Hey all. I'm going to start out by saying I don't have any sort of official diagnosis for this. However, I strongly relate to the symptoms of depersonalization and derealization. I'm not sure if I have the disorder or not, that's not really why I'm posting.

I've had this chronically for the past 6 years. I'm wondering if anyone has some methods that help to make this world feel real again and not so dreamlike. Some exercises or meditation or... anything, really. I understand there isn't any real known "cure" for this, it's just that it seems that whenever I talk to mental health care professionals they seem to gloss it over as much as they can. Anyways, so yeah... Does anyone have any advice on what I can do to help lift the symptoms a little?

I will say they put me on an SSRI for anxiety and depression and the "feelings of being detached" which has significantly cut down the anxiety which is a bit of a god-send. However, I think they may also be making things feel foggier, more dreamlike and less real than even before which I didn't think was possible.

I have good reason to believe that this experience is, at the least partly, in response to gender dysphoria symptoms if that helps any.

Here's what I strongly relate to. You could probably skip this if you want It's just in case it is helpful at all... Some points I copied from other resources some are my own.

• I feel strange, as if I were not real.
• The world around me also feels strange as if it were not real.
• What I see looks ‘flat’ or ‘lifeless’, as if I were looking at a picture.
• When I weep or laugh, I do not seem to feel any emotions at all.
• I have the feeling that when I speak it feels as if my words were being uttered by an ‘automaton’.
• My surroundings feel detached or unreal, as if there was a veil between me and the outside world.
  Like a dream, or in a fog, perceiving visual darkness even if there isn’t.
• Nothing feels real. I feel like I am always asleep.
• It seems as if things that I have recently done had taken place a long time ago. For example anything which I have done this morning feels as if it were done weeks ago.
• I feel detached from memories of things that have happened to me – as if I had not been involved in them.
• Anomalies in subjective recall: memories lack emotion, seem like a dream, 3rd person viewpoint like watching a film
• Sometimes my thoughts and emotions do not feel like they are my own, but it’s as though I am peering into someone else’s ‘hard drive’ (someone else’s thoughts, but a very distant, lifeless feel to it like recalling something from a textbook).
• I feel like I'm watching someone else live life for me.

Sorry for such a long post... I'm just at my wits' end about this