Derealization thoughts and anxiety attacks.

Hey everyone !
This is my first thread here so it will be much appreciated if you could help me and take your time to read it.

Brief :
I was diagnosed with anxiety disorder when i was around age 14 or so .
Then came the derealization disorder that i remember it started in math class , when i was trying to learn something i just felt unfocused and couldnt focus on what im doing , but when the class was over it went away..
But one day in class after we finished learning , the feeling stayed with me ever since...
It was when i was around 17 and now im almost 21.
On the first days i felt like a robot , answering people questions automatically and responding to a situation automatically without any feeling.
When i laughed i couldnt feel that im really laughing on the inside , it felt so ... dead.
I also had the weird sight symptom that you feel a little bit drunk/sleepy/in a dream/ foggy/ behind a glass window...
Luckily i got over my anxiety problems and i havent got an anxiety attack for almost a year , but the derealization stayed.
Hopefully all the "Feeling like a robot" feeling went away and i can finally feel Feelings and expirience them , but the annoying sight feeling wont go away .
It stayed ever since and it gets worse if i dont sleep well or if i sleep at morning and awake at night.

That was the brief...

I saw a post from a guy who posted it here really long ago...

I will copy and paste only the feelings that i feel the same as he wrote.
Btw (the anxiety came back because of loss of a few loved ones and me who got diagnosed with cancer before 2 years).

Here it is :

I didn't believe I was experiencing a panic attack, but several EKGs later, and after running from MD to MD, I realized my problem was less physical and more emotional.

I have another problem. I am wondering if it sounds like I am developing psychosis or a related problem. I have had such extreme depersonalization. I feel like I am not really here in reality. Don't get me wrong, I know things are real, and I know what to say to people and so forth to appear relatively normal. It is just that on the inside, my perception of the world has changed. This is really all scary to admit because I fear it could be the begnning of psychosis. For those who have experience with this kind of thing, please let me know. I am so frightened about this. I also feel like my brain is so foggy. I can't think straight and my senses feel out of control.

I also have a fear of losing control and doing something crazy in public. I am afraid to have a psychotic break and feel like I can't stop it from happening. Again, I have never lost control of myself or had a psychotic break.

The other thing that is frightening to me is that I have periods where I become very obsessed with thinking about existence. I wonder what created us, or who and why we are all here. I also start thinking if there could be life on other planets, and I get scared about the enormity of the universe and what it all means. I have had friends who have told me that they have had the same questions, but never get scared about them. For me, it isn't the questions, but the fact that my brain stays in a stuck position thinking about this.

I get scary random thoughts in my head sometimes. Based on what I have written, does it sound like I am on my way to developing psychosis? I am really afraid.

I sometimes expirience those things he wrote.

It will be much appreciated if you can respond me on how to handle those situations.

Thank you very much and sorry for the long post !.

Hello Nbh123: I'm afraid the Skeezyks is not in any way qualified to answer your question. However, I see this is your first post here on PC. So... welcome to PsychCentral… from the Skeezyks! I hope you find the time you spend here to be of benefit.

PsychCentral is a great place to get information as well as support for mental health issues. There are many knowledgeable & caring members here. The more you post, & reply to other members’ posts, the more a part of the community you will become. Plus there are social groups you can join & chat rooms where you’ll be able to connect with other PC members in real time (once your first 5 posts have been reviewed & approved.) Lots of great stuff! So please keep posting!

i have had various types of dissociative experiences including derealization and depersonalization. i also have OCD though, and years ago it got really bad. the combination together nearly drove me crazy (no pun intended). i was questioning my existence, what religious beliefs were 'right' or 'wrong,' and many other things. it caused a lot of upset and distress, anxiety and panic attacks, and other related things.

for me, it was several things that co-existed. i couldn't find a way to make it stop, but several years later a lot of the things that happened at that specific time did lessen.

it was a matter of things within myself and life changing, so more of a maybe developmental aspect to things as a lot of was during high school and early adulthood years which is often when we are still trying to figure out who we are, what we believe in, etc., so the combination, i think, can cause a type of existential crisis which if you are prone to anxiety/panic can cause those issues as well as derealization as a component as it's overwhelming, confusing, and scary to go through.

you could have a form of OCD since you mention bad thoughts in your head. that was something i also struggled with as well as urges, images, etc. a lot of them were violent and scary and terrified me. i couldn't make them stop..but again, there was the derealization aspect since anxiety can cause that to happen too in some people.

i would speak to a professional about it for sure because things like that can be more of an anxiety/panic or OCD related issue with the derealization being triggered due to the overwhelming aspect and your brain not being able to stop it.

Hi, welcome!

I totally get what you are talking about. Through bipolar I can tell what is psychosis and what isn't because I get delusional paranoid at times (thinking everyone is out to get me in some way but I eventually can realize it's b.s. and deal with it or reality takes a weird bend). But for the most part, reality testing stays intact.

I've seen posts in other forums of chronic (?) DP/DR where they live that way all the time, so it's possible.

What has helped me focus in over all the Others yapping in our head and DP/DR is Adderoll....but I'm also an addict so it's not a good thing, plus it kicks off hypomania, so I can't/don't take it.

Omg, I so stay away thinking about Existence because its a quick ticket to the wrong dimension! Lol

Hi ! thank you everyone for your responds ! I completly forgot about that post !

A tiny update :

Right now im traveling across the United States , my DR is still here and its annoying like always , i dont have anxiety attacks anymore but sometimes i do get anxious feeling after smoking a ciggarette.
The only thing i want to get rid of is the annoying sight feeling !
I went to a party and drank a few glasses of vodka and a day after i started thinking if i was tipsy or sober (i didnt drink enough to get drunk).
It really made me think that because my DR makes me feel like i have "Drunk Sight" all the time so when i drink i cant know if im actually drunk or not ...
I really want to get rid of that feeling ! Im starting to think this is not DR anymore and maybe its something else that will never go away !
My psychiatrist even told me that he is completly sure almost in 100% that till age 30 it will be all gone...
If someone have any advices how to sooth the DR annoying foggy sight so please comment ...
thank you !

only thing i know is to go with the flow... try not to struggle, seems to get worse when i fight it...

are you under alot of pressure?

my panic attacks have decreased a lot, but i seem to be doing this weird stuff a lot more... dissociating...

i know what you mean, i live this way all the time and its always been like this since i can first remember having those thoughts at 4 years old or somethin...

have you heard of quarter life crisis?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter-life_crisis

stress, overwhelm, too much stimulation... pressure... they can make these things worse in me....

the body sepperates mind matter, survival from us really hurting ourselves because we too overwhelmed

i often wonder if im already dead... because its been like this for so long, but whatever it is... its either gonna go away or not so i try to make the best of what i got...
better to go with the flow than fight the current and make yourself more overwhelm... breathe, center yourself, focus on objects around you, feel yourself being present with those objects and try to draw a grounding connection to the world surrounding...

cold water on the face is a nice trick to help, maybe try washing face with cold water and see if it helps any

not sure what you are looking for so will go on what jumps out at me in your posts...

yes smoking and drinking can cause these problems. here in the USA these problems due to smoking and drinking (example happens after smoking and drinking) rules ...... out.......... having a dissociation problem. what that means is if someone is a smoker or drinker the doctors have no choice but to say ok this can and most times is from your drinking and smoking. if you are looking for a diagnosis of depersonalization derealization disorder you may need to go about 6 months to a year with no smoking and no drinking and then go through actual diagnostic testing procedures (for dissociative disorders this is a very long process that includes both medical and mental health tests.)

my suggestion here is if drinking and smoking makes you feel this way then its time to stop drinking and smoking. then after you have been clean and sober of the smoking/ drinking for about a year go through all the tests needed to diagnose what the problem is, then you will know what the treatments for it are...

good news is if it is depersonalization/ derealization problems the solution is learning things like breathing, relaxing, and consciously making yourself pay attention to things around you and in your own body (this is called grounding) sometimes medications also help if the problem is things like anxiety depression or others. sometimes classes are also the solution like attending AA/ NA (alcoholics Anonymous \ narcotics Anonymous ) in some locations smoking is considered part of NA due to the nicotine and other chemicals in cigs and weed.

my other suggestion is keep working with your psychiatrist. they will be able to help you, since they think your DR problems are fixable they are in the best position to help you do that.

Thank you for the reply !

Well basically maybe it is from the cigarettes because i started smoking when i was 16 and a half and after a while i started to develop the DR , but i dont think that alcohol have to do with it because the only thing that annoys me is that i have this "drunk feeling" all the time so when i drink alcohol i sometimes dont know if im tipsy or not ... only when i drink to get drunk i do see the difference ...

For me....dr/dp comes on like being sucked into another reality. It feels like another dimension even though I know it's normal reality. When I enter these moments...I try grounding techniques like focusing on an object noting all it's physical traits. In a supermarket I read labels on any- everything because of the anxiety from over stimulation through sight and sound.

I think i just should stop smoking cigarettes ... i think this is the problem for it ..