Hi sickntired

I'm familiar with this topic cuz it really affects me a lot. Here is a little info and I hope it helps.

Dissociative symptoms can be secundairy symptoms by a lot of personality disorders, but in most cases it is derealization - depersonalization (DP).
The DP can occur as a dissociative phenomenon by f.i.;
Depression
Anxiety Disorder
Dissociative Identity Disorder
Borderline Personality Syndrome
Schizophrenia, Epilepsy and Autism

Depersonalization as a primairy dissociative disorder is where a person "looks at themselves from the outside", and observes their own physical actions or mental processes as if they were an observer instead of themselves. This often brings a sense of unreality, and an alteration in the perception of the environment around them, as well as the person fearing they are not in full control of themselves. Depersonalization can occur during a number of different times, and not be a disorder. In order to qualify as a disorder, it must be recurrent to the point that it interferes with daily functioning in at least one major area of life.

The DSM IV criteria are:

Persistent or recurrent experiences of feeling detached from, and as if one is an outside observer of, one's mental processes or body (for example, feeling like one is in a dream).
During the depersonalization experience, reality testing remains intact.
The depersonalization causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
The depersonalization experience does not occur exclusively during the course of another mental disorder, such as Schizophrenia, Panic Disorder, Acute Stress Disorder, or another Dissociative Disorder, and is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (for example, a drug of abuse, a medication) or a general medical condition (for example, temporal lobe epilepsy).

www.strangerinthemirror.com

This is a really good site and I know on this site there is a questionnaire.

I read this book and it was excellent and very helpful. The website was really good.

Hope this helped.

~E