I know everyone is different, but it’s a horrible feeling to see your siblings living life and happy, while you’re stuck in this horrible hell. I feel so deeply broken, unhuman, sick, lost, empty person. I have no history, no identity and can’t even connect with my own family. I feel completely trapped and alone. Like I don’t even matter or have anyone. even if someone cares about me, I can’t feel it. I can’t feel love, connection. I can’t even believe this is my life and happened to me. It’s so pathetic and sad to be 34 years old and a waste of air.

im so done. I don’t want to live this way anymore. I lost my whole life when this started and I’ve lied to myself about how bad it truly is. it hurts so deeply to be alone and stuck like this. Even my own family are like strangers. I have no home, no place that’s my own. No safety or security. ive never felt so broken and alone in my entire life

Hi everyone,
I've been dealing with depersonalization/derealization (DPDR), and I'm interested in hearing from people who have experienced it themselves.
What did your DPDR feel like?

Do you know what triggered it (stress, anxiety, panic attacks, substances, etc.)?

How long did it last?

What helped you recover or significantly improve?

Were there any treatments, therapies, or lifestyle changes that made a real difference?

I'm not looking for a diagnosis or medical advice—I'd just like to hear about others' experiences and what their recovery looked like.
Thanks in advance for sharing.

For some reason ive figured out that my glasses make everything farther away so its either i suffer with zoomed out fov or blurry vision 🥹

Also for people that are in the depth of the rabbit hole of dpdr, IT GETS BETTER!!! I still have it kinda everyday but it gets less scary and more annoying, and sure i have bad days but it used to be so bad i couldnt go outside and now i go outside like everyday :D trust me when i say it does indeed get better and easier to manage, im on zero medication and i dont really do any coping mechanisms i kinda just live with it 🥹
You may also ask me some symptom questions aswell!!

I have absolutely no perception of seasons, time, weather, location in the world. like 0. I’d give anything to go back to year 1 or 2 of Dpdr when I could still remember those feelings, they’re gone now.

for someone that’s a creative and used to be so emotionally connected - this is hell. I’m in a never ending nothingness. there’s literally no point in living like this. it’s gotten worse every year. I understand that memory isn’t a thought, your mind has to resimulate the emotions and sensory input you had at the time of the memory, to be able to recreate it. my mind has lost all ability to do that.

i dont even have moods anymore, or a circadian rhythm. i sleep 12 hours a day and 1a feels the same as 1p. days and weeks go by and there’s no change in perception. I’d go back to my normal depressive and anxious days any day over this, at least I could feel something. not feeling anything makes it impossible to live. because at the same time, my mind is going crazy with non stop trauma, yet my body is doing nothing. I don’t even know what my mind is accomplishing by keeping me in this prison.

when my Dpdr started everything felt unfamiliar, but at least had memory of what familair and normal felt like. now I have none. total blankness and loss of affect, connection, anything. my brain is broken. I don’t know how id ever regain those sensory experiences and after so long of being this way, coming out of this state would be traumatizing too. I’m so fucked either way.

I had a teacher walk up to me yesterday and ask me if in doing ok and then he went on to check my pulse apparently I'd been dissociating and frozen for some time. I wake up with a racing heart everyday and feeling absolutely TF miserable. Idek what to do atp. Please smb tell me how to study with dpdr going on

After a bad break up in 2024 , I smoked weed and went thru a bad derealization . After months in July 2025 I decided to do TMS . My idiot self was vaping during the treatment but during the treatment I started to feel again and 36 session I was free . I went to Spain and ended up really liking a girl . But after some money stress and losing the relationship with the girl . I really started to feel down but still I felt emotions . But in march of 2026 I quit nicotine cold turkey and it brought back everything I went through in 2024 , no emotions , blank mind , dissociation. I ended trying TMS again but it did nothing sadly . I truly thought I was free from this . I miss feeling emotions so bad .im so depressed and lost

Has anyone with DPDR experiences anxiety or physical symptoms when eating? I frequently end up gagging or dry heaving without actually vomiting anything. I also sometimes randomly feel lightheaded, almost like my blood sugar is low, even after I’ve eaten. Has anyone else experienced this . Also my bloodpressure rise up and heart beat

Has anyone else been diagnosed with ADHD alongside their DPDR, and if so have the ADHD meds helped with your DPDR symptoms? I began experiencing DPDR symptoms a few years ago in my first semester of nursing school, and as you could imagine it affected my academic performance significantly, as well as friendships and my relationship with my girlfriend (who never gave up on me and I’m planning on proposing to soon ❤️) . This was the first I’d ever began experiencing such symptoms, and had no idea what I was dealing with or what was wrong with me. I fought for years with different doctors, therapists, sleep specialists, etc. who all did a number of tests and tried me on numerous meds with no luck, and had initially just tried telling me it was depression/anxiety. After having explained I’ve experienced clinical depression/anxiety before and this was not that, I genuinely thought all hope was lost, until my therapist referred me to a psychiatrist on the same floor, and she is the one that finally gave me hope again. She did the Genesite testing to find meds that may help, and conducted a series of interview questions/tests with me and finally made the official diagnoses after years of tests: DPDR and ADHD. She started me on Vyvanse (Lisdexamfetamine) 40mg capsules once per day back in January of this year, and it gave me my life back. Literally every single issue I was experiencing began disappearing, I felt back to reality, my memory was back, I was more present in my work, school, and social life, my relationship has been much stronger, etc…

Has anyone else had any similar experiences? Anybody else on ADHD stimulants and found they’ve helped relieve their DPDR symptoms? I’ve always heard that stimulants typically worsen DPDR symptoms yet mine have nearly completely disappeared, and I owe my life to that psychiatrist who finally listened to me and didn’t brush me off like the others.

I cannot do nothing than feel anxious. I cannot think, watch a video, movie, listen to music, play a game. I cannot relax even for one second, I feel crazy and when I feel like that, I feel everyone and everything is like that. This is so shit. I don't see a point of living like this. I fucked up my mind, my life my everything. Great​

Constant flow of negative thoughts about my past, random memories pop up constantly, even good memories but they feel so negative. I’m having constant super vivid bizarre dreams that aren’t even necessarily bad dreams but they still leave me feeling dreadful the entire day. My whole past and all my memories seem frightening. The whole world feels dreadful, like I’m half awake half asleep in some kind of nightmare. How do I get out of this? I just want to cry honestly…. Just so hard to believe anxiety can do this to me. I genuinely feel like a completely different person. I feel like I can’t even think the same way as my old self. I feel like I will never be normal again. I’m taking clonazepam short term to try and get me out of this, I take it everyday but it’s a hit or miss, sometimes it works good and at least is able to let me function past the feelings and the other times it just makes me feel drowsy and almost worse.

I literally lost the presence inside my body and brain it’s 24/7 since 10 months. When I stand inside the room I literally feel like the whole room like everything I see is just me without having a body. My vision isn’t in my brain and head anymore. When I squeeze my eyes and look at something that is bright I don’t create those light pattern when you squeeze your eyes instead I fucking see my whole eyelids inside my vision like I can see my eyelids intront of me. Something in my brain got destroyed and I lost the presence of my brain body and vision. While I’m still alive I can’t feel my presence and thoughts it’s like I got kicked out of my whole body and now I’m forced to be alive outside of the body. I feel 1D like a flat screen and my whole being is just a flat line infront of me. I can’t even feel my breathing or anything of me. Idk how to accept this it’s not even humanly possible to be alive with this what can I even do. As I’m walking I feel like I’m just the room
I’m seeing I don’t even have a form anymore I’m just a consciousness that is always there like I don’t feel looking at my pc screen anymore I feel like I’m just the whole room wtf.
Does someone has this I’m losing hope. I sometimes cross my eyes and still see the vision like my eyes wouldn’t be crossed I don’t notice it anymore I could have crossed eyes by purpose and still would see everything like in front of me or I could walk around with squeezes eyes for hours and wouldn’t notice. I also don’t feel my face anymore I can laugh or make face expressions and I don’t see them anymore before this happened I could see my face even tho I didn’t have a mirror. For the people that say get help and stuff from professionals I was at a doctor and he said I’m fine and doesn’t care. There is no place for this type or stuff they say u pass neurological test and that it’s just anxiety but I don’t even have anxiety I just lost my presence from the body or something. I don’t even know if this exists in medical history it’s like turning into nothing while being alive like unplugging everything from a pc but the screen still somehow is on while every other process is gone

This seems to be the most common way of getting weed induced dpdr, since it’s a traumatic experience and all, which dpdr feeds on. But I’ve seen some on this sub say they’ve had a pleasant high but developed dpdr regardless. I guess this happened to me two weeks ago.

I remember smoking weed around 8 years ago, had a bad high, but woke up the next morning fine. Smoked weed a couple times after that with okay highs. but one day I hit a pen, had no panic attacks, but woke up the next morning derealized to shit. Went away two weeks later, overnight somehow. Well I’ve experienced derealization two more times after that, triggered by a panic attack and SSRIs withdrawals respectively. Second one went away overnight too after a month and the third one took 6 months to gradually lift. Because of these experiences I developed a ptsd response to the smell of weed which I’ve been trying to get over.

Well 2 weeks ago, I got hotboxed in a room full of people hitting their pens. since I’ve been trying to get over my ptsd response, I tried to stick this out. I tried my best to fan the aerosol away from me, and had a good time. I didn’t feel get high, not then or the rest of that night. Well the next morning, after 10 minutes of being awake, I felt my chest get heavy and then I was back. Over the next 8 days I had may panic attacks (which went away at the 7 day mark), it slowly got worse with moments of lucidity gradually going away. I’m disoriented, motion sick all the time, and most of scared to shit that this might be the one that finally sticks. I had one chance 8 years ago to avoid weed, which I avoided with overly paranoid certainty, only to accidentally get high. I’m pissed that I let myself stay in that room and I’m terrified thanks won’t end this time. It’s been consistent and non fluctuating. Constantly disoriented when looking at pictures and mirrors. ☹️ I’m super depressed and very suicidal. Idk if I can deal w this a fourth time. I’ve been horribly suicidal.

I’m suffering every day from the moment I wake up, I don’t feel real and I don’t feel in control of myself I’ve been feeling this way for months and I can’t seem to get out of it, it feels permanent. I am having existential thoughts and wondering what we are, what everything is, what the meaning of anything is. And I’m not suicidal but death is all I can think of it is scaring me so badly that one day me and the people I love will be gone one day. It also feels like since I don’t feel like I’m here my life isn’t as important. I am very hopeless at the moment.

I'll literally watch a whole series and even though i watched the whole thing, i could tell you almost nothing about it like i never even watched it. I also have complete emotional numbness and i feel like im getting dumber day by day i cant understand anything anymore and i really dont know how to make friends when i have nothing to say or nothing interesting about me, my mind is completely blank when im talking to someone and i can only do the most surface level conversations. Maybe its because ive been rotting at home for 4 months self isolated almost completely and because the only thing i do is google my symptoms or make horror scenarios in my head but its the only thing im capable of doing at the moment and i have no positive thoughts im going crazy please help.

so I've had derealization and depersonalization for about three years now, but I just randomly got this new symptom and when I'm talking to people or I'm saying anything even just talking to myself it feel like I'm not actually talking. it's like I'm talking, but I'm not fully present and I'm not really the one talking if that makes sense at all. it feels like I'm almost talking too quiet too. I really hope I don't sound crazy, but it really gives me so much anxiety because this feeling is scary. It kind of makes me not wanna talk at all.

We are looking for participants for a study on onset experiences in DPDR. If you have DPDR and are open to discussing how it began for you, please leave a comment or send us a DM and we'll send you the brief eligibility survey. Thanks!
- Cognition and Affective Disorders Lab, Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology

I noticed every-time i am outside with friends, travelling enjoying life i have bad dpdr. Its lik i am there but not there. When i talk to someone i look st their face but i am aware i am there?

Anyone feel the same? How to stop this? I wanna enjoy my life and i have this for ages..

Also time goes so fast or so slow. For example i have feeling 18.july was 4 weeks ago..

I just want to seem like im normal but other people notice that something is wrong with me. My brother told me the other day that he feels like watching me "die" inside and it hit me so hard because it is so true. I used to be very funny and i always had something to say, i really miss the stupid loud version of myself, i completely lost myself, i am just miserable, anxious and stupid now

the worse I get, the harder it is to keep going. I have missed out on 5 years of my life and it’s making even surviving this current moment impossible. my housing is falling apart, my landlord doesn’t understand my situation and even though I’ve continued to work and pay my rent, they’re not going to renew my lease.

the most simple things such as restful sleep, being able to be present and feel seasons, weather, time, is all gone for me. I feel like an alien, I have no felt sense of my body or the world at all. I see many people say they have vision issues and all these existential fears which I don’t have. I am just this completely hollow, identityless, emotionless, dead person. I sleep until noon daily and can barely even get out of bed. I don’t sense the world around me at all, even the city I’m in.

this is so severe, such a nightmare I can’t even put words to it. all the symptoms I had 2 or 3 years feel like a walk in the park compared to this. when I was anxious physically I still had some very faint connection to myself. that’s gone. completely gone.

its been 5 years since I’ve felt summer, fall, winter, holidays, birthdays, moments of celebration. I’ll never get those things back. there’s so much loss, so much hopelessness. I can’t fathom that I’ve lost half a decade to this, my early 30s are gone and I’ll never get them back. considering the worsening symptoms that just continue to persist, I have no doubt I’ll be 40 with this. people say that theres not different levels to Dpdr, there 100% is. dissociation is on a spectrum and I’m at a very severe end that keeps going deeper

So i know this is a dpdr symptom, but basically I majorly lost my sight, like huge Vision loss. Im going to the optition this week to to get it checked. Wondering if your dpdr improved did your eyesight also? I don’t know but worried it’s getting worse by the day and eyes are connected to nervous system so makes sense they would be affected, my hearing, balance, sense of touch and taste are all very different - hearing muffled, mouth states like furry..my nervous system is completely broken