# A little hope after 10 years of Derealisation?



## esroh (Jan 4, 2017)

Hello guys,

i think i need your advice on what to do next.

Im 22 and ive had constant 24/7 Derealisation since my early childhood.I think it developed gradually, so i cant tell exactly when it started.

It has at least been a decade tho.

For me its mostly this feeling of being in a dream all the time.Everything seems fragmented, far away etc.

Of course, when im in big open areas or stressed it kind of itensifies.

However, i always had a hard time telling whether i just noticed it more or if it actually got worse.It never really decreased tho.

So i always thought, this is just something i have to accept.And for a long time it didnt bother me at all really.

Then again there were times where i focused more on it and so i suffered more because of it.

Recently ive had a rough time emotionally.I would feel really anxious most of the day, and then in the evening it rapidly subsided and i would feel really calm and relaxed.

A few days ago, i went outside with a friend and felt very relaxed mentally and physically, i felt at peace.

And suddenly everything wasnt as unreal as it usually is.For a few minutes it seemed like my brain had the capacity to integrate all that visual information.

Ive had a similar experience when i once took some ritalin.Your overactive brain slows down, and you are way more focused, and consequently my derealisation decreased.

So it seems like my condition is not as fixed as i had assumed.

Do you have any advice on what to do next?

Ritalin seemed to have an effect, maybe there are other drugs that might really have an impact?

Ive never been on medication, so i dont know.

I think about getting some physical things checked just to rule that out and maybe do a brain scan.

Im definitely starting a psychotherapy, also for some other issues i have.

So on the one hand i dont want to obsess to much over it, as i have a strong tendency to do so,

but if there might be things that actually work, i definitely want to try them.

Any tipps and advice would be highly appreciated! 

Also, if you know any possible physical causes that are not as obvious, please let me know!


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## semicharmedlife (Nov 6, 2014)

Have you talked to your doctor about any anti-psychotics?


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## tfiio (Nov 10, 2016)

antipsychotics are frequently advocated for on this forum, although ritalin is a stimulant, and those two classes don't really do the same thing at all, so if a stimulant helped you there's not exactly any evidence either way as to whether or not an antipsychotic will do anything for you. but, a lot of others have had success, so it may be worth considering. but considering you haven't really received psychiatric care, they'll likely want to start you out on an SSRI, considering you list anxiety as one of your most disruptive symptoms.

I don't remember when it started for me either. I don't know what your life was like, but the way I was treated by others at such a formative age was certainly a substantial component of why I developed these symptoms, though I suspect it was a direct cause. if that is the case for you as well, therapy will be a flippin pain (I hate it), but it will probably also do the most good for you in the long run. (assuming your therapist is actually useful, of course.)

the most common physical cause I've seen talked about here is temporal lobe epilepsy. here is the wikipedia, which lists common symptoms and how doctors check for it within the first couple paragraphs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporal_lobe_epilepsy (easier than copy/pasting the relevant portions, to me)

I hope you find something that works for you, or at least get to a place where you're happy.


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## youngwoods (Jan 15, 2017)

I have been suffering for 8 years constantly 24/7 from wake to sleep for 8 years now, since I was 17. I had no idea that there was a way to categorize or put in to words what I have been experiencing until a few years ago, and first I will say, knowing there are others out there helps immensely. For me, I am now a Shaolin Monk and have been training for 4 years now. Stage one of our training is learning to see, listen and feel. Basically going back to the beginning. The way I have come to understand this in respects to a way it can help people suffering from DPDR is, when one is detached from their normal experience of reality, first it helps to understand what their normal experience of reality prior to DPDR was made of. We experience reality through our senses( i dont want to get off topic so I will breifly say thay understanding the brains role in this i.e. what parts, how anatomy of experiencing senses works, etc. Can be a good way of getting on the right track) which are simply, seeing, listening, feeling, smelling, and tasting. Part of our stage ons training in Shaolin is not just learning to see, listen and feel what is a part of our reality outside, but seeing ourselves, hearing and listening to ourselves, and feeling ourselves, inside and out. I can get very in depth on this and if you have any questions feel free to ask, but because I am typing on my phone I am going to keep this as short as I can without cutting out anything important. How is this the beginning? Well, lets think for a second about our first "deployment" into experience, at birth. With our capacity Limited By the lack of control we have over our bodies and lack of understanding of our new experience, our first steps as a new born are to understand our experience. What does that understanding start with? We learn to see and figure out what we are seeing we learned to listen and figure out what we are hearing we learn to feel and figure out what we are feeling. Both outside and in. We learn to recognize our mother visually, we see our mother, eventually we recognize it as our mother, we hear mother's voice, eventually we recognize the sound of her voice as our mothers, we feel our mother touch us, eventually we recognize that what we are feeling is our mother touching us. This also applies to learning to understand everything in our environment, again through our senses. But not only our environment, we learn to see ourselves, we learned to hear ourselves, we learn to feel ourselves. We learn to experience ourselves. Sometimes we get a glimpse of our own hands or feet in our vision, we eventually recognize "self" visually. We hear the sound of our baby voice crying, laughing, etc. And eventually we recognize the sounds we are hearing as " self ". Our little baby hands open and close and we feel our own skin, our hands graze across our body and we feel more of our sales, eventually recognizing what we feel as self. This also goes for our emotions, we feel our hunger we feel our choice we feel our sadness we feel our anger we feel our tired, and we collect these experiences to eventually recognize more of our self experience that's something understandable to our consciousness, and being able to recognize it separately from the environment around us. Now to get back to DPDR, when all else fails, one can attempt to "wake up" on a purely physiological scientific approach of learning to understand and experience ones self again through this philosophy. After all, although it might be stimulated psychologically, DPDR is something that does have physical effects on the body and brain. If you have any questions or want to know more about the depth of this understanding I have come to, again I am happy to share


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