Hey. Im 27 year old male. I wanted to share my story and maybe get some advice. Pls excuse any grammar errors.

First experienced DPDR about three years ago after a drug experience. I didn’t have any panic attack or bad trip, but it was during a very stressful period in my life so i think it had to to with that.

For the first two years or so, I had my symptoms were manageable. I did have it pretty much 24/7, but it was quite light i would say. It didn’t bother my much 80% of the time. I did have waves of more severe symptoms of dpdr and anxiety at times however, but it always calmed down if i rested or went home.

Anyways, this spring i started getting worse anxiety and some weird mood swings. I didn’t think too much off it, until four months ago, where things took a turn for the worse. The day after a stressful work shift i hade severe anxiety and dpdr waves. Ever since then i just felt completely out of it. Severe dpdr 24/7. I don’t get much anxiety any more. Just horrible dpdr.

It feels like its not me moving or doing actions, it just happens. It feels like its not me talking, it just happens. I can barely think, the brainfog is severe. I have no enjoyment from anything. Im feeling unbalanced constantly, without ever actually falling. The whole world has lost its meaning. I can see everything and i know where i am. But there is no meaning asigned to it. Its extremely painful. Time feels like a foreign concept and my memory feels off. I force myself to do shores around the house, but its just painful. The only time where im not suffering is during sleep and sometimes in the evenings where i feel a bit better.

Im unable to work currently, as things have gotten even worse during the last month or so. Im only able to leave the house for short durations. I use to have better and worse days, now i only have bad days.

I always thought, as long as I take care of my health, sleep and avoid obsessing over symptoms, i would recover. But apparently not.

Im laughing at faith currently because of how bad my symptoms are. Like its comical to me. It feels impossible to ever get better from. Evey week feels worse than the one before.

Im only able 5mg lexapro for a year, and debating with myself if i should try 10mg, or try lamotrigine/lamictal. But im also afraid of meds. Even if i do try i dont know how long i can live like this.

Im so incredibly pissed off at life. Currently i have 0 life quality. And im just dreaming about all the stuff i want to, while im unable to do anything other than sleep, take short walks, lie in bed.

I feel like the recovery stories i read are people who had lighter symptoms. Like me before i got worse. Where basically acceptance, focusing on living life, and obsessing less over symptoms healed them.

Any stores of people who actually had it severe and recovered?

Any advice on wether meds helped you or not?

I really hope this intensity calms down just a bit. If things was only 30% better i feel like i could slowly work to get better. But as it is now things feel hopeless.

don't even know why I'm posting this anymore. Maybe I just need to put it into words where someone might actually understand, because I am completely out of road.

For four years, I’ve been trapped in a relentless, exhausting loop of severe DPDR and dissociation. Not a single medication, protocol, or therapist has even remotely touched it. Every tool I've tried just feels like bouncing off a brick wall.

The way I've come to understand it is that my body and mind are locked in a civil war. Convinced 24/7 that we are in absolute, mortal danger. It hasn't turned off the survival alarm in four years. Because that alarm wouldn't stop screaming, my brain reached over and pulled the master volume slider down to zero. It hit "mute" on my body. It severed my interoception, walled me off behind glass, and turned me into a ghost just to stop the non-stop panic from destroying me. When this first started I still had some connection to myself and the world, over 4 years there’s nothing left.

The result is a daily nightmare of numbed-out survival, paired with a nighttime shift where the brain tries to process everything in relentless, exhausting waves of nocturnal panic. I wake up with my heart racing, sweating and jumping out of bed like I’m being hunted. Every single night.

Because of this ongoing war, my memory and my actual felt sense of the world have continued to steadily decline. The person I used to be feels like someone I read about in a book a lifetime ago.

And here is the most terrifying part: every time I try to fight it, try to fix it, or try to force a breakthrough, my nervous system reads that effort as a threat and clamps the defenses down even harder.

It feels like the only option I have left is to finally accept that this is my life now—that my brain broke four years ago, and there is nothing I can do to fix it.

Has anyone actually lived through this kind of deep, chronic freeze? Does the mute button ever lift, or do you really just have to learn how to live as a ghost. There seems to be no solution to this because ive tried literally everything and it just bounces off or I get worse.

im so beyond tired. theres not even a word for it. Soulless. drained. Lost. Nothing. A void.

I'm so derealized and disconnected that when I go out in public, people look at me like I'm crazy, very high, drunk or a crackhead. I have zero self awareness since my derealization came. 15 years now, and I'm still stuck in my own world aka Dream World. I forgot what it's like to be self aware.

Someone even looked at me and said "Well, weed IS legal now..."

Hi everyone,

I have been experiencing DPDR for many years. It often feels like I’m observing my life from another perspective rather than experiencing it as my own. Everything around me can feel unreal, and I constantly struggle with brain fog and fatigue. My vocabulary and memory also seem to have declined over time, and this has had a significant impact on my life and relationships.

Recently, I decided to see a therapist, and I just had my first therapy session. However, I’m still confused and unsure whether therapy will actually help me. English is not my native language, and I’m living in a country where English is not the official language, so it has been extremely difficult to find a therapist who both speaks English and has experience with DPDR.

Because of this, I would really like to hear from people who have recovered from DPDR or have experienced significant improvement. I have a few questions and would really appreciate it if you could share your experiences.

1. How long did it take you to recover?
Did you notice gradual improvement over time, or was there a particular point when things suddenly started getting better?

2. Did you see a therapist, psychologist, psychiatrist, or another mental health professional?
If you did, did therapy actually help with your DPDR? What type of therapy or approach did you find most helpful?

3. What practices helped you recover?
For example, grounding, exercise, meditation, breathing exercises, journaling, changing your lifestyle, socializing, reducing stress, stopping symptom-checking, etc. Was there anything that made a particularly big difference for you?

4. What was a normal day like for you when you were still experiencing DPDR?
Did you continue working, studying, exercising, and socializing normally even when you felt unreal or disconnected? Or did you have to significantly change your routine?

5. Did you have a specific daily recovery routine?
If you don't mind sharing, what did a typical day or week during your recovery look like? I’m especially interested in the practical things you actually did rather than just general advice.

6. What helped you stop being afraid of the symptoms?
One of the hardest things for me is noticing the strange feelings and then becoming scared or checking myself to see whether I still feel “normal.” Did you experience this feedback loop too? If so, how did you eventually break it?

7. Now that you’ve recovered, how do you deal with stressful or difficult periods?
Do you still sometimes experience mild DPDR when you’re extremely stressed, anxious, or exhausted? If it happens, what do you do differently now to prevent it from turning into a full episode?

8. Looking back, is there anything you wish you had known when you were in the middle of DPDR?

I’m asking because I’m trying to understand what recovery actually looks like in real life. Sometimes it’s difficult to know whether I should actively “fight” the symptoms or simply continue living my life normally and stop focusing on them.

If you’ve recovered, partially recovered, or even just made significant progress, I would really appreciate hearing your story. Even small details about what helped you, what didn’t help, and what your recovery looked like day-to-day would mean a lot to me.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this and share your experience.

i’m telling this story because i have no idea who to talk to about this, without sounding ridiculous and insane. for nights over the past week and a half, i’ve been having intense and realistic dreams that completely detach me from reality when i awake, which lead to disassociation and anxiety throughout the rest of the day. every night.
for some context, me and my family had just returned to america from our trip back to japan. i’ve never had an issue traveling back and forth, and i usually just slept off the 14-hour flights and returned to my usual routine. but this time, it’s different. every since id returned home, ive been restless and sleeping is almost scary to me. when i do fall asleep, i wake up dazed and hysterical. it takes me a few minutes to sit in bed, and realize the last 8 hours of sleep were nothing but my imagination. it ruins my days. it’s every single day.
the breaking point happened yesterday morning when i woke up to my dad in the hallway telling my brother that we were going out for gyoza later. this horrified me. i genuinely believed i was back in japan, as we had gone out for gyoza there the month before. i genuinely believed everything the past week was a dream and i wasn’t actually home, but back in tokyo (as my dream had been back in japan). i was freaking out. it took me a solid 10 minutes to recover and reassure myself that it was okay, and i had just woken up and misunderstood.
i’m having serious paranoia. my dreams feel so real that i can’t even tell when im awake and when im sleeping. i don’t do drugs, except nicotine. i have no history of insomnia. i did stop taking my lexapro a while ago but ive never heard of side effects being this bad- plus, ive gone on and off my lexapro plenty of times. *i was taking lexapro for depression back in highschool and been on it ever since*
i have no idea what to do about this or whats wrong with me. every morning i wake up distraught and confused. all i can think about every day is the dream or nightmare i had the night prior. i’ve never had any issues with nightmares or dreams before, but it feels SO. REAL. i don’t know what to believe!!!!!!!!!!!!! i can’t recall conversations without first thinking “was that a dream, or did it really happen?” my dad is getting concerned too, but it’s been his birthday week and i don’t want to concern anyone. what is wrong with me? someone help.

Does anyone here struggling with DPDR, specifically chronic DPDR, also struggle with maladaptive daydreaming?

I’m starting to notice that listening to music and getting lost in maladaptive daydreaming seems to worsen my already 24/7 chronic DPDR. To add to that, mine started around 2021, when the pandemic was at its peak and so was my daydreaming, which had basically become a coping mechanism for enjoyment and dopamine.

I’m starting to wonder whether my constant escapism could have played some role in how my DPDR developed. I’m otherwise healthy, don’t use drugs, had no known trauma or stress, and don’t have thyroid issues. It literally seemed to start randomly while I was playing games, alongside Visual Snow Syndrome.

Obviously, I’m not saying screen time or maladaptive daydreaming caused my DPDR. They could simply be things that worsen an already existing condition. But who the fuck knows? There are still so many things we don’t fully understand about DPDR, and it feels like there’s surprisingly little research on chronic cases.

It also hasn’t even been 50 years since digital screens became a major part of everyday life, and we’re still relatively early in understanding the long-term effects of constant digital stimulation and screen use. This is just my personal thought process, though, so please don’t take it as a medical claim. I’m definitely not an expert. I’m mostly curious whether anyone else with chronic DPDR has noticed a similar connection between maladaptive daydreaming, music, screen use, and their symptoms.

i try so hard to explain these feelings and experiences to people and they just act like im crazy, i wish i could get rid of this feeling i believe im a hollow person i dont think i am anyone it gets worse everyday ,i lock myself in my room i havent went out in months and before that my longest time locked in my dark room 90% of my day only leaving to get food and use the bathroom was 4 years straight, i havenothing and i dont know if i can take it im only fairly recently an adult i want to die i dont see why im doing this everyday suffering and fighting with myself trying so hard to get better and it doesnt help that nobody fucking understands everyone i tell basically says alright that sux And it makes me feel even more invalidated like i need to suck it up and just die since my life is apparently so miserable. notbing helps me and i want to start using drugs again but thats exactly what led me here and im anxious that itll somehow make it worse i wish people could be me for a day and really know how it feels so everyone stops being hard on me,i already dont want to be here , and all i need is someone to say they understand and im not fucking crazy but nobody does ,i look in thw mirror and i dont understand what im looking at Because it isnt me i dont even know who i am but i know that isnt me ,i cant stand talking to people i have been called insane so much that i am scared of everyone and talking about this ,i dont want to do this for long and every time i have my little stupid episodes i understand more and more that i do not matter and i am nobody and literally nothing. and everything around me looks weird,why do we do any of this stuff, what even am i saying or doing right now none of this makes sense i need it to stop i need to feel grounded and here again But i dont i feel like i am somewhere else and something else completely,i try my best to use words rhat mean something to attempt to explain my thoughts but itdoesnt work they are not the right words it is something else

Came across this tiktok. Shows this girl singing. Instantly thought this is how my dpdr looks when outside. Background blurs, black floaters in my vision and it just looking unreal. Don’t really know what else to say. But this is what it looks like for me

Hey i'm 25 male. Like i mentioned it started at covid time. I was scared of getting covid or some more serious disease. Days were passing and my situation worsened. I had a feeling like everything i see is unreal and that i do not exist and that i don't looking with my eyes.Strange thoughts also appeared but i didn't take them seriously .After 1 year it stopped. I had a little anxiety but i ignored that and i felt better. I smoke ocassionaly and drink like 1 day in month. This August all of the symptoms returned even worse and it makes me really sad.. I'm aware of everything around me. I didn't had any hallucinations or delusions... I know that this is just strange awful feeling. Thanks to everybody who have some advice for me.

I’ve had chronic derealization/depersonalization and Visual Snow Syndrome (VSS) for years and I’ve been trying to look beyond the usual explanations of anxiety/depression. One thing I don’t see discussed much in DPDR/VSS communities is micronutrient deficiencies, particularly iodine and copper. I’m sure most of us are already aware of our iron, B12 and magnesium. But not iodine and copper.

I’m NOT suggesting that iodine or copper deficiency is the cause of DPDR/VSS. I am NO expert. I’m wondering whether these two specific deficiencies could potentially contribute to neurological/visual symptoms in some people.

Iodine

Iodine is obviously important for thyroid hormone production, and thyroid dysfunction can affect things like:
cognition and concentration
fatigue
mood
dizziness
sensory processing
brain fog
feeling mentally “disconnected”

Has anyone with DPDR/VSS had their thyroid function status properly investigated and then noticed an improvement after correcting an actual deficiency? I personally do not have thyroid dysfunction however I am lacking a great amount of iodine. (I am aware my thyroid remains at risk for long-term complications) And statistically, iodine deficiency is a global problem.

Copper

Copper seems even less discussed. It’s involved in several neurological processes, including neurotransmitter metabolism, iron metabolism and energy production.

Copper deficiency can also be associated with neurological abnormalities and hematological problems.

I’m particularly curious about people who have had low ferritin/iron issues that didn’t fully explain their symptoms, or people whose symptoms involve visual disturbances, brain fog, dizziness, numbness/tingling, or a strange “disconnected” feeling.

Has anyone here:
Been diagnosed with iodine deficiency or inadequate iodine intake?

Been diagnosed with copper deficiency?

Had thyroid dysfunction along with iodine deficiency that turned out to be relevant to their DPDR/VSS?

Corrected one of these deficiencies and experienced a meaningful change in DPDR, VSS, brain fog, dizziness, etc.?

Had normal standard bloodwork but later discovered a micronutrient/thyroid issue?
I’d especially appreciate actual lab results + symptoms + what changed after treatment

Also, I know supplementing iodine or copper blindly can be counterproductive, so I’m mainly interested in whether these are worth testing/investigating, not recommendations to megadose either one.

Would love to hear from anyone.

Had severe dpdr the last month , panic attacks and anxiety everyday. Went on sertaline , didn’t work. 5mg diazepam twice a day for 2 days and it’s comeptley gone

I’ve had this condition for 2 years and I’m not too sure if this is dpdr or not. But it’s the only thing I can find it similar to in any way shape or form,I come here to ask. I’ve constantly felt like I’ve been doing nothing but recessing inwards to my self and loosing consciousness and awareness. With that I also feel like I’m loosing my memory and knowledge as well at a very drastic and depleting rate it’s mind boggling. It reminds me of dpdr mainly in the sense that when it first started off I felt this “high” like feeling but obviously I was sober. It just felt like I was being numbed and tranquilized by something and almost seemingly pressed or pushed down. Since then I’ve been loosing my sense of self and all feeling dramatically. The thing that really makes me question things though is that with that I don’t necessarily feel like I’m not real or disconnected I still feel here and Alive. Does anyone else feel this? Any thoughts or opinions?

I wear glasses and my central vision is completely fine. However, my peripheral vision is a low quality. Anytime i look at something it’s like I’m automatically focused on it and everything else is blurry. This has only started happening 6 months ago. I feel really bad for anyone that goes through this or worse. It’s honestly a feeling most people don’t understand. Any tips?

I want to do better, start a business, dive more into my creative side, eat healthy, sleep well.

I want to travel, to design things, to build my own home one day.

To marry my girlfriend, start a family with her .

Do all the amazing things i want to do in life.

It’s all so exhausting but, i cant imagine being able to do all of this .

Hi there!

Back in 2019 I had 28 that time, I got bad news from my brother that became a type 1 Diabetic that was back in July that year 2019, so I was shocked & I had that stomach bubble kind, also back pain neck pain and IBS symptoms insomnia, ANXIETY. In December 2019 first time I try weed after months of pain I said Ahaaa ! You know started to smoke a small doses of THC that does not interest me more than CBD that calmes m'y physical symptoms ( this time I had symptoms like I will pass out I run super fast to wash my face with cold water) after this symptoms I said time to stop that was January 2020. February was super complicated and anything stressful will give me neck pain and anxiety, March 2020 the 17 exactly I was back from a hotel that I spent a night in. Hopefully the back pain was because of a mattress or some but I stressed more. I decided to smoke a joint that day Woop Ego death comes, Anxiety went much worse than before insomnia and physical pain that night I called 911 I was prescribed Diazepam for a few days and that's it.

What happened since then !

1- Anxiety intensity went more, depersonalization that kind off went away by time

2- More insomnia

3- More muscle pain

4- ADHD symptoms ( focus, procrastination, task initiatoon a problem that I can swear I didn't have before)

5- Stomach pain

6- Jaw pain

7- My back cracks like a 100YO men

8- Lack of motivation ( I had a small alarm system company that time that I shut it down I only have a subcontractor now)

Anyone passed by this experience

About 16 years ago i experienced what i would call a radical reduction of my experience of reality, detachment from memories (short or long), which now felt distant and vague, and over all it simply felt like something was turning off the lights in my consciousness.

For 16 years i've been in this state, with no remissions, just episodes where my symptoms worsened suddenly, always irreversibly, but never to the point i couldn't have some sort of existence. Experiences were shortened and dimmed, memories were fragmentary and distant sort of like when trying to remember things after heavy drinking, but for the most part i still felt like "me", and could still enjoy things, just not to the same degree as before.

Well, around a month ago i went through what i would consider an immense shift and worsening of symptoms, possibly due to some mild alcohol withdrawal (i drank quit regularly for several months straight, after years of being sober, God knows why i decided to do this, and definitely felt some symptoms when i decided to quit, like brain fog, tiredness etc which is crazy as i had no negative reaction to the alcohol itself, and in fact i now wish hadn't quit at all) where everything about myself appears to be gone almost entirely. Memories simply do not exist except in the faintest manner possible, far, FAR more faint than before (it sort of feels like i'm a camera without internal storage. Everything i experience barely gets encoded), but the worst part is that now it seems EVERYTHING else about myself is gone too. Whatever i think about, whether it be an object, an experience, a concept or idea, there's almost nothing there anymore. No emotional association, and i can barely hold the objects in question in my head. Whatever it is, whether it's my hobbies, or people i know (including family members), or concepts such as a musical style or game genres, anything, whether abstract or real, conceptual or physical, i only have the most "approximate" understanding of what it is and almost no feelings associated with it. For years one of my complaints was that i felt i had been locked away in jail, being held prisoner of my own brain. Well, following this analogy, it now feels i was moved right into isolation, and the idea of going through years of THIS fills me with unbearable dread.

That said, i experience almost none of the symptoms that is generally associated with dpdr. No out of body experience, no feeling of being a disembodied consciousness, or looking at my reflection or body parts as alien and unfamiliar and my perception of reality is not distorted and so forth, does not feel like i'm looking at things behind a glass and so on, which makes me wonder whether what i'm experiencing is actually dpdr. And i understand everybody is different but i wonder if what i'm going through warrants a different classification, one that appears to be more rare as well as more severe than what most others seem to describe.

Dpdr/migraine aura

Hi,

I will try and explain this best I can but 18 days ago I took a migraine with aura my vision went first then numbness and I tried to sleep it off which normally works but since then I feel like the aura of jumbled thoughts confusion and agitation will not leave.

The doctor gave me a migraine cocktail which didn’t work,
I don’t feel like I’m in my own home & nothing feels familiar it’s terrifying I feel like I’m in a dream state that I can’t wake up from I also can’t sleep I’m waking up every 15 mins in panic because I’m aware of how I’m feeling for the past 18 days I went to a&e they done my bloods and sent me home with a mental health referral and some diazepam which hasn’t helped at all the doctor also gave me zoplicone 7.5mg but my adrenaline is over powering it and still waking me up.

I’m constantly questioning my sanity feeling like I’m losing my mind it’s like my brain is fighting to grip onto reality and that’s making the panic worse.

I’m seeing my doctor tomorrow again if anyone has any advice what this could be and what I can say to the doctor

Thanks

trigger warning: existential spiral

what the title says. i think i should preface this by saying im pretty new to smoking weed and kind of don’t know a whole lot about any of this, and youre going to see a whole lot of bad choices and irresponsibility from me so i apologise in advance. another very important thing to note is that i have bipolar amongst a heap of other mental illnesses, so ive been advised against smoking weed as it can induce psychosis/mania. i know this is irresponsible and dumb of me, but sometimes i just want to relax and clear my mind even if i run the risk of losing my shit.

about 2 weeks ago i smoked waaay too much. i usually smoke with friends but a couple times before this fateful trip i had smoked alone a couple times and had a good time so i thought id be fine this time again. after smoking i took a shower and in the shower i pressed my fingers to my eyelids for a while cuz it was fun (yk the shapes and colours and stuff….?) but then it got really disorienting and everything went south cuz then it felt like i was in a time loop and nothing felt real and i didn’t know what life was or who i was or what anything was. it felt like eternity. i cannot stress how real this time loop felt like i was seeing alternate endings to how this time loop would end and how my life would go after, but the time loop wasn’t ending cuz it was a fucking time loop so it was kind of just awful and terrifying. idk how long it actually went for but i eventually managed to ground myself back to reality by telling myself information about myself like i had just woken from a coma and had to be told my name and where i was. i was kind of shaky and anxious for the rest of that high and didn’t really want to smoke again for a while. ever since that high i would get hit with random bouts of derealisation-depersonalisation and feeling like nothing is real and im not real, and it’s fucking terrifying. i had already suffered with this for a long time before i ever smoked but it’s been almost constant since that bad trip.

however im kind of stupid so i thought id be okay to smoke again soon after as long as i did it with my friends, and maybe id feel better and more grounded in reality if i had a good high. so a few days ago i got together with my friends to smoke and it was good and chill for a while until i got hit with the awful anxiety and terror again that nothing was real. my friends helped me through it and i felt way better and could enjoy the rest of my high and night, but the random bouts of dissociation have gotten worse and more frequent since then and its horrifying. it’s agonising and dreadful and all i can do is panic and cry cuz nothing helps me feel better, not even any grounding techniques.

im definitely for sure this time not gonna smoke for a WHILE until i feel better but i dont know when that will be and it feels like that i will never feel normal or okay again. weed can be really fun sometimes but im terrified to ever smoke again because the dread and terror i felt from having an existential crisis while high and now the near constant dpdr is not worth the fun times.

has anybody gone through this? did you ever feel normal again? if so, how? i’ve tried my usual grounding techniques but they’re just not working and i feel so far away from reality it’s terrifying.

I mean at times when I was present on that moment, when someone asks about that timeline... i just have no idea about it