[*Laurie*]

Hi, Does anyone on this board have derealization? I mean, the kind in which it looks like you see the world from behind a pane of glass, so that everything takes on the quality of being unreal? If so, is there anything that helps...medication, for example?

[roads]

This sounds like a protective tool, a way of keeping distance between you and your world--perhaps giving you a position of objectivity that is very difficult to maintain in day-to-day contact with life's questions.

But you ask about getting rid of it, so it sounds like your stuck in that perspective. I know journals who speak o f getting the objective viewpoint in place before they write about a story filled with emotion, but it's something they control.

Have you tried meditation? Work with one sense at a time and work to get past that glass pane. For example, play music that has special meaning for you. Really hear the separate instruments, imagine being in the performance and sense each musician and each instrument. Hum or play bits of the music if you can. Do the same thing with a painting or photograph: try to physically connect to every experiential as an immediate reality for you.

I take it you're a writer. What you're suffering sounds like a sort of writers block that suggests you're not currently writing what your gut wants to be dealing with.

Is there something you get a flash on, a sense that you need to deal with something that you've been avoiding? It may not be something for sending out--it may be something that's part of a block in your life. Because you're a writer, your best analytic tool is language.

I was in a Jungian dream group for many years with several writers. Often they had dreams that seemed to be seen throu a picture screen of some kind. Things weren't what they seemed to be and if they could reach through the screen they could begin to understand the reality behind the screen. I think many writers work from dreams, even if they don't realize they are bits of dreams that float into our conscious mind during the day.

I'll get moments of DP/DR that do pass eventually, I just have to sit, wait and watch or use grounding techniques, focusing on my surroundings in the present.

I've seen and have visual hallucinations that things looking unreal doesn't bother me anymore.

I don't know if there is medication for it, but talk therapy is often used. If it's really disturbing to you, then talking to a T needs to be.

Good luck!

[*Laurie*]

Thank you both. For me, the derealization happened only occasionally, as episodes, between the ages of 8 and 26. By the time I was 26 I was a full-time mom and wife, working hard at maintaining my home and family, and was very tired (and battling anxiety). The episodes came more often. Eventually they never went away. So for the past 26 years (I'm 52) the derealization has been constant. Klonopin helped some for 2 years, but stopped helping after that and with all the many meds I've been on, nothing (including AP's) has ever touched the derealization.

I am an experienced meditator...been practicing meditation since I was seventeen. I really like what you posted, roads: 'Work with one sense at a time and work to get past that glass pane. For example, play music that has special meaning for you. Really hear the separate instruments, imagine being in the performance and sense each musician and each instrument. Hum or play bits of the music if you can. Do the same thing with a painting or photograph: try to physically connect to every experiential as an immediate reality for you.'

I figure the dereal. is either some kind of defense mechanism (dissociation), as you suggested roads, or it's literally a neurological issue of some sort (any testing I've had done has not conclusively proven anything, but then so little is really known about the brain & how it functions...frustrating).

The Jungian group sounds fascinating.

The only thing I can think of that I'm avoiding is finding out the root of the severe anxiety I struggle with. But then, it's a chicken-and-egg thing...does my brain just produce anxiety, or is something actually making me anxious (something that I can change)?

Very helpful feedback, roads and AlwaysChanging2. Thank you

[finding_my_way]

i have struggled with this before and still do at times. it is very confusing and can make things difficult.

i have never found anything to help pull me out of it or any other type of dissociation though. my body/head seem to react before i even realize it most times.

i can remember years ago, i was on a medication which made it 100 times worse for me to the point i was questioning if i really existed and thought the only way to figure that out was to end my life or try to....needless to say, that really scared me and i went off the medication before i followed through with it. it was different than my 'usual' feelings of wanting to end my life..but was very bizarre and nothing i'd ever care to relive.

[flockpride]

For me it seems to be related to sheer overwhelm, sensory and otherwise. It's like my ability to process gets almost shut down and I'm there behind a veil. The outside world is very far away.

[Armadillo Roll]

I definately suffer from it, as of right now as a matter of fact. I can't say that there's a sole medication that can take it away although some wish that were the case. Although I've read about some who had taken meds and it worked wonders for them. Of course, everyone's different. Embracing it is the one thing that's helping me. It can be tough at times though.

[*Laurie*]

Originally Posted by flockpride

For me it seems to be related to sheer overwhelm, sensory and otherwise. It's like my ability to process gets almost shut down and I'm there behind a veil. The outside world is very far away.

Yes, derealization seems to be a reaction to overwhelming stress.

Thank you all, so much.

Originally Posted by flockpride

For me it seems to be related to sheer overwhelm, sensory and otherwise. It's like my ability to process gets almost shut down and I'm there behind a veil. The outside world is very far away.

That's exactly it for me! Walking into a supermarket and I'd be overwhelmed by sensory overload with all the cashier noises, people, colors, shapes, sounds, lights, products labels, moving objects...

It's like walking in a daze in funnyland. I'll start reading labels and handling product till I ground again. Then I go get my high blood pressure checked.

[*Laurie*]

Yes ^^^^

Clearly some of us are hyper-sensitive to the environment and cope by dissociating.