Hey guys. I had severe "depersonalization" for over 8 years ama.

[Baakpon]

I wanted to offer a way for people who may be interested or personally afflicted with this kind of thinking.

It is very scary. I will explain it in stream of consciousness. It is associated with extreme paranoia.

(Omg.. what if I wake up in the morning and I am gone and another has taken my place? Omg. am I going insane.

what was that. a parasite in my brain! I can feel it. No it's just a headache...... Should I tell her everything:?)

Etc ad naseum. Basically everything becomes EPIC. All situations MUST be resolved immediatly.

All things are problems unless they are comfortable immediatly and must be corrected.

I had to be my own therapist... which was difficult. If I had a therapist I may have been able to recover much quicker.

Anyway, Ask me anything you want. I will answer. Self-knowledge saved me. I would not stop trying to figure out reality. I kept at it like water eroding rock. 

I finally understood it and absorbed it. I was afraid of not being able to connect( to everything adn anything) and once I realized that I absorbed it

instead of running away from it. I ate my fear and it became a part of me, controlled by me, instead of an affliction.

 

[stMarkus]

I may be having some similar problems but I don’t think there’s any kind of advice except pursuing self-knowledge that would be helpful to me.  Are you happy now? If you really got over your problems without a therapist then that's remarkable in my opinion.

[Guest Upthedownescalator]

Hi

Is this similiar to self-alientation. I think this is what I have and I have recently cancelld therapy as I can't seem to accurately and deeply explain myself or recall feeling in the presence of another. I find it hard enough to feel like myself on my own. But in the past year I have begun to notice this and have even discovered a technique to help me recover myself. What I do is remember the child I was in early school or wherever and force myself to realise that this child was me and still is me then I allow myself to experience the present through his eyes (or my eyes I should say). The more I am progressing through this process the more I realise that I have been in a deep slumber for many years, like a mindless zombie. Also it seems like the degree to which I recover myself is the degree to which I understand how detached I was, so I still am unsure how far I have to go with this to be whole again. I also seem to be better able to access my feelings (past and present) and my memories because they are my own again. I can observe my thoughts more easily too.

 

Is this similiar to your experience and do you have any techniques to help speed things up?

 

Cheers

Charlie

[stMarkus]

 

I have recently started reeling that I’ve lived most of my life up to this point as someone who is not really me and who has over time taken almost complete control over my being. I have grown to hate life, people and the world because there is this wall between me and the world that prevents me from ever experiencing anything outside of my head. Recently I have started exerting effort to return back to what I really am and what I really feel and I try to remove this wall from between me and the world. However it’s terribly frightening to expose myself to the world, because I have built this wall to protect myself from an unbearable and dangerous world. In my efforts to expose myself amongst people I am filled with rage that was supposed to be a reaction to how my parents treated me when I was a child. I feel that I am stuck in this rage just as I was when I was a child, because I was not allowed to experience my anger in a healthy way. So I am either stuck in this rage or I feel myself sinking back into myself, where I am surrounded by a wall of fake personality in complete isolation from the world.

                Does this kind of situation seem anything similar to yours?

                God damn, I feel myself controlled by a fake personality right now, it’s like I don’t even exist, like I don’t have needs, preferences, emotions. I just feel too scared to come out of that shell, it’s like a prison of the mind. Fuck it seems so hopeless. The world outside of me doesn’t exist for me, only the world inside my head that is filled with alters that I have created to protect myself from my family. They constantly attack and berate me; they force me to be on a constant lookout for dangers, and behave in silly and humiliating ways. In other words they create my childhood world inside my head and this is the hell I’m constantly living in.

 

[Rick Horton]

 

 

I have recently started reeling that I’ve lived most of my life up to this point as someone who is not really me and who has over time taken almost complete control over my being. I have grown to hate life, people and the world because there is this wall between me and the world that prevents me from ever experiencing anything outside of my head. Recently I have started exerting effort to return back to what I really am and what I really feel and I try to remove this wall from between me and the world. However it’s terribly frightening to expose myself to the world, because I have built this wall to protect myself from an unbearable and dangerous world. In my efforts to expose myself amongst people I am filled with rage that was supposed to be a reaction to how my parents treated me when I was a child. I feel that I am stuck in this rage just as I was when I was a child, because I was not allowed to experience my anger in a healthy way. So I am either stuck in this rage or I feel myself sinking back into myself, where I am surrounded by a wall of fake personality in complete isolation from the world.

                Does this kind of situation seem anything similar to yours?

                God damn, I feel myself controlled by a fake personality right now, it’s like I don’t even exist, like I don’t have needs, preferences, emotions. I just feel too scared to come out of that shell, it’s like a prison of the mind. Fuck it seems so hopeless. The world outside of me doesn’t exist for me, only the world inside my head that is filled with alters that I have created to protect myself from my family. They constantly attack and berate me; they force me to be on a constant lookout for dangers, and behave in silly and humiliating ways. In other words they create my childhood world inside my head and this is the hell I’m constantly living in.

 

 

 

I haven't ever had the kind of thoughts you guys are describing, but I think it's fair to say we all have our demons, right? There isn't any freedom in modern cilivlization. The human being has been replaced by social concepts. Social concepts dillute the individual, and reduce him to constant comprimise. In turn, my feeling is that we never really live, because living is something that you feel when you have mobility in action dependent on nothing more than doing what you want to do at the time you want it. We've been conditioned for centuries to wave that for "whatever" moral reason of the day we discover, yet it all boils down to comprimise, and there's no moral basis or way to measure morality based on doing stuff to appease others. I mean, I think an individual guy can do stuff based on what he himself feels is moral, but these days there is SO much conditioning to wipe away before we get down to the brass tax, which is, " I want this, therefore I will do this to get this, and if it will advance me, and not hurt the ones I value I will do it/take it." But in the modern world this entails such a degree of comprimise OUTSISDE of your control that these actions are reduced to miniscule practice. Or you go to jail. Social Contracts are agreements to let yourself be caged in order to be comfortable. Humans have put themselves in these cages for so long now that we no longer have a personal identity. We seem to have a societal identity that becomes our inner critic, and it just drives people nuts. It's like having a constant Nag in your brain, asking you whether or not you should do something based on NOT what you think should be good, but based on what will be perceived as good to this big, social construct in the world. Even anarchism enters these waters, and especially Stef's UPB. I don't think there is any fact, measure, philosophy, etc... that really should let a man cage his desires, but alas it seems we must , in this world, beat our needs to death by constantly stripping our supreme authority out of fear. In this way, I think we actually all do have 2 separate beings within us. One that needs to take and give when and what we want, and one that nags us on why it "isn't right, or fair, or blah blah fucking blah. 

[stMarkus]

 

I haven't ever had the kind of thoughts you guys are describing, but I think it's fair to say we all have our demons, right? There isn't any freedom in modern cilivlization. The human being has been replaced by social concepts. Social concepts dillute the individual, and reduce him to constant comprimise. In turn, my feeling is that we never really live, because living is something that you feel when you have mobility in action dependent on nothing more than doing what you want to do at the time you want it. We've been conditioned for centuries to wave that for "whatever" moral reason of the day we discover, yet it all boils down to comprimise, and there's no moral basis or way to measure morality based on doing stuff to appease others. I mean, I think an individual guy can do stuff based on what he himself feels is moral, but these days there is SO much conditioning to wipe away before we get down to the brass tax, which is, " I want this, therefore I will do this to get this, and if it will advance me, and not hurt the ones I value I will do it/take it." But in the modern world this entails such a degree of comprimise OUTSISDE of your control that these actions are reduced to miniscule practice. Or you go to jail. Social Contracts are agreements to let yourself be caged in order to be comfortable. Humans have put themselves in these cages for so long now that we no longer have a personal identity. We seem to have a societal identity that becomes our inner critic, and it just drives people nuts. It's like having a constant Nag in your brain, asking you whether or not you should do something based on NOT what you think should be good, but based on what will be perceived as good to this big, social construct in the world. Even anarchism enters these waters, and especially Stef's UPB. I don't think there is any fact, measure, philosophy, etc... that really should let a man cage his desires, but alas it seems we must , in this world, beat our needs to death by constantly stripping our supreme authority out of fear. In this way, I think we actually all do have 2 separate beings within us. One that needs to take and give when and what we want, and one that nags us on why it "isn't right, or fair, or blah blah fucking blah. 

 

 

 

All this theory is turning my mind into shit. I’d rather stay with self-knowledge for now.

[Baakpon]

I also feel that constant nag in my self. Everywhere I turn people are pointing guns at me that other people cannot see because they have become normalized and conditioned to it. The best thing we can do it create 2 worlds. Private and public. Only allow free interaction in your private life and do not give of yourself in your public life. Also an important concept I found in "Anthem" has helped me a lot. Which is, You must never be one of the whole. You must always meet people across the threshold of self, they cannot be in your mind and you cannot be in theirs. I found freedom in the reality that no matter what happens no one can have my thoughts. Like Boethius said." No one can command my mind."(paraphrase) Thanks for your reply.

~Baakpon

[Baakpon]

@Mrkuz

 

This indeed sounds a lot like what I expereinced. My personal childhood was systimatically controlled. They did everything 6they could to condition me.Sometimes I think it almost turned me into a physcopath. My best suggestion is for you to think about that wall. Examine it and why you constructed it. It is a part of you and running from it will not help.

Perhaps it my be a good idea to become comfortable in your mind. Accept the wall... because it is there wether you like it or not. I still have my own wall up and I am not bothered by it in the least anymore. It is my companion and it does what I tell it to.  My expereince was very horrible because I was raised catholic in a very strict latin mas family. My mind was invaded by my parents as  they attempted to force me into comformity with religion. They also considered physical violence to be the best tool for child-rearing.

When I turned 24 I told them that if they ever spanked/used violence on  any of my siblings again I would never talk to them again. They stopped spanking. It sucked but I forced them to understand what my point of veiw was as a kid. I showed them how afraid I was and they wept in regret. They stopped using violence on their childrean( 11 of us) and that made me very happy. You sound as if you are still in the home or have recently left if you will forgive me asking?

[Baakpon]

@upthedownescalator

 

Hey, o/

It sounds very similar. My faculties were so compramised for so long I did not even realize I had depersonalization. I hated everyone around me for being ok with everything when I had to have problems with everything. I did not realize how unhealthy I was until much later. What It did do for me was force me to investigate reality with a fine tooth comb. I become obsessed with it and to this day I feel I understand reality better than anyone I have ever met. It was not until I finally took over the controls of my flesh vehicle completely that I understood how lost I had been. Once I controlled not only my body and mind but also my emotions I could understand that my emotional state had been forced into a kind of selfhood survival mode. Finally I am out of it. I am myself without the EPIC worries. SO this sounds very similar to my experience. The best technique's I ever learned were the abatement of desire, meditation, understanding the basic framework of reality( a bit of a giant task in itself), sex with friends only( it is important to feel love and physical connection. This allows you to practice self-contaiment which is what it sounds like your childhood environment did not allow you). Patience is your best friend. Waiting is. Learn to be content with nothing but self and you will win the feild. Everyone is very different though, and it is possible that what helped me may not help you much but if you understand self you realize it really cannot hurt. You are you. I am me. We are self-contained pilots of flesh vehicle's hurtling through space and time. Voyage on my fellow pilot.

~Baakpon

 

[Baakpon]

 

I may be having some similar problems but I don’t think there’s any kind of advice except pursuing self-knowledge that would be helpful to me.  Are you happy now? If you really got over your problems without a therapist then that's remarkable in my opinion.

 

I am happy but first I had to become the kind of person that is content being happy or sad or angry or dead.  To be at peace with yourself is to be at peace with anger, hate, love, lust, kindness, and many more. Happiness is a feeling created by the body. Contentedness is a reality created by your self. It is a very important distinction. As happiness is biological and contentedness is a complex pathway of electricity flowing through logic gates in your brain.

~Baakpon

[stMarkus]

@Baakpoon

I left 3 years ago but I'm still financially dependent on my parents and they use this power to humiliate and control me. I feel helplessly dependent on them because making money and being independent is too frightening for me at the moment. The world seems like a frightening place, where I wouldn’t last a moment, where no one would find any use for me. My mother definitely trained me to be entirely dependent on her so she would feel that someone needed her. I feel that it’s impossible for me to be independent, like I’m hopelessly tied to my mother, who treats like crap. It’s like the situation in the movie 127 hours, where the guy gets stuck under a rock and has to cut off his arm in order to free himself and escape his death. I certainly feel like I’m dying in this complete mental dependency on my parents and especially my mother and cutting off this tie feels like I have to cut off a part of my body. This is probably a classic example of a depressed and lonely single mother, who is not able to accept her son’s independence and so destroys his enthusiasm to explore the world by himself. In the beginning of my puberty I tried to distance from my mother and that made her crazy, she’s like the overly attached girlfriend. So I learned that trying to be independent would make my mother lose her affection for me; by becoming independent I would also be alone and no one would love me. This is like a big knife entering my heart every time I try to be a separate person, to be free, to be happy. I wonder if they would also want to make a movie about me. It wouldn’t be as tense as 127 hours but…. ah forget it.