# Tired?



## LS_RT408 (Feb 8, 2013)

Hi,

I just wanted to know if anyone felt reaaaaaaaaaaally tired when they first got the dp?

All I ever feel like doing is sleeping.

Also - I read in an article that DP is caused from a tired, less resilient brain. That your brain is taking a "time out" because it is tired from the constant worrying and stress.

On this site, I have read that DP is a response to the "fight or flight" reaction. That your brain perceives a threat and has therefore placed you in a "protective mode" to sort out any danger.

Which of these is true? I guess it doesn't matter, however, I jsut wanted to know if anyone had any feeback regarding this.

Thank you for your suggestions.


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## colors (Mar 9, 2008)

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## LS_RT408 (Feb 8, 2013)

Hi, thank you so much for your help, and insight...I greatly appreciate it! So basically my brain has triggered this due to stress and anxiety? How does it serve a purpose exactly?

Also...I know this may sound stupid but how come I cannot recognize myself in the mirror. This is very disturbing.

Thanks again for your help with this.


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## ph10 (Nov 24, 2012)

I still believe that for some people DP can truly come on for no reason. But DP certainly will cause a ton of constant stress and anxiety, because heck, you've been robbed of your very existence - so it's natural to feel exhausted and uptight.


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## colors (Mar 9, 2008)

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## xxmdogxx (Jun 26, 2012)

colors said:


> Yeah, Dp does come on spontaneously in some people. I don't know if it does serve a constructive purpose in modern life, maybe if it only lasted for a couple minutes I could understand. Maybe the brain thinks it is doing the right thing. Like in anxiety, the part of us that is in control of our protective mechanisms operates at the level of a two year old. This is because in a life or death situation we have to be able to react instantaneously - in dp we are so tired and wired that we cannot rationalise properly and anything can become a source of anxiety. The reason you cannot recognise yourself is because you're dissociated. You are still completely you underneath, as someone who in the beginning could not recognise myself or family members (foreign looking etc.) can tell you, you can get back to feeling "normal". There is no structural damage to the brain in dp/dr. Also, I think our pupils are more dilated in dp/dr (from being wired) hence the sensitivity to fluroescent lights, the sun etc. Even our pupils from being dilated and letting too much light in would effect our vision and ability to focus. If you do a flashlight test i.e look in the mirror with a light on your eyes I think everyone with dp will see their iris adjusting getting bigger and smaller without settling down. I'm still of the belief that somehow dp/dr is related to sleep and sleep quality, as I read somewhere that if someone is sleep deprived for an extended period, they can get symptoms of depersonalization. Maybe for some reason prior to developing dp/dr we weren't reaching the deeper stages of rejuvenating sleep, just a thought - anyone got anything interesting to say on the topic of sleep dp/dr, plz write your experiences. I know I could be a lot more functional through the day going to bed early and getting up early when dealing with dp/anxiety etc. The reason I believe we can wake up so tired is that our minds use dreaming as a way to rehash/process/vent events of the day through dreaming. Because we have so much perceived stressful content, we dream a lot I believe whether conscious of it or not. Dreaming is associated with the lower stages of sleep r.e.m, so the more we dream the less time we are spending in deep sleep. We wake up tired, the cycle of stress continues.
> 
> Colors.


its a lot simpler than that DP is as I understand it a protective state your brain assumes under great stress which and this is the important part makes you disassociate from your neocortex or the part of the brain that is responsible for personality complex tasks planning intelligence and basically all the things that someone that has DP is struggling with. Also it can explain the extremely numerous and wide range of symptoms that have to do with memory loss and basically feelings of utter terror. I would never say I know exactly whats going on but its quite obvious the mechanism is to do with the neo cortex most importantly. All the theories about family abuse or sleep or whatever have something to do with causing the anxiety and thus causes the neo cortex malfunction. Its not anymore complicated than that but for some reason people seem to think so.That would also explain why people feel half asleep which your neo cortex is responsible for lucidity and wakefulness as along with some other parts of your brain.


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## colors (Mar 9, 2008)

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## Skynet (Jan 21, 2005)

I remember times when growing up I would go 24 or 36 hours without sleep. I got that same disconnected feeling that I now have with DP. For he longest time I felt that my brain just wasn't entering the deepest stage of sleep. Therefore I felt the same way as I did when I stayed awake for an extended period of time. However I realized that there was more to it than that when I suddenly got DP one day after I had plenty of sleep. Only this time it was brought on by fearful thoughts and anxiety. Anxiety truly does fuel DP and it becomes a vicious cycle. It's a very difficult thing to get out of if you can't manage to stop being scared.

Meditation has helped plenty of people including me. I once had DP for 3 solid months and I was able to get myself out of it just by meditating for 45 minutes. BAM.. It was gone! So the answer really is to do whatever it takes to get your brain to calm down. Once you can relax, half the battle is over. The other half is figuring out how to stay relaxed so that DP doesn't come back again.


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