# Its all in your head..... Really?



## drew-uk (May 22, 2009)

So you feel like your dreaming, the only common factor to the people on this forum

Is that really the only thing we can identify about our selves, There are so many differences between everybody here.

You go to any doctor and as soon as you say "I feel like im dreaming" You have DPD....

I can't believe that the only thing is the world to cause this constant feeling of a detached dream like state is a mental disorder.

There are so many different stories here, Causes of Anxiety, Depression, Drugs, Trauma and even some people that have no identifiable cause at all.

People get this overnight, some people get it slowly and others have always had it.

There are people that live with this and are fully capable of functioning while others can barely wake up in the morning.

Some people have a constant level of detachment there whole lives, others get worse and worse and then the people who get better and never look back.

How can all this be defined as a single disorder created only by our own minds.

Thoughts?


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## BusyBee (Aug 7, 2010)

Drew. said:


> So you feel like your dreaming, the only common factor to the people on this forum
> 
> Is that really the only thing we can identify about our selves, There are so many differences between everybody here.
> 
> ...


True. Thats what i wonder. I dont think it is in our minds. It must be chemical. Try telling a phycologist that. they dont want to belive its physical, as youve just been referred by a doctor.. Nightmare.


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## hoot (Jun 17, 2010)

I think it's mostly mental/spiritual because of how differently it manifests for everybody. We're all different mentally but physically we are all more or less the same. If it were primarily something physical the symptoms and circumstances would be very similar. Like, if you break your leg, you break your leg, the experience is mostly the same for everyone. But DP/DR is not, it can be very different. Although it seems some physical things can make it worse, like vitamin B12 or vitamin D deficiency, etc. But even that varies. However I think it's primarily mental.


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## Surfingisfun001 (Sep 25, 2007)

Yeah Drew I think about that too. I cannot see how in my case that it's "just anxiety". Although I don't really know. I feel like I don't really know anything. Who knows anything?


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## CYounkin (Nov 26, 2010)

Lol, I've been workin with a therapist for a year and a half, trying to nail down this diagnosis. And now that I just might be on a right road, guess what? I got a 9:30 to 5:30 job that 1. I can't pass up on because my aunt works there and vouched for me and 2. conflicts with seeing this therapist. he honestly doesn't have another time he can meet with me. So after a year and a half, i'm left with nada.

Does anyone hear God laughing at you 24/7 like I do?

But to answer your question, this is an endless curse meant to tell you that life is one dead end after another.


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## sunyata samsara (Feb 18, 2011)

surfingisfun001 said:


> I feel like I don't really know anything.


I feel ya, its all so confusing.


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## resonantblue (Mar 15, 2011)

what I find interesting is that it doesn't seem to have been researched a lot, and many psychiatrists/ psychologists are unfamiliar with it. That suggests to me that it's something relatively new.. or at least something that used to be very rare and is now becoming more common.. so I do partially relate it to the world we're living in.. that it provides the environment that would foster dissociative states. 
the other day I had this paranoid thought that it's being caused by something in the air.. radiation or something.. but that's just paranoia talking.







right?


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## Felicity (Feb 7, 2011)

I think all mental activity can be linked to a physical event in the brain, and DP would be no exception. What exactly is dp? You could say it's a severing between the self aware, self possessive part of the brain (the parietal lobe) and the part that detects and processes memory and emotional reactions (amygdala, a much more primitive area). There's probably some discord between the cognitive, thinking part of the brain too (frontal lobe), but maybe not as much since DP's generally don't lose their ability to think logically.

The cause could be genetic, environmental, or a combination of both. Someone said radiation - radiation would manipulate the DNA in the part of the brain responsible for this and more likely produce a tumor than DP, so it's probably not that (but who knows).

The key to curing DP would be to reform connections within the brain to make it "whole" again. Drugs could do that; another way would be a very conscious re-thinking of emotional experiences and memory. Deliberately thinking about highly emotional memories could trigger the formation of new receptors in the brain that detect emotion.


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## staples (Apr 1, 2009)

Felicity said:


> I think all mental activity can be linked to a physical event in the brain, and DP would be no exception. What exactly is dp? You could say it's a severing between the self aware, self possessive part of the brain (the parietal lobe) and the part that detects and processes memory and emotional reactions (amygdala, a much more primitive area). There's probably some discord between the cognitive, thinking part of the brain too (frontal lobe), but maybe not as much since DP's generally don't lose their ability to think logically.
> 
> The cause could be genetic, environmental, or a combination of both. Someone said radiation - radiation would manipulate the DNA in the part of the brain responsible for this and more likely produce a tumor than DP, so it's probably not that (but who knows).
> 
> The key to curing DP would be to reform connections within the brain to make it "whole" again. Drugs could do that; another way would be a very conscious re-thinking of emotional experiences and memory. Deliberately thinking about highly emotional memories could trigger the formation of new receptors in the brain that detect emotion.


You hit the nail right on the head, great insight. The book "Feeling Unreal" shows a lot of the physical aspects of Depersonalization and what they think happens to your brain when you're going through dissociation. It's just like you said, there's a break in the chain and it mainly causes a dysfunction in the Temporal Lobe (sound, speech, visual, memory). That's why when people have Temporal Lobe epilepsy they have bouts of DP/DR when they're having a seizure. It also explains why a lot of people with Depersonalization and the manifestation, Derealization complain about having visual disturbances especially under heavy lighting.


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