Part of this process can sometimes involve getting advice from forums and friends, which can sometimes lead to some pretty out-there suggestions, especially from folks who know nothing about DPDR itself or other anxiety-related disorders.

Some of the suggestions I commonly recall hearing were:

Exercise more!

Drink more coffee to wake yourself up!

Sleep more!

Sleep less!

etc etc....

These were well-meaning, and some not entirely without merit -- but of course they never came close to addressing what was actually causing the DPDR.

Lately, I’ve heard of more and more people receiving advice (or coming to their own conclusion) that in order to recover from drug-induced depersonalization, it’s necessary to take the same drug that caused it again -- often at the same or higher strength. 

You see the discussion on forums often: 'Can more drugs cure my Depersonalization?' The logic seems to be that you smoke more weed / take another hit of LSD / MDMA / Mushrooms or whatever caused it, you will relive the drug trip and realise that it wasn’t as terrible as you think -- and that will somehow switch off the Depersonalization / Derealization.

The interesting thing about this is that it actually has a positive premise and roots in exposure therapy -- the idea that if something is causing you anxiety the best way to deal with it is to go through it repeatedly until it no longer frightens you (i.e., the best way to deal with a chronic fear of spiders is to hold one in your hand for minutes at a time).

The problem is that in the context of Depersonalization / Derealization, that thinking is totally incorrect. Why?

Because what caused the DPDR was not the drug itself, but the intense anxiety that came with it.

So taking more of the drug is not going to fix the problem.

Think of it like this -- Imagine a situation where you drank 10 cups of coffee and became so jittery and anxious that you had a massive panic attack and developed DPDR (or any anxiety-based condition).

Would it make sense that in order to recover, you need to go back and drink another 10 cups of coffee??

Of course not! Why?

Because the caffeine was not the specific reason that it happened.

It may have been a contributory factor, but ultimately it's anxiety that's behind both the panic attacks and the persistent feelings of DPDR.

Not only that, but most drugs are, to some degree or another, dissociatives (Ketamine / LSD / DMT etc are strong dissociatives, and MDMA / weed can have the same effect) --

And the last thing you need when you’re recovering from a dissociative anxiety-based disorder are dissociative drugs that can make you more anxious!

So, can more drugs cure my Depersonalization?

The short answer is NO:

Taking more drugs, either to find relief or to relive the bad trip that caused the Depersonalization / Derealization -- simply will not help.

In fact, you even run a strong risk of actually making things worse if the trip goes badly -- and when you take drugs in an anxious state, you’re already at a higher risk of that happening.

I’ve even heard of people who are terrified at the prospect of going near the drug that caused the DP/DR, but feeling that they somehow have to do it because they won’t recover otherwise. They couldn’t be more wrong -- they don’t need to touch the drug.