about anxiety, DPDR, etc. Her approach is somatic-based and includes things like grounding and tapping. The goal is to get my nervous system calmer--this is a tall order as I have experienced anxiety my entire life and its all my body knows. I will give this therapy a try. If I don't see improvement in a couple months, I will stop this form of treatment and try something else I guess. The amount of money I have spent trying to treat this thing makes me angry, but what else can I do.

Yeah, I don’t mean to diminish childhood experiences in any way. The way your parents treated you (I wasn’t there so I don’t know) could lead you to that experience of shame and fear after your accident. But I struggle to see the relationship between that and DPDR, though it’s possible there is one. Childhood is one part of life, and it doesn’t determine who we will become. I spent too much time internally excoriating my parents for my current problems, despite the fact that they probably have little if anything to do with it.

That said, somatic experiencing therapy seems to at least be a more reasonable approach to DPDR than endless talking and bitching about our childhoods. Whether or not it is actually successful is another thing. Good luck, and if you experience significant improvement with it, please let us know!

I return the frustration. I’ve tried everything I can think of too, spent so much money and resources. I have so little energy these days that I prefer to save it unless I have a good reason to believe some new therapy is likely to work.

 

[wallacelav]

Yeah, I don’t mean to diminish childhood experiences in any way. The way your parents treated you (I wasn’t there so I don’t know) could lead you to that experience of shame and fear after your accident. But I struggle to see the relationship between that and DPDR, though it’s possible there is one. Childhood is one part of life, and it doesn’t determine who we will become. I spent too much time internally excoriating my parents for my current problems, despite the fact that they probably have little if anything to do with it.

That said, somatic experiencing therapy seems to at least be a more reasonable approach to DPDR than endless talking and bitching about our childhoods. Whether or not it is actually successful is another thing. Good luck, and if you experience significant improvement with it, please let us know!

I return the frustration. I’ve tried everything I can think of too, spent so much money and resources. I have so little energy these days that I prefer to save it unless I have a good reason to believe some new therapy is likely to work.

I agree with everything you are saying here, no doubt. At this point, the past is in the past. I just want to move forward in life--without DPDR preferably. That is all I want. I don't think childhood trauma directly caused my DPDR, and my therapist wasn't necessarily communicating this point either. From what she said, "the trauma" primed my body to experience the car accident the way I did. I think her larger point was that my body has always been in a hyper vigilant state--I just never realized it until DPDR. This is a theory I am open to investigating further, while also being fully aware that its just that, a theory.

All this said, I will provide an update for sure. And I empathize with you about trying everything without any relief. I haven't suffered from DPDR for as long as you have, but chronic, longtime DPDR absolutely sucks.

 

[Peter]

Yeah, I don’t mean to diminish childhood experiences in any way. The way your parents treated you (I wasn’t there so I don’t know) could lead you to that experience of shame and fear after your accident. But I struggle to see the relationship between that and DPDR, though it’s possible there is one.

This has been looked into in several, mainly cross-sectional, studies. Patients with depersonalization reported more adverse childhood experiences in comparison to healthy people. However when psychiatric patients with different mental disorders (depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, each without depersonalization) served as controls, the difference wasn't significant.

My guess is that the common denominator is stress, just like in many other mental disorders and ultimately it doesn't matter where exactly the stress is coming from.

 

[Phantasm]

I agree with everything you are saying here, no doubt. At this point, the past is in the past. I just want to move forward in life--without DPDR preferably. That is all I want. I don't think childhood trauma directly caused my DPDR, and my therapist wasn't necessarily communicating this point either. From what she said, "the trauma" primed my body to experience the car accident the way I did. I think her larger point was that my body has always been in a hyper vigilant state--I just never realized it until DPDR. This is a theory I am open to investigating further, while also being fully aware that its just that, a theory.

All this said, I will provide an update for sure. And I empathize with you about trying everything without any relief. I haven't suffered from DPDR for as long as you have, but chronic, longtime DPDR absolutely sucks.

I do Somatic Experiencing, from the manual as I don't have a therapist. I've found it really helpful, so I do urge you to stick with it. Remember that helplessness and hopelessness are intrinsic parts of the trauma freeze response, which can make you want to quit things before giving them a real try.

 

[Trith]

I am trying to be hopeful about this new therapist because, frankly, I am desperate and want to recover. And like you, I am highly suspicious about how prevalent childhood trauma has become as an explanation to all sorts of mental disorders. However, I am open to childhood trauma being at the root of DPDR because the first thing that came to my mind after the car accident was how upset my parents were going to be that I had just wrecked the car they had just bought and how disappointed they would be that it happened. That was the first thing on my mind--not even if I was okay or if my friend in the passenger seat was okay. Maybe it was shock, who knows. But that is where my mind went to. I just had so much shame about the accident being my fault, and I kind of still have shame about it till this very day. I grew up in a severely critical household (constantly hit and called stupid) and spent a lot of time in my bed doing maladaptive daydreaming trying to escape my life --which is why it might not be a far stretch to link my childhood to the onset of DPDR. Or maybe I've become just as nutty as my therapist is lol.

But this is what gets me-- the car accident wasn't severe. Everyone walked away fine. Many people have car accidents and don't get DPDR. But it was my first car accident, and my first car. I just wasn't physically or mentally prepared for that kind of thing to happen to me, even if it wasn't severe. It just was so unexpected. I had never been an accident ever. I was not physically injured after the accident, although I never went to get an MRI since I didn't want to go to the hospital. I didn't experience DPDR until I went to pick up the car after it was fixed and started depersonalizing/derealizing on the highway I had to take back home. Then DPDR started happening in the grocery store, in parking lots, in the classroom, at public events, etc. My DPDR seemed to be easing up until the pandemic, and now its constant again.

While the therapist thinks my DPDR is rooted in childhood trauma, her modality is not talk therapy, which I am completely over. I am exhausted talking about my parents, being bullied, exhausted talking about my depression, exhausted talking about anxiety, DPDR, etc. Her approach is somatic-based and includes things like grounding and tapping. The goal is to get my nervous system calmer--this is a tall order as I have experienced anxiety my entire life and its all my body knows. I will give this therapy a try. If I don't see improvement in a couple months, I will stop this form of treatment and try something else I guess. The amount of money I have spent trying to treat this thing makes me angry, but what else can I do.

I have had very high anxiety around work last weekend and didn't have something like this in a long time. I realized that when this happens I am mostly afraid of the outcomes, here the consequences at work. This time was a bit different, because I could not have support from anyone (including the therapist I have seen right after), and I was really really fed up. I had a conversation with my roommate, who just escaped a war in their contry recently. They told me about the journey and the fear of encountering soldiers that had instructions to shoot on sight. It must have been a really terrifying experience.

(I did feel some shame that I was afraid for "petty reasons" compared to a war, but I think that shame is useless, especially if it just serves to make me feel worse about myself and not help with the problem. Plus I think that this is not how fear works, my roommate isn't immunized with this kind of fears either since their experience.)

It made me think of how I would feel if there was a war where I live, the feeling that you still have to do something even when your life is at stake, even when you think that your chances are small, you still have to do something. And when confronting this with my fear I realized that I could/should apply that same form of courage to that much smaller fear. I was so pissed with many things this weekend (something also with the attitude of the therapists I am seeing) I thought I could not keep living like this, it was too much. And I thought that whatever happens around my work, it cannot be worse than my anxiety itself. I thought "f*ck every one", what if I get fired, what if everybody hates me, what if "insert the worst thing that I think can happen to me"? I don't care "f*ck it". And things started getting better for me then. In my fear, I think there is some core thing I am afraid of and it must be avoided at all cost. And then I thought I would not try to avoid it at all cost. I would just go through it with dignity, and "f*uck everyone". The result could not be worse than my own anxiety at that time. And rather than ridiculing my fears, that comparison with war rather helped me find the courage to say f*ck it while still taking it all seriously.

But about DPDR, my DPDR is not correlated at all with the intensity of my anxiety. For some people I am sure it is. I remember my first strong dissociation experience when I was about 11 years old and told a girl I loved her (not an interesting story, she turned out to be totally not worth it), and I felt totally out of my body as I did, and when my fear went down it went back to normal exactly at the same time. With my DPDR it's totally different now. During that weekend my DPDR was the same as any other time when I don't feel anxiety at all. I had pain everywhere, heart racing, and still by DR was unchanged. So, at least in my case, I don't think the DR is absolutely correlated with my anxiety level, but I feel it could be more related to a general "survival strategy", where even if some danger isn't immediately threatening to me I know it exists and that situation can potentially happen, and I am kind of reluctantly moving through some parts of my life rather than really going forward with everything I have. And I felt that thinking "f*ck it" helped me to move through life more as a whole and not only with 10% of myself, leaving body and half of my emotions behind. It is more like "we all go together, forward" and if something bad happens we take it all together. And maybe this is a kind of gradual exposure therapy (except I am not going to intentionally cause myself problems at work as an exercise).
That's my feeling about it right now. I feel that for me it answers to some of my problems around DPDR but for now my symptoms are similar to what they were before, or barely lower. So nothing conclusive so far, but at least I fear things less.

Just to give some more details, I think that part of my problem is how my identity is kind of shaped by what others think about it. Like if my boss is upset that I am not efficient enough at work, I will be lazy in their eyes, which is the same as actually being lazy. Therapists are dumb and don't understand my problem, including that one about efficiency, which means my problem doesn't deserve to be understood or taken seriously. They won't help me with it (and other things), and now I tend to think more that I don't need these people, f*ck them, they can all be wrong at the same time and I don't need to convince them. Maybe my problem is solvable but if I don't have the solution now I am not going to wait for it forever and f*ck them if they judge me.

(Just a note for people who have read this until the end, please don't give me personal advice. I don't give advice and I just share my experience so that if you ever find anything useful in it you are free to take it. If you think you have something that might be useful for me please be kind enough do it in the same way, but the topic isn't about me.)