# losing my humanity



## Chezzie (Feb 4, 2010)

So I don't know who I am. I know it's a cliche thing to say, but seriously. I know I have brown hair and green eyes, I know I'm short and slightly overweight, I know I like the snow and cold. But what do I stand for? What are my passions and my beliefs and my dreams? I don't know. I use to know, or thought I knew, but I feel like I'm a totally different person now. I remember struggling wtih DP in my junior and senior years of high school (or at least i think i did), but I was still an individual. I still had a hold on who I was.
Today? I feel like a wraith, floating through life in a daze. Am I here? Am I real? Now and then I'll catch glimpses of reality, and then I'll remember, very briefly, who I was, before the fog overtakes me again and I become an empty husk once more.

But that's not the worse of it. The most traumatic part of this whole thing is the numbness I feel toward others. I've distnaced myself from the people I love. I haven't seen my best friend of 11 years in over a month, and I've only talked with her via text. I don't feel much for her any more. I don't feel anything for my brother who just recently left for war. I didn't shed a tear when he boarded the plane and left. I feel very little for my other brothers, my father, my mother, my friends. I'm cold. my heart has become a glacier. Interesting, though... I do love my pets and would do anything for them. They are the world to me, and for the past 11 months they've been living with my mom 150 miles away because I haven't found an apartment that I can afford that allows pets.
Where has my humanity gone? Who have I become? These people that I know I love... I feel like there's a barrier blocking away the love and care I once had for them.
I feel like I'm struggling with myself. The small being deep inside of me is pounding and shouting on the dungeon door I've locked her up in. Shouting that none of that is true, that I love these people just as much as I always have. It's just that this evil shade of depersonalization and depression is clouding all my emotions, protecting me from things I can't change.
But it makes me feel inhuman, evil.
I don't know what to do. I don't want to be this person I've become and I don't know where the key to the dungeon door is that I've locked my true self up in. I can't let her out, or maybe I don't want to. In order to keep her protected, maybe I feel like its safer for her to stay there until the world becomes a happier place.

I don't know what I'm saying. I let my mind take over, so I hope that makes sense. Has anyone else felt this way or am I dealing with some other disorder? I know I deal with depersonalization, depression, and anxiety, but maybe there's another disorder among them, contributing to my feelings of numbness and inhumanity. Can anyone give me any advice or help? Please?


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## Guest (Feb 14, 2010)

I too find it hard to feel anything at all for my family. But that started the day I got Depersonalized over 6 years ago. Also I have no social friends, and have not for around 2 years. I don't have any hobbies or interests apart from learning who I am.


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## Chezzie (Feb 4, 2010)

ThoughtOnFire said:


> I too find it hard to feel anything at all for my family. But that started the day I got Depersonalized over 6 years ago. Also I have no social friends, and have not for around 2 years. I don't have any hobbies or interests apart from learning who I am.


I use to have hobbies. I use to draw and write all the time. I don't do these things any more. Like you, most of my energy is spent trying to understand who I am and what's happening to me.
I think it definately helps having people who are going through the same thing as you. I feel sorry you're experiencing the same thing, but at the same time it makes me feel less alone. I think part of the reason I've grown so distant is simply the fact that these people have no idea what this feels like. Its really a very lonely disorder.


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## Guest (Feb 15, 2010)

Chezzie said:


> I use to have hobbies. I use to draw and write all the time. I don't do these things any more. Like you, most of my energy is spent trying to understand who I am and what's happening to me.
> I think it definately helps having people who are going through the same thing as you. I feel sorry you're experiencing the same thing, but at the same time it makes me feel less alone. I think part of the reason I've grown so distant is simply the fact that these people have no idea what this feels like. Its really a very lonely disorder.


Yes!

I was going to say that too: you are not alone with this. Even though we are in different parts of the world go through it alone we are still not alone. I used to write poetry, but I usually don't anymore. And yes, it's completely a lonely disorder! I always wish it will just go away. But after so long of being this way, I'm pretty sure going through this will leave a lot of emotional scars.


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## Katezorz (Jan 10, 2010)

You're stuck inside yourself, somewhere. Your true self is buried deep inside the mess that has become your mind, but when you get better, you will know yourself again. You have not lost your humaity completely, unless you somehow damaged your frontal lobe, which I am sure you have not. You would have a lot more problems if that happened.

Have you ever tried to hug the person you used to care about the most? Like, really hold onto them?

The fact that you are writing about this tells me that it bothers you. Do you realize that this means there is still a part of you who cares?


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## FoXS (Nov 4, 2009)

Katezorz said:


> Have you ever tried to hug the person you used to care about the most? Like, really hold onto them?


very good! thumps up for this


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## Chezzie (Feb 4, 2010)

Katezorz said:


> You're stuck inside yourself, somewhere. Your true self is buried deep inside the mess that has become your mind, but when you get better, you will know yourself again. You have not lost your humaity completely, unless you somehow damaged your frontal lobe, which I am sure you have not. You would have a lot more problems if that happened.
> 
> Have you ever tried to hug the person you used to care about the most? Like, really hold onto them?
> 
> The fact that you are writing about this tells me that it bothers you. Do you realize that this means there is still a part of you who cares?


Yes, it bothers me quite a bit. And I know I'm still there... somewhere. I can feel my old self sometimes, I just can't bring her out. I can't free her, and that's what scares me.
I should try that. Among everything else I'm dealing with, however, I also have bad social anxiety. The only person I'd say I'm 100% comfortable with is probably my mom. Not even my best friends know what I'm dealing with. I can't explain it to them, and even when I try my mind gets all jarbled and only nonsense comes out.
It's a bit of a crapchute.


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## Guest (Feb 16, 2010)

Chezzie said:


> Yes, it bothers me quite a bit. And I know I'm still there... somewhere. I can feel my old self sometimes, I just can't bring her out. I can't free her, and that's what scares me.
> I should try that. Among everything else I'm dealing with, however, I also have bad social anxiety. The only person I'd say I'm 100% comfortable with is probably my mom. Not even my best friends know what I'm dealing with. I can't explain it to them, and even when I try my mind gets all jarbled and only nonsense comes out.
> It's a bit of a crapchute.


You could write down before hand how you feel, print it out, or write it on paper, and when you want to describe what you feel like to people you can read it off.


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## Chezzie (Feb 4, 2010)

ThoughtOnFire said:


> You could write down before hand how you feel, print it out, or write it on paper, and when you want to describe what you feel like to people you can read it off.


This is true. I should try it. I always think, "I'm feeling extremely in-tuned with my DP today, I should write down my symptoms and everything I'm feeling before I forget it all in the haze I know will return." but I never do. I can never muster up the energy, which is stupid considering it doesn't take that much to hold a pen and write on paper. I think what drains me is recounting every symptom and emotion. I'd just as soon try to forget it all. But that's gotten me nowhere, so I suppose I should change tactics.
Thank you all for the suggestions. I'm feeling much more hopeful. Funny how talking wtih somebody going through the same thing as you helps 110% more than talking with a trained therapist.


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## Katezorz (Jan 10, 2010)

Chezzie said:


> Yes, it bothers me quite a bit. And I know I'm still there... somewhere. I can feel my old self sometimes, I just can't bring her out. I can't free her, and that's what scares me.
> I should try that. Among everything else I'm dealing with, however, I also have bad social anxiety. The only person I'd say I'm 100% comfortable with is probably my mom. Not even my best friends know what I'm dealing with. I can't explain it to them, and even when I try my mind gets all jarbled and only nonsense comes out.
> It's a bit of a crapchute.


See? If it bothers you, you care. I delt with the same feelings, and I still do sometimes. But when I get like that I try to feel warmness in my chest. It takes a lot of concentration, but it happens sometimes. And then I tell my mom I need a hug, and I hug her hard for a good five minutes. Sometimes I even cry, and that really surprises me.

Take out a few pictures from when yu were little. Look at them, and try to imagine the emotions you used to feel. Really try to feel them.

Dp supresses a lot of emotions. I feel that in order to get better, you have to be more in tune with the way you feel. It takes time, but you will get there.

Recently a few random emotions have been surfacing for me, as well as memories. I hear that this is part of recovery, but I don't feel like I should get my hopes up just yet. But maybe?


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## coeus (Jan 11, 2010)

Katezorz said:


> See? If it bothers you, you care. I delt with the same feelings, and I still do sometimes. But when I get like that I try to feel warmness in my chest. It takes a lot of concentration, but it happens sometimes. And then I tell my mom I need a hug, and I hug her hard for a good five minutes. Sometimes I even cry, and that really surprises me.
> 
> Take out a few pictures from when yu were little. Look at them, and try to imagine the emotions you used to feel. Really try to feel them.
> 
> ...


I think Kate got it right. This might sound corny but I recently went on a date with a girl I met and whilst we were on the train, she leaned her head on my shoulder and it was a nice feeling. It was a nice deviation away from all the anxious thoughts. Although the miniscule analogy, I think social, emotional and physical connection is imperative for improving your self-conception. Amidst the deadening of our senses, when we have that brief moment of emotion, it slightly confirms who we are and that we still have the capacity to feel.

Anything that can do this will re-affirm who we were, can be and are. Anything from childhood memories to recent memories.

As for the original post - do you think therapy may help identify what it is you're going through?


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## Requiem (Feb 6, 2010)

I understand what your saying. Feeling as if your "losing your humanity". I feel this as well. I can't feel any pleasure of being with friends or anything to do with socializing anymore. It feels like...How could I have fun when nothing feels real? Whats the point of being around people if you have no want for it anymore, especially when you don't know who you are...

Nothing makes sense. It's too confusing to handle at once. I blow everything off...Because all I can handle is figuring out who I am...and if I'm really here or not. When people socialize with me when im trapped in that state, I get scared. It feels so strange.


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## coeus (Jan 11, 2010)

Katezorz said:


> Take out a few pictures from when yu were little. Look at them, and try to imagine the emotions you used to feel. Really try to feel them.


Sorry, I had to post again about this. I had to have my photos taken for a short film that I was acting in today and when we printed it out, I was startled by a surge of amazement in looking at myself and the familiarity I still have with looking at myself. I didn't ask anything of it but the familiarity was there; no inquisitive nature about it.

I never would have acknowledge this observation had I not somehow recalled this little note by Kate. Thanks.


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## pancake (Nov 26, 2009)

My Mom always said the cutting off point for changing my character would be at thirteen years of age. She explained after I turned thirteen I would be unchangeable and my mannerisms, the pattern of my responses, my character would be set in stone. There was still time. I set about changing my persona over and over and over. Amending my responses by pretending I was somebody else. I pretended I was someone who was a good listener. I pretended I was reliable, cheerful and confident. Got so I wasn't honest about a single thing. By the time I started secondary school I had forgotten myself. I felt I had lost a piece of me along the way but could not put my finger on what had gone missing. An emptiness, a void had formed at my centre. Sneaking suspicions and disconcerting inklings: Imposter. I had become makebelief. By the time I turned thirteen my self had gone away and left me behind. My body was going through the motions but there was nobody home.

I was nearly eighteen when the numbness began to subside. Eventually there were moments when I did not feel hollow and like an essential part of me was missing. As long as it took, I found the missing part. It was there all along, it was just burried deep, hidden from my constant searches. When it came back strangely I hardly noticed. I wasn't checking myself, analyzing and classifying myself as much anymore and like the proverbial teapot that won't boil while you look at it I found myself again through lack of inward attention.

You haven't lost a part of yourself, it is just hidden away for safe keeping and you will find it again one day.


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## Guest (Feb 18, 2010)

Chezzie said:


> So I don't know who I am. I know it's a cliche thing to say, but seriously. I know I have brown hair and green eyes, I know I'm short and slightly overweight, I know I like the snow and cold. But what do I stand for? What are my passions and my beliefs and my dreams? I don't know. I use to know, or thought I knew, but I feel like I'm a totally different person now. I remember struggling wtih DP in my junior and senior years of high school (or at least i think i did), but I was still an individual. I still had a hold on who I was.
> Today? I feel like a wraith, floating through life in a daze. Am I here? Am I real? Now and then I'll catch glimpses of reality, and then I'll remember, very briefly, who I was, before the fog overtakes me again and I become an empty husk once more.
> 
> But that's not the worse of it. The most traumatic part of this whole thing is the numbness I feel toward others. I've distnaced myself from the people I love. I haven't seen my best friend of 11 years in over a month, and I've only talked with her via text. I don't feel much for her any more. I don't feel anything for my brother who just recently left for war. I didn't shed a tear when he boarded the plane and left. I feel very little for my other brothers, my father, my mother, my friends. I'm cold. my heart has become a glacier. Interesting, though... I do love my pets and would do anything for them. They are the world to me, and for the past 11 months they've been living with my mom 150 miles away because I haven't found an apartment that I can afford that allows pets.
> ...


I know exactly what you mean.

Literally everything you mentioned I can identify with. The dungeon metaphor was definitely familiar, and I feel like not many people have written about that feeling on here: ever since this DP/DR started I have been fending off that blank-personality, emptiness, out-of-it, spacey dog-like sensation that I slip into. In the beginning, I only felt it around people, and I otherwise felt fine--myself, real, emotional, had a personality, had substance, was likeable, etc. As time passed, it began to linger even when I was alone, and I would have to shake it off, using hopeful thoughts or relaxing. Later, when it had come to feeling this about 80% of my waking life, I would just have to get to my room and lie down in my bed, and relax and breathe deeply. Usually that would bring me back to myself, align myself with myself again, if only until I got out of my bed, and certainly not persisting in social interaction. Now it seems this has consumed me 100%. Before, I knew I was there, deep down inside myself, simply because I could get it back if I tried hard enough, i.e. by relaxing or being alone. But now it seems like that "dungeon" where I was locked up as disappeared. Now I never feel myself. Like I've just been swallowed into this dark sea at night, and haven't emerged above the surface for a long, long time. That foggy, wraith-like feeling hasn't been penetrated at all for months, it seems.

I'm so numb, have lost plenty of friends and acquaintances, and speaking with girls with any gleam of intentionality is completely out of the question. In social situations I feel like a hermit, or some sort of leper who has to hide his face, or some social gomer who drops his school books out of nervousness, scrambles to pick them up, then runs away, tearing in his eyes. Rarely, I'll come across a person who is totally in tune with who I am, and that seems to bring something back. Hugs do help, as that girl said. And looking at pictures of myself as a kid do something.

I have a million more symptoms, but my lack of identity--what you described as your real self being locked in a dungeon--is definitely the most disconcerting. I can deal with things feeling foggy, or me feeling dumb, or emotionless to a degree. But when I've lost the substance that is my personality, nothing compares.

Where are you from in Minnesota? That's where I live too.


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## spaced-out (Mar 28, 2008)

Chezzie - thanks a lot for your post. 
I can completely relate as well, there have been many times when I was asking myself whether I was even human. I feel or rather dont feel all the things you talk about - having to feeling to my parents, sister , friends , many times I just feel like I use people etc. 
Anyway , although a lot of people on this forum cannot relate , this symptom used to be a part of (and still is) the original definition of depersonalization, I think. 
Just recently , after some years, I found that if I switch to a different mode of perception , if I cut of all thoughts in my head and concentrate just on the input of my senses , I am (interestingly) also not that numb to the others and I can feel for them some way. I have not cured this symptom yet , but it gives me the feeling there is a human in me. I believe the same applies to you. 
What might have also helped in the long run I guess - pretending I had feelings or at least trying to empathize. Eventually I started to feel there was a trace of feeling in me.


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## ann (Mar 20, 2011)

Hi all -

I found this site and after reading Cheezie and others posts I felt compelled to write. First, I only recently realized this had a name and I've never seen a psychologist, but I believe I've suffered from this for 5 or more years now.

It's only now that I'm starting to put pieces together of what may have caused DP for me...I was robbed at gun point (loaded gun pointed at my heart) and I believe that traumatic event is partly what caused DP for me. I think that event coupled with 3 super intense years working at a job that I devoted everything to (it lead to my first true love leaving me) and was never be given any recognition - left me depressed, lonely, problems with social anxiety and DP seemed to flourish. I also don't think that it helped that my career is an art director in advertising so much of my time is spent thinking of the next awesome idea (living in my head).

Cheezie, I can completely relate to the pet comment! I think for me this is because I know my dog needs me and she can not comprehend enough to be able to judge me for the things I've done wrong and that I'm ashamed of. And I too was even more devastating when I had to take my dog to live with my parents because I was working too much to take care of her.

I've since quit that abusive job (found another job), found another boyfriend and have been able to get my dog back.

I finally feel like I'm starting to recover from DP (or at least the depression associated with it). I think it's been a combination of a few good things happening (worrying/obsessing less about trying to figure myself and the world out and just letting things happen), me taking responsibility for my previous actions, confronting them and allowing myself to make amends with my failures. I also feel like my depression has greatly subsided.

I'm just on the cusp of starting to get over this and plan to see a psychologist sometime this year. I still am struggling with relating to my body, my mind feels like the primary me and my body self isn't really here. There's a dream like quality that's so fragile I feel like I'm just waiting for everything to disappear/end, go black and be nothing.

I was also suffering from Déjà vu a lot, for about six months it was happening so frequent and vividly it started to scare me. It's since subsided, but has anyone else experienced frequent deja vu, perhaps there's some association with DP, I dunno?

I still find it hard to truly connect with my very supportive boyfriend and family. They seem "out there" just out of reach I can't quite grab onto them. Like part of me is stuck in a wall and I'm reaching blindly for them. Though as Katezorz mentioned, hugs and touching do help.

All that aside, I think the biggest think is, I'm finally feeling like I'm more excited about the future than trying to get back to what I had before. I also think this has been helped by trying to plan a little more an give myself an annual review of sorts without be unrealistic or too much of a perfectionist...giving myself realistic things to achieve. This is where I found the annual review exercise, which has helped me: http://chrisguillebeau.com/3x5/how-to-conduct-your-own-annual-review/ One category I have is family and friends and a goal is to Do more (at least 2) planned things with family (go kayaking, visit place, six flags, xmas cabin party, etc.).

And I'm also planning to try to do more physical activities like dancing, adult gymnastics or a pottery class - something to help bridge the mind-body-self gap and force me to connect with my body in order to complete the task.

My best wishes to everyone struggling with this. I do believe it can get better.


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