I think I might be going through derealization-depersonalization.

[anopenwound]

This is something that I either never experienced before in my life or that I never experienced before in my life knowingly, on a day to day basis. I do have memories of shutting down in a crisis, but nothing like what I'm going through right now.

Most of my life is an ocean of constant pain and emotional turmoil - thanks to BPD and being surrounded by triggers. However, in the last few days I started thinking that maybe all these recent nights of heavy drinking did damage my brain, cause there's been moments where I felt lighter, but not in a happy way. More like in a dizzy, "not all there" kinda way.
Earlier I was falling asleep and while my brain kept on going in the same places it always goes to, places that hurt me endlessly, I didn't feel much. Nothing more than a dull hit and a sense of profound disinterest in my own problems, like they're not even mine. It's like trying to click on a shortcut in your pc but the original app is no longer there. You click and click and nothing shows up other than an error popup.

This morning I had a clinical assessment to establish whether I'm fit to go to group therapy and, according to the questionnaires I've took in the past weeks, it looks like what I've been experiencing isn't brain damage but depersonalization-derealization. I don't know the first thing about it other than what I've just read but it seems… oddly fitting.

I'm not looking forward to fix this cause this nice detour from the constant pain is kinda nice, not gonna lie. However I wanted to see whether some of you have gone through the same thing.

Anything to report about this that I should know?

 

[Cubetty]

I have a situation similar to yours, with BPD and various levels of dissociation. In my case, it did become a problem because I started questioning myself about whether everything was real or not. Gradually, I've been experiencing some symptoms, ranging from delusions to psychosis. I'm not sure if it's like that in all cases, but you might want to learn some tools in case it gets out of hand.

 

[-Link-]

This is a protective mechanism against extreme physiological or psychological distress and can be counteracted with grounding techniques that are meant to bring yourself back into the reality around you.

Things like...

• dipping your hands in water
• splashing cold water on your face
• relaxing your body (shoulders down, unclench your jaw, unfurrow your eyebrows, drop your tongue down from the roof of your mouth, etc.)
• picking up a nearby item and describing it to yourself (what colour, how heavy is it, what's the texture, is it a soft surface or hard, etc.)
• deep breathing or breathing awareness
• moving around (jogging in place, do a few push-ups)
• observing your surroundings (the 5-4-3-2-1 technique: what are five things you can hear? four things you can see? three things you can touch? two things you can smell? one thing you can taste?)

These are just a few examples, and I'm only touching upon them briefly. Each individual technique is meant as an exercise, and I'd encourage you to Google for suggestions because other sources will be more detailed and immersive.

You could also try mental exercises like naming a country for each letter of the alphabet, or figuring out your favourite movie for each genre, or counting to 100 using only prime numbers, etc.

If you have a pet, spend some time with it. You could call a family member or a close friend, not necessarily to talk about this (or yourself at all, necessarily) but just to engage with another human being.

There are many, many different grounding techniques you can do.

It's very good you're already so in tune with what's happening. The next step is learning how to counteract it and getting accustomed to this. You could trial and error with different techniques, figure out what works best for you, maybe set aside time to practice it even if only like 5-10 minutes a day.

Wishing you well in working through this and best of luck with your group therapy program.

 

[anopenwound]

Thank you for all of your replies. To be quite honest, I'm enjoying this detached state so far. I feel very numb and I like it. I don't know that I wanna "fix" it - I've only experienced insane pain other than this so I think this is the better alternative. At least until it gets really out of hand.