# What do DP/DR feel like to you?



## Guest (Nov 2, 2009)

I know that there are common sensations that go with dp/dr but I also know that each brain dissociates differently and I was wondering what Dp/Dr feels like to you.

For me dp/dr feels like:

Like I don't know where I am
Like I don't know who I am
Like I don't know the people or things around me
Like I am dreaming
Like I am in a foggy reality
Sometimes I get sudden periods where my vision gets super clear but the above feelings are even worse. Its like I had been sleeping with my eyes open and suddenly woke up to a new reality but I feel even more dissoriented
Like I'm not connected to my body/like I'm living inside a robot/like my actions are automated
Like my thoughts are not my own
Like I'm not real or like I do not exist
Like the world isn't real and does not exist
My memory is very bad. I can't clearly remember my life before dp or what has happened since dp
Like my life before dp didn't really happen, almost like I am recalling something I read in a book or saw in a movie
Like I have no home. I don't feel safe or comfortable anywhere. My own bed feels alien to me
Trerrifying
lonely/isolated
depressing


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## Surfingisfun001 (Sep 25, 2007)

a nightmare in which i am living in an unreal world
detachment from my self 
utter terror 
loneliness and disconnected from everyone even myself
mind rape
disconnection from my mind 
hell


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## backagain (Aug 8, 2009)

When it was bad I felt

completely closed in my mind and thoughts were just coming and coming and each one was either negative, fearful, completely detached from any down to earth meaning

Like anything beyond my room is just a distant dream and I am completely living in a shadow of the world

feels like I'm not a body, I am just a thing inside of a body operating from an impulsive compulsive depressive idealistic, impractical boxed in thought platform that keeps going and going

I look around and I can't differentiate between objects aura vibe energy what have you, like if I were to look at a piece of shit on the floor and then take a look at a red rose, I wouldn't be able to point out the different energy behind it. Like life behind things didn't exist, it was just image.

Feels like I'm in a theater sitting in a chair watching a movie of my life as it goes on from moment to moment, watching it all go down and not being able to be there living my own life but just screaming and crying from my seat but no one can hear me.

Feels like every motion I make is mechanical, it's like my physical self is actually inside my head pulling levers to make my body move.

Feels like I was living in a character based reality of self before dp/dr and now I'm suddenly in some sort of mental hell where I'm punished to suffer the weight of the reality of the world with no self.

As if everything in life is just one big long continous dream that people replay over and over because they're programmed that way.

Feel detached from my personality, feels as if i'm not a personality anymore, over time I feel more and more like a rock or some other inanimate object with no depth. Just a surface image and a bunch of cluttered thoughts with no direction underneath.

Felt like a dead man walking around trapped in a living body and an unstable mind


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## backagain (Aug 8, 2009)

Oh and I just want to say that I don't believe any of those thoughts anymore, I know for a fact that they are illusions that stemmed from a lack of awareness brought on by my own selfishness in which the selfishness itself was brought on by other factors.

I can only speak for myself subjectively as I've gone past all that now, focusing and dwelling on the subjective experience of dp/dr will only strengthen the dp/dr's existence and all of it's co morbid disorders that is an objective truth. That's why they tell you to focus outward and keep your mind busy on different things. So you aren't constantly tripping in your head about all the garbage your mind is feeding you. It's the perfect machine if you think about it (depression, anxiety, ocd, panic, dp/dr and rite back and on and on and on until you've fried your brain so many times with dp/dr that you better change your ways or else you're just fukn hopeless.

Right now I feel more alive than I have felt in years and I give credit not to some miracle drug or ssri. I just changed ever so slightly one habit and just kept on changing my ways no matter what the cost. Just keep pushing forward always having a goal in mind and spirit.

There are so many obstacles to overcome, I still don't know how I will ever find a way to truly enjoy life for what it is after having to go through this the last 6 years of my life. It's like a form of PTSD in itself... It's a traumatic experience dp/dr.. no doubt


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## Mario (Oct 26, 2009)

DP/DR for me it's what i usually call the "lucid insanity" as we have the insight of everything bad that is happening to us.We usually think we are losing our minds and getting crazy for good.Fortunately that is not happening,its all part of the dissociation problem.please note that we are able to talk about our symptoms meaning that we have the insight there,and that?s a good thing
And yes,in DP/ DR the brain dissociates differently every time.
You are not alone with your symptoms.I have them all as well. And i can add one more to your list.that's that feeling of time passing too fast where you feel like a month only took a week to pass by.like a very fluid thing
So,what else can i say? join the club and keep hoping to get better.that's what i do.
Please remember that some people have already recovered from DP/DR.Let's hope that recovery will happen to us too.

edit; try not to think so much about it,try to keep your mind busy,listen to music,read a book even if sometimes you can't understand a word of what you are reading but at least try and you will notice that things with time tend to get a little bit better


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## skyvsfirefly (Nov 25, 2009)

in a word, unbearable.

first thing i start feeling is fog. my mind is so foggy, too foggy to even figure out what i feel or what i think. then i feel like i'm losing my memory. i can't remember what i just did or how i got where i am...it's weird and i can't remember it but at the same time i CAN remember; it's like the memory is THERE, i just can't access it. and because i can't access it, i continue to panic and the more i panic the deeper into the derealization i get. naturally. i also start spelling very simple words wrong and not being able to figure out how to correctly spell them.
then i begin to think that i never ever pay attention to what i'm doing [even though i KNOW that i do] and even when i think that i'm calm and clearheaded maybe that was just all in my head.

i think i'm not here. things feel far away. my body is controlling itself and i am merely trapped in it, watching as this body moves itself ["...forgetting my body. I watch as it walks away. I just keep drinking the poison and smoking the cartons, a pack and a half a day."] i think often that i am in a coma and my 'reality' is just something i made up in my head. i think i'm in some kind of hospital all drugged up and this is all in my head. i'll wake up from this dream/coma/etc to find that no one that loves me is real. i think i'm in a dream. i can't tell if what i dreamt was real or what i think is real is a dream. i get lost in movies/books and it takes me awhile to find myself after they're over. the people around my look and feel fake. i try to remind myself that i can physically feel things. i try to hold onto my boyfriend, i touch his skin, touch my skin, have sex, pet my bunny/cat, try to meditate, try to feel the earth, focus on my breathing, try to sleep, etc. i feel an EXTREME need for human-to-human connection. i NEED to have deep conversations that make me feel like i am not alone, but during dr episodes i'm almost unable to speak about anything at all (at least i THINK i am, but i probably could actually speak if i could only stop panicking) because my brain is all locked up. i have a very hard time remembering a time when i didn't feel the dr/hard time reminding myself that this is in fact only temporary, that i WILL have relief in a few hours/days/weeks. i feel like i'm forgetting my brothers. three of them in particular. i feel VERY afraid that my boyfriend, ed, will walk into the room one day and i won't recognize him because my memory will be totally gone. i want to die but at the same time there is nothing more terrifying because what if death is this feeling. but what if i'm already dead? i start thinking things are awful with ed when really they're perfectly fine. despite all the i feels, i think feel emotionless! maybe passion-less is a better word. so i sometimes almost accidentally start arguments so i can get talking and feel SOMETHING. i desperately want to smoke weed or get drunk, but i always restrain myself since i do know that will only worsen it. i feel like i have ALWAYS felt like this when really its only been a few days. my dreams feel more vivid and i remember them more often. my already horrific sleep schedule gets worse. and of course, i have the obvious feeling of disconnect from everyone and everything, including myself.

"You're scared of your dreams,aren't you?
It's a nightmare either way."

"My dreams are a cruel joke. They taunt me. Even in my dreams,I'm an idiot who know she's about to wake up to reality. If I could only avoid sleep...but I can't. I try to tell myself what to dream. I try to dream that I'm flying - something free. It never works.
Is that the only thing you dream?
I don't...I don't remember."
[if you really wanna have a stroke, watch vanilla sky. it's all about not knowing what's real. but there is also the concept of living in the unreality WITH someone. "we created our own world together - us versus them."]


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## elcapitan (Mar 6, 2009)

It feels like I am super-aware of the disconnection between my mind and my body. I watch alien hands move, I hear an alien voice.
I am like I am a cameraman, constantly doing POV (point of view) shots. Like on Peep Show, and Being John Malkovich, like I am "inhabiting" an alien body. 
It feels like I am doped up.

It feels like a constant state of being that I simply can't get rid off.


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## steve (Jul 13, 2006)

tinyfairypeople,

I experience all of your symptoms every single day. It's awful.


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## lrenee (Nov 28, 2009)

in a dream
don't know where i am
feeling-less
confused
i don't know who i am
don't recognize self in mirror
after i do something, i look back on it and feel like it were a dream and i didn't really do it.


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## Guest (Nov 28, 2009)

Welcome to DPSelfhelp.com Irenee


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## lfbenz (May 23, 2009)

oh my god "Mind rape" thats the best one I've heard. I dont have a lot to add except I feel everything the first guy said, and the 2nd.


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## xxcdawg (Nov 10, 2009)

Feels like I'm wandering through a never ending nightmare.
I have really bad memory, I can hardly remember what's happened the past two months.
My life before DR feels like remembering a scene from a movie, like it never even happened.
I can hardly feel any emotions unless it's extreme love, lust, or sadness.
I stopped caring about school.
I'm almost completely numb to everything.
I feel like I could fall backward and wake up from this hellish reality.
I cut myself just to know that I'm actually awake and real.
I feel like I have no control over anything anymore.

Ugh, I wish I could meet someone in person that knows exactly what I'm feeling.


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