how would ur life be different?

It’s hard to explain but I got dpdr from panic attacks and chronic stress I have mental breakdowns everyday. My mind is completely empty I have no thoughts and I can’t think. I can’t talk to people or my family because I have no thoughts and therefore nothing to say. My memory is fried I don’t retain information of what I am doing or conversations iv had I don’t remember anything. Short term or long term. I also have anhedonia and emotional numbness. It feels like the front of my brain or the part related to thinking thoughts and memory has shut down completely. I went to my gp in attempt to get a neurologist referral but I got told that I wouldn’t get an appointment as there’s nothing wrong with me. It’s been three months of feeling like I have brain damage no thoughts no thinking no new memories or learning. And not able to talk to my family about normal things. I get stressed everyday because of how completely blank my mind is. Do I have chronic stress related brain damage or dpdr?

Hi, I'm a 16M and I've been having uncontrollable thoughts and pain for a long time. I did not go to therapy and I'm not sure if I should. I don't feel like I'm me anymore. I don't even know if this is me anymore. I feel like I stopped being me two years ago and now I feel like I'm an actor in a movie instead of myself, it's like hell. I sometimes work super hard on my own projects and don't feel happy, in those periods the thoughts kill me and my ability to think and function. I can't stop my mind, it's like there is someone else in me thinking about so many things that I just can't take it anympre. My mind does not shut the fuck up and I don't know what to do. Then I decide that I should relax/take a break from work and visit my family (I'm in a boarding school for 4 years) but when I do I swear the thoughts just get louder and I feel like I'm someone even more different. I can't take it anymore, used to be able to shut the thoughts and be someone else for a while but now I just can't do it anymore. I can't even get up, just cry in my bed, can't empathy with anyone. even though I have friends that like me, the thoughts just say that they hate me and always act like they like me. I just can't please help me what the fuck is my problem. I felt like a robot for months, and now it's even worse. Whenever I have some real emotions it's only sadness and reminiscence. I can't be me for 2 years and it's the worst. I don't have the energy to do anything. When I look at the mirror I don't recognise the person it freaks me out

I’ve been doing better with my dpdr but I notice at night I get paranoid like im crazy or like im going to go crazy if that makes sense. like I feel like im always on the verge of a mental snap and I get paranoid looking for things that aren’t there because if I can find something wrong then it’ll prove to myself that I am going crazy (self fulfilling prophecy).

At night I also struggle to comprehend that I lived a full day. im sitting here paranoid and unable to remember today or any day this week which slowly makes me panic and feel like I just started existing in this moment and nothing before.

Not sure if it’s just me or if someone’s experienced something similar?

I feel like my mind can't comprehend anything, I can not explain and find the words what am I experiencing day to day life

I have some problems with focus + routines, and sometimes i thought i had adhd or something, but it feels a lot more like depersonalization as i looked into it lately. So, I was talking with my sister about some free will/philosophy stuff which took a lot of focus and memory recall. While i was talking about some concept i realized that i don't actually know what I'm saying, as in, i can't think about what i will say next in my brain, but the words from my mouth still come out and I'm making coherent sentences while i can't consciously see it in my brain before i say it, basically autopiloting through tasks that require some focus and conscious effort.

The issue is, that i know i would be more coherent if i had the ability to consciously think about what I'm going to say. The actual problem is learning/studying. I become completely unfocused and depersonalized while i do it, sometimes the same with reading fiction or just going through life. I get stuck in empty thought loops and generally don't have much curiosity in my life because of this depersonalized view. I've gone through some "traumatic" (sometimes i think about them but I'm not anxious because of them and don't fit in with PTSD symptoms) stuff, i abused drugs (weed, benzo/gaba) a year ago and I'm 16 so it's kind of understandable why i'm fucked up. I went through some manipulation from family drug users which made me really not have control over my life and that could be what caused all of this, I'm fine now, that relative is clean and we have a normal relationship. I'm not here just to cry about it but I'm kind of struggling with just being in touch with myself and reality, just looking for some stuff that could help. I also feel that using foreign languages somehow deepens reality because i need to use my cognitive resources more and i can distance myself from my internal dialogue while also feeling more real. I'd like to add that I'm insanely online, and real relationships just can't be a thing for me right now, using english for everything isn't great either because i'm loosing touch with my first language that i use for school. I'm trying out meditation right now but i don't see it going anywhere and i kind of tried everything. Thanks

Ok so when I used to smoke mary j I would get this out of body type feeling .. and me and my surroundings become MORE REAL. Like people and everything it was super real. When the high wore off I returned to my normal state. I’m confused if that more real feeling is dpdr or that feeling is how regular people feel?? Or if that feeling when I’m high dpdr ?? Because people describe dpdr like a dreamlike foggy state and I don’t experience that. My experience is I feel super real .. like I don’t even recognize myself in the mirror. It’s like everyone is acting

I know it's stupid to ask this question and that it's actually a stupid idea, but I know a person who can smoke weed again after months of depersonalization and I want also to be able to do it again. Is there anything I need to change in my mindset or any other trick? My dp comes from mixing drugs and a benzo withdrawal but before that I could do it for years. I'm so young, I don't want that to be over. I used to love it and all my friends are doing it still.Is there anyone here who has recovered and is now able to take drugs again?

Is it possible, that nicotine makes my DPDR worse? I am addicted to vapping for like 2 years now and I actually started because of DPDR as it was my copying mechanism. I always felt relelief and still feel when I vape - it is such a chill...

But after 2 years, my DPDR is like 70% better but not fully off - so I was thinking, if nicotine can be the thing a that keeps me away from recovery.

i cant stop overthinking over having a brain, how do i stop this shit

(Built-in) Safety features (gone ballistic)

My mind drove itself off of the edge

One step forward, but three going back

There’s no going back

I can’t move on, I can’t go back

Time goes on and I’m stuck.

One step, two step; easy enough…

Easy enough? Cut the bullshit, fuck.

One step, two steps, back to square one

Stuck in this gunk, gunk got me stuck

Quicksand caught me this time

I’ve never had any luck

I don’t fight it, wouldn’t do anything still

(Autopilot at the Wheel)

Software update (years) overdue

Today is my last (bullshit.) (promise?)

Never gonna get spared like that

(Forever) Subjected to this

24/7, no vacations, no breaks

(No fresh air) Not a second to waste

Trauma after trauma

These front lines I’ve learned to embrace

This racing heartbeat I can’t quite locate

I don’t pray but I’ve been praying today

Just unplug, restart, factory reset this mistake

Of a life.

“Autopilot at the Wheel”

12/17/2024

I have music in my head 24/7 365 - non stop. And I also have random words and sayings that will float through my mind. I don't know what causes this but i absolutely hate it. Pre DPDR I never ever had this. I had a quiet mind and peace. I can't even imagine the words not being there. It's mostly fast gibberish or words I've heard before, like thoughts flying back and forth. I dont understand how that's anxiety, it's like my brain has short circuited. I'll also hear conversations or people's voices that I've talked to earlier in the day or something. It's strange AF. Nothing has helped this. And it's why meditation feels impossible, how can you observe that is like a radio in your head.

So I often notice, and this has been happening for a while (maybe the last two-ish years) that I will be doing something (usually socializing in some way) and all of the sudden I feel a shift in my head and I start feeling like I am watching the world from like “backstage” if that makes sense. I start going on autopilot for no reason and it really makes me uncomfortable. However the part that gets me the most is that in those moments they are usually a very happy moment and nothing negative or potentially triggering is going on. Do any of you have an explanation for that? I always thought derealization/depersonalization was a trauma response, so why is it happening during the best of times?

When I first got depersonalization, I had this very weird symptom. I felt confused about why I was "spectating" myself, out of all people. I felt like I should be able to switch who Im “spectating” like flicking through channels. I didn't feel a significant enough attachment to myself to warrant the idea of being locked in on my perspective out of all people. Why couldn't I see other peoples perspectives?

The feeling was almost like looking at a massive screen, where there are a bunch of sections (like those cctv camera screens) that each show the first-person view of an individual. For some reason, I was stuck on just one screen—mine—but it felt like I should be able to explore the others because I felt my consciousness wasn’t inherently more important than anyone else’s to me.

I still experience emotions like embarrassment, but they feel irrational. If my consciousness was extracted from my body to spectate the world, I should feel no prioritization of what my human does or what happens to it than the others.

Is this some sort of mild ego death?

Such a horrible thought

I often ask myself why everyone has different symptoms or why there are so many different ones. Why do I have the worst symptoms of all of them? Other people perceive their environment differently or feel like they are in a dream, but I struggle with numbness in parts of my body. Why my brain choose this kind of torture?

My whole body feels like it's dying. I almost threw up in the shower this morning. Got horrible chest pain while driving and felt like I was dying.

I'm even more dissociated now. It's crazy because when I think I've hit the bottom, there's still no bottom - it's getting worse. I don't feel my body in space at all. Don't sense the weather, even when it's raining. I feel like I'm in a completely alternate reality. I have so much buried fear about my safety. I can't handle physical sensation - any sort of pain and mt mind automatically assumes the absolute worst. I'm having GI issues and my mind goes "cancer, it's what your mom had"

Like wtf. Normal people don't have to suffer with this. Feeling like you're dying, going insane, unsafe, reality isn't real. It's just completely miserable. I've gotten so used to feeling awful - weak. tired. Emotionally numb. Afraid of what's going to happen to me. It's unbearable. When I look back to 3, 6, 9 months ago - I felt way less dissociated. Over time it her worse - like I'm losing every memory, every connection, every part of myself. I'm an absolute loss. I can't keep living like this.

Does anyone else feel the same? When I see something made by an AI, especially images and videos, I kinda freak out. It feels like nightmare fuel or a bad LSD trip.

why does thinking (literally being able to think/having thoughts) and having a brain that controls me makes me feel extremely scared and uncomfortable? is this related to dp

I really hate people who had dpdr for a few months, year, or two, from a single panic attack from weed, and then they say for severely traumatized numb peoples, or with serious brain diseases its all mindset you can fix on your own by accepting/ignoring or trying living ,,normal,, life as best as it is possible. Not everyone experiences the same thing at all...

For many of us caffeine don't even work, at all.

Do you also have difficulty connecting with others during social moments, being spontaneous and fluid in your exchanges? As if your brain freezes when entering into a discussion with someone?

When I try to forget and accept the DP/DR, this major difficulty in socializing and exchanging gives me the impression that it is impossible to have a social life and this worries me a lot in return, because I can no longer enjoy the interactions. As if I had to fight to manage to say a word or two.

Do you also have this symptom? How do you manage this ?

Is it normal that some days I think I'm on a good path to healing and other days I think I'm back to square one? Sometimes I also wonder if the way my body feels right now is normal or if it's not normal because I've already forgotten what normal feels like. Is it normal that my arms feel kind of light? Whenever I go out I get nervous and don't know where to put my arms or how to walk and my legs feel,,,not right'' kind of numb. How do I realize that I am slowly recovering?