Frightening Thoughts

I woke up the next day with that same weird 'fuzzy' feeling, and just couldn’t shake it. I felt like I was dreaming, that I couldn't wake up properly. I was experiencing very strange symptoms:

I felt disconnected from the world around me.
Nothing felt quite 'real'.
The world looked like it was in 2D, like I was watching a movie.
I also felt like my perception of time and memory was affected.

And I was having constant strange and frightening thoughts, so much so that I found it hard to concentrate on anything in my day to day life. It was horrible and frightening - but still I was sure that it would soon pass on its own.

It had to, right? But more days went by, and I felt the same. And then weeks.

I really began to worry that whatever this was, it wasn't going away.

This worry caused more panic attacks, and I began to feel worse and worse. The ‘fuzzy’ feeling was now constantly in my head, and I could not stop thinking about it. I couldn't concentrate on any book, film or even conversation anymore.

I felt more and more disconnected from the world around me. My mind was racing all the time, trying to understand what was happening. I was having horrible, frightening existential thoughts all day, every day.

I was absolutely terrified that I was going to be like this permanently.

Trying to Find an Answer

I went to my local doctor, who was no help at all. He said that I was probably mildly depressed and anxious but that this feeling would probably disappear on its own. He didn't react at all when I told about the feelings of unreality, of being stuck in a dream.

The fact that he didn't recognise my symptoms made me even more scared. What if what I had was some bizarre, unique condition?

In the weeks and months that followed, I became desperate to find some relief. I started frantically researching my symptoms and I tried a variety of different treatments to help myself: meditation, massage, reiki, intensive exercise etc.

Unfortunately, none of these were effective for very long and my symptoms only became worse.

Depersonalization Disorder

It was only weeks later, after much researching of my symptoms on the Internet did I come across the term ‘Depersonalization’.

Depersonalization (or DP), as various websites informed me, is a feeling of unreality, of not being connected to your surroundings, as if watching your life through a screen. I couldn’t believe it when I read it – this was exactly the feeling I had!

The websites said that it's caused by traumatic experiences, and usually only lasts while the trauma itself is happening (say a bad drug experience, panic attack etc). But for many people, the feeling can go on long after the experience.

Initially I was so relieved to find that it had a name, and that it was actually quite a common condition.

But I was crushed to find that there was no specific treatment that could cure it immediately.

Depersonalization for Years...?

And then it got worse. There were many people on Depersonalization forums who said that they had had the conditions for years, decades even. I remember sitting at my computer and having a panic meltdown when I read about these people.

I couldn't deal with this for another month, never mind for the rest of my life. And there were almost no Depersonalization recovery stories to be found.

I was absolutely terrified. I stayed in bed for days, trying to process what was happening. A few weeks ago my life was going great, now I was stuck with this terrifying condition, every day, 24/7 for the rest of my life?

Feeling Terrified

In fact, to describe the terror that I felt in the weeks and months following the attack would be a difficult thing.

I felt constantly afraid of the world around me; everything and everyone I knew and loved were suddenly things to be scared of, and I was totally cut off from them. I was living in my head, watching the world pass by. My enthusiasm for life left me.

I could hardly sleep and had regular nightmares. The DP was worse in the morning so I spent half the day in bed with the curtains closed. The symptoms got worse and worse.

I became convinced that my vision was affected by the condition, and I was seeing visual snow and 'floaters'. I even went to an optometrist to make sure there was nothing wrong with my eyes.

I began to experience back and shoulder pain, which I had never had before, convincing me that I had developed some sort of muscular wasting disease.

Will Depersonalization go away?

I spent almost all day every day researching the condition, reading scary Depersonalization stories on forums and websites. I was constantly Googling things like 'Will Depersonalization go away?' and checking for new results, hoping that some new medication had been discovered.

I even looked up celebrities with Depersonalization, and found myself trying to imagine how they could possibly live full, active lives with this condition. None of this helped, and I felt worse all the time.

That picture is of me a few weeks into my experience with Depersonalization. At that point I had all but stopped eating, dropped a dangerous amount of weight and was totally unable to sleep at night. Though I'm forcing a smile in that photo, I felt terrified. And that terror was there all day, every day.

Losing My Mind

I completely lost my appetite and had to force myself to eat, though I could only manage a few bites at a time. I lost 30 pounds in two months. As a last resort, I bought liquid nutritional supplements to replace the meals I was missing.

I constantly had horrible thoughts like 'I don't feel real... Nothing feels real... I'm going insane'. It was a nightmare. If I thought for more than a few minutes on what was happening to me, I would panic, convinced that I was stuck this way forever.  And nobody and nothing could ever help me.

I genuinely felt that I was losing my mind, and my life was over.

Purgatory or Hell

To try and make sense of what was happening to me, I genuinely considered the possibility that I had actually died on the night of the first panic attack, and that now I was either in Purgatory or Hell.

I was also convinced that I had developed some horrible, incurable disease. Schizophrenia, Alzheimers, brain cancer, you name it. I was certain that if I didn't have it already, I was going to develop it soon.

I also developed a constant fear that I was about to literally disappear off the face of the planet. Just wink out of existence like I'd never been there.

The Same Downward Spiral

Those thoughts would lead to more anxiety. And all of this, of course, was self-perpetuating – the anxiety, the Depersonalization, not eating etc, constant research - all part of the same downward spiral.

The more deeply these habits became ingrained, the further away from normality I slid.

I could hardly remember what I’d been like before all this. I mean, I had used to love horror movies, now even “Charlie And The Chocolate Factory” seemed terrifying to the point where I would have to leave the room.

The Worst Point

The Depersonalization reached its worst point when I had to attend a family wedding abroad. From the moment we left the house to go to the airport, I was absolutely terrified.

For a full weekend of forcing myself to be social and active, my life turned into a movie before my very eyes.  Nothing seemed real; I was scared out of my mind at every turn, freaked out by every conversation, sick at the sight of food, and convinced that I was ruining everyone’s time.

I wanted to curl up in a ball on the floor and weep, though I also somehow felt that doing so would only make things worse.

And of course, my parents and family were very concerned about me and what was going on -- but also frustrated, because they didn't know what they could do to help.

Depersonalization In My Dreams

During that weekend, I woke up in the middle of the night with the feelings of panic upon me. I remembered that I had dreamed that I felt depersonalized - and had woken up with it actually happening.

I just couldn’t escape from these feelings, even in my sleep.

AND I had another severe panic attack on the plane on the way back. At that point, I thought that reality itself had collapsed around me.

I genuinely felt like I was watching my sanity leave me, I would never be the same again, and I’d spend the rest of my life in a quiet, darkened room, terrified of intrusions. I may even have to be admitted to a mental institution.

I felt intensely jealous of all the people living normal lives, watching TV, working boring office jobs that they didn't even enjoy. I had once promised myself never to end up living like that; now it seemed like a dream life.

The Unfairness of Depersonalization

And yet, through all of this, there was a part of me that refused to believe that my situation was hopeless.

I just couldn't believe the unfairness of what had happened. That one minute I was fine and the next, everything was gone.

All my happiness, my hopes and dreams, my joy, my creativity. How could it just be gone?

What had I ever done to deserve this? My entire life had come to a crashing halt and I had no idea how long I would have to wait to get it back, or if I could get it back at all.

There was a part of me that was genuinely angry about what had been taken from me. That refused to believe that there was no way to recover. That was absolutely determined to get better.

Making A Stand

I've always been a writer. I was writing for the local newspaper when I was 16 years old. And in all my time with Depersonalization, I'd been keeping notes about how I was feeling, journaling regularly.

One day, instead of logging on to the usual Depersonalization forums, I looked back over these notes carefully. I realised that certain factors - thoughts, behaviours and environmental factors - seemed to directly influence the intensity of the Depersonalization I had on any given day.

Certain things made it better, certain things made it worse.

And then I realised something: If thoughts and environmental factors can affect DP, then it MUST be possible to stop it altogether by establishing precise habits that simply didn’t allow it to persist.

Depersonalization was obviously not something that you could consciously “stop”, like you might turn off a TV or put down a book.

But if the condition is variable at all - which I knew it was - then it had to be possible to stop the condition completely.

Preventing My Own Recovery

But it couldn't be that simple, could it? If it was, why are DP forums filled with people who are still suffering, and not recovered?

Then it hit me: What if going to those forums was part of the problem?

What if my constant researching and worrying about Depersonalization was what was causing it to persist?

I already knew from my research that scientifically speaking, DP is an anxiety spectrum disorder. And like other ASDs, constantly discussing it and researching it is not recommended, and can actually preventing recovery from happening! In fact, positive reframing of the condition is a major part of CBT anxiety therapy.

But I was doing the opposite. Every single day I was looking up how to stop thinking about Depersonalization. And that was exactly why I couldn't stop thinking about Depersonalization!

And that explained why there were so few Depersonalization recovery stories in DP forums. The people who had recovered were staying away from those forums. It was so obvious!

Diverting Myself

This made perfect sense -- the brief periods in which I didn't feel DP were always when I managed to divert myself. Playing an instrument, playing a video game, listening to music etc.

But while I was actively thinking about and researching depersonalization - even when it was positive information - I felt Depersonalized constantly. There was an obvious link:

If I could learn to forget about Depersonalization, then the Depersonalization would stop!

Unfortunately, forgetting about something that you usually think about all day isn't so easy.

Not only that, but if I said to you:

“Whatever you do, don’t think about pink elephants!”

What's the first thing you do? Think about pink elephants! So just reminding myself not to think about Depersonalization of course, didn't work.  The DP habit of thought had been firmly rooted in my daily routine, and everything seemed to remind me of it.

So, based on all of my notes on the condition, I began a strict regime of behaviour and mental training to re-establish positive, non-DP thoughts.

It's NOT a permanent condition.

It's NOT supposed to last for days, weeks, months.

In fact, it's DESIGNED to fade away after just a few minutes!

And you can get 100% back to who you were before DP, no matter how long you've had it!

Total Recovery

I finally got my career back on track. Life after Depersonalization was and is amazing. And frankly, I found myself wondering what I was ever worried about!

Soon after, when I was deleting my accounts from online Depersonalization forums, I decided to share my Depersonalization recovery story as 'The DP Manual' with a few friends I'd made online. The reaction was incredible -- everyone I shared it was seeing positive results within a few weeks too.

I built a basic site for it and sold the book for a few dollars, thinking it might help some people here and there and I could expand it up in my spare time.

Amazing Results

But the book's popularity just kept growing and growing.

People were consistently seeing amazing results with it, and even contacting me with suggestions for new chapters and sections. I expanded it every year and kept building the website.

I wrote articles on DP for various online publications. I recorded a complete audiobook version. New sections like the 'DP Pep-Talk' and 'DP FAQ' appeared, as I was determined that the DP Manual be the final source of information on the topic that someone would ever need.

I wanted it to be the book that I would have found on the first day I got Depersonalization.

A book that told me exactly what I was experiencing, why I was experiencing it, why I didn't need to worry and exactly what I needed to do to alleviate the symptoms and recover completely.

That would have saved me weeks, months, even YEARS of suffering.

And over 20 years, 5 editions and 50,000+ copies later, The Depersonalization Manual is the most trusted and comprehensive text on Depersonalization recovery available anywhere.