Derealization Symptoms Explained
From what I have experienced myself as a sufferer and from what I have heard from other who have experienced the condition, the list of symptoms is huge! Since DP/DR is a somatic condition (originates from the mind), the variety of symptoms can also differ heavily from person to person. Here follows a list of the sensations one may experience during derealization, depersonalization and anxiety with an attempt to explain every symptom naturally.
- Pressure in head/face
Being overly anxious and stressed over longer periods of time makes the muscles and tendons that cover our skull “tired”. The primary sensation is feeling like you have a tight band around your forehead. The pressure sensation may also appear in the bridge of the nose, or anywhere in the head for that matter. During my experience with DP/DR, I could also feel the pressure move and shift to different places in my head. Not fun! But harmless.
- Changes in vision
This is probably the symptom most associated with DP/DR and anxiety. The sudden change in our most important sensory input (our eyesight), can provoke tons of anxiety regarding our own well-being, and therefore more DP/DR. The changes in our vision may include things like:
- Seeing “static snow” in dark places
- Feeling as if there is a pane of glass between the world and the sufferer
- Objects may seem to move or “breathe” if focused upon
- Changes in perception that is difficult to explain
- More awareness of eye-floaters and white dots when looking at bright sources of light
- Sensitivity to fluorescent lighting
Why do all these changes occur? Well, what happens during high anxiety? Our pupils dilate! In a high anxiety sate, it is only logical to assume that our brain send signals to our eyes to prepare us for danger. In a real dangerous situation, this ability is a blessing since it allows more light to pass through the eye, making us more aware of our surroundings to deal with the threat. In a false dangerous situation (like DP/DR), we get to sit and analyze and worry about this perfectly natural change. This behaviour causes more anxiety and we basically give ourselves a reason to still be on the lookout for danger, causing the derealization to stick.
- Hypochondria
During DP/DR we tend to become much more aware of our own body and what we feel and think. Combined with the allready high anxiety state, it is only logical to assume that new sensations and thoughts may quickly lead to the conclusion that we are afflicted by some terrible disease. Remember that we constantly are on the lookout for something to blame for how we are feeling. The primary results of this behaviour is:
- Thinking you are going mad
- Worrying that the condition may “evolve”
- Feeling overly aware of your body and mind
- Constantly “checking in” on how you are feeling
Personally, I thought I had conditions like schizophrenia, Parkinson’s disease, delirium, brain damage etc. Even after I knew I was suffering from anxiety DP/DR I often worried that the condition would evolve into something worse. This never happened of course, and never happens in anyone!
- Other symptoms caused by high anxiety:
- Feeling off-balance/dizzy
- Feeling as if you are “floating” when walking
- Cold hands and feet (blood preservation)
- Vivid imagination before going to sleep
- Depression and deep frustration/anger etc.
- Feelings of guilt
- Racing/violent thoughts
- Thoughts of “disappearing” into nothingness
- Loss of appetite
- Feeling clammy and stuffy
- Thoughts of an existential nature
- Feelings of dread and hopelessness
- Anti-social behaviour
- Pacification
- Insomnia
- Impaired Memory
- “Jelly Legs” (feels like your legs can’t support your body)
During my experience with anxiety I encountered all of the above symptoms. What you feel or think may be highly individual, but I believe the list above is a good approximation of your average DP/DR sufferer. Another important thing to point out is that all of these “symptoms” in reality are just sensations or thoughts, and none of them poses any direct threat to the sufferer! Sensations are only sensations, and have never hurt anyone.
Hi, I have had derealization 24/7 for over 4 years.
it started when i took a course of cipro antibiotics. These as it turned out are very bad antibiotics and attack the central nervous system, and are listed as causing deralization,anxiety amongst loads of other problems.
Initially when i first took them i had lots of anxiety, but this seems to have gone in the last couple of years. But reading your story it seems as though you can still have anxiety and not know it.
I have not worked for 4 years because of this. Before this i was a self employed stonemason in the UK, and very fit and happy.
My sense of humour has come back in this last year, thank God. I am finding it hard to believe that this feeling is still anxiety, as it came on with the cipro.
Did you ever take this around the time of getting ill?
If you can give me any help at all it would be so good, as my quality of life is not good.
Kind regards Dudley smith
This is great to see that someone else has written a great guide to something that is awful that has a tendency to come and go depending on your current state of living.
I have suffered with this for 5 years.
READ ME
Please read this.
I have found the greatest cure ever for this – exercise.
I guarantee if you can do 30mins and hour of exercise for two weeks you will feel great and the symptoms will fade away.
All this is, is chemical imbalances and you need to burn of these excess chemicals.
Biking jumping jogging.
For me jogging until i was out of breath and really pushed myself until i couldn’t run any more for two weeks completely got rid of these.
DO IT
When I have these derealizations, it sometimes feels like episodes in my life flash by, like dominos or a deck of cards flipping. I can’t quite figure out what the illusions are but I know they are things I have experienced. I have been under severe stress in the last five years, losing both my mother and husband to cancer, my husband’s illness was the worst and the longest. I alos experience a Grand Mal seizure in 2004 before all this mess started. I also experience a headache at the top of my head. I’m seeing a physchiatrist, he’s the one who told me about these, and also a neurologist. Anybody else have the flash backs?
I am 19 an have in previous years and at the mommemt been suffering from this derealization. Having the thought that the world and my life is nothing but a figment of my own imagination. I find this very terrifying, leading me to believe that if this is fake, then why bother continueing? I have noticed a pattern that brings up these thoughts and ideas. These ideas and thoughts always manifest during times of stress and anxiety. I want to try and practice the grounding techniques and different practices, but the thoughts seem to come back making me feel like there is no sense in trying to get better if this is not real. It is very hard to explain and it is a viscious cycle. I always say if I could just get inside another persons head to see that they think like me and visually see what I see then I would know that everything is real. All I can think is if this wasnt real, why am I trying to get help? It just a battle in my head. I’ll have very clear momments that this is real, but then the thoughts come in SECOND GUESSING myself that maybe it isnt. Its a snowball affect from there. Reading these stories has helped, has brought somecomfort that others feel this way when i thought i was alone, and lets me feel a but more “real” and that others are real as well. So thank you, and any more info or reccomemndations would be very much appreciated by myself and others who deal with these thoughts and ideas that we cannot seem to shake.
Hi I experienced my first episode of derealisation 13 years ago. I can remember every episode and what happens during them. They can last from about 30 minutes to hours and I have even awoken the following day in the same state. I was initially diagnosed with epilepsy but subsequently it was decided that it was related to anxiety. When an episode occurs I get a feeling of deja vu in that I know I am about to slip into this state. Sometimes I see a familiar face although I do not know who it is – it just seems familiar. I lose the familiarity of my surroundings although I know who everyone is and where I am. Looking at me no one would be aware that anything different is happening to me. I can continue with my task but inside I fee so different. Sometimes it scares me so much I feel like crying. When it happens I usually get a second one later in the day either stronger or weaker than the first. I am 54 years old and female. Would anyone else every have feelings like mine?