I feel like I am a separate entity from my brain. I think this is part of my DPDR but I need help understanding it.

Obliviousthorne said:

in case this is familiar, this is a cross post from the r/dpdr subreddit.

This feels so hard to explain, and I am very confused. As the title states, I feel separate from my own brain.

I am my heart and my soul. I'm my desires and my personality. I'm memories and feelings and... human.

But my brain? It's a virus. Lifeless and invasive. My brain decides what I think, believe, and do, whether I want to or not. It determines when I dissociate, in fact, it feels like the mastermind behind it all. It takes away my emotions when it sees fit. It makes me self-harm and think suicidal thoughts and intrusive thoughts. It's scary, really. It's not a voice or anything, nor an alter, but it feels like its, own lifeless thing within me. It's a part of me but it's not.

I've described before that I think my brain sometimes makes me dissociate so that it can manipulate me more easily. I'm far more... pliable when I'm dissociated. I lack emotion and care, and motivation to fight, so my brain finds it easier to make me hurt myself or attempt suicide. It's scary, really. It genuinely feels like my own brain is this scheming, lifeless shell that has ulterior motives against me.

I think this is part of my DPDR, in a sense that feeling like a piece of me is separate/I am a separate entity from my own brain. It feels like my thoughts and stuff aren't really my own.

The confusing part is that I feel this way inside DPDR episodes/dissociation and outside of it. Basically, all the time, I think. Am I just in a constant episode? Are there levels to episodes/dissociation? I don't know. I don't believe that I'm separate, I'm able to acknowledge the reality that I am my brain, but something just feels so... strange? Can anyone help me understand all of this? What is happening to me and Is this part of DPDR?

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