# Personality traits of people with dp



## Pablo (Sep 1, 2005)

I seems to me that most of the people who suffer from dp/dr share similar personality traits.

- Above average intelligence
- Intellectual and analytical 
- Emotionally sensitive
- Like to be in control
- Have a strong inner critic or superego
- Like to be self reliant and sort out their own problems

Do you agree or would you add anything, or am I just making huge generalisations?


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## Triachus (Jan 23, 2006)

I'm a foul humoured bastard. I wouldn't extend that trait to anyone else here.


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## eclecticsheep (Sep 4, 2005)

Pablo said:


> I seems to me that most of the people who suffer from dp/dr share similar personality traits.
> 
> - Above average intelligence
> - Intellectual and analytical
> ...


i've got everything of what u mentioned! i wouldn't know tho


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## Rozanne (Feb 24, 2006)




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## ComplicatedFool (Dec 19, 2005)

Yes, all things that have ocurred to me in the past. I used to be extremely sensitive, yet after going through so much sh1t you grow stronger. That's one thing I like about dp.

The fear of losing control is pretty common to everyone, though I think dpers in general fear losing control of their own self. Some people fear losing control of their children or significant other(not significant in this case). We must have control of our own selves, we are obsessed with control.

Like the girl above me said, we narrow our attention into specific things. We must solve this before we can go on with our life, I must do this before I do anything at all, etc. Or We simply narrow our attention into one thing, not necessarily our problems cuz most of our problems are caused by narrowing our attention thus a vicious cycle.


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## Dreamland (Jun 1, 2005)

I totally agree with you on this one, especially the part about solving your own problems and being self reliant. One thing you left out is the fact most DP'ers are also totally hot and "b*tch*n"!!!!!


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## LOSTONE (Jul 9, 2005)

> Thinking seems to be a big issue.
> 
> Understanding everything.
> 
> ...


Yes we are all big thinkers and I know that I personally always try to understand everything and explain everthing. This has caused me major problems in life because it is not possible to understand or explain everything but I keep trying like a fool. It is strange to me that we could all so much alike and still have greatly diffrent views on here though. I used to speak my mind a little to often about religion on here because I figured everyone on here should see things my way because people on here are what I consider to be of higher intelligence. I realize now that personal beliefs in religion or politics really has more to do with emotians and personal experiences then it does with intelligence. There are actually some very stupid people that show great wisdom sometimes and other very smart people that are very unwise in this world so I guess it is all about what is in your heart when it comes to personal beliefs. My own beliefs have shifted greatly over the years. Although for me personally, I feel like it is my wisdom and logic that guide me but I know that my heart condition has a lot to do with the logic and wisdom that I find in life.
If I were evil I would still have logic and wisdom, it would just be from a diffrent source.


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## Matt210 (Aug 15, 2004)

I honestly think you have to have above average intelligence to be able to question reality. Not to say that questioning reality is the smartest thing to do for our own well being -but to even acknowledge that reality exists and to notice it being altered takes a different intelligence and perception - for most people life is just life.

*sigh* - those were the good old days.. when things were just as they were.


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## LOSTONE (Jul 9, 2005)

These quotes are from the wisest man that ever lived besides Jesus. 
Anyone with DP/DR should read the books Proverbes and Ecclesiastes because even if you don't believe in God I think you will find much in commen with King Solomon. The books are actually a little funny to me because he does some of his own ranting and much of what he says is perfict for this forum.

Ec 2:2 I said to laughter: ?Insanity!? and to rejoicing: ?What is this doing??

2:17 And I hated life, because the work that has been done under the sun was calamitous from my standpoint, for everything was vanity and a striving after wind.

2:21 For there exists the man whose hard work has been with wisdom and with knowledge and with proficiency, but to a man that has not worked hard at such a thing will be given the portion of that one. This too is vanity and a big calamity.

2:23 For all his days his occupation means pains and vexation, also during the night his heart just does not lie down. This too is mere vanity.

Ec 4:2,3 And I congratulated the dead who had already died rather than the living who were still alive. 3 So better than both of them [is] the one who has not yet come to be, who has not seen the calamitous work that is being done under the sun.

Ec 9:16-18 
16 And I myself said: ?Wisdom is better than mightiness; yet the wisdom of the needy one is despised, and his words are not listened to.?

17 The words of the wise ones in quietness are more to be heard than the cry of one ruling among stupid people.

18 Wisdom is better than implements for fighting, and merely one sinner can destroy much good.

Ec 1:2 ?The greatest vanity!? the congregator has said, ?the greatest vanity! Everything is vanity!?

*Ec 1:18 For in the abundance of wisdom there is an abundance of vexation, so that he that increases knowledge increases pain. *

If you want to read the rest of proverbs or ecclesiastes you can read it here.

http://www.watchtower.org/bible/index.htm

I posted these scriptures because I thought that I would bring it to people's attention that even the bible says that wisdom causes pain. In my view most of us just have a problem with dealing with the pain of wisdom.

King Solomon probably had DP/DR in some form himself I think. Wisdom will do that to you.


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## strangermyself (Apr 1, 2006)

LOSTONE said:


> These quotes are from the wisest man that ever lived besides Jesus.
> Anyone with DP/DR should read the books Proverbes and Ecclesiastes because even if you don't believe in God I think you will find much in commen with King Solomon. The books are actually a little funny to me because he does some of his own ranting and much of what he says is perfict for this forum.
> 
> Ec 2:2 I said to laughter: "Insanity!" and to rejoicing: "What is this doing?"
> ...


Pain is at the beginning of wisdom. Thought merely derives from negations, in the tiniest logical and dynamic sense. We need to overcome, control, have power with and over sth that got against the self.
And it's just because of further structural "unbearable" pains that grows on a personal wisdom, through epiphany, dissociations, alterations, dps. However becomes eventually true that, stuck in the cycle, wisdom does nth more than increasing pain. that's why in the end wisdom can quiet be said to be just comforting idiocy.
So in the end i just come from a long tradition of irony and sincere idiocy.


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## strangermyself (Apr 1, 2006)

LOSTONE said:


> These quotes are from the wisest man that ever lived besides Jesus.
> Anyone with DP/DR should read the books Proverbes and Ecclesiastes because even if you don't believe in God I think you will find much in commen with King Solomon. The books are actually a little funny to me because he does some of his own ranting and much of what he says is perfict for this forum.
> 
> Ec 2:2 I said to laughter: "Insanity!" and to rejoicing: "What is this doing?"
> ...


Pain is at the beginning of wisdom. Thought merely derives from negations, in the tiniest logical and dynamic sense. We need to overcome, control, have power with and over sth that got against the self.
And it's just because of further structural "unbearable" pains that grows on a personal wisdom, through epiphany, dissociations, alterations, dps. However becomes eventually true that, stuck in the cycle, wisdom does nth more than increasing pain. that's why in the end wisdom can quiet be said to be just comforting idiocy.
So in the end i just come from a long tradition of irony and sincere idiocy.


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## comfortably numb (Mar 6, 2006)

Well i think it would be basically impossible for a person of low intelligence to have dp/dr. People with dp/dr tend to be very philosophical and tend to ponder about every little detail that goes on in life.

Ive noticed that so many of the things i question most other people just accept as a part of life. I could never seem to grasp the point of getting a steady job, living in one place all the time, and doing lots of other stuff that most of my friends just accepted as normal. Thats probley why i was always thought of as a little weird. Or more then a little weird.

When i start to question all these things it tends to set off my depersonalization. Maybe thats the key to getting rid of dp/dr. Just learn not to question anything and be a good little sheep and go along in life.

I should also mention that another personality trait that i have is a slight inclination towards bitterness.


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## LOSTONE (Jul 9, 2005)

> Maybe thats the key to getting rid of dp/dr. Just learn not to question anything and be a good little sheep and go along in life.


Yeah that pretty much is the key. I will admit though that it may take some time to do that for some people because you have to get really sick of being like this before you can change. I will always question things but most things I have learned through experience that there is just no point to question about anymore because I have either already found the answer or no answer exists. Once you get to the point where you feel you have found most of the answers that are even out there then you will stop asking so many questions. Most of us will realize over time that most of the questions just can't be answered from a human perspective. We just don't have enough info to go on.



> I should also mention that another personality trait that i have is a slight inclination towards bitterness.


Yeah I think that we all have that in commen. It is not that we are bad people but there is a great many reasons for being bitter in this world. Because of our wisdom and higher intelligence we are just more aware of what is _wrong_ with the picture of the world then everyone else is.
You will notice if you read Proverbs and Ecclesiastes that King Solomon was pretty bitter himself about many things. Unless you are totally ignorant about everything then you are bound to have a lot of bitterness inside of you because of the evil around you.



> Pain is at the beginning of wisdom.


That is partly true but I would say that wisdom is more the beginning of pain becuase you can have pain without wisdom but you can not have wisdom without pain. I think that was the point that King Solomon was trying to make.

The more wisdom and knowledge you have, the more pain you will have. It is just a fact.


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## Matt210 (Aug 15, 2004)

One thing that should be considered though - does this not prove that DP is nothing but a perspective? Rather than any form of brain malfunction or chemical imbalance - or if it is one of the previous two things, it takes a certain kind of thinking to trigger it. If DP was only one of the aforementioned things, any old average joe would be able to start feeling unreal after a drug experience.

I'm sure some do feel unreal after a drug trip - but it is the QUESTIONING of this feeling, and the focusing on it that feed it.

Things like this make a firm believer that DP is nothing more than a change in perspective on reality. Not to take anything away from the horror that is this disorder - in fact I am not even close to suggesting something that isn't known by everyone here.


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## LOSTONE (Jul 9, 2005)

Matt210

Yes I think that this mainly is just a shift in perspective. That is exactly what it is. It is also an illness in many ways though because it makes you feel so sick and it can make you think some very sick thoughts. For the people that can get through it though I think that there are some great things to be learned by the experience. My only real problem or complaint about having DP/DR is that it makes it much harder to socialize when you have so much going on inside your head all the time. I spend most of my brains energy in a conversation just trying to figure out if there is any hidden meaning in someones movements or words and there is little brain power left for me to actually participate in the conversation because I am picking at it so much in my mind. Sometimes I can get so focused that I feel like my brain powers are what is causeing the other person to speak becuase I can almost predict what they are going to say next! Having DP/DR can be looked at as just being much smarter and deeper of a person then everyone else I think but being to deep and aware about things can cause extream pain and vexation wich is why we call it an illness. We have to find a middle ground where we can still be very wise but do away with to OCD thoughts and the DP/DR. Our problem is that we just don't know when to stop being wise. We can't ever turn the switch off. Our brain is stuck in super deep mode and it is hard to pull out of that, and just relax. DP/DR is a place we should be able to go in and out of at will. The problem is that we are all stuck here. We have to break the OCD type thoughts so that we can start to take the power away from DP/DR and that way we can have more control over when we want to be thinking really deep and wise and when we just want to relax and enjoy life.

We all need to learn how to ballance things and to accept the things that we will never be able to change because if we don't then we are being very unwise.


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## LOSTONE (Jul 9, 2005)

Being philosophical 24/7 is our main problem I think and we need to realize that we will never do any good in this world if we are stuck in a philosophical mindset 24/7.

There is a time for philosophy but that time should not be 24/7.

We all need to learn how to RELAX and just shut out the philosophical thoughts once in a while.


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## Milan (May 29, 2005)

comfortably numb said:


> Well i think it would be basically impossible for a person of low intelligence to have dp/dr. People with dp/dr tend to be very philosophical and tend to ponder about every little detail that goes on in life.


This is a generalisation and incorrect.

My shrink deals with people who have DR/DR and I asked him the same question about intelligence and and this disorder. He replied that it doesn't discriminate, smart or dumb, anyone is susceptible to this illness, the biggest difference is that the brighter ones are much better at articulating the experience. When he believes someone has DP, and the patient is of lower intelligence, he has to probe deeper and help the patient explain thier weird perceptions.

I jsut noticed - 400 posts! (small things :roll: )


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## LOSTONE (Jul 9, 2005)

Milan maybe you are right but it seems to me that many of the people on dpselfhelp are very wise and above average.

I am talking about a general common sense awareness type of knowledge though. I think some of us might score low on a test but I still view most of the people in this place as being a little more aware and a little wiser then most people in the world.

This is a generalization but I think that is a good one.


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## Martinelv (Aug 10, 2004)

Milan, you are absolutely spot-on.

Anyone can get DR/DP. Anyone. It's a myth that everyone with DR/DP has to be above average intelligence. There is about as much truth in that as there is in the old fable that all geniuses are teetering on the edge of madness. Rubbish.


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## freesong (Dec 26, 2005)

I was married to a genius and have one as a friend and although they are not crazy, they can be a bit out there. LOL But, it is fascinating to learn from them. Their perspectives are uncanny. Just do not marry one!!! LOL :shock: :wink:


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## Soma (Mar 29, 2006)

I can never remember half the time--my inner-genius has a bad memory..


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## Beth (Sep 27, 2004)

I think that people with dp probably have a very high intuitive kind of intelligence, whether that is a cause or a result of the dp (a certain kind of, this is rather a blunt generalisation I know) . I think that both dp and creative (/intuitive/lateral-thinking-style/right-brain) intelligence are related to an ability to make quick connections between apparentely unrelated things, to synthesise information and to grasp things conceptually as a whole. But that can be entirely unrelated to analytical thinking, a more logical kind of intelligence, and what is normally measured by iq tests. So we aren't necessarily going to have better exam results or jobs than everyone else, but I think there is a heightened awareness of a kind that we have in common.

That would explain the recent threads about why a lot of us have the sense that people on here understand us, but then we can be so surprised by each other's politcal and religious views.

I think that relates to Martinelv's objection to mad genii. The kind of expansive creative thinking that can lead to new insights does need bounding by analytical thought. I'd term a number of religious mystics insane, but I think they come very close in personality and experience to many great writers artists and scientists. And just mentally running through the people from history whose thinking I admire the most, a fair few of them were actually nuts.

There have been a lot of really interesting threads recently.


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## LOSTONE (Jul 9, 2005)

Beth that was a really good post.

And I must say that there is no real good way to judge anyones intelligence just by giving them a test.

Just because a person scores low on a test does not mean that he really has a lower intelligence then someone that scores much higher. That is what I believe anyway.


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## strangermyself (Apr 1, 2006)

Lostone
First. 'pain a' is different from pain b. because they come from different story with different events lived maybe by different people; this comes me to think as a direct answer to your thought. 
And in my post i also spoke of pain in the dynamical sense: pain is just a contrapposition, a negation, you experience against yourself in your reality experience i.e. an obstacle a child has to overcome---unconsciously or not he thinks..if you elevate negations at infinitevely upper levels you obtain what tradition calls pain..then, as i said, with thought development you can get in various cycles, many of which elementary, others not, in which wisdom causes pain. But even in the most stigmatized case and sense: where wisdom has traditional sense of shifting, separation from a .primary."inferior".pertaining to sheep. meaning, it has traditionally derived from existential pain.

Regarding to me, geniuses are often if not always teetering on the edge of crazyness, but that doesn't mean others, or themselves, can slightly perceive-identify-affirm it. Or better, they get into sth that's strongly connected with crazyness once they lose control over their witty mental movements, now the question is if all geniuses risk losing control of their genius. or better, genius always follows obsessive paths, more or less evident?Does always exist in geniuses some sort of Fear of losing some sort of Control?Pushed to answer i'd probably say no, because there's other people's experience, that's eternally far in every way from what i've experienced or seen.

sorry for my english, i surely sometimes have some problems with spelling and grammar, i mostly lost the habit of elaborating thoughts in english instead of just reading, and my memory doesn't help.


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## LOSTONE (Jul 9, 2005)

strangermyself
No offence but I am having a hard time following you. I don't know if it is your english or if is just your thoughts that I am not understanding very well. What you were saying about pain got me totally confused. I think I know what your saying but not really sure :? .

I don't really agree about what you said about the geniuses teetering on the edge of crazyness. There are many, many geniuses that are not crazy at all, most of them actually are perfictly normal. The greatest breakthroughs in history have come from the more "mad" of the geniuses though and I think that is probably just becuase these people are so focused on their work that they become totally absorbed in it. Some of the great breakthoughs could have only come from someone that was a little "mad" becuase of the enormus amout of focus and thinking involved in finding the breakthough. Normal people are not going to spend 40 years of their life locked up inside their rooms trying to figure out some complex problem of the universe if you know what I mean. I would not say that all geniuses are crazy though because most of the live very normal lives. The only reason people think that they are all crazy is because the most famous of the geniuses were pretty eccentric. The geniuses that don't devote %99 of their time to their work never really become that famous becuase they have lives ouside of their work to attend to. Anyone that becomes totally absorbed in their work like Sir Isaac Newton did, is bound to become a little "mad" and eccentric just becuase of the fact that his whole life was in his work.

By the way I have met homless bums that were just as eccentric as Sir Isaac Newton was and there only job was collecting garbage off the streets :wink: .
If Sir Isaac Newton was stupid then he would have probably still been eccentric but he would have just never have been famous. He would have spent his days collecting cans or something.

I do think that their is something a little special about all of us with DP/DR though. Im not going to say we are all geniuses but we do have a special way of thinking and I think that we are all much more aware about most things then other people are. We all seem to have more insight about things then other people would have that are at the same intelligence level as us.

It is not really that we are smarter but just that we have a lot more insight and intuition then most people I think.


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