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Have you experienced depersonalization?


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Depersonalization?  

  1. 1. Have you experienced depersonalization?

    • Yes, non-drug/stimulant induced.
      145
    • Yes, drug/stimulant induced.
      19
    • No, never.
      55

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I get that way sometimes when sleep deprived, stressed or depressed, but I also tend to experience it other times without any significant trigger, just from finding myself in a situation I feel is both pointless and strangely amusing while still having to act my role in it and go through the motions. It is almost like hitting the pause button, removing my conscious mind from the scene and then taking the role of outside observer (and sarcastic commentator) watching my physical self continue while the scene plays on. It always throws things sharply into perspective, highlights any bullshit emotional engagement would have otherwise clouded or at least had the pathetically humble social modesty not to call, and the entire thing ends up seeming ironically funny in all its triviality equated to the big picture and amount of effort, seriousness and emotional significance prescribed and invested into it by the people acting out this play.

I wouldn't say I dislike being in that state, actually if it was not for the fact that sounds become very muted like I am underwater (leading to difficulty understanding anything people are saying to me right away), distortion of time, and becoming unresponsive to pain (which has led to some stupid injuries that I did not realize actually really fucking hurt until I came back to normal) I would prefer to be in that mode of operation all the time. I feel really calm and everything makes more sense like you just woke up for a dream and are only now truly able to see things for what they really are and can evaluate and analyze everything that has happened up until that point for the first time. It is almost as if it briefly eliminates all your environmental and social conditioning so you are looking at things from a completely different, completely fresh and totally alien point of view which makes everything become a strange, distant, amusing and insignificant curiosity.

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Member33070

All the time. I think it's a side effect of my ADHD - too lost in my own thoughts. I'm in my own world and the real world seems so unreal and not vivid.

When I'm on ADHD medicine I can see the world normally. My medicine has been giving me awful side effects and I'm going to try to switch on Tuesday.

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Wow! A lot of people have said they've experienced this before. I can honestly say I never have.

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  • 1 month later...

Wow, Morbidnerd, I can totally relate to all that. I spent three years with SEVERE chronic depression before it was diagnosed. I tried describing depersonalization to my gp but he just thought I had an overactive imagination. I think I described it as an outer-body experience, only you can still use your body like a puppet but you're no longer IN there. He didn't get it... even when I described my other self as being 'that other girl' and the self I was then as 'the nameless girl'. Not that I'm blaming him or anything, it just fascinates me how people can interpret things I say as something that never would of occurred to me.

I actually had an entire year when I could feel nothing (physically and emotionally)so I never felt the pain of the injuries but boy do I have the scars to prove it. I've got lots of burn marks from oil or pans or something all up my arms, fortunately I have VERY pale skin so scars don't really show up all that well.The biggest one was when my friend perm-markered my arm with random girly symbols (I totally didn't why anyone would want to do this but it seemed to make her happy so...) and later on my mum saw it and told me to scrub it off. (When I was depersonalized you could get me to anything as long as you asked the right way.) So I went straight in the bath. I used soap, didn't work. Used a toothbrush, didn't work. Used straight bleach, didn't work. Used a pumice stone to scrub the skin off till all that was left was a bloody mess. Yep, that worked. Got out of the bath, dried my self off and got dressed again. When I went back in the lounge, needless to say everyone freaked out, they totally couldn't see how I didn't feel it, or at least stop when the blood started oozing out. I think that was one of the final straws for my gp to send me to a psychiatrist.

On a side note I can actually depersonalize pretty easily now, I just try and feel everything outside my body but nothing inside. I usually use it be totally aware of what's in front of me, like the way light falls, the slight rustle of leaves, the hum of motorists etc. It feels very centered now that I'm medicated, I'm always in control, I can return back to normally within a minute or two. Very handy when you're stuck waiting with no form of entertainment.

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  • 11 months later...
Hospital Dreams

Used to have a lot of moments of derealization and depersonalization back when my anxiety disorders were more out of control. Every time we had exams in high school, I'd end up in a week long state of derealization. I ended up getting on the wrong buses a lot, or getting lost on campus, and couldn't explain why to my teachers. :/

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I'm really not even sure. I had a sort of existential crisis for a bit so I felt & thought a LOT of weird things. If anything I think it was sort of the reverse of depersonalization (if I'm comprehending this right, that is).

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