[Obliviousthorne]

Hello, My name's Thorne and I've recently started looking for answers for my symptoms.

I believe I experience DP/DR, but I'm really not sure of the difference between it being a symptom of my depression and anxiety, or it being a separate DP/DR disorder that's comorbid with my depression or anxiety. (I am diagnosed with depression, anxiety and an eating disorder, but I've never fully disclosed my issues with DPDR during these processes for reasons I explain below.) I only recently started, once again, looking for answers for the issues I have, though I'm not even sure where to begin. A rabbit hole of desperate searching led me to this forum.

I think that I have issues with both DP and DR, and the earliest account of either of these comes from an outside source (my best friend), who told me that they often had to reassure me I was real, they were real, our surroundings were real etc. when we were around 13-14 but I have no recollection of this. Apparently, during this time, we also started considering I'm having DP/DR issues, and I tried to convey to my parents that I think I had a dissociative disorder, but they yelled at me and told me I'm not mentally ill, I'm not crazy, etc. so i don't know. They've since gotten better about my mental health, but after their reaction, I really stopped talking about it all together, and shut down any possibility of DP/DR and dissociative disorders because I was terrified and convinced that "I can't be crazy". These are ideals that are still affecting me today. It makes me feel incredibly guilty for considering I have DP/DR or talking about my experiences, but I'm working on it slowly.

The sort of... Inciting incident? I guess? That has led to my awareness of what I'm dealing with was an episode in june-august of 2022. I have poor recollections of this time, my activities, conversations with others, etc. I remember feeling very out of it, but I mostly isolated myself for a long time, but to me it doesn't feel like it was. It was jarring to learn how little I was around during this period of time, and my friends have recounted multiple conversations I don't remember having at all. Since then episodes have been very frequent, though not really as long. Its hard to explain what I'm experiencing.

During all my episodes from 2022 onward, I feel distant from my surroundings and others, my perception of time is warped, I experience feeling not real and feeling things around me aren't real. I feel extremely disconnected from my emotions. Almost always, whether I'm in an episode or not, it feels as though my brain and I have separated, and that its feeding me thoughts, beliefs I don't want and makes me do things I don't want to do. During episodes I get increasingly self destructive (sh, suicidal, going on dangerous walks.) and I recall saying things like "I feel dead" "My surroundings are rotting" "I'm rotting" etc. Idk what to make of all this but the more I learn, and the more my friends talk to me about episodes I don't remember, the crazier I feel.

I've disclosed all this to my therapist without having the proper vocabulary for it, and next week I'll be asking him about DP/DR. We've been trying to work out triggers, but I hardly even notice when it starts/ends until I'm already well into a different state of mind.

All that to say, can anyone point me in the direction of helpful resources? I want to do my research so I can be more certain before I present it to a psychologist/doctor, though from everything I've read the symptoms of DP/DR line up with my experiences pretty perfectly. And how do I know if this is part of my depression/anxiety or its own separate thing?

 

[NoDevils]

I'm not sure what your question about "its own separate thing" means, but it is strange that you would forget a depersonalization episode and that your parents in this day and age would be in such denial that you could have a mental health problem.

 

[Obliviousthorne]

I'm not sure what your question about "its own separate thing" means, but it is strange that you would forget a depersonalization episode and that your parents in this day and age would be in such denial that you could have a mental health problem.

Sorry for the confusion, I was trying to work out whether my issues with (suspected) DPDR was coming from my depression/anxiety or if it was a standalone DPDR disorder. I was trying to work out how I would present my suspicion to my therapist/get more knowledge on it all, but it turned out not to even matter cause my therapist didn't address it when I brought it up to him 🙃 so don't worry about that.

From what I've read, it's not uncommon for people to have memory issues regarding episodes, especially with the nature of depersonalisation/derealisation. as I stated in my original post, I have issues with perception of time and the passage of time, it causes a lot of my episodes to feel like one big blur and I can't quite remember the things I say or do because of that. it's is especially true for the episode in june-august and why I can't really remember a lot of the stuff from when I was 13-14. (Plus, that was nearly 6-7 years ago so that probably plays a part in it too.)

My parents have gotten better with my mental health since then. They attended a long DBT outpatient course with me (which honestly didn't end up being much help) and have started to actually listen to me as I got older, but back then it was pretty rough. They didn't know what to do, I was self harming multiple times a day, so the suggestion that I might have a "more serious" mental health issue than depression and anxiety freaked them out, I guess. they also thought I was attention seeking, so there's that too. I dunno honestly, I still can't really make sense of it myself but it's better now. They don't really have a part in my mental health anymore, and I don't go into detail about my DPDR stuff with them

 

[NoDevils]

I'm glad to hear your parents want to be supportive although their ability to do so is limited. I suspect most parents wouldn't have gone to that DBT training. The therapist's reaction is very typical. Most practitioners are uneducated on depersonalization.

As for whether or not it's "depression/anxiety or standalone" I'm not sure there's any way that can objectively be parsed out, but you're welcome to think on it and you can post any ideas you want to share here. A question I have looking at your story is where did the self harm and terrible mental experiences come from? I'm not saying they necessarily came from trauma. Maybe there's some problem in everyone's brains with depersonalization which is not yet understood by science.

Depersonalization is somewhat common in people who are emotionally unstable, as is self-harm. Some emotionally unstable people act out very crazily, often winding up institutionalized, while others are more contained.

 

[Obliviousthorne]

You're right about that, it is very difficult to parse out and I've realised that it's not very impactful to focus so much on if it's a disorder or symptom, since that doesn't really change the fact that it's happening or how it might be approached in terms of treatment/therapy/etc.

I have a decade long history of self harm, suicidal ideation, depression and genetic anxiety, unfortunately. I don't think it was the only thing that caused it, but I do have some minor trauma around an extremely toxic friendship/relationship when I was a kid. But I have no idea if that's whats caused it, or if it's even connected to my issues with DPDR

It's a bit of a chicken and egg situation, honestly. Because of how poor my memory is, I have no idea if the DPDR came first and the rest was a coping mechanism that followed, or if the self harm/suicide/depression stuff came first and the DPDR was a coping mechanism. sigh it really feels impossible to tell why different parts of my mental health are this way and when each part even started.

 

[NoDevils]

You're right about that, it is very difficult to parse out and I've realised that it's not very impactful to focus so much on if it's a disorder or symptom, since that doesn't really change the fact that it's happening or how it might be approached in terms of treatment/therapy/etc.

I have a decade long history of self harm, suicidal ideation, depression and genetic anxiety, unfortunately. I don't think it was the only thing that caused it, but I do have some minor trauma around an extremely toxic friendship/relationship when I was a kid. But I have no idea if that's whats caused it, or if it's even connected to my issues with DPDR

It's a bit of a chicken and egg situation, honestly. Because of how poor my memory is, I have no idea if the DPDR came first and the rest was a coping mechanism that followed, or if the self harm/suicide/depression stuff came first and the DPDR was a coping mechanism. sigh it really feels impossible to tell why different parts of my mental health are this way and when each part even started.

Childhood trauma is very serious because children don't have the same resources and understanding as adults. For example if you hit a child often they won't have any sensible reaction they just fall apart emotionally. Maybe on some level the child can get used to such abuse but I'm not really interested in finding that out. People also need some exposure to relationships and environments where emotional regulation is possible, and it especially helps if they receive this earlier in life. The repressive and ignorant parenting styles of the past survive today and contribute to a lot of problems when children grow into adults. This is compounded by the fact many parents received mistreatment in their childhoods and never learned much emotional regulation. Issues can also come from people who aren't the parents, like abusive uncles, teachers, religious leaders and so on.