# Derealization, existential terror and suicidal ideation



## HealingHope (Feb 27, 2020)

Hello all,

I have been having intense derealization with milder depersonalization for about 16months. I have all the crazy perceptual distortions, feeling like i am in a different dimension, everything and everyone feels wrong and terrifying, everything i look at and every thought i have sends a wave of horror and insane anxiety all over my body, and just unbearable existential thoughts and philosophical torture.

Over the 16months however things did change. Initially my perception was completely 2D, it felt like i was living inside a wallpaper. But over time i began to be able to percieve some depth in my environment, and now its like 2.5D. Another thing was before when i see things i felt i was just looking at a picture with no "information" inside. But now there is more of that information, hard to explain. In a way, the derealization may be improving?

But the thing is that the terror i feel from the derealization, although improved, is worse than ever before. The terror is so horrific i hold on by 2minutes at a time, just spurring myself to get through another 2min, another 2min. It leads to feelings of overwhelming suicidal urges, as the torture of this terror is so unbearable. The terror would send overwhelming "energy" all over my body, and i would have involuntarily violent jerks and spasms.

What i want to ask is if this increased terror as derealization gets "better" is normal? I read in another success story something about increased awareness from improving and feeling more horrible.

"Awareness dpdr relationship: This is a critical side note I highly suggest people watch out for. The more intense your dpdr is over a period, the less general awareness you have of your thoughts/ how you feel. Your mind is sort of shocked, so you aren't really aware of precisely how you feel, you just know it's somewhere in the range of really damn bad and really really damn bad. As you start to improve, you will become more and more aware, and as you become more aware, you become more aware of the bad, which is a different feeling all together. Thus, you feel better from dpdr, but now you're scared of your more-conscious awareness of the dpdr, so you get stressed again. In short, how you feel is a function of the intensity of your dpdr, but also how aware you are of your dpdr. As your dpdr decreases, your general awareness (including awareness of dpdr can increase), which can be extremely scary. Thus, especially during the final stages of recovery:

1) you may feel terrible purely because of dpdr

2) you may feel better, but your level of awareness increases, and your new awareness of your dpdr is scary as hell so you feel terrible again"

Is this something others have experienced?

Thank you all and your time reading this.

HealingHope


----------



## AnnaGiulia (Feb 4, 2020)

@HealingHope,

Did you see a therapist about it? DPDR can be accompanied by anxiety and depression, and suicide ideation can be among indicators for depression. Even though therapy cannot really target DPDR specifically, it can help you with the accompanying problems, and ease your pain. Just a thought...

Having said that, I can identify with 2 minutes reality. You kind of just try to pull yourself through another 2 minutes, and so on... That is how I felt in the most acute phase of my condition.

I do not have an answer to you question, though. For me, basically, DPDR was and is a coping mechanism, in situations when I could not deal with unbearable feelings. So, after a bout of DPDR, I still had to face those feelings, and work them through, which was another challenge in itself...

Take care,

A.


----------



## forestx5 (Aug 29, 2008)

I remember living minute to minute. Just holding on. It was horrible and frightening. I simply persevered. I didn't know what else to do. I made it through somehow.

Now I'm in a much better place. Much. Your vision is improving. That's something to dwell on.


----------

