[phil_london]

Hi all,

This is my first post - mainly just to say hi to the community.

I'm in my early thirties and have had DP/DR as long as I can remember - since my early teens I'd guess, though my memory of that period is fairly poor.

I suffer from the depersonalisation rather than derealisation part of DP/DR, as I understand it - the world around me feels real, and I don't really experience sensory disturbances, it just feels like I'm somewhat cut off from the world around me. I feel that my mind is working three times the speed it needs to be, meaning that I'm too 'in my head' rather than being fully present. This is my state constantly, rather than being episodic.

The other way that it affects me is emotional numbing (deaffactualisation, as I've heard it referred to). This is absolute - I would genuinely say that I don't feel any emotions - love, anger, or anything in between. I also don't get any true pleasure from anything - I can think I'm enjoying something, but it's never a felt sense of enjoyment.

The emotional numbing/deaffectualisation is one of the main problems in my book - I'd be happy to discuss more with others if that were of interest.

Thanks for reading,

Phil

 

[Kittymoo]

Hi all,

This is my first post - mainly just to say hi to the community.

I'm in my early thirties and have had DP/DR as long as I can remember - since my early teens I'd guess, though my memory of that period is fairly poor.

I suffer from the depersonalisation rather than derealisation part of DP/DR, as I understand it - the world around me feels real, and I don't really experience sensory disturbances, it just feels like I'm somewhat cut off from the world around me. I feel that my mind is working three times the speed it needs to be, meaning that I'm too 'in my head' rather than being fully present. This is my state constantly, rather than being episodic.

The other way that it affects me is emotional numbing (deaffactualisation, as I've heard it referred to). This is absolute - I would genuinely say that I don't feel any emotions - love, anger, or anything in between. I also don't get any true pleasure from anything - I can think I'm enjoying something, but it's never a felt sense of enjoyment.

The emotional numbing/deaffectualisation is one of the main problems in my book - I'd be happy to discuss more with others if that were of interest.

Thanks for reading,

Phil

Hi Phil,

I found this by googling deaffectualisation, which I suffer severely from. I also experience quite severe desomatisation. From what I understand, these things often go with depersonalisation, though my diagnosis is complex PTSD.

My experience is quite similar to yours, except that I had very intense emotions before the traumas that triggered this. For me there is a very sharp, dramatically contrasted before and after, because I developed these symptoms in my 30s.