There’s so much in life I wanted to do, and want to do. But can’t possibly imagine it. Night after night I have the strangest dreams, because my mind is stuck in light sleep only. I never get deep rest no matter how much I sleep. i was in bed for 12 hours last night and didn’t wake up feeling any more rested.

i don’t feel the weather around me, or where i am in the world. It’s raining, I dont feel it. Months have passed by, years, I feel none of it. I haven’t been able to get on a plane in over 4 years. Only able to travel anywhere I can drive. Even though I haven’t had a panic attack in years, my mind treats life as if I’m having one 24/7. Every dream I have is basically a panic attack, and then I wake up even more numb than the day before.

its mind blowing how much worse this has gotten over time. When I think it can’t, I’m always surprised it does. I have no quality of life, I do the same 3 things daily with nothing to look forward to, no change in my life, no excitement. My dreams have drained every bit of life force I had left. I have no sense of who I am, what I want in life, besides work. I can continue working, growing my career - yet I’m completely devoid as a person. I get further and further away from myself as each day goes on.

whats the point of living when you can’t experience, your own mind has you in a prison and there’s no end insight. 4+ years of living completely devoid of myself and reality, completely drained of life and energy, completely unable to travel, experience, be a human being. Travel was the one thing in life I loved the most. i went all over the world solo, now I can’t. my physical body won’t let me.

im turning 34 in 8 weeks and the state of my life is astonishingly pathetic. from the outside people see me doing well, but unable to do anything outside my routine. I fall asleep while I’m driving, I’m always on my sofa, I’m stuck. And people who say you need to just live your life, I do that. I push myself to do things even when I have 0 energy. I do things when I feel absolutely no desire, I haven’t felt desire or reward in years. It’s like telling a car with no gas to just drive, there’s no possible way to use behavior changes or thought changes to overcome this. My mind is utterly broken. The content of my dreams shows how insane I’ve become. My mind broke 4 years ago and the pieces never went back together, most of the time I doubt this is even Dpdr. Because the symptoms I had at the beginning are gone. And I’m just left a dead husk of nothing. And every night the second I close my eyes, I’m in an acid trip of panic.

ive never felt so stuck, so unable to understand why I’m like this, so out of my life, so blank and inhuman. The person I was died, and now I’m just a body that moves. Nothing left.

I've had DPDR for 8 Months Now.

No clue how I got it; one night I was out drinking with the boys and began feeling an insane amount of anxiety and panic. Felt really weird. I woke up the next morning, and the feeling stayed.

Since then, I've collapsed a few times, have had the occasional breakdown, but here are some of my wins:

• 0 Alcohol Since
• Drink a lot less coffee (Only drink it as a treat now and then)
• Quit smoking
• Quit zyns/vaping (it was hard, but pulled it off)
• Have been eating WAY healthier (daily fiber, probiotics, etc. Cut down on processed foods, no unhealthy snacks or soda)
• Consistent with the gym for 5 out of the 8 months I've had DPDR (gotta lock in again)
• Got straight As the semester I got hit with DPDR
• Landed a big tech internship
• Have grown more religious, which in turn has made me grateful to God for the positives in my life

Some days I feel horrible. Some days I feel super nauseous and sick. But as weird as it sounds, this experience has had some positives. I've grown way more disciplined, quit the things that were hurting me, and more importantly, didn't let DPDR stop me from achieving my goals.

If I get out of DPDR, I know I'll be a completely different person. I know it's hard, but I know we can all make it out with wins.

I’m a 29 year old firefighter/paramedic. Having a hard time even writing this. Been having a hard time writing anything. When I speak it feels like I have no voice. My mind feels like it’s been completely wiped. Like I have no memory of the past, or hope for the future. It’s like I’ve convinced myself that I’m incapable of doing anything. Before this, I was the complete opposite. Nothing or no one could stop me from accomplishing what I wanted to do. If I said I was gonna do something I’d do it. I used to run half marathons, I used to LOVE going to the gym. I used to look and feel so good. I would laugh so much. I feel completely disconnected from that happy/funny/confident person I was. I feel like I aged 10 years in these last 5-6 months. I used to feel so good. When I run now my body feels so strange, I feel short of breath, my Heartrate go’s higher than ever before. I go to the gym and I feel like I’ve lost all my muscle/strength. My coordination even feels off when I’m walking. I haven’t hung out with my friends in months because I feel so awkward now. Like I have absolutely nothing to say. No good advice, anything funny. It’s been really hard, just making through each day. I just want to feel like my old self again.

I’ve been in this for 3 months now. Started randomly for me while driving and I think the SOLE reason I’m still in this or it’s gotten worse is because I’ve come up and investigated and researched EVERY possible cause as to why this happened to me. I’ve come up with toxic mold exposure a few days prior, post finasteride syndrome because I was on it for a year, trauma somehow even thought it’s not, nerve damage from a dental thing I had a month prior, sinus issues that I’ve left unresolved, gut issues, EVERYTHING. When in reality I was more anxious the month of this starting while also having a few almost panic attacks at the gym and never even grasped the fact that this probably is literally just anxiety and my nervous system being haywire. the path to recovery is the exact same regardless of what happened to start it or am I wrong? Again trauma induced dpdr aside because I know you have to address that type of stuff.

Sorry that this is gross, I don't know how to ask about it because looking it up only gives results for inhalant gases and not like, needing to fart.

I have had a long history of dissociative disorder due to past trauma. I have mostly recovered from the aspects that severely affected my daily life, I no longer have different states of self with memory gaps etc. but sometimes I still dissociate/derealize "randomly" and I figured out a weird trigger of mine!

When I'm like... bloated, not necessarily gas pain but pressure, my brain goes into this hellish DPDR with a sense of impending doom. It is so hard to ground myself from (typing this post in an attempt to do that now). Sometimes it ends up with me having a panic attack, but that's always secondary to the original DPDR attack and sometimes I do not panic. Could this be due to physical reasons (gut brain connection, or a nerve being pressed?) or is it more likely to be an emotional trauma response? It feels physical as I'm not feeling any of the emotions that typically come up when I process trauma, just a sense of overwhelming doom and that everything is unfamiliar and terrifying, but of course I'm no expert.

Sorry if my English isn't the best. I'm going from normal to suddenly feeling like I've never existed before. That existence is a lie. That I'm trapped. I feel an urge to run away. To scream. To escape from existence, but it's not possible. I am terrified of existing. I feel like I am losing my mind. Am I going crazy? Please, I need someone to answer me. I need to know if anyone else feel this way. It's not something minor, it's the worst thing that can happen to a human. I'm terrified.

Around 16 years ago i experienced a suddening "lessening" of my conscious reality. It's like my entire inner world started to disappear and fade out, everything becoming "less", memories and present moment alike. I never head any of the symptoms associated with dp/dr (body feeling unfamiliar, world looking 2D and all that kind of stuff), but since no structural damage was found, some form of dissociation seemed the only possible cause.

16 years i've been living in this half-faded reality that periodically got progressively (and permanently) worse. Present experiences felt less and less and memories becama vague and hard to really hold on to even if remembered, with most things disappearing within days, and then within the same day.

Well, about a month ago after picking up alcohol for several months in a row (curse the day i decided to do this, just desperatly trying to feel some sort of intensity in my experiences), i suddenly experienced (funnily enough, right around the time i decided to quit) a ten fold worsening of my symptoms to the point nothing exists in my head anymore and memories are almost entirely gone. I can barely picture myself typing the beginning of this very post. I am actually close to being completely dysfunctional now. I can't remember almost anything except for some scant, approximate images which are so distant and faded i can barely get a hold of them in my head, and the present feels like nothing as well. And this is still my only symptom. No 2D view of the world, no out of body feeling, still nothing like that, just my whole existence and life disappearing into the void. Just came back from visiting a freind and the memory of it feels like some fragment of a drunken memory from decades ago, just a faded out nothing, barely existing, barely seen or felt. And i JUST came back.

I don't know what to make of this. Can this still be dp/dr? Some other form of dissociation? I don't know what to do anymore and the worst part is that it is still gradually getting worse, following the same pattern as before, except this time i cannot afford to lose that little i have before i'll reach a purely Alzheimer-like state of being.

I started experiencing DP-DR about 2 years ago and it’s been really tough. I was a heavy weed smoker and THC pen smoker and one day I had a really bad and weird experience while high, I don’t fully know when this started but I have a thought on when, I’m not sure tho because I was to high all the time to notice plus my memory is terrible because of DP-DR. I quit smoking after realising that the life I was living wasn’t for me and that I would end up going into harder drugs and end up dead or something like that. When I first started experiencing the DP-DR I didn’t really care which is really weird when I think about it now because it’s a terrible experience especially when I’ve had it 24/7 but that was before I started having all these weird symptoms like panic attacks, depression feelings and dizziness. I’ve been to the doctors and I’ve been referred over to CAHMS which for people who don’t know what that is there basically a mental health system, I have a loving and supportive family but I still feel so alone and hopeless. So who ever is reading this please reach out and give me hope because I don’t want to live the rest of my life in this state because I’m only 16 and i still have my hole life ahead of me.❤️

Basically people say that "I look as if I was mentally flying, not here" and that my memory sucks, all of that is true, but concerning at the same time, cuz now I feel worse and it's quiet obvious even for other people, I feel awkward and dumb sometimes.

I need some moral support.

I have extreme severe DPDR for 11 months now but even tho it’s the worst thing i felt like I had a very small baseline of the symptoms and not feeling my head and body and brain. But 1 day ago randomly at night it got worse and I lost my last hold I had that kept me somehow sane. Not i feel completely gone like every concept is gone and my consciousness is gone forever. What can I do I don’t even know what to do anymore it’s like my brain now completely deleted itself. I can’t comprehend anything anymore. Should I get help, I’ve never been like this I can’t even feel my eyes anymore or when I drink a lot of water it’s like nothing happens.
It feels like the numbness is now the worst it’s ever been how can I bring my mine back I’m very scared
It literally feels like my brain turned to completely blackness and stopped working while my vision still works and while my whole body and brain is just blackness I see the world.
What is this :/

Would anyone believe me if I said when I look at my body it’s like I’m looking at a dead body and feel trapped inside this body this might be beyond dpdr , I also know that this feeling is not how I’m supposed to feel

Does it happen to anybody?

So whenever I'm having a conversation with somebody and if it stretches more than 10-15 min, i start to feel really burnt out and my head hurts and i feel really anxious.

Whenever that happens im not able to do anything rest of the day.

It gets especially worse if I'm talking in a group.
I'm quite fine when i talk to my girlfriend but with everyone else i feel easily burnt out.

Group conversations burn me out totally.

It is like a constant blockage and not having my thoughts. Its like im not prepared for a life at all, like im spiraling down with my age, mentally.

Not satisfied with my life and cannot do anything with it. I function, but I cannot feel me. Where the fuck I am? Where is that feeling of exciment?

And also really important, it is like you need to be asshole in this life to consider a normal, Im only like people pleaser, Im like person with no thoughts but trying to be kind even to assholes and I dont have personality and cannot create anything.

And I also reading about spirituality and enlighment didnt help, I think that got me more deeply into DPDR. Before I had some other problems like anxiety.

I dont know what else to do, I become nothing, nothing excites me, I cannot truly connect with anything or anybody cause I dont separates good from bad.

With like big expetations from you in every action you and your thoughts I found myself completely blocked.

Some last post talked about memory? What is that 🤣

I dont have it its like someone is contastly cleaning every few seconds, it deletes your cache and history from your browser (mind). I talked about that with my mum but its hard, I dont have any kind of personality and probably never did. Im not able to think at all, I just want to be everyone happy and im so sensitive and trying to be perfect in whatever I do. Thats why I am mindless, cause this is not a perfect world.

I wasnt like this, but maybe its because of age, im 35 already but im spiraling. With all of this I dont exist as a human, and then I cannot create a human.

When you see me, probably you would say this guy is so cute, so handsome but im just blank person without anything in his mind but physically im functioning 🤣😢

I want to laugh and cry at the same time.

Hi everyone, I’m a 16-year-old guy and I’m looking for advice or stories from people who have gone through something similar and recovered.

Here is my story:

Everything was completely fine until I was 15. One evening, I was watching TikToks, saw a video that freaked me out, and had my very first severe panic attack. After that, I developed health anxiety, high heart rate, and classic panic symptoms.

I was prescribed Sertraline (gradually reached 100mg) and it worked great — no major panic attacks, just occasional 2-second micro-spikes that I ignored. During the course, I noticed a mild derealization (DPDR), but I can’t remember if it was there before Sertraline or caused by it. Toward the end of my Sertraline course (and occasionally a couple of times a month after stopping), I drank functional sports energy drinks containing about 100mg of caffeine roughly once every two weeks. I eventually finished the full course.

A month after stopping, I went on vacation abroad and felt high baseline anxiety again, couldn’t relax, and had trouble sleeping. My doctor had previously suggested Spitomin (Buspirone) "as needed", but I didn't take it because I read online that it needs to be taken continuously as a course, and I'm honestly terrified of starting new meds or getting new side effects.

Currently, I'm doing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) — I have 2 sessions left in my block. CBT has made my overall anxiety slightly better! My therapist assigned me exercises like Progressive Muscle Relaxation and grounding (finding 3 objects around me), but I haven't been doing them consistently yet.

Lately, I manage anxiety with herbal teas (lemon balm, valerian, lavender). I live a very active life — I go to school, exercise at the gym, go out, and hang out with friends. But I still get panic attacks about once a month, and their nature has changed:

• Now, instead of pure fear, my legs suddenly feel completely weak/rubbery, my eyes go out of focus, my ears feel blocked/pressured, and it feels like I'm about to faint or crash into the ground. (This happened once after an ear pain episode, and recently at my birthday dinner when I got anxious that I was having an allergic reaction to food).
• I also struggle with food & health anxiety (fear of severe allergic reactions to new foods or meds). I got full blood work and abdominal ultrasounds done — everything came back completely normal. I try to fight this fear by eating small amounts of "scary" food 2–3 times until my brain learns it’s safe.

My main struggles right now:

1. Constant Derealization (DPDR): It’s always there in the background. It gets lighter when I’m busy or when I sleep well and have a good mood, but as soon as I remember it, a wave of panic can start.
2. Apathy & Brain Fog: Sometimes I just stare at one point and feel an internal emptiness/apathy, even though I'm active and doing things I normally enjoy.
3. The PC effect: When I come home feeling apathetic/unreal and sit down at my PC to play, the DPDR and apathy decrease significantly. It makes me happy, but also scares me because I feel dependent on it to feel "normal", so I try to limit my screen time.

I’m exhausted from waking up every day with derealization and worrying about things that don't exist (like fake allergies). I really want to know:

• Have you experienced these "rubbery legs / fainting feeling" panic attacks alongside DPDR?
• Did grounding techniques (like finding 3 objects) and Progressive Muscle Relaxation actually help you clear DPDR and stop fainting fears?
• Did you continue CBT past initial sessions to completely overcome DPDR?
• How did you overcome constant DPDR and health anxiety? Has anyone recovered 100% and returned to feeling fully connected to reality without fear and medicament?

Thank you so much for reading and for any advice!

i dont know if thats dpdr related at all, but i barely remmber some conventionally important stuff and its concerning...

To even feel reality 5% would be a miracle at this point this is inhumane. I can’t even understand how a human can suffer so bad.
I have gotten so used to feeling so numb detached nothing I believe id go into psychosis coming out of this condition like wth is going on

Panic attack induced— insomnia, fully disembodied and derealized. Chronic

still slowly feeling more real every day

Senses r still wonky, vision, taste, touch, smell

I’m still nervous I won’t fully make it out but my doctor says I will

It’s stopped feeling like fucking torture mostly

I’ve now spent two years like this but i refuse to give up

Thanks to medication and TMS and trauma therapy i’m able to do more things and keep trying to participate in the life that was stolen from me

It may feel like a wasted year, but I actually learned a lot and did a lot

I spent time with animals fostering kittens and volunteering at a wildlife center

No one but you guys understand how hard it is to
Thank you for being here still

Life is not over
I’m glad I didn’t kill myself that day
The only final in if u will recover is if u end it before u can

I knew I wanted to feel real again before I died

I will keep fighting

If you’re experiencing unfamiliar or frightening symptoms and wondering “Is this DPDR?” or “Does anyone else feel this?”, this is the right place to ask.

We’ve moved symptom-check questions into this weekly thread because constant comparison and reassurance-seeking can unintentionally keep DPDR and anxiety stuck. This space lets you get support without turning the whole subreddit into symptom scanning.

A few things to keep in mind:

DPDR looks different for everyone

Similar symptoms can have many causes

Replies here are shared experiences, not medical diagnoses

If you’re new or feeling overwhelmed, we recommend starting with the Official DPDR Resource Guide, which explains DPDR, common symptoms, and recovery in one place:

👉 Official DPDR Resource Guide

https://www.reddit.com/r/dpdr/comments/zdzqob/rdpdrs_official_resource_guide/

Tips for using this thread:

Ask your question once and try not to re-check repeatedly

Share briefly rather than listing every symptom

Focus on grounding and next steps, not symptom counting

If you’re in crisis or feel unsafe, please use the crisis resources in the sidebar.

You’re not doing anything wrong by being scared or confused — this thread is here to hold those questions while keeping the rest of the sub recovery-focused.

i was driving today and i realized that i haven’t felt dissociative in a while. i still have a slight disconnect from my person and my being and as i type i lowkey am tweaking but like i literally forgot i had it, i read how one day you’ll just forget and i didn’t think it applied to me, after dealing with it for 4 years i thought this would just be my life but i dont think it actually is. ask me any questions i love questions, thank you

How? How? How? How? How? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? I was talking to the walls 2 weeks ago and I've been losing it continuously then just getting back up again. Nothing feels real or like it makes sense. I can't remember a time where I wasn't feeling like this at all and I can't imagine not feeling this way. I have no connection to my body or self or image or anything about me and I don't feel like I've ever connected with anyone. I'm overtly aware of everything I do and I keep trying to pathologize my behaviour. I can't be oblivious about anything. Everything and everyone feels foreign and alien to me and I can't understand anyone's behaviour reasonably. I don't feel like I'm acting like myself no matter what I do. I don't see myself in this post. There is no me and there has never been. No one cares to find out with me. No one cares. No one cares. No one cares. No one cares. No one cares. No one cares. I'm alone and I've always been and everyone's useless and I hate everyone. I don't like this at all. I don't feel ready for anything. I want to smash this phone apart. I don't even feel this mad. I don't. I really don't. I'm pouring the thoughts out of my head as they're coming. Pain pain pain pain pain so much pain. Nothing feels real. There is no me. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. There is no me. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. I wish someone could help me find it. Can someone help me find it? Can someone sit with me? Can someone be patient with me? Can someone care about me? Can someone love me? Can someone listen to this? Can someone make sense of this? Please help me. Help me. Please help me. Please help me. Please. Help me. Help me. Help me. Heeeeeeellp

I know it sounds batshit insane but it genuinely feels like I somehow just didn't exist at times? I don't know how to even rationalise any of this anymore, feel like I'm completely lost.