# From individuation to depersonalization



## Surfingisfun001 (Sep 25, 2007)

Individuation -

"In developmental psychology - particularly analytical psychology - individuation is the process through which a person becomes his/her 'true self'. Hence it is the process whereby the innate elements of personality; the different experiences of a person's life and the different aspects and components of the immature psyche become integrated over time into a well-functioning whole. Individuation might thus be summarised as the stabilizing of the personality."

This is what happened to me 3 weeks before I started experiencing DP. Now it's like the exact opposite.

Did this happen to anyone else before DP?


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## ValleyGirl (Nov 10, 2017)

I actually had the opposite experience. I remember writing a blog post about how I felt like I was losing my identity.


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## Pablo (Sep 1, 2005)

For me it was like the structure of individuation fell apart and I reverted back into an immature psyche, which I couldn't handle.

But I guess the process of individuation can't have been very well done in the first place which is why I fell apart so easily, but hopefully I can rebuild in a healthier way


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## flipwilson (Aug 19, 2006)

The summer of 06 was an amazing journey for me. It was self discovery and confidence. I do believe i was in the process of individuation consciously and subconsciously. I had finally beat my OCD which was related to my identitiy and was learning how to become the artist I never thought i was. I was in the midst of planning to move out of my parents house for the first time at 26 and I had just quit my shit job to explore my possibilities. It was at this point that I decided to smoke a joint with friends. I did not use drugs for any reason and I did not plan on doing so after this moment. It wasn't for the sake of getting high but a conscious effort to do something that the old me would never do. I was doing it as testament to just do something different, to not be afraid. Oh cruel cruel irony.lol.

I don't believe individuation process had completed yet and the fragile house of cards I had built was toppled by the intense drug trip. I too feel as if my brain reverted back to the immature version of myself, the one I thought I had successfully destroyed the previous year. All the hard work I had put into creating a new confident me was crushed in about 5 minutes.


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## JoCZker (Jul 31, 2009)

Individuation is term used by Jung and his followers. It means becoming yourself, as you should be. (whole) if you want more information on this, try some of his works. But i have one "bad" information for you.







As Jung believed, nobody will ever become absolutely complete and himself.







If you want something interesting about individuation and depersonalisation, try for example book from Edward F. Edinger - Ego and archetype. Personally, Jung and analytic psychology was/is most interesting to me from huge scale of psychic theories.


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## JoCZker (Jul 31, 2009)

<<Double post>>


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## Guest (Feb 10, 2011)

Well I was raised as an Atheist. But when I started smoking pot it was like I found a religion. I would smoke so much pot, I was smoking 3-4 times a day. I started smoking by myself at night in my room while reading philosophy books like Plato's "The Republic". I would take down little notes for myself. And eventually I started making notes about how to improve myself. I would go to school the next day and work on my personality and confidence with what I learned the night before. It was like I was sculpting a new me out of the old me. Well I quickly became rather popular, where before I was very shy. I still felt shy, but I just forced myself to talk to everybody I saw in the hallways, and make all the funny jokes in class. Well school turned to summer vacation and I was reaching all new heights in "self theory", (individuation), and putting it to practice. Well long story short, in July, I fell from a very high state of mind, right into depersonalization. I was so high on life and self at that point, that the best weed my friends could find didn't effect me at all. But it took like a week for a total transformation from Heaven (individuation) to Hell (depersonalization). I started becoming paranoid. But the total shift happened over one night, and I would be DP since to this day.

In retrospect I built my own personal Tower of Babel. And reality put me in check. I thought I could build my tower to reach to the Heavens. But I was humbled to the Earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Babel

In the Tower of Babel Myth, the people of Earth come together to Build a Tower that reaches to Heaven. God sees what they are doing and realizes that Mankind is effectively proclaiming that they are more powerful than God/Universe/Nature/Reality. So God comes down and destroys the Tower.


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## resinoptes (Jan 15, 2011)

JoCZker said:


> Individuation is term used by Jung and his followers. It means becoming yourself, as you should be. (whole) if you want more information on this, try some of his works. But i have one "bad" information for you.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I had the same experience, maybe individuation requires a little depersonalization, but if the internal conflict is too evenly matched, you can get stuck, like an irresistable force meeting an immovable object, something has to give.

Dayadhvam: I have heard the key
Turn in the door once and turn once only 
We think of the key, each in his prison 
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison

(From The Waste Land)


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## resinoptes (Jan 15, 2011)

In retrospect I built my own personal Tower of Babel. And reality put me in check. I thought I could build my tower to reach to the Heavens. But I was humbled to the Earth.
[/quote]

Yes yes yes!!!

I did that my whole life, since dp, I still have all the knowledge I accumulated before, but it feels that the centre has been ripped out of it.

In the end there is only so much an 'I' can do.

Think Mephistopheles.

The soul is not the 'I'.

I knew this before dp, but only partially, knowing it experientially is the painful and overwhelming part.


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## gill (Jul 1, 2010)

I don't believe in a true self. I believe the self changes over time based on experiences.


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## snow storm (Aug 10, 2010)

I'd say I was in the middle of an individuation process. I had been grappling with identity isseus for a long time. I'd say I was pretty far away from my authentic self back then but I was realizing more and more how to live more in tune with myself when I got dp and I felt pretty good about myself just before I got it. So I guess that was quite an anticlimax.


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## snow storm (Aug 10, 2010)

ThoughtOnFire said:


> Well I was raised as an Atheist. But when I started smoking pot it was like I found a religion. I would smoke so much pot, I was smoking 3-4 times a day. I started smoking by myself at night in my room while reading philosophy books like Plato's "The Republic". I would take down little notes for myself. And eventually I started making notes about how to improve myself. I would go to school the next day and work on my personality and confidence with what I learned the night before. It was like I was sculpting a new me out of the old me. Well I quickly became rather popular, where before I was very shy. I still felt shy, but I just forced myself to talk to everybody I saw in the hallways, and make all the funny jokes in class. Well school turned to summer vacation and I was reaching all new heights in "self theory", (individuation), and putting it to practice. Well long story short, in July, I fell from a very high state of mind, right into depersonalization. I was so high on life and self at that point, that the best weed my friends could find didn't effect me at all. But it took like a week for a total transformation from Heaven (individuation) to Hell (depersonalization). I started becoming paranoid. But the total shift happened over one night, and I would be DP since to this day.
> 
> In retrospect I built my own personal Tower of Babel. And reality put me in check. I thought I could build my tower to reach to the Heavens. But I was humbled to the Earth.
> 
> ...


Yeah or you could say it's a classic tale of hubris, like in the myth of Icarus from the greek mythology. 
I practised a form of healing and I kind of delved too deep into it. It made me feel so powerful and full of compassion and I thought all my problems would just dissolve in the light of this energy. They didn't...


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## resinoptes (Jan 15, 2011)

snow storm said:


> Yeah or you could say it's a classic tale of hubris, like in the myth of Icarus from the greek mythology.
> I practised a form of healing and I kind of delved too deep into it. It made me feel so powerful and full of compassion and I thought all my problems would just dissolve in the light of this energy. They didn't...


I have always identified with Icarus.

But, Icarus fell and drowned and that was it.

Our situation is somewhat different...


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## TheGame (Feb 1, 2011)

Highly interesting guys. 
I actually after the dissociation i had when i got DP from potsmoking had the same kind of "high on ego" Kind of life. I had to be the king at everything io did to feel like i was somebody. When i after the dissociation started to study jungian psychology to get rid of the "neurosis" that was the after effects of the dissociation i stated overly analyze myself. Witch lead to Dp coming back and manifesting in everyday life.

I believe that the search for individuation is important and it will strengthen your psyche. and send peace to your mind.

Coming down to earth is a vital part in this i believe. And i believe i have DP alot as a result of analyzing my emotions and my behaviour. 
I am certain that when i have rid myself of this habit that it will lead to no more suffering and therefore a glimpse of enlightenment. 
I wont say this for sure as i dont know how i will build myself yet. But i think that my quest for killing the ego has been successfull so far.

And i would like for it to stay that way...The ego is only a subject for suffering or clinging to the material dimension. And i would rather live and be the space in between my thoughts and emotions as that creates no suffering due to total acceptance of what life and DP brings..


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## rightwrong99 (Apr 17, 2011)

ThoughtOnFire said:


> Well I was raised as an Atheist. But when I started smoking pot it was like I found a religion. I would smoke so much pot, I was smoking 3-4 times a day. I started smoking by myself at night in my room while reading philosophy books like Plato's "The Republic". I would take down little notes for myself. And eventually I started making notes about how to improve myself. I would go to school the next day and work on my personality and confidence with what I learned the night before. It was like I was sculpting a new me out of the old me. Well I quickly became rather popular, where before I was very shy. I still felt shy, but I just forced myself to talk to everybody I saw in the hallways, and make all the funny jokes in class. Well school turned to summer vacation and I was reaching all new heights in "self theory", (individuation), and putting it to practice. Well long story short, in July, I fell from a very high state of mind, right into depersonalization. I was so high on life and self at that point, that the best weed my friends could find didn't effect me at all. But it took like a week for a total transformation from Heaven (individuation) to Hell (depersonalization). I started becoming paranoid. But the total shift happened over one night, and I would be DP since to this day.
> 
> In retrospect I built my own personal Tower of Babel. And reality put me in check. I thought I could build my tower to reach to the Heavens. But I was humbled to the Earth.
> 
> ...


Funny... I did about the same thing, not after reading philosophy books though. I was reading Daniel Goleman's books on Emotional and Social Intelligence and Malcolm Gladwell's books. I felt like I was transforming. Then DP not too long after. There's so many of us that have these similar experiences with a rapidly changing self _before_ theres GOT to be some sort of psychoanalytic reason behind it and therefore a psychoanalytic way of treating it (my psychoanalyst btw says its treatable.)


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## GrahamCracker (Jan 27, 2012)

Such a good topic...
You guys all made me have a pretty good realization. I'm a second year in college right now, 19 years old, and my dr/dp is worse than ever, along with anxiety, depression, you name it. I have always been thinking back to last year and wondering why I felt fine that whole time. But reading all your stories made me remember how fuckin philosophical I was getting that whole time too...I had been studying so much ancient philosophy and 19th and 20th century psychology and enjoying it immensely. I was a fiend for knowledge and answers and perspectives. I am also majoring in Astrophysics, which i definitely feel like can have an affect on DP because of the insane amount of perspective it can put you in with viewing how insignificant the existence of the human race is in comparison to the universe....blah blah blah anyways, yes, I think this whole theory you guys have developed is a really useful one, definitely worth looking into a lot deeper.
-Graham


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## noname (Sep 23, 2008)

I came strangely at a very similar point than ThoughtOnFire on a french forum called wakinglife. It seem for myself that my actual state is nearest individuation : in the sense I understand now my babel tower and the reality as the primal duality in my psychism. Like I want the two, but I cant unifie them. One side seem to say the same things that the other, but in the same time with a totally different language. At the beginning of DP this is probably this conflict wich have wake up, or more like this conflict have come to the consciousness.
The quote in my signature express exactly this imo.


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## tengent (Apr 22, 2012)

Interesting posts, I never even realized this part of the forum existed! I love Jung. Haven't read a lot of Freud, but many, Jung is fucking cool. As many of the users before me have said, I felt "on top of the world" before I DR'd.. I started to read Alan Watts and took some acid and the DR hit and I felt lost in a world without any sort of meaning, or goal. The existential shit is over with, but I'm still dealing with nasty HPPD symptoms.

I'd like to try and clarify "individuation." It is the process of becoming whole, but the process is done by making the unconscious conscious. It doesn't mean becoming who you "should be" (what in the hell could that ever mean?), it means recognizing and integrating the darker or hidden aspects of yourself. Jung thought the psyche was self-regulating, so integrating the parts of a fragmented psyche through the help of an analyst will lead the way to wholeness, though I'm not sure if that means transcendence or happiness or awareness or what, I haven't gotten that far into the theory yet.


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## Magrathea (Jul 8, 2010)

Many of the comments here have rung massive bells for me. I just want to add the pattern i see here. There is some attempt to claim a whole, true, integrated, self-contained identity. It feels like you may be on the verge of understanding this and seeing how it may happen - followed by the catastrophy of DP/ DR.


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## Guest (Jun 9, 2012)

tengent said:


> Interesting posts, I never even realized this part of the forum existed! I love Jung. Haven't read a lot of Freud, but many, Jung is fucking cool. As many of the users before me have said, I felt "on top of the world" before I DR'd.. I started to read Alan Watts and took some acid and the DR hit and I felt lost in a world without any sort of meaning, or goal. The existential shit is over with, but I'm still dealing with nasty HPPD symptoms.
> 
> I'd like to try and clarify "individuation." It is the process of becoming whole, but the process is done by making the unconscious conscious. It doesn't mean becoming who you "should be" (what in the hell could that ever mean?), it means recognizing and integrating the darker or hidden aspects of yourself. Jung thought the psyche was self-regulating, so integrating the parts of a fragmented psyche through the help of an analyst will lead the way to wholeness, though I'm not sure if that means transcendence or happiness or awareness or what, I haven't gotten that far into the theory yet.


Trying to be "Who you *think* you should be" tends to involve turning your back on the truth of who you are. In Jungian terminology, True Individuation involves facing the Shadow Archetype and through doing so, bringing that Unconscious stuff you are afraid to look at into the Light of Consciousness. Building our own Tower of Babel, is Avoiding the Unconscious. Recovery then, involves Accepting the Unconscious.


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## wise (Mar 29, 2012)

The Icarus anology and Tower of Babylon analogies make sense to me. It's like when you think you have it all figured out
dp strikes. The key is to remain humble and grateful at all times, never take anything for granted, it all boils down to keeping positivity flowing. Never feel complacent and always have faith that there is a purpose to your life. You really have to embrace positivity and gratitude and optimism constantly. Also distraction I find is the most "grounding" thing for dp and giving yourself lots of time to get things done and lots of time to sleep.


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## Sam- (Oct 9, 2012)

Actually, yes. I never gave it much thought but it seems to make sense. At least it does to me anyway.


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## Abraxas (Apr 23, 2011)

hey surf how you ve been?
Looking back, i had a similar experience.... I was very "full of myself", before the levy broke









So what I think happened is: The child-ego, arising from the unconscious mind, tries to differentiate itself, and become independent of the unconscious (cut the cord).
This process is accelerated in adolescense, when we try to become individuals at all levels (including social/cultural levels). So we start building this "tower", this self-image. Now all is good if the self-image is in good terms with the innermost, unconscious psyche. That is, if it respects its original Self, if it is aligned with the desires of the unconscious minds "archetypes". If this is not the case, these drives will try to push into consciousness. The inner archetypes will "rebel" agains the ego-consciousness, they will try to "overthrow the king". So as these primordial images try to force their way into consciousness, the ego, in order to protect its identity and to prevent flooding (madness/schizofrenia), recurs to depersonalisation mechanisms, detachment, increased attention, etc. Its like it declares martial law in the psyche, and like a paranoid tyrant becomes even more harsh and controlling. But the cost is high because it brings isolation from the root of life, from the waters of life. And the conscious mind becomes barren.

So, definitely DP (sealing off the Water) is better than Schizophrenia (drowning). But its still very unhealthy. Ideally the ego would slowly start to let go, and to let water in, that is, it will establish a dialogue with the unconscious mind, it will let its Waters in, and drink from them so that healing will come, and a new identity can be built, one which is in alignment with the inner Self, with the Center of the Mind which is not the center of ego-consciousnes.
The Unconscious is not telling the ego not to be. It is saying; lets coexist, let align ourselves. Build your tower, but dont forget your Self, dont forget the Child.

So dont take it personally, disease is a natural state. The tower falls so that you can create a new one, one which is more grounded on Life, more genuine. It has to fall, the old has to give way for the new. DP is the ego's last stand. The king has locked himself on the tower. He is surrounded by hostile beings and forces. Or thats what he thinks they are. He doesnt even try and listen. He doesnt even look at them. He locked himself in his chamber and wont come out. He fears death. He fears judgment. He uses reason and logic to find a way out of this situation, but all it achieves is getting lost in a maze of empty words, of empty symbols, devoid of life. Outside awaits his Soul, with a new language. If only he would take it in, if only he would remember that ancient language, beyond words, then he would remember his Self.


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## meowll (Oct 12, 2012)

@Abraxas: I love the way you worded your statements. I think that it happens for the self-image not to be in harmony with the unconscious self, even if the individual believes he's on the right path to inner peace/ knowledge/ illumination, because the unconscious is more than light and positivity, there are dark parts that people have always feared, be it in the form of maleficent creatures or the devil or just the unknown inside of us. I got my DP/DR when I was 12 and I didn't really know anything back then, so I can't tell from experience, but from what I've read here I can assume that's what happened- the darker forces of the unconscious somehow tried to balance the positive feeling of self-accomplishment.

Or from a more spiritual point of view, assuming that the world is only an illusion, for someone to believe that they found themselves would be a lie because the self is inconsistent, it doesn't really exist- and then the truth, still from somewhere deep in the (collective) unconscious mind, would spring and outbalance the impression that we could ever fully grasp anything--> depersonalization. Even though I don't fully believe this, it makes the most sense to me.


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