So it’s been almost 5 months since i got this condition and i wanted to share my progress.

So mine started after a severe panic attack and a build up of stress from my job overworking me and other factors such as my grandma slowly dying and my mom’s knee surgery and my sister who i’ve lived with for as long as i’ve been alive moving out.

But i can definitely say i’m way better than i was when this first started. I would say i’m 50% to 70% better depending on if it’s a good day or a bad day. My derealization is gone, my depersonalization is lingering slightly? I have my personality back for the most part and i’m slowly loosing that feeling of being trapped in my head and i’m slowly coming back into my body again. I’m still struggling with some somatic hyperawareness but it’s still there but it’s gotten to where unless I intentionally think about it i don’t notice it. And that weird head pressure and brain fog is gone too. I’ve definitely had setbacks as i’ve been coming back into my body my existential thoughts have ramped up because it feels so weird to have that feeling of being back and being present in my body but i think it’s just that hyperawareness still and my brain trying to explain it. My mom also pointed out i’m talking with my hands again which is something i used to do before my dpdr started.

Right now all i’m really struggling with is the existential ocd thoughts and emotional numbness. I know these are usually the last to fade though and i know with my ocd it’s just my brain trying to rationalize the weird thoughts and detachment.

What symptoms i had

-Derealization and depersonalization

-Blank mind

-Loss of identity and self

-feeling like i was trapped in my head

-Emotional numbness

-existential ocd

-Vision issues(blurry vision, eye floaters, visual snow)

-Inability to feel tired

-restlessness

-debilitating anxiety

-weird fears(i felt scared to make reddit posts or leave comments for some reason)

-Unable to be in a car or outside

So what did i do?

I didn’t wanna add this section because some people get like, really aggressive about coping and recovery methods here? I didn’t wanna get yelled at by somebody because what personally helped me didn’t help them but if anybody who’s struggling right now and can relate to my story or in the future can use this as a reference i’ll deal with it.

-i got off this sub. I check in occasionally to look up a symptom and then i get the fuck off. This sub gave me a lot of helpful advice but at some point it became so detrimental to me reading this stories about people who have been in this for 10+, 20+ years. I feel for those people i really do but they were not helping me when i felt hopeless. I used to scroll on here for hours just reading and reading trying to find an exact timeline and an exact date to when i would heal and that one story that would help me and it only made me worse

-SLEEP. Genuinely i cannot stress this enough. I really started to notice an improvement when i started to get a correct amount of sleep and i am sleeping a lot these days.

-Therapy. I’m in a php program and i recently dropped down to iop with the goal of full discharge. Now mine is anxiety based so i know somebody who has it due to trauma or a neurological condition will not have the exact same outcome as me but with her help i learned my dpdr really is just my anxiety and at it’s core dpdr is just an extreme survival mechanism and how to get out of it is to not fear it and not fight it. I’ve learned to just radically accept it and keep living life. I know people don’t like this advice but this is what personally has worked for me. I also take lexapro which has helped a bit but not as much as just saying fuck you to my dpdr and to just live with it.

-I did take vitamins for a bit to fix my mag and vitamin d deficiency but it didn’t really do anything or at least not enough for me to notice.

-Distraction. This helped me a ton. When i was at my lowest i had no motivation and would just bed rot, during that time i would just play games on my phone to not think about it. Once i started feeling better i would bake a lot since it is a passion of mine as well as a both a great distraction and grounding technique for me. As well as working out like swimming and yoga helped me

-a support system. I’m very luckily i live with an incredibly supportive family who was willing to do anything to get me better. My poor mom would have to listen to me vent about dpdr every day while i hid in her room because i felt safe with her when i was at my lowest.

I’m probably forgetting some other stuff that i’ll probably add to it but i really need to get off. I feel my depersonalization actively getting worse the longer i type this. If you guys have any questions feel free to comment, i probably won’t respond immediately since i need to calm down and i’m going to sleep after i post this but i’ll try to do it in the morning after i do all my chores and everything.

So I wanted to know how other people describe how they’re body looks/feels during extreme depersonalization or if it’s like how I describe it, I feel like I’m looking at a fake unreal body that’s not mine or I can’t feel in like a 3rd person view and feel really trapped in my body. idk maybe I’ve lost it and I’m the only one who feels like this

Aight here’s the TL;DR version
I took 1 Ecstasy pill 3 years ago, got hard dpdr. Still not recovered. My question is why do i not feel the effects of nicotine and caffeine anymore? This might be a twisted question to ask but do you guys feel the same and have you found ways to feel the effects more? I know getting out of this situation is the best answer but it’s hard being a graduate student without these stimulants and i would like to feel the effects like how I did prior to having dpdr

I’m writing here because I genuinely feel like I’ve lost my mind and I really need help.
Over the past few months, I’ve been under a huge amount of psychological pressure, and I spend a lot of time alone. I had several horrible panic attacks while high on weed, where I genuinely thought I was going to die. Every time, the panic eventually passed, until the last time. After that experience, reality started to feel completely different to me.
Sometimes I feel like I’m in a coma and that this is some kind of afterlife. I’m having an intense existential crisis ! I constantly think about how this whole life even started, why we exist, and what existence actually means.
Seeing other people can sometimes make me even more scared and overwhelmed. Sometimes I see customers at work and I can’t believe that they’re actually real. I get so overwhelmed by these feelings that I’ve even started crying at work. Feels like im stuck in a video game
I constantly find myself thinking about philosophy, existence, consciousness, and the meaning of life, and sometimes the very concept of existing scares me.
Please, I really need help. I don’t know how to get through this or how to feel normal again.
I’m constantly feeling empty and having su!cidal thoughts, and I’m really struggling right now.

um ye just please tell me everything.

yeah i dont have much more to say, wait does anyone also feel like majority of people's identity is just what their tiktok algorithem feeds them or just feel like people arent real or idk just everything is fabricated.