# Waking up in extreme depersonalization



## emotion sickness (Jan 3, 2014)

Hello people,

I have been struggling with Dp since almost a year and i had ups and downs. The most difficult part for me comes just before i fall a sleep and either in 5 minutes or 5 hours after i fall asleep, i wake up in panic, opening my eyes wide and not knowing who i am and how come my conscious is attached to this body. I can not identify my body parts, my hands look scary and i see myself from different aspects as if i am watching a slide show of photos of myself. I do not feel ugly or anything but it feels like its someone else and the question of 'why am i supposed to be in this body?' freaks me out. Last night i woke up in this terrible feeling again and found myself screaming. It might look like i just woke up from a nightmare but it was this horrible feeling; no images / no memory of a dream. I know that Dp occurs as a self-defense mechanism of mind, so probably i protect myself from the nightmare by clicking to Dp and so i suffer only through this feeling. But now i see that the worst nightmare is better than this awful feeling, at least, when you wake up you know that it was a nightmare and it passed. But this alienation feeling is so scary that its not easy to shake it off. And even if you do, it comes back again, without a warning.

I have tried Citalopram a couple of months ago and i got worse, my doctor said i had an overreaction to seratonin boost and i'd be better off it. The pills made me so much worse that i gave up on trying another medication. But now i am deadly scared that if i can't beat this without.

I was wondering if any of you are having these falling asleep-waking up dp in a severe level and how you deal with it. Because i don't know how to anymore.


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## JJ123D (Dec 6, 2013)

I sometimes have panic attacks at night, lost and fear that I'm dying or such things. I am religious, so I remind myself of that, and that this is what matters, anything else and questions of finding who I am in the middle of the night don't. I also concentrate on breathing, concentrate on my chest moving and feeling it, and walk around in the house. This calms me down in a minute or two and I go back to sleep.


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## flat (Jun 18, 2006)

I sometimes feel really dp'd just upon awaking in the morning. And cortisol levels are highest when we wake up in the mornings. High cortisol could be the problem. Also, at night we have low melatonin levels when we go to bed. When you sleep make sure your room is really dark as this replenishes our melatonin.


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## Big Ben (Dec 8, 2013)

Hi emotion sickness
I have been experiencing exactly the same for a long time. I am so scared when it happens I scream. I am scared of myself because I don't know who I am 
Ben


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## Abaddon (Jan 3, 2014)

Yeah, this happens to me a lot. At least the waking up part. It calms down after a few hours and mellows out, but it's always the worst in the morning. Kind of like I'm moving and such, but I'm looking at myself from above. I dunno how to explain it, it's just a removed kind of feeling, like I'm not me.


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## emotion sickness (Jan 3, 2014)

Thank you all for your reaction.

I know how its difficult to explain. I remember waking up at the middle of the night, wondering in panic that why am i feeling like this and in between the attempts of calming myself down with such sayings: 'You are okay, you are fine, you are not going to lose your mind, it is your mind reminding you something, just figure it out.' I keep telling this to myself and eventually falling back to sleep although i'm scared. It is painful to keep asking myself, why is this happening to me?

I want to make sure that this ain't an organic problem. Because i literally start to think something is wrong with my brain, if it could be a sign of a disease. I got my blood checked, so far it looks good. But for further investigation, i was thinking about getting myself checked to neurologist and/or get a MRI or something. Do you guys think the area neurology would be the best to start from? ... My psychoanalyst and my previous psychiatrist told me that this is happening clearly due to my anxiety and long term depression. But i keep wondering how come they can be so sure?. I mean if i'd be a doctor of any kind, i would hesitate to say such things in absolution, because there might always be another possibility.. Any insights on this?


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