Emotionally Numb And Physically Disconnected?

The thing, it seems, is to embrace depersonalization. Becoming familiar with the problem, seeing it as a part of life and working with it. We do not identify them or abolish them. We are trying to apply pressure or make a volcano out of it. Hostility never works and only exacerbates the problem.

That is true of many things, but it is especially true of this one, and that is why it is so true right now.

When you feel something, you don't feel like you know why you feel it. They work on autopilot, like a robot and not like a living person. Your thoughts seem to come out of your head, but you cannot possess them. Your self is hidden, and you are not really you.

It's like driving down a country road in the pouring rain, and all you see is a world of dirty windscreens that look obscure. It's a dreamlike world, and you feel disconnected from it, from yourself, anxious, lost, overwhelmed and trapped. Your body doesn't feel like your own. Watching a film about one's life is like watching a movie in the cinema. You want to feel like you're in yourself.

When I was a kid, I loved pop books, and I still do, every now and then. And I was like, "OK.

You open one, and a magical world appears before you. Look, there's a princess in her puffy pink dress. She looks at her prince, who smiles at her and holds the reins.

A guard with a helmet and feathers holds a lance in his hand, ready to stop you and ask for your name. A flag on a tower flutters in the wind. All are located inside the castle.

It seems three-dimensional, but it is not. It's flat and unreal and nothing at all. It felt like a huge part of my life, and I thought it was going to appear in my books.

My first memory of distancing came at a young age. My mother left me alone in the bathtub because she had a troubled soul and patience was not her strength. When I reached for a toy, my butt slid down and I slipped into the water with my eyes open and my body frozen. I lay there, breathless, terrified, helpless, until she found me at the bottom of the tub and looked up at her from the water. I slept in my cradle, quietly.

She couldn't see me, but she was looking for us. And not only that, I've been sitting there for a while, causing mom trouble. She had to pull me up so she could get over.

My parents worked hard and studied hard, especially at night. Both had ambitions to become civil engineers at a young age. But the story is not there yet.

When the water is taken from one level to the other in an attached vessel, nothing changes.

They took their time to study, and I paid the price. I lived in my kindergarten on Monday mornings and Friday afternoons and only saw my parents at weekends. No wonder I developed crippling separation anxiety. In the summer between kindergarten and moving to the countryside, I only saw her every three months.

There was no one to help me ease the pain. I wanted to be old enough to go to school, so I lived at home during the day. When I reached school age, it helped to balance my brain, which had been trained in a certain way.

I always felt insecure around people. I was scared all the time of speaking in front of the class, doing something wrong, being criticized. From people who discovered I was uncool or stupid.

I had panic attacks and experiences outside the body that kept me inside myself. My memories became a series of disconnected dots, no pictures, no noises, no smells, no tactile sensations, just a lot of nothing. I froze in front of teachers and classmates, my mind drifted, and detachment became my coping mechanism.

I became anxious and insecure, doubting myself and allowing others to make decisions on my behalf. I felt unreal every day I left home and returned. At first, it did not take long for these feelings to return to reality, but over time, the return to normality took longer and longer. My greatest fear of change and the unknown during the summer was the worst, especially during the three-month school holidays, summer camp and alone at home.

Dreaming became an integral part of my life. I missed the fun of being young and carefree. Through my psychology studies, I became acquainted with Depersonalization and Derealization Disorder (DDD) and recognized its symptoms in myself, but it did not improve my condition.

When I started therapy, it was the first time in my life that a person paid attention to me. He not only listened to my thoughts and feelings, but confirmed them. He opened my eyes to what was happening to me, and the words "abuse" and "psychopath" made my body shudder.

If it hadn't been for my mother, I would have defended her even more vigorously than I have done and probably still do.

My therapist was an understanding patient, and magic happened on a sunny spring day. When I stood in her office, the barriers between me and the world disappeared. Clear sounds and colours strike me. Filters fell away, and my senses came alive and in tune. I had a sense of belonging to the world and I was ecstatic.

After a few years I was symptom-free and had completely forgotten DDD. 'After all, I've been there so long.

Exhausted from caring for my father, lonely and angry, my mother used me as a lightning rod for her overwhelming negativity. She lost all mourning over my father's death and proved me wrong. After a few angry and hurtful words, I sank into an emotional fog for twenty years. Instead of struggling with my brain and feeling angry and scared, I had no choice but to learn how to coexist without being owned with DDD. I would like to share with you what I have learned.

For most people, this is a temporary condition that will disappear with treatment. There are things you can do to relieve the pain and prevent DDD from recurring in the future. Being anxious, worried or obsessed about getting rid of it can make it stay.

Once you are in this room, your self-esteem drops dramatically, both physically and emotionally. The more you do that, the more space there is, and the more your self-confidence diminishes.

Here it is useful to keep mindfulness on the ground. It's important to stay present and focus on what you're doing. If you have difficulty concentrating on the activity, practice deep breathing and tune in to your senses with the 5-4-3-2-1 technique. Name five things that you see around you, four things you touch when you're outside, three things that you hear, two things that you smell and a thing you taste.

Anxiety is a normal part of life and can sometimes be useful. Fear of challenges and unknowns can help you stay aroused and mobilized in solving problems. But when these feelings become so intense that one cannot think clearly, productivity falls, and one must calm down in order to minimize episodes of derealization.

Accept that this is a part of your current life. There are many anti-anxiety techniques to choose from, from controlled breathing to physical activity, but be prepared for challenges that you feel ready for whatever comes next. For more tips on coping with anxiety, click here.

I know you don't want that. It is a painful condition, and your instinct tells you to get rid of it. But fighting means focusing on issues and obsessions that only make it worse. When you feel anxious, your DDD becomes stronger. Although it is not life-threatening, it is different and unpleasant.

Ask how you would live your life if you didn't have DDD. Do your usual routine every morning. Make time with friends and family an important part of your day.

If your anxiety symptoms persist for more than a few months, you may want to try therapy. The sooner you make peace with your symptoms, the sooner they will disappear. Not all of your symptoms will go away, but your DDD symptoms will get better if you follow the steps described above.

An experienced therapist can help you find out the causes of your symptoms. If you uncover a trauma in your past, an experienced therapist will help you process the experience.

Your therapist can teach you stress management and coping strategies for dealing with dissociation. Being able to practice these skills in a safe environment is a huge bonus. They can also work on anxiety and depression, which are often the underlying problems of DDD.

Medications are used to treat depression and anxiety if they are present, and this can help you cure of DDD. There are medications that are approved for this purpose. However, there is no evidence that these drugs are effective for all symptoms. I tried them and they didn't help with my symptoms.

I felt tired and sleepy and unable to function in everyday life. The more I did, the less I could do.

At some point I had to take them all off, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually as well as mentally.

Some people report that their symptoms decrease according to a specific medication protocol, and you might want to explore this possibility yourself. You may need to see a psychiatrist for this.

Neurofeedback is a technique that trains a particular brain function by teaching it to do something else, such as.

People sit facing a screen with electrodes attached to their scalp and watch a show or play a game. The person responsible for the treatment monitors your brainwave activity from moment to moment. The information is processed by a computer, which shows you images on your screen that get smaller, bigger, brighter or darker depending on the change in brain activity. The system rewards the brain for selecting suitable functional patterns by supporting desirable frequencies and reducing undesirable ones. One could say that neurofeedback trains self-regulation because it helps to balance the central nervous system, but it is a slow learning process that can take months.

It is offered by psychologists, therapists, counsellors and occupational therapists in Germany and abroad as well as in the USA.

Mental health treatments work for some, but not others. I started with neurofeedback last year. Tomorrow is my 55th session and my symptoms have not changed, so I cannot make glowing personal recommendations. However, I have read that it can be helpful for many.