# Is this the case with you as well?



## 2deepathinker (Aug 17, 2009)

I am wondering if there could be a correlation between the type of childhood and family support you had growing up and developing Depersonalization/derealization?

I am in therapy, and I know for sure that I didn't have the most supportive family growing up and even into the present day. Don't get me wrong, I do care about my family, but I also feel that they weren't emotionally available for me during crucial points in my life. My parents were emotionally abusive to me.

I am just wondering if you feel you had a healthy childhood growing up. Do you feel your childhood has had an effect on your developing DP/DR?


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## Sarasi3 (Mar 4, 2010)

2deepathinker said:


> I am wondering if there could be a correlation between the type of childhood and family support you had growing up and developing Depersonalization/derealization?
> 
> I am in therapy, and I know for sure that I didn't have the most supportive family growing up and even into the present day. Don't get me wrong, I do care about my family, but I also feel that they weren't emotionally available for me during crucial points in my life. My parents were emotionally abusive to me.
> 
> I am just wondering if you feel you had a healthy childhood growing up. Do you feel your childhood has had an effect on your developing DP/DR?


Wow. yes i can completely relate to you. I did not have the support i needed at all. I was invisible to them and had to 'behave and be a good girl'. No wonder I'm so sensitive. No support from parents can leave you sensitive, untrusting, anxious, shy and always trying to please others. It leaves you so sensitive to what others say and think. It is important to feel loved, supported and like someone is proud of you growing up. I think that parents do not realise how much damage it can cause throughout your life, not just in childhood.

I believe that when we are children, we learn life skills that will stay with us forever. Sometimes these life skills set us up for disappointment as we learn how cruel the world can be. And sometimes these skills can let us be confident and tackle issues with ease. It all depends on how you are brought up. This also includes how you were treated at school as well as parents and siblings.

Has anyone got friends who seem to be so carefree and when a problem hits them, they don't even care, or get over it quickly? I do, and they have all admitted to me that they had a great childhood and a loving family, and still are close to their families.

Sometimes it is difficult to identify and reverse thought habits from childhood. After all, we may perceive them as normal, not knowing any different? This is why CBT (cognitive Behavioural Therapy) is so beneficial. It can reverse any negative thought habits you may have. A psych can even point out skewed ways of thinking that you didn't even realise you were doing.

I do not blame my parents either, they were young and had their own issues. It's all about looking to the future and living in the moment.


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## 2deepathinker (Aug 17, 2009)

Music is Freedom said:


> Wow. yes i can completely relate to you. I did not have the support i needed at all. I was invisible to them and had to 'behave and be a good girl'. No wonder I'm so sensitive. No support from parents can leave you sensitive, untrusting, anxious, shy and always trying to please others. It leaves you so sensitive to what others say and think. It is important to feel loved, supported and like someone is proud of you growing up. I think that parents do not realise how much damage it can cause throughout your life, not just in childhood.
> 
> I believe that when we are children, we learn life skills that will stay with us forever. Sometimes these life skills set us up for disappointment as we learn how cruel the world can be. And sometimes these skills can let us be confident and tackle issues with ease. It all depends on how you are brought up. This also includes how you were treated at school as well as parents and siblings.
> 
> ...


Thank you Music is Freedom. You have summed it up beautifully! I feel the same way as what you just described. I am finding counseling to talk about this is helpful if it doesn't make my DP stronger which sometimes it does. I start dissociating. I am realizing that I can't change my past, but I can work on what is going on with my present day situation, and not let people abuse me. Sometimes this is hard. Thank you so much for responding and being able to relate. 
t


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## Mandy L. (May 24, 2010)

Yes, i believe so too, my fanily was VERY distant, and i felt most times like i've had no Ground, and i feel that i love them much more than they ever Loved me. They never really supported me at anything, and now still...

So I do also wonder, how they cudn't think that it cud have damaged me, my mother was so controlling but at teh same time so distant and unloving i find it difficult to take the initial move at everything, it destroyed me in every level, i'm shy, introspective, give up things easily,feel insecure always, feel afraid of being hurt.

Its really sad, i plan having Children but i'll try my very best to support them always.

I'm my case i really think that is why i developed this, 90% of my suffering in thsi life is due to my Parents


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## 2deepathinker (Aug 17, 2009)

Amanda L. said:


> Yes, i believe so too, my fanily was VERY distant, and i felt most times like i've had no Ground, and i feel that i love them much more than they ever Loved me. They never really supported me at anything, and now still...
> 
> So I do also wonder, how they cudn't think that it cud have damaged me, my mother was so controlling but at teh same time so distant and unloving i find it difficult to take the initial move at everything, it destroyed me in every level, i'm shy, introspective, give up things easily,feel insecure always, feel afraid of being hurt.
> 
> ...


This totally sounds like me as well!


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## hanniballexster (Jun 13, 2010)

2deepathinker said:


> This totally sounds like me as well!


I was abused pretty severely as a child, but also neglected (including medical and educational neglect- I never saw a doctor for anything after about the age of 7, except when I was 14 or 15, after months of my lips turning blue, etc....) I had a lot of head injuries, mostly from accidents, some not.

My sense of reality was played around with quite a bit when I as a kid. For instance, a parent would smash a coffee mug on the floor and then ask my sister and I which one of us had broken it. We couldn't leave the stairs until one of us "confessed", and whoever confessed was punished. Things of that nature. So yes, I think how you are raised can definately influence your brain, especially during the crucial first 5 years.

I think intelligence, personality types, etc also play a role. I wonder how many people with DP or DR (or both) spent bours at night in bed before sleeping, gazing at the ceiling and wondering why their head was where it was on the body, when gravity would naturally impede blood circulation to the brain, even though the brain requires a HUGE amount of the body's oxygen just to function (let alone function optimally). I don't know about you guys but I would spend hours, even before I was out of Kindergarten, questioning the concept of free will or fate or some strange hybrid of the two, wondering how Lucifer (I was raised Born Again Christian) could be considered evil if he was an angel 9angels apparently have no free will so how could he be held accountable for his actions?) or wondering why we only have one heart when many of our organs have a "back up" (even our brains have two hemispheres and you can survive and learn to function with an entire hemisphere of your brain removed). Can anyone else relate?

Yeah, though, in short, how you were raised probably does influence DP/DR... combined with genetics, you have the yin-yang of the nature/nurture dichotomy completely covered!

Alex


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## Kpanic (Sep 12, 2010)

hanniballexster said:


> I was abused pretty severely as a child, but also neglected (including medical and educational neglect- I never saw a doctor for anything after about the age of 7, except when I was 14 or 15, after months of my lips turning blue, etc....) I had a lot of head injuries, mostly from accidents, some not.
> 
> My sense of reality was played around with quite a bit when I as a kid. For instance, a parent would smash a coffee mug on the floor and then ask my sister and I which one of us had broken it. We couldn't leave the stairs until one of us "confessed", and whoever confessed was punished. Things of that nature. So yes, I think how you are raised can definately influence your brain, especially during the crucial first 5 years.
> 
> ...


I would also add that maybe not being the basis of DP/DR, the childhood issues can start the anxiety disorder merry -go- round for many. I developed anxiety because of my grandmother and her traits. I watched it for years and then I evolved into it. When you would drop something on the floor she would look like a cat on the ceiling. Always jumpy, nervous etc.. That is where my traits were "born" and it carried into anxiety disorder and all this other fun stuff. My mother is BP but according to the pdoc he thinks that I got the anxiety side of the BP and not the mood side, whatever the hell that means. So, all of this stuff started with my grandmother when I was a young kid.


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## Deleted Account (Jul 26, 2010)

I didn't have a good child hood at all! I do believe that my parents are the reason I have this, I care about my family but i'm angry with them at the same time. I wish they would have given me up for adoption if they didn't want me


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## BusyBee (Aug 7, 2010)

hanniballexster said:


> I was abused pretty severely as a child, but also neglected (including medical and educational neglect- I never saw a doctor for anything after about the age of 7, except when I was 14 or 15, after months of my lips turning blue, etc....) I had a lot of head injuries, mostly from accidents, some not.
> 
> My sense of reality was played around with quite a bit when I as a kid. For instance, a parent would smash a coffee mug on the floor and then ask my sister and I which one of us had broken it. We couldn't leave the stairs until one of us "confessed", and whoever confessed was punished. Things of that nature. So yes, I think how you are raised can definately influence your brain, especially during the crucial first 5 years.
> 
> ...


I had bad times in my childhood, memories of my parents fighting, badly, and my dad getting dragged off in a police car, of my mum running away with me and having to sleep in the car... But despite that a counceller i saw pinned my troubles on this (long before the DP) i truly do not belive this is what caused my DP. Now that I am adult and my parents have seperated, we all get on well and luckily for me there was no doubt in my mind that they loved me.

There is definatly a corrolation between trauma and DP though, I belive the relationship i was in caused mine, and i met another lady who says she gets it, and she has alot of death desease and trauma in her life and family.

People deal with trauma in different ways and its that that i suppose makes the brain either DP or not.. I was a very easily stressed person before the DP.

Interesting what you say about intelligence.. I relate. When i was young i would totally question everything; meaning of life, why my eyes worked the way they did, scared of me or my family dying. I suffered from severe migraine when my DP began, it all came togather, and in my research i found a reproduction of an article discovered in a very old medical book. (This was before medics understood anything about migraine) It said, 'A typical migraine sufferer: Young, attractive, intelligent'.


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## Calculadora (Nov 12, 2010)

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## hanniballexster (Jun 13, 2010)

I don't blame my parents for being ill, but I definately should have been put in foster care. I used to be very bitter in my late teens, now I have no time to be bitter because I am too anxious and scared about the DR! But seriously, some people just should NOT be allowed to raise children, and I don't understand how people can know a child is being abused and not do anything for YEARS. That makes me mad- now it's a little bit better (abuse reporting)- I think I might have been predisposed to dissociation because of what I lived through, but I think my DR, personally, is a combo of head injuries and medications that screwed up my brain chemistry. But it's so hard to live day after day with this BS and I just want to scream in frustration. I want to be able to have ONE night where I don't start getting anxious and gaspy when it starts getting dark and I don't fear going to sleep because of nightmares, and don't fear waking up because of panic and DR.

So tired of the DR though, its becoming the last straw, even before this I was hyper-vigilant, anxious, prone to panicking, phobic of about a million things and had a lot of psychosomatic problems (headaches, stomach aches, throwing up from stress) but now with this I feel ready to LOSE IT almost every day. I am not sure what that means, how that would manifest itself (losing it). One of my friends had DR and had it for 2 years after he tapered off ativan completely, so if it is klonopin (for me) I still might have YEARS to battle through and I feel like giving up now... except I never, ever give up.


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## babybowrain (Aug 24, 2010)

I was supposed to be put into foster care when I was 16, like it was suggested by a psychiatrist, they thought I should consider it. I refused though. I don't know how I would survive with some strange people living in their home with the conditions I have, they would have probably thought I was completley messed up. It would have been awful. I would rather go through all the problems and wait it out till I'm an adult and then go on with life...


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## Gypsy85 (Sep 23, 2010)

So I must be a special case









I had a wonderful childhood, loving and caring parents (and they still support me whenever they can!), no abuse (neither physically nor mentally), I did not do drugs and must have been the happiest person on earth before DP/DR.


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## hanniballexster (Jun 13, 2010)

Gypsy85 said:


> So I must be a special case
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Cool. Were you anxious at all? Have you ruled out medical conditions? So many questions, so little time...


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## Gypsy85 (Sep 23, 2010)

My mother's family in general is very anxious- always expecting the worst







My doc made a blood sample and sent me home, smiling: "You have psychological problems." Well, ok then... so I went to a psychotherapist and she diagnosed me with an anxiety disorder. It is hard for me to believe in a psychological problem, as I had such a nice childhood and was really really happy before DP/DR, but I also do not want to waste any energy in visiting doctor after doctor. I need my strength to beat DP/DR!

edit: Do you know further medical problems that I should check? IF I give this another try, it should be at least a bit specialized!


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## Onibla (Nov 9, 2010)

Gypsy85 said:


> My mother's family in general is very anxious- always expecting the worst
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Further medical problems worth checking to ease you mind are things like inner ear infections and thyroid problems.
I have no medical problems, happy (enough) childhood, never had depression before. DP/DR just caught me at a bad time.


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## hanniballexster (Jun 13, 2010)

Onibla said:


> Further medical problems worth checking to ease you mind are things like inner ear infections and thyroid problems.
> I have no medical problems, happy (enough) childhood, never had depression before. DP/DR just caught me at a bad time.


There is actually a lot of things that can cause DP and DR symptoms besides anxiety or psych problems, but I am tired. I wrote them out in another post.







I'm not a medical doctor but I wanted to be one when I was younger and I study medicine (especially when something relates to me, haha) so if you gave me more info I could maybe tailor down the very long list.

Some questions-
have you ever had any head injuries (even if you didn't get treatment or didn't pass out)?
any unusual symptoms like insects crawling on the skin, persistent deja vu, electrical shock sensations (particularly to the head) flashing lights?
ANY medical symptoms that you think are unrelated (shortness of breath, fatigue, pallor, clumsiness in general)?
what is your diet like? Sugar intake? Alcohol intake?

really, there are so many possible things that can cause DP and DR-like symptoms that aren't psychological in nature that it would be impossible to ask you everything, but does anything else stand out? Someday I'll write a list of all the conditions (psychiatric, neurological, medical-other, drug induced, other) that I have studied that list DP and DR-like symptoms as potential signs of the condition/disease and post it. It can be really hard to find the info on the net unless you're obsessive and know what you're looking for (most medical conditions won't list DP or DR they will list "brain fog" or "psychiatric disturbance" or "cognitive impairment" which are such broad terms that you then have to study what people with those illnesses say those terms mean to them... it can take quite a while!)

Lex


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## Gypsy85 (Sep 23, 2010)

Some questions-
have you ever had any head injuries (even if you didn't get treatment or didn't pass out)?No, nothing I can remember.
any unusual symptoms like insects crawling on the skin, persistent deja vu, electrical shock sensations (particularly to the head) flashing lights?No again, nothing the like!
ANY medical symptoms that you think are unrelated (shortness of breath, fatigue, pallor, clumsiness in general)?
what is your diet like? Sugar intake? Alcohol intake?I get sleepy and cold relatively fast, but besides that!? No, nothing.

I have to admit that DP/DR started after an extremely stressful phase in my life and after a really hurtful and shocking incident.I sometimes find myself searching for medical reasons again, but I think I have to accept that the reason is psychological, huh? Well ok, I got sleepy and cold too fast before as well, but I also worked too much for quite a long time.

Thank you very much for your effort, though. Please do not be angry with me that I just skipped through the list very shortly. It frightens me extremely - so I think this is another argument for anxiety relation *sigh*


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## hanniballexster (Jun 13, 2010)

Gypsy85 said:


> Some questions-
> have you ever had any head injuries (even if you didn't get treatment or didn't pass out)?No, nothing I can remember.
> any unusual symptoms like insects crawling on the skin, persistent deja vu, electrical shock sensations (particularly to the head) flashing lights?No again, nothing the like!
> ANY medical symptoms that you think are unrelated (shortness of breath, fatigue, pallor, clumsiness in general)?
> ...


I'm not angry, don't worry! Why would I be? Okay, just because you feel anxious doesn't mean it's just anxiety (but it could very well be)- have you had the coldness and sleepiness explained to you? Could you have hypothyroidism, perhaps?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothyroidism#Signs_and_symptoms

If you look under the "uncommon" symptoms you'll see that it lists impaired memory and impaired cognition (brain fog) which can make people feel really strange! There are "early" and "late" symptoms too (like most conditions it doesn't "come on" over night)- cold intolerance and fatigue are both listed as early symptoms, and low body temp as a later sympom (keep in mind, you don't have to have every symptom to have hypothyroidism, just like you don't have to have every symptom of any disease or disorder to be diagnosed with it!) I am not saying you have hypothyrodisim, though, I am just saying you might want to get it checked.

You might also want to ask your doctor to check for anemia (hypothroidism can cause anemia) but anemia itself can cause fatigue and feelings of being cold, as well as spaciness and brain fog. If you can manage it, try to get your kidney and liver functions checked, and the levels of certain vitamins in your blood (especially B12).

This may very well be anxiety, but medical problems can and do cause anxiety. Good luck!


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## Gypsy85 (Sep 23, 2010)

Wow, this is interesting!!!

When I first felt that strange and terrible, I immediately thought this might be due to the thyrodis, especially because this is relatively widespread in my whole family. I went to the doctor and he did a blood sample- also measuring kidney and liver functions (I indeed have elevated bilirubin, but this has been checked years ago and is just due to a completely harmless malfunction called Morbus Meulengracht. The TSH was completely fine and so my doctor told me that my problem "is between my ears". No I read that this TSH is not enough to find out about the problem?! Hm....


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## Lithuanian (Jan 9, 2011)

After reading this section, I realized that perhaps most people here did not have a chance to read "Feeling Unreal", the only solid and scientific book on this topic that provides many answers to the questions I've read so far. I highly recommend it to anyone who suffers from DPD. Now there is a paperback released have the price of the hardcover of 2006. From the research it is clear that DPD is a psychosomatic illness and both life experiences and brain chemistry are inseparably intertwined. Briefly (but you may know this already), DP is a brains way to cope with overload, distancing subject cognitively and emotionally from the problem, threat, etc (drug induced DP is another story). What is not clear to the scientific community, is why 1,5% of those who experience DP, keep having it beyond the point of stress, i.e. why brain keeps shutting them off from the normal experience of the world far beyond the trigger point and such a normal life event as DP turns into DP Disorder, an illness? Same happened to me, after stressful exam session I went into DP and never came out, 20 years already. Possibly, the following years in my life were not so stress free as to allow the brain to go into recession and stop protecting me from myself. So, it is probable that the brain keeps producing some chemicals (or retaining the production of) that are responsible for the "normalcy" and it is fueled by my life choices and situations. The book very well introduces these theories, research and even stories of people with some of which I found great affinity.

As for the childhood influence, I was personally enlightened by a reputable psychiatrist in Prague three years ago. Just after two sessions he told me about the research conducted (don't have it unfortunately) on the children of depressed mothers. It seems that children that grow up with single mothers suffering from depression, develop a high dependency on the mood swings of the mother and they learn to read them almost subconsciously, trying to please their mother,and get more love of which they are routinely deprived because of the depression. And that ability and need to read human attitudes towards you later in the adulthood becomes an obstacle to a normal existence, since the brain is tuned to scanning other peoples emotions, opinions towards you in trying to be acceptable, lovable and please those around you. This brings a lot of anxiety and internal tension which can be a perfect fuel for DPD. I am sure there may be other childhood experiences that mutate in the adulthood to keep your brain busy "protecting" you from over-anxiety and stress..


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