[luluinthefog]

Like everything's moving, no depth perception, the sky is big enough to swallow you whole, everything is too big or too small, nothing makes sense, nothing looks RIGHT, none of these people are real because I cant FEEL them here and in the pit of my stomach i feel this primal fear something terrible terrible so terrible i cant even conceptualize it is about to happen. This fake world is about to crumble all around me and we will all fall away. But no one else will care because I'm the only one who's real, I'm the only one who noticed.

 

[forestx5]

Q. What do you do when the world outside looks like a doctor seuss book?

A. Have some green eggs and ham?

"Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is You-er than You!"

 

[PerfectFifth]

As a conscious person, I'd advise you to assume other people are conscious until proven otherwise. When I first came to the site, lots of people were posting about 'solipsism.' One guy went so far as to make a thread where people would try to prove to them that they were conscious and not just automatons or figments of his imagination.

Yeah, it's not uncommon to see people obsessed with the solipsism idea on here. I never quite understood it myself because even if it were so, how would that affect anything? It's not going to change this existence for me in any way. It can never be proven, either. What is the belief based on? I can't see any justification for it whatsoever. Like you said, the default assumption should be that everyone *is* conscious like you, unless proven otherwise.

OP, you can rest easy because it will never be proven, for the reason that it's absurd and false. Everyone else has the same neural hardware as you do, producing the same effects, one of which happens to be consciousness. Consciousness is nothing but an emergent property of the brain, resulting from physical processes.

 

[luluinthefog]

It's not that I don't believe other people are real, I 100% understand that they are. It's just that I can't FEEL them (mentally) if that makes sense. When you're with people, like your friends or significant other, you know how it feels different from being alone even if you're not doing anything because you can kind of feel the person there? Or if you're sitting in traffic, you feel the presence of a bunch of other people around you. Well I always feel alone. I can't "sense" anyone else the way I used to be able to.

 

[Chip1021]

It's not that I don't believe other people are real, I 100% understand that they are. It's just that I can't FEEL them (mentally) if that makes sense. When you're with people, like your friends or significant other, you know how it feels different from being alone even if you're not doing anything because you can kind of feel the person there? Or if you're sitting in traffic, you feel the presence of a bunch of other people around you. Well I always feel alone. I can't "sense" anyone else the way I used to be able to.

I figured this is what you meant in your original post. I completely understand. For me, it feels like all that exists are my thoughts, and nothing else. Being unable to "feel" people doesn't bother me except for the very few people I would care to "feel". But what I really miss is "feeling" nature, music, art, etc.

But the title of your post is "what do you do..?" I don't understand. Are you genuinely asking our advice, or did you just want to see if other people feel the same way? And if you want advice, what kind? I mean, the outside world looks strange and different from how it did before. There's really nothing you can do about that, unless you are aware of what's going on neurologically to cause that, I suppose.

 

[luluinthefog]

I guess I'm just asking because I feel so so scared all of the time and I'm really suffering, and I'm wondering if anyone knows how to alleviate this feeling a little or at least the fear of it.

 

[Al_pk]

DP is such a wide ranging disorder that its unlikely that anyone resonates fully with the situation of another. In the past year I've experienced horrendous fear and horrendous disconnection with no comfort zone, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. All I can say Lulu is that you will become the expert on combating your condition as you get to know it. I know what you mean about the sense of disconnect.. i havent felt anything human like that in a long time now but on the other hand I've lost my fear of it. All the same symptoms, no fear. I guess in itself that is some recovery on my part at least

 

[Mere-Observer]

I agree with Al_pk , ONLY you know how you feel. You might relate to some symptoms of some people, but every case is unique. The recovery begins when you start understanding it and accepting it for what it is. The more you fight your own mind WITHOUT understanding your condition, the more anxiety/panic you'll have. The key is to not force yourself into feeling "normal". It's one of the stumbling blocks that really needs to be avoided imho.

 

[PerfectFifth]

The recovery begins when you start understanding it and accepting it for what it is.

The problem is that I can't hope to understand it without being given an objective causal explanation. Only that will suffice, nothing less. Otherwise it's just unsatisfying conjecture, and I don't really understand it.

But I agree that obsessing about returning to normalcy isn't healthy because that just makes it all the more salient.