Depersonalization: what is it and how to bring yourself back to reality

The earth leaves from under the feet, and it is not possible to put in the head what is happening around. On days like these, advice to quit caffeine and get grounded feels like psyllium. Useful in the moment, they can seem empty under prolonged stress.

When the circumstances are intense, large-scale and impossible to control, we all find ourselves in a borderline situation for a while. At such moments, it becomes easier to understand people with anxiety disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder (BPD), and bipolar affective disorder (BAD).

From extreme to extreme: is it difficult for you to inhale or exhale?

“I was whole and I was broken, I was alive and I was killed,” the words from the song of the Splin group are perhaps one of the most accurate descriptions of a person living in a difficult, borderline situation. It is normal to be inconsistent, unstable and confused.

An indicator of the intensity of the anxiety experienced by a person can be breathing. Psychologist Anastasia Dolganova offers pay attention to what is more difficult to do in a situation of extreme excitement: inhalation or exhalation.

A person can feel it in moments when he is face to face with repressed, forbidden feelings: aggression, greed, lust, jealousy.

It is in this case that breathing restoration techniques and mobile meditation applications, as well as self-soothing and returning to reality techniques, are effective for relieving symptoms. In the long run, this can be work on accepting the shadow sides, recognizing ambiguous emotions, and forming a more realistic self-image.

And the techniques to overcome it will be different. Such anxiety arises against the background of fear of death, meaninglessness, despair and isolation.

In Existential Psychotherapy, Irvin Yalom gives a personal example of dealing with the fear of death after a car accident. The psychologist speaks of a background experience that he experiences for several months after: «the world began to seem unreliable.» He becomes sinister, loses his comfort. The internal boundaries of a person in such a situation are blurred, the usual supports are crumbling.

“We can respond to a crisis of meaning by defensively repressing the topic, by splitting off the consciousness of the suffering part of the personality… We can succumb to despair and become cynical,” write Ursula Wirtz and Jörg Zobeli in their book The Thirst for Meaning. Man in extreme situations. The limits of psychotherapy.

Another option is to look for meaning in «dialogue filled with love.» If there is a topic for discussion and space for disclosure, there is a real meeting with another person. Thus, according to Wirtz and Zobeli, intimacy is formed, as a deep interaction of people. 

Those who are here and now able to hear, understand and accept. Then inexpressible despair and fear begin to take on boundaries, impotence does not go away, but becomes bearable.

If the dialogue becomes more and more like a game of ping-pong, the interlocutors do not hear each other and the conversation resembles two alternate monologues, pulling back and increasing the distance will be a saving tactic.

Absurd, sur and alienation: how to survive derealization

When circumstances overwhelm you, it can be difficult to cope with this, and sometimes unbearable. In such situations, the human psyche resorts to the most powerful defenses. One of these is depersonalization. It can act as an independent symptom, be one of the manifestations of bipolar affective disorder, schizophrenia or depression, as well as a mechanism for protecting a healthy psyche in extreme situations.

If you look at the reflection in the mirror for a long time, for a few seconds your own face may seem unfamiliar, strange and alien. This is one of the simple and short options for depersonalization. At such moments, a person ceases to feel himself and feel at all. And reality begins to seem like the frames of a surreal film.

There is another similar condition. Do you know this strange feeling when a familiar simple word suddenly turned into a meaningless, empty sound? You repeat it, but you don’t seem to recognize it. When something like this happens to the outside world, it’s called derealization. The familiar space of a room can become a completely unfamiliar place in a second. This feeling of alienation and unrecognition can be unpleasant, intense, and difficult to bear. For example, Jean-Paul Sartre called this condition nausea.

“Any human activity — the work we go to every day, the conduct of religious ceremonies, the daily natural functions — seems strange, if not absurd, if you look at it without emotions and full involvement,» — this is how Daphne Simeon and Jeffrey describe the state of depersonalization Abugel in the work «I am not Me. What is depersonalization and how to live with it.»

This detachment can be depressing, frightening, and hard to bear. Or, on the contrary, when experiencing the death of a loved one, loss and in a difficult life situation, give the person some relief.

The duration depends on whether the person has a tendency to depersonalize or is it a single reaction to an excessive stimulus. Short-term depersonalization or derealization is quite normal.

Simeon and Abugel say that the ideal way to break the vicious cycle of fear and anxiety is to remove the stressful situations that set it off. However, this is not always possible. The authors also talk about the healing power of a psychotherapeutic (and not only) conversation, an attempt to gain control over circumstances (through any creative action).

Checklist: How to Recognize Depersonalization

1. You don’t feel anything. Linkin Park’s biggest hit «Numb» describes a state of numbness, a weak feeling of being yourself («I’m so numb that I no longer feel that you are here. / I’m so tired, I began to understand much more»^*). This may be a fairly accurate description of depersonalization.

2. You are living yourself in third person. Thoughts, feelings, memories and body — all this is not yours.

3. You don’t recognize yourself. Your perception distorts the way you see yourself, body parts seem alien and/or altered, your head is foggy and thoughts come with effort. You look at your own hand and seem to take a moment to recognize it as part of you. 

4. You don’t feel in control of your body. It seems to move not by your will, but by itself. Speech sounds like from the outside and you do not control it.

Checklist: how to recognize derealization

1. You are asleep. It is difficult to recognize in the state in which you are, reality. Everything is experienced as unreal.

2. You don’t feel attached. Close people are perceived as strangers.

3. You distort time and forms. The intervals between the past and the future expand inadequately: recent events are subjectively perceived as long past. The shapes of objects and their appearance look strange, distorted, unrecognizable — for example, the room seems to be compressed or stretched.

What can be done to overcome alienation from reality?

Set up a sleep pattern

Disruption of circadian rhythms can be a trigger for depersonalization / derealization, and also affect the degree of its manifestation

Refuse alcohol and other substances that cause an altered state of consciousness

Researchers have not yet found a direct causal relationship, but often these factors stimulate and prolong the feeling of detachment, insensitivity.

Check the list of side effects of medications you take regularly

If you endure depersonalization / derealization painfully and you associate its intensity with a specific drug, this is a reason to consult a specialist, replace the pills.

Remember that the experienced state has a beginning and an end.

It won’t last forever.

Repeat to yourself that depersonalization / derealization is a defensive reaction of the psyche

This is an attempt to separate from the world and avoid a potential threat. Try not to focus on anxiety from the occurrence of such a condition, concentrate on simple routine activities.

Seek contact with another person

With a friend, relative or person with a similar experience. Discuss, share and express feelings. 

Talk to a psychologist or psychiatrist

Request feedback and support from a specialist.

^{* I’ve become so numb I can’t feel you there}

I’ve become so tired so much more aware^.