Derealization/Depersonalization

[TomSquared]

All this happened before I took antidepressants.

 

[beetlemaniac]

I also seem to suffer bouts of this issue as well. Smoking tobacco seems to help, as well as EE.

It's interesting. When this happened to me, I had quit smoking, which certainly played a big part in ending under antidepressants.

Tomsquared, did this happened to you before or after taking antidepressants ?

Yes, it is very interesting. I've only recently restarted tobacco - after having a vision of smoke as I was doing EE/meditating one day. It just occurred to me. I had stopped tobacco for quite a while as I didn't find it helped and in fact made my negative rumination run on overdrive.

I also recently tried one of Mr.Cyan's cuban cigarillos and had a massive influx of energy to my head, which forced me to lay down for a while. There seems to be an issue with the alignment of my spine and cranium. I find during periods of high emotional intensity, a lot of pressure tends to build up at that region.

 

[Maat]

All this happened before I took antidepressants.

Thanks for your answer TomSquared. If I asked this, it's because for me, I hadn't torture myself too much about the reason of this "feeling", rather total lack of, given the antidepressants factor. (and I can add that way before I was a very, very emotional person, often in the bad aspect, but had already worked on this at this time)

And having recently read "Healing Developmental Trauma" by L. Heller and A. LaPierre, I wonder now if it was not something related to a bad case of lack of vital force. As for yourself, the details you further brought strongly make think of the connection survival style addressed in this book.

(As a side note, I will keep in mind the possible support of tobacco for the vital force )

 

[Ennio]

Then there is my lifestyle. I've read that prisoners in solitary confinement just go crazy. They just go crazy from lack of stimuli and human contact. My lifestyle sort of resembles solitary confinement in the way that I wake up, get showered and dressed and have breakfast then do nothing but sit at the computer playing videogames and watching stuff on the internet all day. I have plenty of friends on the internet that I talk to all the time and 3 friends in real life that I see - one of them I hang out with all the time because we live in the same block of flats but the other 2 not so much.

I'd definitely try to minimize the video game playing, or better yet, cut it out altogether. Too much time given to meaningless dissociation is detrimental to you and is getting in the way of your having better quality of life I think.

TomSquared, the suggestions that were made here may be really helpful to you but their power is in your finding the ways to implement and incorporate them on a daily basis. Little by little to start maybe, but steadily and increasingly making them your own as you progress. And taking notes from time to time on how you're feeling.

I also agree with the suggestion of finding a good cognitive behavioral therapist. Such a person may have insight into what you're experiencing that might only be gleaned by meeting you in person. There's also something to be said for the value of an interpersonal exchange with someone who's a trained professional and who can be supportive of your desired change as you come to learn more about yourself.

 

[genero81]

In recovery programs we often tell newcomers to 'act your way into right thinking rather than trying to think your way into right acting.' Sure, it's thinking errors that are the root of our troubles, and emotions usually follow from thoughts. Sometimes strong emotions drive thinking patterns. Personally I think the C's have given us over the years, all the clues and suggestions necessary to work through whatever we are going through. So one thing they suggested, if we don't like how things were going in our lives, was to work on our presentation/ representation of ourselves. So how does one do that? Well first thing is to decide, what kind of person do I want to be? What would that look like? Then get busy doing that regardless of how you feel or whether you think it's going to work. It's been my experience that when significant changes need to be made in one's life, the best way to do it is with one's feet. There's plenty of knowledge on all kind of topics on this forum that can be applied. Get busy!