Derealization and depersonalization are kinds of dissociation often experienced by people who have been traumatized in the past. They are ways of responding to trauma that work by creating distance between you and whatever you are experiencing. They are ways in which your brain protects you from pain and harm that you are powerless to do anything about. But they can also be triggered by circumstances that are not, in and of themselves, traumatic or harmful. Things that remind you of past trauma, or that feel overwhelming and out of control in some way, can also trigger derealization and depersonalization.

To begin with, lets define the terms. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition (DSM-V), they are

OK, those are nice dictionary definitions, but what do these things actually feel like? i know what they feel like to me, but i have no idea how others describe them. i searched online to see if i could find first hand accounts of what it feels like to experience them, but did not find anything. All i came across were discussions from psychologists providing pretty bog standard textbook descriptions, but nothing written by someone who has actually been through the experience. Second hand descriptions like that just aren’t what i want.

So i am now going to do my part to correct this gross oversight in the online world and describe for you exactly what it feels like to someone who has been through episodes of DR/DP many times. i going to use my latest episode as an example.

The other day i was talking in Discord, an online chat service, with people who share some of my own mental health concerns, and we were talking about our experiences. In particular we were talking about something that i have only recently come to recognize in myself (which i wont go into right now), and as others described their own experiences i started to feel an old familiar feeling come over me. At first it was a mild tingling sensation in the skin of my forearms, but that started spreading. To my neck, my scalp, the rest of my arms, my belly – all across my body. And the tingling was also accompanied by sense of numbness. It’s a sensation not unlike having your foot fall asleep, but it’s everywhere, all at once.

i knew almost instantly what was happening, but i felt powerless to stop it, so i just sat there and let it roll over me. As it progressed my vision started to alter. Everything came into sharp focus – my peripheral vision was no longer blurry – the entire field of view seemed in focus all at once, but at the same time i was not focused on any single thing. i was still able to read the text scrolling by on my computer screen, but i didn’t have the sensation that i was looking at it. It was just there, in my field of view, no more or less in focus than, say, the frames of my glasses, which i had become keenly aware of. i was seeing everything all at once.

And while this was going on, there was also a sense of a kind of tunnel vision effect, as if my field of view were taking up only the central area of the “screen” in my mind. It was almost as if there were a black border around the whole scene in front of me. And everything seemed infinitely remote, as if holding up my hand would be useless because it would be impossible for me to touch anything on my desk any more than it would be possible to touch mountains on the horizon.

Nothing seemed real anymore as if … i don’t even know how to describe this. Maybe like i was looking at holograms – just 3D images made of light that my hand would pass right through if i could somehow reach out.

i also had an old familiar feeling as if i were no longer directly in control of my body. In the past i’ve described this as being in a tiny room inside my head, looking out through my eye-holes to see what was around me, and driving my body as if it were a tank, but this time i wasn’t even driving. i was just looking out the windows of the eyes. i was disconnected from my body, and it was disconnected from the world around me. And i really wasn’t in direct control of my body. In fact, i wasn’t in control even indirectly.

For some time i just sat there, still as a statue, only my breathing and blinking showing any motion that might indicate i was still alive. i don’t know how long i sat like that, 5 minutes. Maybe 10. i knew that i should do something, but i was unable to will my body to move in any way. After a while, though, i stood up, walked into the bedroom, and got in bed under the covers. i did not feel like i was in control of myself, though. In fact, i don’t think i was, but i will save the description of that detail for another post. i lay in bed face down on my bed under the heavy blankets, breathing and my mind drifting without any real thought until about an hour later my mind finally started working again and i realized i could move of my own accord once more. At that point i got up and went back to my computer and slowly began to come back to life.

So there you have it, one first hand account of derealization/depersonalization. i would dearly love to read more such accounts because i’m sure my own experience of it is different from the way other people experience it. i read a comment recently from someone who said that he has had episodes of DR/DP that lasted for days at a time, and that clearly must have been a different kind of experience than my own, since i can become nearly catatonic when this happens.

If you have experienced DR/DP and are willing to share, i would love to hear from you! i really want to know what it’s like for others.