What are Depersonalization and Derealization?
Depersonalization (DP) is a dissociative experience in which you feel detached or disconnected from your own body, thoughts, or feelings. Derealization (DR) is the experience of feeling like people or things around you aren’t real. With DP and DR, you understand that your experiences are skewed, off, or not quite right. Symptoms of DP and DR can last from minutes to months, can become more or less intense, and can be really hard to describe especially to folks who have never had similar experiences.
Symptoms of Depersonalization:
Feeling disconnected from your own body, emotions, thoughts, and/or experiences
Feeling like a stranger to yourself
Feeling like you are observing yourself from outside of your body
Feeling like you’re not connected to the person looking back at you in the mirror
Feeling hollow or empty
Feeling like there is a block between you and reality
Feeling robotic, or like you are on auto-pilot
Feeling intense anxiety, panic, or depression, or
Feeling numb
Feeling like you are going crazy
Experiencing visual, auditory, or other perceptual distortions
Symptoms of Derealization:
Feeling like you are living in a dream or a movie
Feeling as though things and people around you aren’t real, robotic, or plastic
Experiencing the outside world as fuzzy, foggy, or detached
Feeling like there is a block between you and reality
Feeling intense anxiety, panic, or depression, or
Feeling numb
Feeling like you are going crazy
Experiencing visual, auditory, or other perceptual distortions
How does DP/DR Develop?
DP/DR are both dissociative experiences meant to protect you from some feeling or experience that, if fully felt, would seem overwhelming. Dissociation in general is a defense mechanism, and the brain’s way of attempting to make unbearable experiences feel less overpowering. It can result from intense feelings of anxiety or panic, in the face of traumatic experience, or from certain types of drug use or withdrawal. DP/DR is also listed as a potential side effect for certain prescription medications.
Often, DP/DR symptoms can be experienced temporarily, especially in the case of a single traumatic event, drug use, withdrawal, or as a side effect of prescription medication. Many people experience depersonalization, derealization, or both at one time or another. However, when the symptoms become chronic, recurrent, or disrupt your ability to function in day-to-day life, it’s time to seek help!
How Counseling and EMDR can Help:
Counseling can help you to understand more about the causes of depersonalization and derealization, and why symptoms occur, specific to your life experiences. With understanding of the origins, then various coping and grounding techniques and resources can be learned and utilized to help you feel more connected to yourself and the world around you. These skills can help to manage the overwhelming experiences that are causing the dissociation in the first place.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a specific psychotherapy approach that can help you to reprocess and resolve traumatic experiences that may be causing symptoms of DP and DR. Whether your first experience of DP/DR was the traumatic experience, or the DP/DR resulted from some other trauma, EMDR can help to greatly reduce the associated distress, and facilitate healing of the psychological trauma on a physiological level, enabling lasting change.
To learn more about EMDR, you can visit the EMDR International Association, or schedule your free 30-minute consultation to discuss how EMDR can help you with your unique concerns.
Kristen Henshaw, a Licensed Professional Counselor in South Austin, specializes in trauma recovery, working with highly sensitive people, and those struggling with dissociation. For a gentle, respectful approach to healing, contact her for your free 15-minute consultation.