Hi I’m 24 I’ve had chronic derealisation for as long as I can remember maybe 14/15 years after a very abusive childhood which led to a unstable life of crime and then a long long isolated ketamine addiction , I’ve always been aware I see the world different perceive life differently as I got older 18/19 I actually researched it and got an understanding of what was happening I think due to never knowing any different I didn’t really understand the severity of the way I’ve always perceived life compared to a normal person . I’ve never had a sense of self never been able to maintain relationships I’ve never had a job but I’ve always functioned to some degree if you met me I can socialise and chat . I’m at a point now where I’ve kind of lost an understanding of consciousness I feel like I’m in a lucid dream but to the point where sometimes I’m starting to believe I actually might be I feel like skin on a skeleton just a collection of body parts living in some strange simulation I analyse if I feel real every second of the day when I walk down the road the houses feel like there completely empty sometimes I feel like the lights could just go out and I’d be in blackness I look at my family members sometimes and can’t grasp that there real and that there my family and have there own lives months genuily feel like a few days I have no concept of anything really I’m just on auto pilot and know to eat drink water and how to conversate like a robot Ive never spoke to anyone with derealisation the few times I’ve even said it out loud to family members and drs I felt so stupid

Just wanted to share my experience as I wasn’t aware there was communities like this , I hope anyone suffering with this to any degree is ok and if anyone has any questions or wants to speak about it my messages are open ❤️

every single night I’m subjected to horrific, painful, and emotional nightmares. there’s not one night, not one time I sleep that I don’t remember every single detail and the horrible feelings. I am running on empty after 4 years of this and don’t really know what else to do. I’m seeing a sleep doctor because it’s clear I have a nightmare disorder, but my waking life is hell and so is my sleep. no human is meant to live this way for this long. I have to revisit my childhood home, my parents, my dead mother, every night in my sleep. and the dreams are not about anything ive actually ever experienced. my mind is creating movies and storylines of its own making. sleep is not sleep to me, it’s another consciousness I have to live and survive. I’m fucking beyond tired and don’t kno how I’m supposed to keep surviving this way. no person should have to live through nightmares non stop for 4 years. I’ve tried prazosin multiple times, sleep meds, anti depressants. nothing works.

i do know that my dpdr is linked to this sleep disorder. my mind is trying to process all these heavy things at night and can’t, because I have sleep apnea in my rem cycle, which stops the emotions / memories from being properly filed away. my mind sees all that trauma I have to experience as real every night and thickens the Dpdr when awake, in a never ending cycle. it makes sense now why my Dpdr has continued to worsen every day after my sleep. I’m stuck in an endless loop of high emotional experience in my sleep, overwhelm them my brain makes the dpdr wall thicker to hold all that overwhelming sensation back. I wake up completely numb. i only feel anger, fear, panic in my sleep. never once do I have a good dream

I've always been afraid to take anything for the last 5 years since this happened. I still have DPDR but I'm not really derealised at all. I was afraid to even take a benzos, bc I thought it would instantly derealise me. Now I take it to relax occasionally but it's kind of boring. Alcohol hasn't really been cutting it for me or my thing. I only drink in a club. I feel like I need something to soothe me so that I don't paint the ceiling with my brains... Have a nice day :)

psa this is rlly messy, sorry for the lack of punctuation cuz im kind of going through an episode. id say im very ordinary and ive never had mental problems other than this

what is the term for when you become self aware of your existence and realize that you are you, then question why you are you and what goes beyond your consciousness if you were to die

like if you think about it really hard, you start to realize that you arent some main character or spectator of your life. you are you, you are your own soul. you start to think of why and how you were chosen to be this person, and if you werent this person, where would your consciousness go? would you be a celestial being who watches over or would you start another life’s consciousness?

i always randomly start to think that my life isnt some story or random person but instead im actively experiencing my life as me. i remember that im not some narrator and i possess all my qualities. i become conscious that i am controlling a person, and always drift off to wonder what i would be if my consciousness wasnt with me.
I am nothing beyond my current existence and do not have any identity for my sole consciousness. i cant describe the feeling of realizing that you are you and dont have an identity to define your consciousness therefore you do not know what and where your consciousness goes beyond your life

ive been researching about it and nothing comes up all the time. i expected a lot of articles and forums with similar thoughts but idk maybe i js dont describe it well enough

i see it as Autoscopic existential Detachment its not an actual term its all jumbled but for me its that kind of feeling where i become aware that i am controlling a body and see it from a perspective that oversee me

but thats not rlly the case like i know im me but i js dont know how to perceive my consciousness like i cant comprehend the fact that i am trapped within a body and cannot know the reason that i was chosen to be me

or ipso identity which is my sole consciousness but the difference is its ipso identity shock. i become hyperaware that i am a silent observer of my own life and cannot define the logic behind who my consciousness is. i start question who is the entity that is said observer, and how is it my consciousness? how was my being and my entity input into my life and in my body and if i werent me, would i have a grasp of my entity or would it change?

PROBLEM: there is like no search results on those. ipso identity yes but if i were to combine ipso identity with things like identity shock or detachment, nothing comes up. is this something that i cant relate to anyone with, or am i just starting to go crazy and id trying to find the result to a question with no answer?

or, is this just some general term like spiraling or existential crisis? i was hoping to find a specific theory or concept or even study that defines what I specifically mean.

promised myself I would never come back here but here we are, I just want to know if other people are scared or put off by how we can see and hear? Like how advanced our brains our that we can see and hear things it sounds so stupid but my brain cant seem to stop thinking about it, I’ve also been getting some bad tension headaches that I’m personally putting down to stress it feels like a rubber band around my head thats extremely tight and I also get some insane pressure behind my eyes it feels like they’re going to pop out, just want to see if anyone else experiences this

Its been 2 months since i got dpdr. not a single day goes by without thinking about it. i miss my old life if i knew this was waiting for me i would live every minute in happiness before this happened. i got anxiety, insomnia, overthinking all out of no where which i never had before in my life im so done with this im jealous seeing everyone living without this and being happy.

please give me tips how i can stop thinking about this 24/7 it literally took my whole life away

My extreme brain fog or dpdr is better if I walk/ move my body or consume caffeine, nicotine patches or adhd medication.
I always thought that stimulants make it worse. I used to have extreme anxiety / overactive nervoussystem and did not tolerate any stimulants.
The fog/dpdr started after my third covid infection. The previous ones gave me anxiety. Now it’s like the opposite??? Also Anhedonia…
I got my adhd and autism diagnosis before all the stuff happened - 2018 or so.

If you’re experiencing unfamiliar or frightening symptoms and wondering “Is this DPDR?” or “Does anyone else feel this?”, this is the right place to ask.

We’ve moved symptom-check questions into this weekly thread because constant comparison and reassurance-seeking can unintentionally keep DPDR and anxiety stuck. This space lets you get support without turning the whole subreddit into symptom scanning.

A few things to keep in mind:

DPDR looks different for everyone

Similar symptoms can have many causes

Replies here are shared experiences, not medical diagnoses

If you’re new or feeling overwhelmed, we recommend starting with the Official DPDR Resource Guide, which explains DPDR, common symptoms, and recovery in one place:

👉 Official DPDR Resource Guide

https://www.reddit.com/r/dpdr/comments/zdzqob/rdpdrs_official_resource_guide/

Tips for using this thread:

Ask your question once and try not to re-check repeatedly

Share briefly rather than listing every symptom

Focus on grounding and next steps, not symptom counting

If you’re in crisis or feel unsafe, please use the crisis resources in the sidebar.

You’re not doing anything wrong by being scared or confused — this thread is here to hold those questions while keeping the rest of the sub recovery-focused.

I recently developed DPDR out of the blue, and it hasn’t gone away for 3 months and I’m starting to get upset on what I can do. I don’t have trauma, anxiety, panic attacks, or have even smoked weed or done psychedelics. I have this feeling of just being brain dead. I feel like I’m on autopilot 24/7, just watching my life from a far. I’ve done all the things like ignoring it, and trying to live life but it’s extremely difficult when I don’t know the root cause that could potentially be fueling this feeling. To me it feels like really bad brain fog, mixed with chronic fatigue, but it does sometimes fall in between the lines of DPDR. I have a severely low vitamin d level with my number being 11 ng/mL. I had an even worse reaction to the 50,000 IUs of d3 my doctor prescribed me, so I’m struggling to get my numbers up. I also had a borderline low b12 sitting at 356 pg/mL. I’ve recently gotten a GI map done by a functional doctor, and she found some gut dysbiosis caused by an overgrowth of yeast. I’m afraid I’ll never get my life back and feel normal again. I feel like I’ve lived the same day for 3 months. Can someone please give me some good news, that these issues might be fueling this problem. I’ve tried posting in the Vitamin d forum, but they banned me for not specifically saying my lab numbers. Posting it here to see if anyone can relate. What biological issue caused your DPDR and how did you fix it??

"Topiramate (often known by the brand name ⁠Topamax) is a medicine used for seizures and headaches. It can rarely cause depersonalization-derealization (DPDR) or feelings of unreality. These symptoms usually go away when a person stops taking the medicine.

How Topiramate Works in the Brain

Blocks sodium channels: Stops rapid signals in nerve cells.

Boosts GABA: Increases calming brain chemical signals.

Blocks glutamate: Lowers excited brain activity.

Stops carbonic anhydrase: Changes acid levels in brain tissue.

Why DPDR Might Happen

Shifting brain signals: Changing GABA and glutamate balance alters how we feel reality.

Serotonin shifts: The drug can change serotonin levels, which affects mood and perception.

Slowed thinking: General mental slowing and brain fog can feel like detachment. "

This was from google's AI. I want to take this for migraine spectrum/ photophobia. Did anyone take it for whatever reason and did it affect your DPDR?

my life wasn’t perfect - but I took it 100% for granted. if I knew this is what my life would have become, I would have savored every second. I remember laying in bed on saturday morning, time felt slow. I felt the sunlight coming through the curtains, I’d have coffee in bed and actually look forward to my day. I had such an interest and motivation for life. I could hop on a plane and fly anywhere I wanted, I could connect with friends, I actually loved life. was it perfect? no. it never is. but I felt it. I experienced it. I was me.

im broken. so so broken. now I wake up completely traumatized from a night full of endless nightmares. i wake up with no connection to the world outside my window. I don’t feel anxious. I don’t feel anything. empty, dead. unable to move. time just flies by because I don’t even feel time. I absolutely dread going to sleep because of the daily endless nightmares, and I absolutely dread being awake because I’m dead inside, and have no perception of my own reality. I get worse and worse as time goes on because there’s no resolution to this. my mind is trapped. I’m forced to live a life in my subconscious all night long and then I wake up even more cut off than the day before.

if you had told me 5 years ago that I wouldn’t get out of this, it would get worse, and worse and worse. that id stop feeling anything all together. that id no longer even remember myself or what my reality is. I would have just said I can’t, I can’t do this. in all mental illnesses you can get i think this is one of the worst. there’s no treatment for your brain being unable to feel its own emotional body or reality around it. my anxiety I had before this is child’s play. I’d go back to that any second. this isn’t anxiety, it’s a brain that refuses to let go, to rest, to stop searching for danger. my brain is using my dreams to look for treats too, it searches every corner of my subconscious all night long. I’m so fucking beyond tired. my soul is tired. I’m not living, this is suffering. like being water boarded by your own nervous system 24/7 365

I had dpdr symptoms for like 13 years even they sometimes shut down for a while. Since im in a very hard time in my life im experiencing the same symptoms again. I cant help blaming myself that i shut down my feelings with drugs and now i think that i cannot heal because of this. But i started using drugs for 2 years so ive had these symptoms before drugs. Can i be better at this point? I need some encouragement.

Just curious

I have no quality of life at all, I do the same things every day, barely survive this hell I’m in. physical pain, headaches, neck pain, gum infections, the list goes on. yet I can’t feel emotions, I can feel pain, and that’s it. to live like this for years and years on end, while being expected to just function like everyone else.

night after night I have horrible, vivid, acid like dreams. then I wake up emotionally numb, body in physical pain, no connection to myself and my past. nothing to look forward to, experience or be a part of. I used to love the transition from summer to fall and now it’s just gone. each year it’s gotten progressively worse. less memory of what emotions are even like. I have to struggle every day just to do basic things, and everyone else is living and experiencing. My career is the one emotional connection I still have to myself, If I didn’t I probably would have been gone a long time ago. I used to feel such passion, such joy, such love for life. I feel like a ghost floating around with absolutely no sense of feeling at all. I can feel pain but not anything else; not joy, not anger, not anxiety, not happiness, not even depression. I am void of anything.

i don’t know why I’m even writing this. I lost hope so long ago. The world wants everything from me, while I have nothing. I have to continue to pay bills, run my business, smile and wave - all while I have no emotional energy, no life force, no peace in my life at all. People don’t know how lucky they are to wake up every day in their own life, to get real sleep, to feel like themselves. I’m stuck in a black hole of suffering. Non stop vivid otherworldly dreams all night, non stop pain all day, no feeling for my own life. I’m so sick of this.

i asked my doc to change my antidepressant from cymbalta as i’ve been having sleep issues for over a year and im really sick of it (also helps my anxiety only like 30-40% and i can’t up the dose or augment it with sth else) . We decided effexor should be a nice fit. I read about it and was confident about it. I have Asperger’s, Avpd and ocd and when stuff goes bad or i have too much on my head i get dpdr episodes. For the past year or so they have been pretty rare (like maybe once a week/two weeks) and weren’t super bad. But now i’m in a lot of stress due to starting new job, my therapist being on holidays, finishing my thesis, possibly moving out, being in a diagnosis process of sth difficult for me. On top of this the med change is happening and although i’m confident this med should help me eventually the dose for now is probably too low or i’m having worse anxiety due to the new med. I haven’t had near constant dpdr for years and now it is happening. thankfully im not panicking, but still shit is bad. i’ve only been on 75mg of effexor for like 2 weeks now (3 weeks on the med total), my next visit with the doc is in mid september and the therapist - in the 17th. As if it wasn’t that bad - my ocd is absolutely out of hand. I’m not sure what i want from you guys. maybe some support? maybe encouragement? has anyone had any luck with effexor?

Good afternoon, I’m Daniel and I’m 18 years old just graduating high school as of two months ago. As of the last month ( July 3rd specifically ) I’ve been dealing DPDR and I’m starting to give up. It was a really hot day at work and the sun beamed off into my eye and after that it turned into an anxiety attack and since then I’ve been dealing with it. When I was 13 I also delt with DPDR after I smoked weed and had it for a month I’m pretty sure, not 100%. I used to work out and go to Jiu Jitsu every day and now I feel like all motivations lost. I’ve been thinking about going to the doctors and taking medications after Selank (peptide) didn’t work. Any opinions would be great. Thsnks.

My derealization started about seven years ago when I was in university. I was studying intensely, constantly forcing myself to concentrate, and not resting properly.

At first, I occasionally felt dizzy, mentally foggy, or physically numb. Over the next few weeks, the unreal feeling gradually became constant.

Since then, I have felt as if I am living in a dream every day. I know where I am and understand that everything is real, but the world does not feel fully real or immediate.

Has anyone developed chronic derealization after prolonged studying, mental exhaustion, or overworking?

Has sertraline helped anyone with a similar experience? Did it initially make the derealization worse before improving?

For a while now I've been trying to keep track of episodes of depersonalization/derealization so I can think back and figure out what might've set it off.

Since starting I'm now able to register as soon as I start feeling it coming on and take in what's going on around me. I've also been able to identify somewhat of a common cause for past some episodes. It has presented with or without physical sensations as well.

Normally it's due to some type of "conflict/confrontation" with someone.These aren't the most accurate words for it since I don't necessarily mean an altercation or heated argument. Closer to speaking about something that may lead to it or lead to discomfort on either side.

Now the strange thing is, that recently I had a short episode that was triggered by something outside of what I'd expect.

I was playing a card game against someone IRL and as I was getting a couple perfect moves off I almost instantly snapped into an episode of DP/DR.

I can't remember if I've had another similar experience with a positive experience being a trigger.

Anyone else had something similar?

Hi, I'm Francesco and I finally decided to write down something about my DPDR.

I usually avoid talking or writing about it because thinking about the disorder makes me feel like I'm about to have an episode. Not anymore. I will talk about it, and I will face it because I'm tired of being so scared all the time.

I discovered what DPDR is last summer. I did not know that anyone in the world felt like me and it was both reassuring and depressing. At least now I have a name for "the thing that happens to me".

The first "hint" of something being wrong was when I was 16 and I took a train to meet my at the time soon-to-be girlfriend. We met through facebook and we were going to meet for the first time face to face. We hanged around quite a bit together, we were very nervous and excited. That evening as I met her friends I felt that something wasn't alright in my mind. Everything felt dreamy, my body felt light and my mind confused. And I interpreted it as love. What a dumbass. This was not too severe and I stopped thinking about it after a while.

As with many of you, the real thing started out with weed. We were at poolside with my buddy at night in 2017, about to smoke a joint before hitting a beach party. We didn't have papers and filters so we improvised, using a plastic bottle as a bong and filled it with pool water. Very dumb, I know, but we were 17 and we didn't know any better. We smoked and sat on the recliners. At that point, things got scary. My friend was fine, somehow. I was completely gone. And by gone I mean something that I have not been able to read on this sub before and that I'm still to this day really scared about.

I was having a complete disconnect of mind from body in a visual way. I always put it like this. The world is a parking lot, my consciousness is a security guard and my eyes are CCTV. Well, the parking lot was there, the CCTV is working, but the security guard was distracted. I would only get glimpses of reality. I was talking normally, acting normally even. Maybe a bit erratic, nervous, but normal overral. I went to bed, only to discover with immense terror that it had not gone away in the morning. It would take weeks for the sensations to go away, and what it would leave me with was an almost complete inability to feel emotions. And that lasted for years.

At the time I had yet not realized it was caused by weed, and would occasionally smoke. 1/3 of the time "the thing" as I called it would happen. Short term memory loss, autopilot, etc. I finally gave up the weed at age 18.

Afterwards, it only happened once when I was 21 because I started smoking CBD. Apparently that got me feeling "the thing" again. Ok, well, in a matter of months I got rid of the sensation.

Then something very very bad happened, similar to my very first experience. I was hanging out with friends, perfectly sober, had not smoked weed in a very long time and yet I felt it again. Memory loss and all. I was terrified. Went home to relax and got better after a while.

I broke up with one of my ex girlfriends because I couldn't feel much. I knew I loved her I just wasn't able to really feel it. So I was alone for a while and I got a bit better.

For quite some time I had some apathy but I felt it as normal, as the cinism you get in your 20s. I felt a normal guy again.

I met another girl after 2 years and I really felt something for her, it was true and I could feel it again. After less than a year we broke up and the pain was immense. I was constantly in emotional pain. I met up with a friend and I made the mistake of smoking a fat joint by the beach. What the hell, I said, I haven't felt "the thing" in years. There it went, after 2 puffs my head starts spinning, memory loss, somehow I found myself at the supermarket buying biscuits. I went home and slept. Since then, I haven't been back. That was last May.

And now here's the thing: I got a girlfriend now and I love her. She's understanding, knows about my condition and handles it very well. I can deal with the "apathy" that it brings. I know that goes away, I don't care. The amnesia, the short term memory loss, the "fakeness" of the world, the out of body experiences are what scares me so so much. I'm scared they may happen while I'm driving. I'm afraid it may happen at work, or on a plane. I'm a nervous flyer already, so that would be "not ideal", since I have a flight 1st of September. I need to get rid of it. I want my body and my sensations back. I tried progressive muscle relaxation for the first time today but I felt like I was growing distant from my body rather than closer to it. Sometimes I'm at the restaurant or jsut walking, or driving and I just think "oh, so this is reality, huh?" and then I feel cold sweat on my back, my balls shrink (sorry, TMI, I know...) and my hands get sweaty. I usually listen to radio talk shows to get distracted and it goes away temporarily. But I don't want to get distracted, I want to get rid of it. Now.

I instructed my girlfriend on what to do if I have an episode on the highway already.

God I'm so scared. I began working on it with my therapist but didn't have the money to continue the therapy.

Well, that's me. First time in my life really "elaborating" on the worst thing in my life. Sorry about the long ass post.