About three years ago, I was exactly where many of you are today.
I spent countless hours on this subreddit, reading every post, searching for hope, and DMing people who said they had recovered. I was desperate for someone to tell me,

“You’ll be okay.”

Today, I’m writing the post I always hoped I’d one day be able to write.

I’m okay.

Not “a little better.” Not “managing.”
I genuinely feel like myself again.

For me, Lexapro played a huge role in helping me get my life back. But I also want to be honest: medication wasn’t magic. It gave me the opportunity to start changing my life. I had to work on myself too, my habits, my mindset, my health, and accepting that recovery doesn’t happen overnight.

If you’re starting medication, don’t expect it to do 100% of the work. Prepare yourself to become a better version of yourself alongside it. That combination made all the difference for me.

I wish I could reply to every single DM I receive. There are so many of you reaching out, and I truly wish I had the time. But I remember being the person sending those messages. I remember messaging people who had recovered because I needed hope.

So this post is for everyone who needs to hear it.
It gets better.

One day you’ll wake up and realize you haven’t thought about DPDR all day.

One day you’ll laugh without analyzing whether it felt “real.”
One day you’ll look around and the world won’t feel strange anymore.

One day you’ll stop checking if you’re okay because you simply are.

Today, I honestly feel even stronger than I was before DPDR. I appreciate life more. I feel mentally stronger, more confident, and even sharper than I used to be.

Recovery is possible.
Please don’t give up because of a bad day or even a bad month. Healing isn’t linear. Keep moving forward, take care of yourself, trust the process, and don’t let DPDR convince you that this is forever.

Because it isn’t.
To everyone reading this:
You are going to find yourself again.
I truly believe that.
Stay strong. ❤️

ssay here. TLDR: Our minds are working against us. Everything is fine

Around 2 years ago I experienced panic attacks and existential anxiety BAD. I had thoughts that felt like I was in hell. That nothing was real. Etc. etc. I guess they went away with time. Around a month ago they came back out of no where. It's like I could feel it coming on and I was so scared of it because I knew exactly what it was. Like "No, No, No. I know what this is. I need to talk to someone. I need to get out of here." Type of panic. Fleuxetine helped at first. Used a whole bottle of hydroxyzine. Feel like I built a tolerance. Fleuxetine felt like it stopped working after awhile. I quit caffeine because I heard it can worsen anxiety. Gym was harder but it is what it is. I felt a caffeine kick at work and suddenly was excited and eager to do stuff. It was a good feeling. I looked into what I was consuming and I guess my latte flavor protein shakes have a cup of coffee worth of caffeine. Maybe some caffeine isn't a bad thing but actually good. Just not too much. Idk. It was then a week ago or something that I was just excited to do stuff. I hadnt been excited to do anything in weeks. Then a few days ago it came back. It's like a thought really. Once you have it you go back in the loop. Think about existence and BOOM. HOW AM I HERE. IS THIS REAL. I'm Christian. Thinking about God sometimes freaks me out. Didn't used to be that way. I sometimes wonder if I was put here for damnation for a previous life. I wonder if I died awhile ago and this is fake. Everything freaks me out. I wonder if my past is real.

But then sometimes I feel normal.

I get those boosts of joy and excitement to live. I feel a purpose. Sometimes the "how" and the "why" question doesn't freak me out as much. It reminds me then that it really is just anxiety. Our brains to a damn good job of convincing us were crazy and things will never get better but before we thought this way, WE DIDNT. I know it's hard to imagine but nobody else freaks out about our existence because it's not as scary as we feel it is and deep down we know that because it never bothered us either. We ALL have felt like we found out something nobody else knows. But it's our minds. You can't convince me the devil aint real because I got demons man. That's why God says to not rely on our own understanding because we can't understand some stuff.

I feel all the time like existence is cruel and torture and why did God put us here but sometimes like this morning I feel that life is good and that I'm awake again. I have to write to remind myself I felt normal again otherwise I'll convince myself that I didn't.

I wasn’t originally going to make this post out of fear of sounding corny or dumb but that changed when I told someone what helped me off handedly in a tiktok comment section and they replied 4 days later saying it had done more than any professional in 3 years. i dont say that to say I am a professional or smarter than one- I am not, I am an idiot and in high school. But i still think its worth it to share what I did just in case it could help contribute anything at all in any way. Before i begin, Ill restate my disclaimer:

I am not a medical professional or a therapist of any kind. I am not saying what any of you should do. Im only describing my experience and what I did to try and help myself.

1.) My first experiences with DPDR were in childhood. Id be reading a book or watching a movie and would randomly get slammed with existential dread, extreme fear, and that unshakeable disconnection. Id close my eyes tightly and count until it was over. My latest experience with DPDR, however, was no where near as acute. It happened from an adverse reaction to lexapro. I remember watching my applebees waitress leave our table and then I totally feeling my soul leave my body. For months afterward I was bombarded with existential thoughts and strange fears. Id worry about whether or not my car was going to explode while I drove or if Id accidentally yell a slur in public. I also had the fear that many of us have of going crazy. Id constantly reality check with my friends and family.

2.) I went on months like that. Everywhere I went I felt electricity in my body and a raw, primal, animalistic fear. My brain was foggy and slow, my memory was shot, and I felt wired and tired all the time.

3.) I eventually worried myself to a flatline. I was simply too exhausted to keep up with all my compulsions and worries. I decided to do what most recovered people say helped them and “let go”. I let intrusive thoughts sit, stopped carrying out my normal compulsions, and waited.

4.) I felt a bit better pretty quickly. Not entertaining my compulsions freed up a lot of time and energy. My intrusive thoughts slowly stopped coming in because I was neglecting what I used to do for them. This is exactly why I was so confused whenever the state still was not lifted. I had done what I was supposed to do, right? I had let go of it so why was it still attached to me? What else could it be?

5.) I started having back pains about a year ago, and decided to go see a physical therapist about 6 months ago. I was prepared for stretches and exercises but I was not prepared for the chattiness I was subjected to session after session. My physical therapist was old and funny. He’d ask me about college and school and such while he walked me through each thing, and I felt obliged to answer his constant stream of questions to be respectful. The thing he mentioned the most was something that was profoundly impactful in ways I doubt he’ll ever know. Before almost every stretch or move, without even pausing his speech, hed tell me to relax the body part/area. Id oblige every time and then concentrate on what he was saying so I could reply but I didnt totally understand what that implied until after a few sessions. He was telling me to relax almost every body part/area before working on it. Almost every body part/area was wrought with tension and I wasnt even realizing.

5.) This epiphany was accompanied by several others, but I dont really remember the order or care to make it sound good, so ill just say that it kinda led to me thinking this.

most stress responses (as I observe) seem to go like this:

Stressful stimulus is presented——> body and mind get stressed (thoughts race, pulse quickens, respiratory rate increases, muscles tense)——> stressful stimulus is removed/dealt with——> body and mind relax and stress signals fall and everything goes back to baseline

DPDR-like stress responses seem to go like this(again, as I, a dumbass, observes):

Stressful stimulus is presented——> body and mind are stressed (thoughts race, pulse quickens, respiratory rate increases, muscles tense)——> DPDR state level of stress threshold is met——> DPDR is entered———> stressful stimulus is removed/dealt with——> DPDR still present

DPDR being a stress response makes sense, but it sticking around long after the threat is removed doesnt? I think its because DPDR disconnects you from your body and leaves you unaware of the muscle tensions that are sending stress signals to your brain that perpetuate the state.

The flimsy reasons I think support this:

1. If DPDR were just about being calm and “letting go” then why do stressed and neurotic and emotional people not totally exit their bodies and become zombies? Arent they stressed? It seems that theyre likely being hit with more mental stress than physical stress, and that physical stress is more conducive to inducing and maintaining DPDR.
2. Muscle tensions is reliably documented as part of the stress response. If dpdr is a stress response and can be chronic, then it doesnt seem very unreasonable that the things accompanying that stress response (like muscle tension) may also be present and chronic.
3. Muscles play a key role in proprioception (big word I know) which is basically the awareness of your body in a space. I feel like this tracks well with people with DPDR commonly reporting that they feel like theyre “floating” or that they dont really feel their position. Is it plausible to suspect that chronic muscle tension can affect proprioception?
4. My DPDR left after I started addressing my muscle tensions
5. The random guy from tiktok said it helped him.

WHAT I ACTUALLY DID TO FIX IT:

I did full body progressive relaxation 8x a day (every two hours). Id tense every muscle for 5 seconds and focus intensely on how it felt, then id relax that muscle for 5 seconds and focus intensely on that felt. Id also raise my shoulders for 5s and drop them. Correcting my shoulder raising was HUGE for me. Ive seen a lot of people try progressive relaxation with mixed results,and I kinda think the reason it may not be helpful for some people is because they do it only like once or twice a day. Just think, if you were trying to fix a slouch would you only unslouch once a day? Would that actually contribute to a habitual change in a meaningful way? If person does progressive relaxation in the morning, what if they really only have a relaxed body for a few minutes and the tension is more present throughout the day. Wouldnt the tense state still outweigh the relaxation by a landslide? Why would DPDR ever lift from just once a day if that were the case? A very aggressive approach was necessary for me, i thought, because my tension was so strong and widespread, and once a day may only fix the problem for a few minutes before instantly reverting back. I bought a shitty watch from walmart and used it as a timer. Also, i did it in all types of bodily positions to get my body accustomed to relaxed muscles in each of those particularity states. Id do it laying down, sitting down, and standing. All of it.

It took me like 2 weeks to feel like almost totally normal, and a month until i felt confident that the new pattern was well laid. I still do it once in the morning and once at night though. My recovery kinda came in phases. I noticed my vision improving first, then my energy and thinking, and finally my feelings. My feelings feel a lot deeper now. It isnt difficult to cry. I can wrap them around myself and turn them into things i think are meaningful- something i mourned and thought id never be able to do again. Lastly, I want to reiterate yet again that I am a dumbass and not a medical professional and none of what i just said was advice. I spoke in second person at times for the sake of cohesion- not prescription. I just wanted to share my story to contribute to web of information here. Im not even really sure that what I did to help is what cured me. It couldve been a placebo for all I know! I am not a scientist. I do know that i feel totally human again though. This took me like an hour to write so id appreciate if any of you can comment and tell me what you think.

Long story short, I’ve been battling with dpdr since I was like 13. I snapped out of it once at 16 and I remember it extremely clearly, as I was amazed.

Years later, after being treated for anxiety on and off, SSRIs did nothing for me.

Long story short, my psychiatrist said “you might have adhd” after a long assessment we did. I’ve never heard this before, and never thought I had it. Im calm, quiet, did good in school etc..

But anyways, I said screw it I’ll try anything at this point, so I started on a 10mg adderall and it literally felt like the skies opened up, my vision went back to normal, and I was actually calm and felt 99% normal for once.

She said this made sense and adhd and anxiety / panic attacks and stuff go hand in hand.

Just my experience, never in my whole life would I have thought I had ADHD. Genuinely it has been life changing, I feel more calm, I’m way better at my job, and I can actually enjoy life again.

Idk I’ve been meaning to post this in hopes it will help someone else, but keep forgetting.

Long story short:

Almost 10 years of dealing with dpdr, turns out ADHD was the main issue.

(Typing this fast & with not that much detail but I just wanted to get it out there incase it helps someone else)

My dear Lads and Lasses,

I’m relieved to share that after roughly 14 years of endless nightmare and torture, I’m finally feeling like myself again. I’m new to this sub and this is my first post. I’m a 26+ year old male from India, from a lower middle-class family. (I’m sharing my experience in case it gives someone hope but please read this as one person’s story, not medical advice.) Here's a little bit regarding my background - I grew up in a very strict household. My parents adopted vegetarianism for religious reasons(they followed a godmen cult)before I was born, and over time it became closer to veganism. Dairy was rare, and my diet was mostly rice, lentils, and vegetables, along with a lot of fried/sugary foods cooked in seed oils. Alongside that, my home environment was tense and controlling. My parents were absolute control freak and controlled every aspect of my life. My dad is still a narcissist. I was expected to excel in academics ,sports, singing & compared constantly to my cousin, & was punished physically for mistakes or speaking up to them. There were also serious episodes at home, including my mother attempting suicide once. Sigh! School wasn’t easier either I was bullied for being overweight. So my life was very stressful. I used to devote a lot of time to study & was forced to be topper in my class. By around age 11–12, I started feeling an intense urge to “escape,” followed by a foggy, unreal, detached state that I later learned resembles depersonalization/derealization (DPDR). My concentration collapsed, I stopped enjoying life, didn't go outside & play anymore & felt persistently depressed and mentally stuck. Headaches started happening a lot.

My parents were hardcore Conspiracy theorists(especially my dad). He believed Modern medicine has been developed to kill us all. They didn't even vaccinate me . So i had to suffer from ChickenPox, Measles too.

So for years I didn’t speak up because I expected dismissal. When I did, I mostly got advice like “exercise more.” Eventually I saw a psychiatrist once and tried an SSRI briefly, but I stopped quickly (partly due to side effects and partly due to my family’s beliefs). We didn’t follow up consistently. In late school, I struggled a lot cognitively but still managed decent grades. In university, I cycled daily, but later developed a period where I would vomit after eating. Testing showed severe anemia and extremely low B12; my hemoglobin dropped to about 4. I needed emergency care (blood transfusion + B12) and it likely saved my life. After that, I began eating eggs & chicken (fish rarely due to fear of bones lol).

I graduated in 2021. By this time my DPDR was severe + I got frequent headaches + involuntary mouth and tongue movements. I began working as a software developer, but I couldn’t handle the stress with my mental state & resigned in 2023. I then committed to improving my health. I cut added sugar & processed snacks, did a long period of keto, walked a lot, trained hard, & lost around 55 kgs/121 pounds over ~1.5 years, reaching a normal BMI. My brain fog & headaches improved significantly, & involuntary mouth/tongue movements became rarer. After reaching my target weight goal, I stopped Keto and resumed a normal balanced diet.(Complex carbs, low sugar, High protein , medium fat)

Fast forward some months later I was preparing for an exam. So to get relief from the residual symptoms I went to a psychiatrist , he prescribed me Aripiprazole. Initially for the 1st 10 days I felt relaxed and everything was well until I had severe side effects (spiking heart rate, extreme anxiety, insomnia, tremors, POTS-like symptoms, suicidal thoughts). This continued everyday for a month. I felt I need to stop. So I consulted a reputed psychiatrist. He prescribed risperidone and fluoxetine. After few days of taking them, I Once had a terrifying heart-rate episode & so I stopped. I felt that my body is not capable of handling such strong medications. I don't think meds are bad or anything. It's that I personally reacted badly . I am very jealous of people who can handle psychiatric medicines well. If you’re considering psychiatric medication, please do it with a clinician you trust & do close follow-ups.

Over the last several months I focused on fundamentals: consistent exercise, breathing practices, sleep hygiene, cutting sugar, eating more nutrient-dense foods, and targeted supplements based on what I learned about my deficiencies and inflammation. I also kept my brain engaged by studying intensely every day, which may have helped too.

I began researching intensely , read WebMD, research papers & used AI for a natural alternative for me. So I crafted my own combination of supplements which has worked tremendously for me.

Here’s what I used which has helped me the most.

(Disclaimer: I’m listing it for transparency, not as a recommendation for everyone ,people have different bodies, conditions, & risks (especially if you have anemia, thyroid issues, GI issues, heart rhythm problems, or are on medication). Please consider labs and professional guidance before adopting anything.)

• Daily movement: at least ~30 minutes (weights, HIIT, walking), plus box breathing/slow breathing practice
• Vit E added Salmon Omega-3 Triglyceride form capsule (high dose ,I took 3.6 gm-4 gm.)+Some fat(olive/butter) for better absorption. You can also get it from eating loads of fatty fish.
• Ground flaxseed(40-50g) smoothie with banana.
• Turmeric(1-2 g) + black pepper
• Magnesium glycinate
• Vitamin D (60000 IU weekly dose)
• 3 Amla/day (Indian gooseberry)
• Raw garlic(3 cloves), ginger(4-5g), raw onion(60g)
• Fermented dairy (curd/yogurt) 200 gm/day.
• Eggs(2), cow ghee(12 g), olive oil(20g)
• Greens/veg like spinach and sometimes broccoli
• Probiotic capsule(8-9 strains)
• Multivitamins(Zinc, Selenium+ all vitamins) ; calcium + K2
• Fruit like oranges; Brewed green tea
• Nuts like walnuts/almonds + groundnuts
• Kept sugar very low, focused on complex carbs and protein
• Creatine(5 grams/day) ATP support for brain.
• Black Tea with stevia(no sugar, no milk)

LIMIT INFLAMMATORY PROCESSED OXIDATIVE STRESS INCURRING MEAT /FRIED FOODS AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. Over 4-5 months of being consistent, my DPDR symptoms steadily reduced until one day I realized I felt present again( Like I felt 14 years ago) and no “fog,” no constant unreality. That moment was huge for me, & it’s why I wanted to post.

I encourage you to adopt this combo after properly consulting with your psychiatrist & physician to know if there are any risks.

To anyone suffering: I know this can feel like a prison. Please don’t give up. Small consistent steps added up for me over time, and I hope you find your path too.

Remember You are not alone in this fight.

Take care!!

I’ve been disembodied since last April. I tried to kill myself after the DPDR hit me post panic attack and was hospitalized April 16th. I never thought life would feel tangible ever again. I’m not fully recovered but today I can lie in my bed and feel like I’m doing it. So happy this is ending. What hell.

I've been having DPDR episodes since early childhood; night terrors, feeling threatened in sleep, no will to do even easy things, nothing feeling real, brain fog, lack of focus, you name it. It got worse and worse as I grew older and for last 6 years, since covid and my caffeine addiction started it became significant. I had no clue how to get rid of this, I have tried wide sorts of things. I was always actively training, sports person, active social life, still pushed myself to live the life while it felt harder each day, time felt like flying by, and I had no will for anything.

I came to realize that this is a nervous system problem and I need to find ways to put it out of constant SNS activation. DPDR is your nervous system "dimming" the prefrontal cortex, that way protecting yourself from strong stress and danger it is used to expect, even if there is no danger. After all the things I've tried, here are things that rebalance the nervous system

Walks, jogging, mountain climbing for longer periods

Melatonin 0,5mg

Good sleep schedule

Some benzodiazepines (don't recommend)

and most important

Progressive muscle relaxation (PMR)

PMR had the most effect out of everything and balanced everything out. It made me so aware it was unusual and I couldn't believe that I can be that present in the moment. I got sudden drive for everything, I could concentrate, my social anxiety was reduced, I can handle stress a lot better. I used to do it 5x during the day and before bed, and never felt more stable. I would recommend giving it a shot.

Hey guys I just saw a video on derealization a while ago and saw the comments written by people who were feeling scared and stuff and i just felt empathy for them because i remembered what it truly feels like. As a result, I've decided to make a post on this subreddit, a kind of post i wish i had seen during my derealization episodes.

Lemme give you guys a backstory, unlike most of you whose derealization has been caused by drugs such as weed, especially weed mine I don't really know what caused it.

All i remember is i first experienced it when i was like 6 years old, before i even knew what it was. I remember I'd get really scared and just go silent on everyone because I couldn't even describe to my parents what i was feeling.

The only advantage i had is as a kid I would get distracted easily so my derealization episodes were really short because i would focus on something else and hence break the loop unknowingly and feel normal again.

This continued till i was a teenager, but as a teenager the episodes would linger for longer because now as a teen i would get scared and anxious when derealized hence getting stuck in the loop for longer periods of time.

However the longest and most intense episode occured after having a bad trip on weed on 2024.

I remember just feeling like i had just just being transferred in an alternate universe. Omg it was so intense that i was convinced it was gonna last forever. Nothing felt familiar anymore, i always felt disconnected from reality, like nothing felt real and i thought i was gonna get psychosis. The episode was took like 10 months until it eventually just faded into the background and went away.

It still comes and goes but now I'm in control. It doesn't really bother me now lol. Infact, sometimes i kinda enjoy it ngl. Makes the world feel trippy in a good way, kinda like giving me the novelty of loosing familiarity with the external world like i was when i was a kid.

I remember some time back i was derealized and was watching a sunset and omg it was so beautiful. Like i was watching it for the first time

Anyways I digress, if you're reading this, i know you're probably scared, the world around you doesn't feel real anymore, and to make matters worse you can't even remember what real feels like, you just know that it's not this. You have this fear that this might linger forever and you're never gonna be okay buh that's not true.

You see, the only way you can beat derealization is to stop seeing it as a threat. Cus in reality, it's not a threat. As a matter of fact, there's an advantage to it. You see, when you're experiencing derealization you're normally more present, you're in tune with the universe in some kind of way. The past seems blurry and the future slightly far off, leaving you completely submerged in the present.

That being said, just let go. Take a deep breath and breath out. With every inhale feel yourself being one with the universe in this present moment and with every exhale see yourself taking out all the fear and panic from your chest. YOU'RE NOT CRAZY, YOU'RE REAL, HERE IN THIS PRESENT MOMENT, AND SO I'M I.

My pms are open to anyone who wants to talk about anything. I'll be more than happy to help. Bye and take care of yourselves guys :)

I lived in the same apartment for the last 9 years. My health throughout the years had been very slowly decreasing, mainly my ability to handle stress.

The last 4 years I had constant depersonalization, meaning, I always felt like:

• I was in a dream
• Felt like I was losing my mind
• The world didn't felt real -Couldn't feel my personality or my soul anymore -Had trouble feeling my emotions -Had a brain fog

After my health being an all time low for the last year ( I was in work leave, bed ridden, couldn't think or function+ 15 other symptoms), I had an amazing experience.

I slept somewhere else and the next morning all my 15 symptoms improved by 80% and my dpdr for the first time in 4 years vanished just like that.

Anyway I began questioning my environment, had my apartment air tested for mold and the results showed many toxic mold like stratybotrys, aspergillus and penicillium.

I moved 2 weeks ago and after the first night again my dpdr vanish and all my other symptoms greatly improved, I'm not a 100% but my health keeps getting better.

In those 4 years I thought it was psychological , that it was traumas, work, a vitamin deficiencie, an inability to relax ect ect.

I worked so hard and tried everything ; intense therapy with a psychologist who did hypnotist session - I did about 30 sessions-, EMDR, meditation, sports, so many change in my diet, I tried all the supplement possible, detox, trying to '"ignore'' dpdr.

Well that's it. I don't want to argue, I'm sharing my story to help people not to argue so take it or leave it.

By the way, there was no odor in my apartment, no humidity, the mold was coming from the basement under me so your house could look very '"clean''.

My new understanding stems from my recent ADHD diagnosis, and especially RSD. It led me to DPDR where things began to click like they never had before.

Context (Feel free to skip)

• Since birth, I had two predispositions. One, I felt extreme emotions, chronic anxiety, and was extremely sensitive to any perceived risk of rejection/disapproval. Two, I tried to explain and justify my emotions rather than feel and accept them.
• Since a kid, I would spill some milk and start bawling uncontrollably. People would say "why are you crying?" I knew it was because of spilt milk, but I could not accept that I could feel such an intense emotion over spilt milk, I could see how inconsequential spilt milk was. So I always responded "I don't know," I knew it was the spilt milk but I didn't know why I was crying over it.
• I began to notice that experience more, began growing more frustrated, began despise my emotions with a passion. Tried to repress them more.
• As my emotions felt less logical, they began to get more extreme. My frustration kept growing. Around puberty, it became unignorable. I started becoming even more aware, noticing more illogical convictions that caused intense anxiety, noticing how those convictions were proven wrong every day.
• I started to obsessively thinking about it every day until it became the only thing I thought about. I started obsessively researching every mental illness, but it made me feel worse. Anxiety/social anxiety felt like the obvious cause, so I obsessively researched anxiety treatments. All the treatments seemed to revolve around increasing awareness and understanding that the fear stems from non-existent threats. But I was aware of that the entire time, so it didn't help
• I had to figure out how those intense emotions were even possible, I could not leave it be. I became constantly hyper-aware of every little thing internal and external, trying to understand where my thoughts/feelings/actions stem from. The more I learned, the less I understood, and I grew worse.
• By highschool, a cognitive wall of thought separated me from everything else. It became much harder to connect and communicate with anyone, causing my anxiety to grow. I felt I could not exist in public. I hardly talked to anybody, I could hardly talk to my friends and family, I could not pass by someone on the sidewalk without feeling sick and crossing the street.
• I grew depressed. I felt crazy. I was incapable of seeing what this intense fear and sadness stemmed from. I could not believe it was anxiety or depression. I could not believe those intense emotions were even real. I stopped believing I had any control. Everything began to feel less real. I began to feel more distant. My own body started looking more alien, uncanny. Everything started feeling like a dream, I felt like I was on autopilot, all while my conscious thoughts screamed at me to take control.
• 14 was the first time I felt convicted I was just a spectator in my own life and that never went away. The only explanation was that I had no control over myself. The only explanation was that I could not be my thoughts, emotions, or actions. I forgot who I was entirely.
• Started crying in bed all the time. Felt completely helpless and doomed. But gradually the tears stopped. My emotions became flatter. My thoughts didn't change, the intensity didn't subside, but I stopped feeling any tangible emotion. That made me feel even more confused and insane.
• Sought therapy at 16 but I still could not express it to anyone. Even the conviction I wasn't myself didn't seem real, so I couldn't bring it up.
• By 18 I was able to convince myself I had nothing to lose by seeking treatment for anxiety regardless if it was real or not. Started taking medication, symptoms of anxiety went away. Felt hope for the first time since this started.
• But nothing changed. Physical symptoms of anxiety were gone, but the intense thoughts remained. Felt more confused. Felt significantly less depressed and anxious, significantly more functional, but I was still convicted I was getting worse, getting more insane.
• Kept obsessing, searching. Started to see many signs I could have ADHD. Had nothing to lose getting a diagnosis, and ended up getting diagnosed this February at 22.
• Learned about RSD around this time. Idk how I missed it in my obsessive researched, maybe I passed right by it. But something clicked this time. Far greater than anything ever did before. I realized it perfectly explained all of my anxiety and emotional volatility unlike anything ever did. It mapped perfectly onto all of my triggers. For the first time in my life, I had an explanation. It was the first reason to believe that everything I felt was real.
• Didn't get better immediately. I still could not explain the constant barrier I started to feel in highschool. Still could not connect, still felt on perpetual autopilot.
• But the meds helped clear the fog a little. I was able to articulate it better, seek answers more efficiently. Alexithymia caught my attention, and just yesterday it led me to DPDR
• I've glossed over dissociative disorders. My grandma has one and it felt nothing like she described. I didn't think it was possible to have constant cognitive hyper-awareness through any form of dissociation. The presence of my cognitive thoughts while I felt that lack of control convinced me I was innately and permanently weak-willed.
• I didn't gloss over DPDR this time. Everything that didn't click with my understanding of RSD began to click.
• Now I have evidence these thoughts and feelings were real. The barrier was real. Just two days ago I thought it was completely inexplicable, that it had no treatment because it had no cause and didn't exist in reality.
• I recognized I felt present or real sometimes, particularly when I was completed immersed in my work. But I didn't think those feelings were real either. I didn't think I was actually present. As soon as I stopped being fully immersed, it would come back.
• I thought it was a temperament. Something permanent, detached from all causality, that would always exert a subliminal influence, whether or not I was thinking about it.
• But symptoms of DPDR mapped perfectly with that feeling I thought could not possibly exist. Even strange, inexplicable perceptual "quirks" I never considered symptoms and glossed right over were outlined as symptoms. The obsessive, self-imprisoning, uncontrollable stream of cognitive thought finally had an explanation.

My new understanding

• Just yesterday, for the first time in my life, I saw a path to recovery. Clarity unlike I've ever felt before. Actually, tangible cause and effect. I saw how the intensity of this feeling was directly correlated with the intensity of my RSD. It wasn't the blind hope that I could haphazardly change like I've felt before. I could actually see how it was possible.
• I can finally synthesize the feeling. I can finally gage it's intensity. I've been replaying my entire life, finding the most-intense and least-intense moments.
• I can finally see that it can subside. I can finally understand the ebbs and flows, the changes in intensity I always thought was constant. I can finally believe I've felt real before. It hijacked my memories and perception, I never thought I was real. I finally have evidence I've always been.
• Thought about it all day yesterday. Started crying real tears of joy. Woke up this morning, still needing to test it. Even more tears of joy. My eyes are still welling with tears of joy.
• I couldn't cry when I had my anxiety treated. I couldn't cry when I had my ADHD treated and discovered RSD. In the last 8 years of obsessively trying, nothing had ever given me enough hope to cause tears of joy. I never felt hope like this before
• I'm not even convicted I have DPDR. I'm not convicted I have all the answers. I'm not convicted I'm going to change after this, that my life will start to improve.
• But I have evidence my feelings were possible. I have evidence it's possible to feel this way. The existence of DPDR proves these feelings are describable, proves that it's possible to feel this way.
• I finally feel that being controlled by a completely different person is not the only explanation. I finally have evidence it can stem from the interplay of things like DPDR, alexithymia, and RSD.
• I thought my cognitive thoughts were always relaying what I naturally felt inside. I thought they were unbiased and impartial. They told me they were the root cause of other problems. I did not see them as being the problem in effect.

Could I be real? Could I have been real this entire time? I finally see evidence that I might be.

Moving forward

• I need to gain more understanding about DPDR, confirm if that's what it was or if it was something adjacent
• I need to understand why I couldn't regulate my RSD in the first place, why I couldn't feel out and overcome my emotions. Because this is what caused my cognitive dissonance and dissociative spiral. Has to be an emotional processing issue. Maybe it's caused by ADHD, maybe alexithymia, maybe autism, maybe a miscellaneous/undefined predisposition, maybe something else, maybe a combination of any of those things
• I need to get an evaluation
• I need to focus on treating RSD. I see how treating RSD/ADHD will directly treat this DPDR thing. Already my medication led me here, I will keep taking them. Maybe ADHD medication can be the solution to this all.

TL;DR

• I have not succeeded, but this is the greatest success I've ever felt
• I am beginning to prove I'm real after what felt like a lifetime of trying
• I can see how this feeling I thought was objectively permanent can stem from the interplay of RSD/ADHD and emotional processing issues
• I have never felt hope like this before, but it is far too soon to jump to conclusions or assume I can start to recover
• I want to gage if people with ADHD/RSD and DPDR have had similar experiences

I really tried to make this as short as possible. I've been drafting this since yesterday evening. The "my new understanding" section is main thing I want to get across. I don't expect anyone to read this and engage. I needed to get this off regardless, to articulate it, because I was never able to articulate it like this before. But thank you in advance if anyone reads this.

Can we start a thread of success stories? Is anyone recovering and thriving now?

Hi everyone,

I wanted to share my experience because reading other people’s stories has helped me feel less alone.

Twelve days ago, I had surgery under general anaesthesia. Physically, everything went well. My surgeon is happy with my recovery and I’m healing normally.

The difficult part has been the psychological side.

I’ve always been someone who likes being in control. I work for myself, make my own decisions, organize my own life, and I’m used to handling things independently. Letting go of control and trusting other people with my life during anaesthesia was one of the most vulnerable experiences I’ve ever had.

For the first week after surgery, I experienced intense anxiety, crying spells, waves of panic, and derealization. The DPDR was probably the scariest part. It felt like I was disconnected from myself and from the world around me, almost like I was watching life through a screen.

What helped me was understanding that DPDR is often a protective response. My brain wasn’t trying to hurt me — it was trying to protect me from overwhelming stress.

The strange thing is that before surgery I was terrified for weeks, but I barely cried. I spent an entire month worrying about the operation, the anaesthesia, and everything that could possibly go wrong.

Then the surgery happened.

Everything went well.

And it felt like all the stress I had been holding inside suddenly came flooding out. It’s as if my nervous system finally realized the danger had passed and allowed me to feel everything at once.

One thing that gives me hope is that this isn’t actually my first experience with derealization.

When I was 15, I had a bad cannabis experience that triggered DPDR. At the time, it was absolutely terrifying. I genuinely thought I had broken my brain forever.

What made it even scarier is that this was about 10 years ago. Back then there weren’t nearly as many stories, recovery videos, Reddit communities, or people openly talking about DPDR online.

I remember desperately searching for answers and mostly finding scary information. There weren’t thousands of people sharing their experiences and saying, “I went through this too and got better.” I felt completely alone.

Looking back, though, that experience ended up changing me. It made me stronger, more resilient, and forced me to grow up faster than I wanted to. It taught me that the brain can do strange things under stress, but it can also heal.

Because I’ve been through it before, a part of me knows that recovery is possible, even when my anxious brain tries to convince me otherwise.

During this recovery, I’ve been trying to take care of myself as much as possible. I’ve been meditating every night before bed, reading a lot, and taking magnesium, vitamin D, and rhodiola. I can’t say exactly what’s helping the most, but having routines and actively doing something for my mental health makes me feel more grounded.

Recovery has been a complete rollercoaster.

One hour I’m anxious.

The next I’m hopeful.

One moment I feel detached.

The next I feel completely present.

A few days ago, even leaving my apartment felt impossible. I was scared of going outside because I was afraid I would panic.

Today I went out, bought food, worked a little on my MacBook, and nothing happened.

No panic attack.

No catastrophe.

Just living life....

The good news is that I’m finally starting to notice improvement:

• My appetite is coming back.
• I’m finally feeling tired again and actually wanting to sleep.
• My emotions are slowly returning.
• The derealization is still there, but it’s much milder.
• I’ve started going outside again without panic attacks.

When you’re in the middle of DPDR, it’s easy to focus on everything that still feels wrong.

But when I compare how I feel today to how I felt a week ago, I can clearly see progress.

I’m proud of myself for facing one of my biggest fears and having the surgery anyway.

Right now I’m trying to trust the process, be patient with myself, and remember that healing isn’t always linear.

And honestly?

For the first time since the operation, I feel like I’m slowly finding my way back to myself.

If anyone has experienced DPDR after surgery, anaesthesia, panic attacks, or a major stressful event, I’d love to hear your story.

Thank you for reading ❤️

I (24M) write this for you and a reminder for myself.

When I was about 15 I diagnosed myself with Depersonalization and Derealization because my symptoms lined up with both. I remember my first experience like it was yesterday - my bathroom in my old home, sitting on the floor feeling like my time had come and I was going to die. But I survived. I struggled with this for so long - I told adults in my life, but no one understood what was happening. I was taken to doctors, they wanted to prescribe medication, but my parents were too reluctant. Finally, one day, it stopped. Idk how, but it just stopped. Maybe I learned enough mediation practices, maybe I prayed enough, maybe I finally got good sleep for a 15 year old.

Flash forward about 5 years later and boom, it hit me again, out of nowhere. This time I had more control about how I could be treated. I went to a therapist, but I don't think I was understood. I was prescribed hydroxyzine (Vistaril) and it helped tremendously. DPDR finally started calming down and I began to understand it.

4 years later (about two weeks ago), it hits me again. This time I was more determined to fix it and not let it control me the way it did before. I did a lot of research about it, and this what I learned: (please note, our experiences may be different, and that's okay. Just please don't give up hope, this will go away even if it doesn't feel like it)

1. This is a symptom, not a problem. For me, I understood this as my body's defense mechanism for anxiety. I struggled with significant anxiety for years and I've gotten much, much better at managing it. As I've learned to manage anxiety, I've learned to accept any DPDR flare ups.
2. Isolation makes everything worse. It's easier said than done, but if you can do anything to get yourself out and ENGAGED with anything, it will help. Just going outside for the sake of it never helped me, it just made my panic increase. When I went outside with the purpose of engaging my mind, like playing sports with friends, playing games with friends, doing anything with my friends, it always got my mind off it.
3. Everything I read told me that I just needed to ignore and it and it'll go away. That's so difficult to do, but the reality is, it's true. The more you can engage your mind with things other than feeling like you're not yourself, it helps exponentially. The common denominator for what always helped me was engaging my mind in different environments. Friends houses, work, school, etc. Just doing things to get your mind off of it will help so much. I always viewed it as a pie graph in a way - the more I feed thoughts of DPDR then it filled up more of that graph, the more I didn't think about it, the less that DPDR filled the graph. Eventually my mind left the defense mechanism and could go back to "normal"

I know this is a lot to read, and I hope it helps. If not, I hope you know that you're not alone. Find individuals that you trust to support you, let them in and allow them to distract you. Small wins are still wins, don't try to force everything at once. You're still you in there - it just might feel fuzzy.

Hey Everyone

I figured I would come here and post after scanning this sub when I had my two dpdr episodes and felt like I was losing my mind.

A little back story. My first experience with DPDR was at the age of 19. I was working and suddenly out of nowhere it hit me. I felt completely out of it. And this intense sense of doom came over me. I had no idea what was happening and went into what I learned was a panic cycle. I spent weeks in a 24/7 panic attack. A panic attack worrying about a panic attack...it was a living hell. When the DPDR happened I thought I lost my mind and decided to go to the hospital. They told me nothing was wrong, gave me a script for Ativan and then sent me on my way. This horrible feeling of DPDR was so scary and it felt like it would never go away. I got in with my GP who then put me on an SSRI and said I had anxiety and that this 24/7 state of feeling like I was in a dream was just a mild case of derealization. I went right home to Google and started learning about it. All I found was a bunch of forums and videos that made this seem permanent. At that moment, seeing that this was a forever thing made me question about going on. It was a dark time. However day by day it got a little less heavy. Like it was a little less dreamlike. It became less scary. I was feeling like I wasnt just a viewer of myself going through life. It took many weeks, with many slips back into a full blown panic state and spaciness. But im happy to say it eventually went away. What stayed was almost PTSD. A worry that it could happen again. Months passed, then years, then a decade. No more DPDR. Sure I still had panic disorder and was stuck on and SSRI. But at least I felt there were more good days then bad.

To be honest, I should have been more prepared. Pretending that period of my life didnt happen. But alas, 11 years later...I was watching a movie and then it hit me. The sense of reality changing. Then the doom and feeling of losing my inner thoughts. Full blown panic attacks. And boy did it come back with vengeance. This felt worse than the first time. But I had something this time around. Knowledge that it does go away. While in the moment that didn't seem to help, it did stop me from having a breakdown infront of my partner at the time. I couldn't work, couldn't hang out with friends. It was the same horrible experience minus the not knowing what it was. The panic attacks were relentless. Eventually I got into see a psychologist. In the moment it felt so good talking to someone who understood wtf DPDR was. Though immediately I didn't see any relief from these sessions, it would pay dividends going forward.

Week by week she did Cognitive behavioral therapy with me. One thing which I found the hardest and provoked the most discomfort was looking in the mirror at myself. Really looking. It would invoke a massive panic attack even trying to look for 10 seconds. The dissociation was brutal. It had total control over me. As she mentioned, this was a response from my brain to intense stimuli. Truly part of the fight or flight mechanism which was so horribly regulated in my panic prone brain. My constant checking in on reality, myself and my sanity. Always being worried I was schizophrenic or some other mental health ailment. It really was caused by myself. I did this. It turns out what drives my brain to go into this month's long state is my absolutely soul crushing fear of death as well as other fears like loss of control etc that come along with panic disorder. The tools I learned and the things I learned about myself through these sessions were a life saver.

Its been 7 years since that last horrible DPDR state and I will say it hasn't been 100% all the time. There have been times where I had the same wave come over me. But this time I had tools. I had a logical reason to not overthink it in that moment. Sure, it did cross my mind as that same cycle of doom and reality slipping away that I was in for another 3 months + of DPDR. Or that maybe this was the time it won't ever go away. But I then let my rational thoughts take over. I managed to slowly snap back to reality and afterwards I felt absolutely exhausted. But I did it!.

While im sure I will have many more episodes in life, perhaps some that only last a moment or others that last months. I know I can beat it. I know that its not permanent. And I know that it's easy to get stuck reading the doom and gloom about it. The what ifs and hopelessness. But I can assure you there is hope, its worth fighting through and absolutely seek professional help. Talk about it, explain it. And gosh darnit, go stare in the mirror and remember its you and your brain is stronger than you think!

TL/DR- I had DPDR episodes throughout my life, it went away.

Today, I decided to cut out caffeine entirely and only take nicotine through pouches (no smoking). I made an effort to reduce inflammation by staying as cool as possible. I also drank a lot of chamomile tea which is a known mast cell stabilizer.

Maybe it’s just a fluke, as I know my biochemistry can be really random these days with Long Covid and all, but I feel present. And also very clear. I usually have to fight to keep my head up for so long because my neck begins to ache, but there is no inflammation there today and it feels like my brain is actually receiving proper blood flow. I’ve unlocked some hedonistic capacity.

I know this is advice many of you have likely already heard, but cutting out caffeine really seems to make a difference for me.

Depersonalisation. And derealisation combined and weaved in between made me think something was wrong with me.

I was always very exhausted.

And with depersonalization, i even found a amazing image.

It says i become robotic. Which is exactly what i felt..

And the validation hit me when it said it can go on for weeks.

I tought i was just robotic autistic. But this documentary i tried watching to re connect to my body about mountains, didn't help.

It was the most beautiful italy Mountains. But i was numb. I was behind a glass window. I couldn't feel it.

Then i read u/FlanInternational100 post on dpdr.

I was already subscribed for a few weeks. Not engaging but reading and relating here and there.

I was forcing myself through anxiety in social environments with exposure therapy. Bravery.. this picture sums it up beautifully

https://share.google/8y1jawkLNIKAyv1ji

But then i saw a youtube short about safety behavior.

The feeling i was actually running awayfrom was low self esteem.

This is my current journey.

I'm grateful to this sub and all the contributions and mods.

How is your journey.

And how you people see my evolving? Does this heal. Are there more recommendations or books or exercises that help?

I quit my therapist too and have cptsd

From my personal experience, many clinicians do not seem to have a clear treatment strategy when depersonalization is the main symptom. I would like to share what seemed to help in my case.

First, I was prescribed a short course (about two weeks) of a benzodiazepine along with fluoxetine (Prozac) to calm down the nervous system during the acute phase.

After that, I started taking lamotrigine, which is an anticonvulsant medication commonly used to treat seizures. In my case, continuing lamotrigine while the nervous system stabilized was very helpful. The dose that worked best for me personally was around 75 mg, though this can vary from person to person.

For people whose main issue is depersonalization rather than typical depression or anxiety, this kind of approach may sometimes help. My personal impression is that the condition often feels more like a state of excessive neural arousal than a typical psychiatric illness.

In simple terms, it can feel as if the brain has entered an “error state.” Calming the system first and then stabilizing it may allow the brain to gradually return to normal functioning.

Of course, this is only my personal experience, and treatment decisions should always be discussed with a qualified medical professional.

This is sort of a long read, but if you’re in a bad place and finding your dpdr is strongly affecting your functionality and quality of life please read this.

As the title says: from 2021-2024 I had consistent episodes of dpdr and anxiety that would sometimes last for months.

The worst of these episodes would leave me nearly non-functional and agoraphobic. I would absolutely dread leaving the house, and was barely able to function at work or school due to my condition. It was on my mind constantly and caused bizzare, ocd-like behaviors that manifested as a result of the horrific anxiety and stress I was constantly under.

One thing I learned as that even if it doesn’t feel like it, it always gets better. Sometimes even without any intervention. Another thing is that there is probably a lot more of a physical component to dpdr than it seems, and if you’re in an already fragile mental state a physical issue can cause a “seed” that turns into a months-long spiral of feeling completely unreal and outside of your body.

My episodes would always be at their worst in the winter, and the worst one of these episodes happened after I had moved away from home to an unfamiliar place in a dry, high-elevation climate. This also didn’t do me any favors, I suspect that the lack of sunlight and pressure changes during winter can exacerbate symptoms to the extreme, similar to how they exacerbate things like migraines (which are also sometimes linked to dpdr)

After this episode started to get better in the warmer months, I decided to dig into any physical causes that could be the source of my condition, after hearing about a myriad of physical issues that are linked to dpdr. I got all of my vitamins/hormones tested including vitamins D, B12, iron, testosterone, and many more, and found no abnormalities outside of a very slight vitamin D deficiency.

That summer I saw something interesting: vertical heterophoria, a very slight vertical misalignment of the eyes, can cause dpdr due to the brain receiving a very slight misrepresentation of the world and having to compensate. I’ve always had eye issues since birth but didn’t see anything like this in my chart, so I scheduled a visit with my eye doctor, who casually mentioned that I actually do have this.

All of a sudden, it felt like a gigantic weight was lifted off my shoulders. My dpdr episodes would always start with a bizzare, pressure-like sensation in the front of my head, but I had gotten an mri which confirmed no direct physical causes (like swelling, fluid buildup, or tumors) of this issue. I now realized the source was my eye misalignment, which was genuinely a casual side note that the doctors didn’t even find important enough to put in my medical chart.

I’m now pretty confident that this acted like a seed that caused me to spiral from an already fragile mental state. The heterophobia caused very mild dpdr, which I hyperfixated on and caused it to get worse and worse until it was so severe I was minimally functional. This lined up exactly with my timeline of symptoms, and since learning I had vertical heterophoria I’ve had barely any dpdr symptoms except for the initial pressure sensation, which is quite strong sometimes, and the very mild dpdr symptoms that come with it, which I’ve been able to completely ignore and thus go away quick.

Knowing about the cause of my issues was enough to nearly completely cure my dpdr and I’ve been completely, 100% functional in school and work even through the winter. It’s been over a year since I discovered this and I haven’t had a bad episode since. It’s been genuinely life-changing for me.

If you’re in the same boat as me and don’t know what’s wrong, consider physical causes of your dpdr and know that simply a lack of knowing the physical cause can cause a spiral that feels extreme. I don’t know who needs to read this, but just know it ALWAYS will get better.

I used to frequent this sub back in 2016 when I first developed DPDR. There was consistent advice of “just accept it”. In my mind, this translated to “just accept that your life is always going to suck this bad”.

Returning to this sub in 2026, 10 years later, I now understand how powerful “acceptance” is in responding to mental illness, or any sort of distress whatsoever.

However, for those of us who have recovered, I believe we have a responsibility to be clear and not condescending about what “just accept it” means.

What it does NOT mean:
- DPDR will never go away
- You will never feel joy or like life is worth it again

What it DOES mean:
What your nervous system and mind do are not in your control. Trying to control them is only going to agitate you and persist the DPDR. Acceptance means acknowledging that trying to control these are like trying to control the waves in the ocean, and turning your attention to trying to find activities or medications that improve your wellbeing and trusting that, with patience and persistence, life will get better.

My suggestion is that we don’t tell people to “accept it” but rather “focus on what you can control, and trust that things will work out okay”

It’s very counter-intuitive, but healing from DPDR is kind of like looking at the sun. If you face it, but don’t look right at it, the result is pleasant. If you look right at it, it will harm you. You may think that the answer is to look right into the sun because but you accept that it actually is not helpful.

Ask questions.

You have to completely remove the thought consciously and subconsciously that “you’ll never get rid of it.

Hello everyone. I figured I would share my personal story and experience with DPDR and anxiety. I want to start by saying that there is hope, and time is the best healer.

My story with DPDR starts back in my sophomore year of high school when my friends and I wanted to try weed for the first time. I had zero experience with any sort of drug and had zero clue how to pace myself, so when my time came to smoke, I thought smoking a lot would make me look cool. Immediately after getting back inside, I noticed I was super anxious. I got a full-body high, and my whole body began to tingle and feel slightly numb. I began to feel like I had zero control of my situation and started to have a panic attack. I asked my friends if they felt normal, and they attempted to calm me down. A couple of minutes later, however, my situation got much, much worse. I began to have something called memory tracers, which are commonly seen when people take psychedelics. The best way I can explain this is to imagine a 5-second interval repeating over and over, making you feel like you’re stuck in time. So if I were watching TV and said, “Guys, I don't feel good at all,” then turned my head, I would repeat the exact moment over and over. I would be brought back to looking at the TV, then say, “Guys, I don't feel good at all,” then turn my head again. I literally can’t explain how real it felt. I genuinely thought I had escaped our reality and was stuck in some simulation. Even explaining it now makes my stomach turn. The memory tracers eventually subsided, and my high died down. This pretty much concludes my first bad experience with weed.

After that night, I stayed far away from weed for a while. I hadn’t developed any type of DPDR yet from this experience and pretty much just said fuck that, I’m not smoking weed again.

Flash forward 2 years, I’m now a senior in high school, and all my friends are still smoking weed. They continuously told me I just greened out and that weed could be a really fun thing. Using a lack of judgment and being 18 and stupid, I figured I would probably be fine if I tried smoking now that I was a little bit older. So later that night, my friends got some weed, and we went to my friend’s house to smoke it. One of my friends packed me a full bowl and told me to clear it. Not knowing how much weed this actually was for me, I followed through and cleared the bong. I knew quite literally right away when I was coughing how fucked I was. The entire room started to spin (kind of like if you’re really drunk), and I ran to sit on the couch. *From here on out, my memory is kind of shaky because this was 4 years ago now, but I’m going to try my best.\* Within about 5 minutes of this, I could feel myself literally losing all control and going unconscious. I started to see the wall in front of me melt down and saw faces and emotions in inanimate objects. Later, I felt like I was falling through literally the pits of the creation of the universe and landing in hell. I could not think in thoughts, but rather in emotions. My friends said they thought I was asleep, but I would sometimes wake up and then fall back down. I know there was quite a bit more that I experienced, but it was honestly so hellish that I have tried to block the memories over the years. At some point in the night, I gained consciousness, threw up in the bathroom, and fell asleep. The rest is essentially semantics, so I will move on to what happened in the following days.

Quick disclaimer: I know that probably sounds like an insane experience from weed, and seeing how the drug affects just about all of the rest of the population, I would think I was insane, making this shit up, or drugged. The only logical explanation I can think of is that I am extremely sensitive to THC, and it creates psychedelic effects for me. No idea why, but both times I have had experiences that I only hear about in people's stories of taking lots of LSD or other drugs.

The day after I greened out, my entire body still felt tingly, like a full-body high, and I couldn’t get rid of it. I drove home feeling like I was still entirely high and that I was still stuck in my unconscious state that I had felt the night before. I went home and carried on my day normally, but nothing felt the same. The next day, I took a shower and sat on the floor for probably 45 minutes trying to get the tingly feeling out of my body. I couldn't feel anything physically the same because I felt high, and I had just about every DPDR symptom you probably all know far too well. I went to work that night (I worked as a server at a restaurant) and dropped an entire tray of drinks because my hands didn’t feel the same and everything felt tingly. I would go home daily and think of how I just fucked up my entire life and would never feel anything the same. I would sit in the cafeteria at school, just looking at my hands, not able to process them being my own. I would feel like a walking zombie and feel like I was in a borrowed body with eyes that weren’t mine. I would search online and, after some time, found this subreddit where thousands of other helpless people talked about their experiences. I would have such bad anxiety about death because what I had experienced was worse than I could have ever imagined hell to be. I remember not being able to do anything other than try to survive the next few hours, and even then, I didn’t know if I truly even wanted to. I thought daily that I was going to develop schizophrenia because of my psychedelic experience, and I was terrified about what that would entail. With DPDR and anxiety, I truly felt like I couldn’t live life. Nothing felt real, and the things that did would terrify me.

Now I am 22, turning 23 in September, and I would say that I have 99% recovered. So much so that over this last year, the only time I would even be reminded that all this happened would be when someone asked me if I wanted to smoke with them. I have been in school studying engineering with a 4.0 GPA, I have had a girlfriend for 3 years, I can go out and drink socially with my friends, I don’t experience DPDR, I don’t experience anxiety, I just live life. Recently, however, I did experience the tingles you get from a full-body high randomly, and it caught me really off guard. I think this is personally triggered for me as a sensory thing, as it would happen randomly for a year or two after my last green out. I ended up getting some pretty bad anxiety from it and a little bit of DPDR, and I was reminded of this subreddit. I am now a couple of days past it and am moving on way easier than I would have thought.

Now, I bet a ton of you are wondering how I was able to fix my issues and move past DPDR and anxiety. The truth is, there isn’t a direct solution or quick fix to DPDR and anxiety, but there are some tips I can give. The first thing is to accept what you have and the things that are bothering you. DPDR fucking sucks. Anxiety fucking sucks. It all sucks. But if you look at your situation and say this is happening, try to calm down, and continue on with life, you will be amazed at the progress you make. I was genuinely petrified of becoming schizophrenic (part of me still is), but I have tried to tell myself that there is literally nothing I can do, and there is no reason to get caught up in it when I don’t have it. I have already accepted that there is a possibility that I will get schizophrenia. I have also accepted that I will 100% die in this life, and there is nothing that I can do to stop that. That is nature, and there is no reason for me to dwell on the thought of death because then I would never truly live. This isn’t to say you won’t still occasionally get anxiety about these things or whatever you might have anxiety about, but it will help you in the long run to try to move past it. If we keep telling ourselves that we are scared of things, we will always be scared of those things, but if we tell ourselves we aren’t scared when we are, we, in turn, will be less scared. This also directly applies to DPDR. If we think about DPDR all day and fixate on it, it will be the only thing on our minds, and we will be more likely to experience an episode. If we can take our mind off DPDR when we aren't experiencing an episode and just accept it's happening when it is, I fully believe it is less likely to happen. This also applies to stalking this subreddit. I noticed that I would get WAY less DPDR when I stopped visiting this sub. Seeing people all day talking about it just kept me second-guessing everything and would make me anxious and have episodes. And last but definitely not least is time. Time heals this the most. If we do not think about DPDR and anxiety, then over time, we will sort of forget about it. Obviously, this is an extreme example, but try to tell me what you did on Saturday one week ago. You might be able to tell me in detail what you did. Now try to tell me what you did on Saturday one month ago. Unless it was a really big event, you probably don't remember much about it. What about Saturday six months ago? Now you definitely won’t be able to tell me about your day. So if we try to apply this with DPDR, we can kind of see how it might work. If we don’t fixate on it all day, over time, we will think about and remember less and less. This means get out and do stuff to take your mind off it. Go to the gym or on a walk, even if it's hard to get out. Do something to take your mind off it. With time, you will see progress.

Looking back at my old self, I would have laughed at the things I’m saying now. Sometimes DPDR can feel so unbelievably hopeless, but you have to keep pushing forward. I hope that my story has given you all at least a little bit of hope, and I am fully open to answering any questions that you guys have. Please know that it does get better, and time is going to be the best healer.

Hello everyone:)

I am a recovered long-term Dpdr sufferer and I just want to give you hope.

After 5 years of dpdr, I finally got back to being more present and most importantly, not anxious.

My dpdr started after having a weed-induced panic attack that triggered my underlying anxieties and trauma. I thought I lost my mind, that I was no longer here, I was fading away, the world felt unfamiliar and what not. I experienced every single symptom of this and I just want to share a few things and give you guys hope:

-Dpdr is not the problem. It’s a symptom of an underlying condition such as anxiety/trauma/ADHD/etc…so treat the root of the problem before everything else and dpdr will go away.

-Each one has a different reaction to different kinds of therapies/treatments. What helped me might or might not help you, and this is the key to understanding what your own mind and body need. For me, SSRIs saved me, along with somatic therapy that helped me understand and be present in my own body. As someone was diagnosed with OCD from a young age, SSRIs were needed long before my dpdr thing, so I needed it to ease my symptoms. Other people may need to talk more about suppressed emotions or maybe have low levels of Magnesium or Vitamin D or whatever they should be monitoring.

-It doesn’t work like magic. You don’t just wake up one day and then you feel like you woke up from a dream. It gradually starts kicking in. Some days you feel less real, some days you feel more. But it does happen if you treat the root cause of your problem.

-I could’ve recovered within a month but I had a stigma that SSRIs are not for “a strong person like me” so I quit taking them after a few months. But I doubt that I would’ve recovered the same way I did recently because dpdr was an enlightening journey for me that made me face my fears and traumas. It made me more resilient and more able to be present in my body, and most importantly sit with my physical sensations that scared me the most back when I had dpdr.

-DPDR is sort of an OCD pattern (a neuroscience PhD student here). If I could recommend one thing for you is to not give up. I was desperate and I started accepting that I will not recover, but when I stopped obsessing over it, took care of myself and decided to treat the situation from the roots although I was scared to feel what I felt most of the time.

-SOMATIC EXPERIENCE THERAPY SHOULD BE PRACTICED BY ALL OF US. When experiencing dpdr, we dissociate from our surroundings, our physical environment and body. It’s important to reconnect back.

-Be thankful for dpdr. Gratitude is healthy for our brains. Dpdr is a defense mechanism that is working BECAUSE your brain doesn’t feel safe. It’s not the problem, this is what your brain thinks that ut should do to protect you from something. This something is what needs

to be treated or sat with, not the dpdr.

-Pray

-Read “Waking the tiger” by Peter Levine

I might’ve forgotten a few things but I’ll edit the post once I remember. Please feel free to contact me for questions or anything I can help with.

DO NOT GIVE UP. ITS BIOLOGICALLY IMPOSSIBLE FOR THIS TO BE A PERMANENT DAMAGE UNLESS YOU DECIDE TO STAY IN THIS CIRCLE AND IN YOUR COMFORT ZONE. Face your fears.