The more "intellectual" side of DP/DR

Reminds me of a favorite quotation:

"When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after, the little space which I fill, and even can see -- engulfed in an infinite immensity of spaces of which I am ignorant and which know me not, I am frightened, and am astonished at being here rather than there, for there is no reason why here rather than there, why now rather than then. The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me ..."

- Blaise Pascal -

But ol' Pascal was actually optimistic that there was a higher power that gave him comfort.
I have never seen the way I think -- much more as a kid/teen/young adult -- that existential thinking, as anything more than stupid intrusive thoughts.
So many philosophers since the beginning of human history have come upon astounding revelations and have not had DP/DR.

There is a misconception for instance that Sartre had DP/DR. He didn't, though "La Nausee" sp? sounds a lot like DP/DR.

As an adult, and after years of CBT trying to that crap out of my mind, I can read and discuss philosophy or go to a movie like The Matrix and not get stuck in this thinking.

That isn't to say that there are individuals who are "eccentric" or may have a mental illness who indeed see things in a way no one else does -- John Nash, another mathematician ("A Beautiful Mind") who had schizoprhenia. (NO WE DON'T HAVE SCHIZOPHRENIA, lol) and was able to "see" the answer to game theory, when other brilliant minds around him simply couldn't see it right in front of them.

Life is astounding and mysterious and many are aware of this. Unfortunately DP/DR throws us into the deep end of this -- we FEEL it, more than just THINK it. In that way, we are not philosophers, we are tortured by what mankind has always pondered. And why many would argue we have religions or rather theism -- a higher power that explains everything. To many this is total comfort. And there is no known civilization that has been found (yet, I suppose) that has not had a religion with deities of some form... or a great leader such as Buddha.

"Blaise Pascal was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Christian philosopher. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen. 1623-1662" Wikipedia

DP induces -

Introspection
OCD
Scary philosophical thoughts

Combine these three together, misery becomes lethal.

What you do -

Carry on with life. Fulfill your dreams. You don't have to "undo" your knowledge of anything. It would've been the same with or without knowing it.

By only focusing on one aspect of life we are not able to concentrate on the bigger picture or make room for the beautiful things life has to offer us. This is what's important to remember

Hi bluecanary, I know exactly how you feel. It's unfortunate you are suffering in the same way I am (and I'm sure many others are, too), but it's actually a relief to me to know I'm not alone. When you say you feel like you've cracked the code you weren't supposed to... god, that has been one of my biggest fears. I've never worded it like you did, but I've been terribly afraid that I've had some great insight into the nature of existence that no one else realizes. When I have that thought it causes great anxiety, because I think, "Wait, I haven't had some great insight, but I feel like I have... is this a delusion? Am I becoming psychotic/schizophrenic? Oh no!" Of course we are not psychotic, but I just wanted to illustrate my anxiety because of how easily my thoughts can spiral out of control.

I know how you feel. I have had the same thoughts, and they have bothered me just like they bother you. They come and go and come and go. It's irritating because just when you think you are getting better, surprise! Please know that you are not alone. I have lost many hours of my life ruminating on who I am, who the "I" is. I once felt like I had seen past my ego/personality and realized that there is no one there, that I am just a biological machine and so is everyone else. I never believed that, but it's how I felt, and those thoughts plagued me with severe anxiety for months. I'm not even close to recovered yet, but I have seen great improvement lately because of something I learned...

You are not the individual you once thought you were. You are part of an ecosystem. You are a beautiful, magnificently complex extension of an organic symphony. You were not born into this world, but were born out of it. It is you, and you are it. Just as a wave is a wave, it is also part of the ocean. You are you, but you are also part of the universe. You are the universe experiencing itself, and so am I. Lately, it has helped me immensely to have something to identify with. I am not in this world, I am part of this world. It's beautiful and absurd at the same time. I can identify with the Earth now, with the stars and the trees and the sea. I feel some sort of attachment to it all, and it's comforting. It's comforting to know that I am part of a wonderful, harmonic system of life and fruition. Suddenly, death does not scare me, because I will not die, in some sense. I'm just a wave of the universe (Literally! Your body is made of atoms from exploding stars!), which existed before me and will exist after me. The only purpose of life is to live in harmony with nature, since, after all, we are nature.

I learned this from a philosopher named Alan Watts. My DP has weakened quite a bit lately, and the world is starting to make sense in a way it never did before. My life has definitely been changed. I will recover, but I will never be the same person I was. I will be much wiser and much happier, I think. Well, maybe just happier! Is this enlightenment? I don't know, probably not, but I don't really care. I have no goal of becoming enlightened, I just want to feel better and help others feel better.

I've rambled long enough... hopefully something I said will help you. Remember, we are on this journey together.

That's interesting, Mike... would you say that DP is in a way like "coming into the light," seeing things as though they're there for the first time (this is what it feels like to me?), or going back into shadows after having seen things more clearly? I could see it either way.

I had a very hard day today. It started off okay... right now the DP/DR is 24/7, but for the past couple of days it's been in the background and only been slightly distressing. I had a few errands to run, and I was determined to do them, so I did. I had anxiety about it, but I went, and the whole time, I was narrating and overanalyzing EVERYTHING in my head - every movement I made, every word I said, every interaction with another person. It was as though my mind was on overload from all the stimuli. I kept asking myself questions like, "Why are things this way? Why is this happening? Why is the world this way?" ...etc. etc. etc. I literally analyzed every single thing that happened to the point where nothing made sense anymore. I can't make sense of anything at all, and it's scaring the living daylights out of me. I'm not even sure if this qualifies as DP/DR anymore, over just relentless overanalytical thinking. Will I just "forget" this, or am I doomed to live with it forever?

Often on this site I hear people say.. "i'm stuck in my head" or "I feel numb".. I used to say those things too. But over the years of therapy I've learnt how to reconnect with my feeling and emotions… most of the time at least. It was explained to me how dissociation disconnects or detaches us from our emotions and feelings. In my case I also saw why my mind was 'stuck' in this state of dissociating the difficult feelings and emotions. For me it was learned process, whenever I felt threatened or fearful or triggered I'd slip into a dissociative state and 'disconnect' from the pain or hurt or fear. The problem was of course, how to change that automatic process of detaching or disconnecting.

Being dissociative, I was very stuck in my head. I intellectualised everything.. I'd learnt to push away or turn off emotions and the experience of how my body felt. You can live your life without those, but it's not the 'normal' human experience. Feelings and emotions are there to guide us through life and help us seek happiness, safety and peace within.

One really interesting thing a therapist said to me years ago was "you can't intellectualise feelings… You have to 'feel' them. They manifest in your body and they're telling you something." She was exactly right, and that's what I began to learn.. How to experience feelings. Naturally when I reconnected with feelings and emotions I became less 'in my head' and rumination or ever thinking became a thing of the past. If I ever felt myself starting to dissociate, I'd 'check in' with my body and the feelings I was having. I'd honour those feelings. If I felt anxious, I'd focus on why I felt anxious and I'd honour that feeling and do what I needed to do to feel ok again. If my gut told me something, I learnt to honour that feeling. My experience of life now is much more how it's meant to be.

59Ballons said:

NO SERIOUSLY YES YES YES YES ABSOLUTELY 100% AGREE!! FINALLY!!! This is exactly how I feel!!!!!! I have always had these existential thoughts, but the past few months I've been a train wreck when I'm thinking about them. But when I distract myself, it feels like I'm just "coasting" through life. It's glorious and amazing to feel anxiety free.... But in retrospect, I don't feel like I'm actually "living" because In wasn't thinking about how weird life is.

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I was LITERALLY about to post this! This is exactly how I think and feel!!! I have found it very difficult to describe how I feel but this is exactly the thoughts and feelings I have had recently.

Has anybody ever tried to write down, when they are feeling a bit more "real" and "with it"? I always find referring back to it I never believe what I have written down and that I

have always felt the way I currently do. Its like, I am pretty sure ive always felt like this, havent i? But surely not...

Then I think back to times when I didn't feel it and I was like, was I just existing on a different plane of existence then. Just motoring through life and not really thinking about existence?

Its like de-realization makes everything feel MORE real and because of anxiety, we worry about it.

Again, iterating how I actually feel is very difficult

Cheers

Ash.