[Tucson]

I am beginning to realize that I may have had this happen through my life, some episodes worse than others. I need to know everyone’s experience with this and how it felt to you. For example, many years ago a had a full semester of classes in college. I would drive myself to my classes. One day I found myself in the cafeteria not understanding how I got there. This happened in the afternoon after my morning classes. I could not also remember anything of the morning classes, what I did, and where I was. It is as though I woke up to find myself there surrounded by people eating their lunch. This did scare me. I have had other episodes like this.

One time at a restaurant I was talking with someone I knew. I felt as though I was removed from what was happening. Next thing I knew, I found myself next to a car with my keys in my hand. I did not know where I was, whose car was next to me, and what I was doing with the keys in my hand. The car seemed totally foreign to me. Then reality came flooding in. I recognized that car as being my own. I then knew where I was. I unlocked the car and went home.

What does this sound like to you? Was I just self-absorbed? Or was something else happening to me? This came up in another thread here, but I would like to know specifically what this means. How serious is this? I think stress may explain some of this.

Thank you in advance for your helpful replies. I am happy to be here for the support you have been giving me me and the others here.

[99fairies]

I think you are right about the stress. When I'm too stressed and my anxiety is through the roof, My surroundings become very unfamiliar and I end up in places I had no idea where I was or how I got there. My pdoc told me to take some benzos when I feel the anxiety getting too high. It helps from making it worse. Best wishes.

[SorryShaped]

Reads like a few incidents I've had. Here are my experiences.
One, on Latuda, I woke up confused as I had been for days, and at some point after, I drove a very long distance, got out of my car and walked another long distance and got lost. I had no idea where I was or what I'd done to get there. But, I had a receipt for coffee. I got back to where the receipt was from and there sat my car, with the keys in the rear door. Yikes!
Another time, I was on a pain med, and drove 30 miles away from my destination, had no idea how I got there, and did not have the wherewithal to figure it out, until I got a phone call that kind of snapped me out of it and I freaked out because I realized what had to have happened.
On another psych meds cocktail that was wrong for me entirely, I walked almost 17 miles round trip and didn't figure it out until the next day, when the person I apparently walked to see called to tell me they found my wallet in their couch cushions while cleaning.
I've had other confused times on meds too, and a few off meds times, like that second week of psychosis on mania with no sleep, or the depressive episodes where my body and mind do completely separate things and I know nothing of it, like a blackout, but without drugs or alcohol. Haven't had either of those in years.
When under heavy stress, I sometimes, but rarely, sleepwalk. Waking up outside in my undies in sub-freezing temps is a whole new thing to contend with.

[Zigy]

Something like this used to happen to me when my anxiety was really high. There were gaps in my life. Anywhere from several seconds to several minutes. The most scary was I was driving and I suddenly found myself many miles ahead not remembering how I crossed two bridges along the way.

At other times I feel like my mind was inside someone else's body, like I was looking through their eyes and moving their limbs. Totally unreal. This was very unpleasant. This was before I was diagnosed with BP and on antidepressants.

[HALLIEBETH87]

I get derealization. It's like I'm not apart of the world going on around me. I see it but I'm cut off from it. It's distorted.

[Tucson]

I want to tell of a particular experience of mine. This ended up getting me in trouble with the law, despite me not knowing actually what happened. I was sitting down in my chair at home. I got the thought of going to a grocery store several miles away. I blanked out. When I became aware again, I found myself in the parking lot of that same grocery store. I then blanked out again to find myself back home. Keep in mind I was not taking anything but my prescribed meds at prescribed dosages. Nothing else. Police knocked at my door, gave me a sobriety test, and then arrested me. I was not able to understand some of the specifics that he was asking of me, but I understood what he probably wanted me to do. I blanked out again and then found myself in a chair at the police station with one of the officers about to take my blood. I understood what they were saying to each other and my thought that it would be best to take blood from my right arm. Instead they used the veins on the back of my right hand.I remember thinking of how painless it was. I then blanked out again to find myself back home alone.

I asked my neighbor how I got home. Apparently the police called her up to take me home. Along the way home, we stopped at a gas station for hotdogs. I did not and still am not able to remember any of this. I asked my neighbor about how I behaved. I wanted to know if I was slurring my speach or staggering in my walk. She said that I did not do these things. She said I just looked a little distracted, but otherwise normal. The blood test did not reveal anything that could of caused any of this. Only lorazepam was found that was at the lower part of its therapeutic range. I use this every night to help me sleep.

So what happened here? Can this be something like a very bad case of rerealization? Maybe something is really wrong with me? Maybe something is physically wrong with my brain? I am not sure I want to find out, but I must. This did really scare the hell out of me. I was trerrified for weeks. Lost 45 pounds in about a month. I ended up down 60 pounds. This was not due to any attempt to diet. This just happened.

[xRavenx]

I get derealization when highly stressed. Not often, but enough to be frightened and concerned. I become unaware of my surroundings, and it can hit me out of nowhere. I hate when it happens when around others, because I have been judged, called absent-minded, when it was a scary experience for me. Although in general I am not the best person when it comes to being aware of my surroundings, sometimes it's almost a dream-like state and things seem confusing around me. I can also relate to the car-related experience that you had.

Other times, I'll get dissociation/possible depersonalization, where I feel detached from my body, but feel trapped in a past moment or experience. When I come back inside my body, I start crying or experience a panic attack. I don't have PTSD. I do know complex trauma can sometimes be the route of some of these things, as I learned in Psychology, but my experiences seemed different than that, although very unpleasant, scary, confusing, uncomfortable, etc. I don't experience this often, but the times where I have experienced this has been alarming.

I had a weird experience once. My health class instructor took out a gun and fired a blank. I don’t know if it was a starting gun for racing.

Anyway, I didn’t react. Everyone else jumped, and a lot of us were upset. But I felt nothing at all. We were then to write about the experience. I was honest. The health instructor came up to me, tossed my paper at me, and in a very snotty tone said he didn’t believe me.

I’ve also had a coworker tell me I had been yelled at by a very nasty person not long after it happened, and I couldn’t remember it until he repeated it several times, not believing I could possibly not remember it.

My therapist says it’s complex PTSD in my case.

She says my time tracking problem is from cortisol due to anxiety.

I don’t know what is causing your symptoms, but explore it with your pdoc/t.

[Tucson]

Yes, this Thursday I have an appointment with my PCP. I also have an appointment with my pdoc tomorrow. I have been really messed up over the past several months.

[OldTaylor]

Originally Posted by Tucson

I am beginning to realize that I may have had this happen through my life, some episodes worse than others. I need to know everyone’s experience with this and how it felt to you. For example, many years ago a had a full semester of classes in college. I would drive myself to my classes. One day I found myself in the cafeteria not understanding how I got there. This happened in the afternoon after my morning classes. I could not also remember anything of the morning classes, what I did, and where I was. It is as though I woke up to find myself there surrounded by people eating their lunch. This did scare me. I have had other episodes like this.

One time at a restaurant I was talking with someone I knew. I felt as though I was removed from what was happening. Next thing I knew, I found myself next to a car with my keys in my hand. I did not know where I was, whose car was next to me, and what I was doing with the keys in my hand. The car seemed totally foreign to me. Then reality came flooding in. I recognized that car as being my own. I then knew where I was. I unlocked the car and went home.

What does this sound like to you? Was I just self-absorbed? Or was something else happening to me? This came up in another thread here, but I would like to know specifically what this means. How serious is this? I think stress may explain some of this.

Thank you in advance for your helpful replies. I am happy to be here for the support you have been giving me me and the others here.

What first occurred to me was fugue state. Then I found that that had been changed to dissociative disorder. The problem with that is there is no wandering (only a kind of fading in and out of consciousness) and, if I'm not mistaken, memory of identity remains intact. "Depersonalization" is a kind of out of body experience where one seems to observe himself or herself outside of the self--observance of mental processes and body. That doesn't seem to fit the events described here either. "Derealization" defined requires a belief that reality itself has been altered. I myself couldn't interpret any sentence or phrase here in a way that might suggest such a belief though one or more might exist. So, to this point and attempting to be objective, I see self-absorption as the best assessment.

[*Laurie*]

There is a ton of info online about depersonalization/derealization. For me, it feels like I am always looking through a glass wall at the world and the world looks unreal, or surreal. It's been this way for me for nearly 30 years.

Try http://www.dpselfhelp.com/forum/

[UpDownAround]

I responded to the similar thing in the "autopilot" thread. I have the sensation of suddenly waking up and becoming aware even though I am going about the business of my life. It takes me a few seconds to get my bearings and I usually can remember what happened earlier, but not always. I was referred to a neurologist for this (pdoc/t don't think it is part of bipolar) and I saw him the other day. He poked, prodded, asked questions and referred me to a neuropsychiatrist for a battery of tests. I haven't made that appointment yet (they are supposed to call me).

I also have the surreal view that Laurie mentions, but not a glass wall. That's full time. The "autopilot" events are just that - events. They may happen more than once a day or I might go a few days without one, but they are fairly frequent.

I wrote an article about my experiences with both depersonalization and derealization a while back on my blog. Though I have experienced dissociative amnesia, more often I didn't. My experiences ranged from feeling I was in some kind of different realm, out of body experiences, visual and auditory distortions, completely ungrounded, and even having dissociative hallucinations.

I eventually figured out what some of my triggers were and began to use grounding techniques to prevent the dissociative experiences. They really helped. I have not experienced dissociation in a long time.

If interested in my blog post, find it below. It also includes grounding techniques that have been very helpful for me.

https://birdflight.blog/2017/03/06/d...-prevent-them/