People who suffer from derealization question whether or not the world around them is real, and because of this, often have a very hard time functioning in the world around them.

Depersonalization is equally harmful: it robs the person of their feelings of humanity and makes them feel disassociated from the world around them.

Understandably, people who suffer from depersonalization and derealization may have a difficult time with social interaction, and may feel isolated and alone.

The best way to combat depersonalization and derealization is to get professional help from a mental health specialist, since depersonalization and derealization are often symptoms of larger mental illnesses, like anxiety or depression.

Along with professional help, these are some methods that can help reduce the panic, stress, and depression that come from depersonalization and derealization.

6. Assess your current medications.

If you’re currently taking medications for anxiety, depression, or any other illness, talk to your doctor about feeling dissociative: it could possibly be a side effect of your medication.

Common medications that can induce depersonalization or derealization include antihistamines, anti-anxiety medications, carbamazepine, fluoxetine, fluphenazine, indomethacin, nitrazepam, and sodium pentothal.

5. Monitor your recreational drug use and diet.

According to the US National Library of Medicine, long-term use of hallucinogens like LSD and marijuana can either cause, increase, or lessen feelings of dissociation in people with depersonalization and derealization disorders depending on their neural chemistry.

If you’re in a state that allows medical marijuana, consider talking to your doctor about possible depersonalization treatment; but in any other case, stay as far away as possible from unregulated marijuana or LSD from street vendors. While LSD and other hallucinogens may have promise in helping treat depersonalization, their lack of regulation can mean it may worsen your symptoms.

Regulating less intense chemicals like caffeine and alcohol are important as well. Because caffeine and alcohol both interfere with natural brain processes, eliminating or reducing their presence in your diet can help mental health and reduce the number of reactions with your medication.

4. Get some sleep (no, seriously).

We all know the woozy feeling from not having enough sleep. And while one or two all-nighters are fine, consistently having a bad sleep schedule can contribute to feelings of depersonalization or disassociation, not to mention a host of other negative effects on a person’s health.

The number of hours needed per night is different for everyone: according to the UCLA Psychiatry and Behavioral Services Center for Sleep Research, the best way to figure out how much sleep you need is to go cold turkey on everything.

Quit caffeine, quit sleeping pills, quit anything that wakes you up or puts you to sleep, and let your body naturally fall into a sleep pattern rhythm. It may take a couple weeks, but you’ll find your body may need much more or way less sleep than you’ve been providing it.

It’s important to fix that in order to effectively manage any mental illness, especially depersonalization and disassociation disorders.

3. Instead of obsessively concentrating on trivial things, practice purposeful, mindful meditation.

One of the hardest and most challenging aspects of depersonalization and derealization is the feeling of obsession, or not being able to “let things go”.

This obsessive quality can not only be personally distressing, but is also often one of the most significant symptoms that make forming social relationships with other people extremely difficult for people who struggle with it.

Obsession can be overwhelming, and can be tough to treat “on the spot”. However, practicing daily mindful meditation can help prevent obsessive episodes from occurring.

Mindful meditation can take many forms, and it’s important to find which type works best for you.

Essentially, a mindful meditative session will include focusing your entire being, mind and body, on the present moment: the pillow you’re sitting on, the smell you’re smelling, the thoughts you’re thinking.

You don’t pass judgment on the thoughts or feelings, you simply let them exist.

You accept the world as it is, for just 10 or 20 minutes, and feel calm and rooted in reality.

Guides for mindful meditations can be found virtually everywhere, and remember: the best ones are free. Mindful meditation has been successfully practiced for centuries, so don’t let some scam artist in L.A. convince you he has a “secret formula”.

Do, however, research different guides for mindful meditations, as everyone’s needs are different.

2. Find and foster communities, both likeminded and otherwise.

One of the toughest parts about living with depersonalization and derealization is the feeling of social isolation.

When first learning how to manage your symptoms, you may feel uncomfortable talking to people in public, and that’s okay: everyone recovers at different rates, and taking things slowly isn’t bad.

Luckily, lots of online communities exist for people suffering from depersonalization and derealization, from subreddit communities to 4chan forums and Facebook groups. Sometimes forming connections online can be easier than forming connections in real life, and it’s not a bad place to start.

Of course, it’s extremely important that your social interactions don’t begin and end online. Moving outside of your comfort zone, meeting people without your same mental illness, is very important.

Apps like Meetup are great places to start: if you’re interested in books, they have book clubs, or if you love football, there are lots of Meetup groups that meet for games. If you crave a more romantic or sexual connection, apps like Tinder or websites like Match.com can be good places to start to meet other people.

Because the worlds of online communities and the “outside world” are being more and more connected by apps like those mentioned, it’s becoming easier to transition to a social life outside of your laptop.

1. Be kind to yourself.

It’s very easy to let your inner monologue turn hateful: you’re not good enough, you’re bad with people, you have no friends, you’re a loser, etc.

If you follow nothing else in this list, follow this advice: do not let that internal script continue to play. Self-hatred will do nothing but make your condition worse. Instead, practice mindful thinking: when something like “I’m so stupid” crosses your mind, immediately say to yourself, “I may have some things to learn, but I am a smart, important person”.

Counter every negative thought you have with a good one and see how much self-love can help.

As always, take everything here with a grain of salt — that grain of salt, of course, being your mental health provider.

Only a trained professional can give you the complete resources you need to be mentally healthy, and there’s absolutely no shame in accessing one.

Have a great week, and remember to love yourself!

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People affected by Depersonalization and Derealization will describe their symptoms as a detachment from reality and that they are living a dream (as if they’re outside their body, observing of themselves). That is what depersonalization feels like.

Derealization on the other hand, is a detachment from the environment: feeling that everything around them isn’t real. Another variation of this is the feeling that they don’t exist and when they are in a public area, nobody notices them.

You might of heard the phrase ‘reality testing’ being used when researching about DPD and how ‘reality testing’ remains in tact for individuals with DPD. What this means is, unlike other disorders such as psychosis, the person is aware that what they experience is only a feeling and that the world isn’t actually an illusion. People with DPD may think they are going insane, but this has been described as almost the opposite of insanity: being hyperaware of one’s surroundings. I’ll talk more about this later on, when we explore the cause of DPD, but now the big question:

Do you Have Depersonalization Disorder (DPD)?

Now, here’s where it starts getting a bit tricky. One can experience Depersonalization and Derealization symptoms, but not be diagnosed with Depersonalization Disorder (DPD). In these circumstances, they are just symptoms rather than the person having the disorder itself. The symptoms of Depersonalization and Derealization are actually quite common in panic attacks, phobias (including social anxiety), PTSD, and acute stress. Furthermore, alcohol and drugs are known to cause this problem as well. So simply having these symptoms doesn’t mean you are affected by DPD.

So, first of all, in order for a diagnosis of DPD to be possible, you must ensure that the feeling of Depersonalization doesn’t only occur due to the above reasons, for instance, if it only occurs during a panic attack, then it is a symptom of anxiety rather than DPD itself. Secondly, the symptoms must be persistent and must be severe enough to impair one’s daily life functioning in order to become a disorder. If you still think you have DPD, then don’t worry, because there are steps you can take immediately to eliminate your Depersonalization Disorder for good, and worrying is the opposite of what you must do. Before we get to how to cure Depersonalization Disorder, it’s important to know what causes it.

Depersonalization Disorder Causes and the Depersonalization Cure

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Most of the time, DPD is caused by chronic childhood trauma or abuse and a lack of social support in one’s life. The main thing to note here is the word ‘chronic’ since having one or two traumatic events occur isn’t likely to bring about DPD: it’s the recurring trauma that causes the altering of the brain. Most likely it’s due to family issues especially with one’s parents.

Due to the experience of some chronic trauma, people might start to become hypervigilant of social situations as a protective mechanism. Depersonalization is just a way of coping with the event, especially when there is a lack of social support. This is one of the most common Depersonalization Disorder causes: Evidence has shown that prolonged stress/anxiety/depression have been known to cause changes in the amygdala, the area responsible for causing  this hypervigilance.

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My advice for those with DPD is to firstly accept what has happened in the past and acknowledge that this is what caused your DPD. Next, start relaxing everyday: do meditation or any activities you find fun. It can be difficult for people with DPD to relax, so seeking help from a therapist might be the best option, especially since they’ll be able to help with other disorders preventing you from relaxing such as anxiety disorders/phobias.

Another cause of DPD is mistaking a symptom as a disorder, as mentioned previously. Sometimes, an experience of depersonalization can be quite normal and will go away on its own, however, when one starts to worry about it and think they are mentally ill, it can start to be a recurring thing, especially since they bring on unnecessary anxiety. In other words they experience a cycle where:

1. They experience a casual depersonalization symptom that will go away on its own.
2. They fear they are mentally crazy and this causes a great deal of anxiety
3. This anxiety causes the symptoms to reappear at a heightened degree of severity
4. The cycle repeats and it gets worse over time.

So the common theme is DPD is caused and made worse by stress or anxiety. In order to dissolve DPD for good, it is crucial to eliminate these stressors. Treatment of DPD involves alleviating anxiety disorders and depression to enable relaxation. It may seem that DPD has progressed so severely that it can’t be cured, but once you are able to relax, your feelings of depersonalization and derealization will gradually dissipate over time. Remember chronic depression, stress and anxiety will cause negative changes in the brain, so start relaxing more in your life and remove all the unnecessary/irrational causes of stress.

Read more from Sociable Introvert: How to cure depersonalization disorder

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What is depersonalization? Depersonalization definition, according to Wikipedia, is the following:

“Depersonalization (or depersonalisation) is an anomaly of self-awareness. It consists of a feeling of watching oneself act, while having no control over a situation. Subjects feel they have changed, and the world has become vague, dreamlike, less real, or lacking in significance.“

It’s a very hard task to describe it to someone who never experienced it. Even I, after recovering from it, find it difficult to relate myself to the above depersonalization definition, because I do not suffer from DP anymore.

Depersonalization is more of a feeling, a state your mind gets trapped into. If you suffer from depersonalization disorder, you may feel like:

• You are not you.
• Your body is not your own/Your hands are not yours.
• It’s like you don’t think from the first-person position. It’s like you observe your thoughts, as well as your actions and reactions.
• You may feel like you are ghost, that you consist of eyes only. Sometimes you may feel like physically disappearing.
• You may experience distortion of time (and of space, if depersonalization disorder is accompanied by derealization, what happens quite often).

The one mistake everybody, who suffers from depersonalization, makes when looking for how to get rid of this dreadful state of mind and soul, is trying to think his/her way out of it.

It will not work. You cannot ruminate over the depersonalization symptoms you’re suffering from and go through possible causes of the disorder in your mind over and over again, and then suddenly come to some solution that will cure you at once.

What helped me — is that I began doing what I love.

First thing I did – I admitted that I am feeling bad, and that I will not get over depersonalization in the near future. Perhaps, I will never get over it.

Secondly, I decided, that if I’m going to suffer from it further, and, perhaps, it will get even worse (I was scared that it’s going to manifest into schizophrenia), the only thing I could do in this situation is to start doing what I love. My reasoning was that if I’m going to lose my mind, I’d better begin doing something worthwhile right now, before it’s too late, so I could leave some legacy, before things get really bad.

Since I wanted to create computer games since childhood, the next step was clear to me: start developing some computer game. That is how my recovery story began.

So here are the steps I recommend you to take in order to stop depersonalization:

1. Do not resist it.
2. Identify what you love to do, what you are passionate about, and begin doing it.

I know, your immediate answer to the last recommendation may be something like: “You offer me to do something I like, but I cannot do anything because of depersonalization! I cannot think about anything else but it. I cannot focus on anything. I cannot distract myself from these thoughts. Moreover, I doubt that I can feel anything in this state, I haven’t experienced joy for ages.”

I am not asking you to distract yourself, you are free to continue ruminating over your state of being in the back of your mind, suffer from physical symptoms and mental anxiety.

I just ask you to think of something you can do along with it. Some activity you’re passionate about (or the one you knew you were, because when you’re depersonalized, I know, it is hard to feel any joy).

I remember that feeling of detachment from the world when it seemed like I was not interested in anything at all. However, somewhere in between anxiety attacks, an idea of creating a computer game came to my mind.

I rejected it for the first time. I believed I could not do it. However, it would continue to show up, so finally I payed some attention to it and decided to give it a try.

Remember: perhaps, you experienced a spark of creativity recently as well, but you, like me, denied the thought that you could do something about it in this state. Oh, believe me, you can! Next time when you are “struck” with a creative idea, try to work on it a little bit. Or write it down and come back to it later, on the weekend for example.

Spend a couple of hours (or just 15 minutes) to explore your idea. Draft a simple plan of action how you can implement the idea.

I know it will be hard to get going. Just remember the following: you don’t have to cure depersonalization disorder before you can work on your idea. You can work on it and suffer from DP at the same time.

When I began working on my computer game, DP did not go away. I still suffered from all those terrible depersonalization symptoms I described above. While programming the game I was still ruminating over how I was feeling at that moment: “Are hands, which are typing the code, my own hands?”, and so on. I just kept on developing the game.

You can’t get rid of DP at once. It’s a gradual process, during which you train your brain to think more about other things in your life than how much you suffer from this disorder. That is why I cannot tell exactly when I got distracted so much, that I actually stopped experiencing depersonalization at all.

Now, if I think about DP and try to remember how it felt – yes, perhaps, I may feel some tension inside. However, questioning my state (If I feel like I am me, etc.) does not provoke instant anxiety and fear as it used to. I’m pretty sure that my today reaction to existential, solipsistic and suchlike questions is no stronger than any other highly-sensitive person’s response.

I’ve tried many things on my quest to find ways to overcome depersonalization: neuroleptics, church, homeopathy. However, I found the remedy in a simple act of doing what you love. So if you ask “How do I cure depersonalization disorder?”, my answer will be – do what you love.

Read more on depersonalization from Sociable Introvert: What is Depersonalization disorder? Learn the Depersonalization Cure

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