Depersonalization and Derealization

Derealization and Depersonalization are both 'Dissociative disorders' and sufferers of one can experience the other.
First of all, understand this - Depersonalization and Derealization are completely normal symptoms of anxiety disorder. Although very disturbing at times, they are completely harmless, think of them as a daytime dream. They DO NOT mean that you have any other condition, a mental illness or that you are going mad - they are just more anxiety symptoms.

Depersonalization

Depersonalization

A change in an individuals self-awareness such that they feel detached from their own experience, with the self, the body and mind seeming alien.

Clare,
Birmingham

Depersonalization is a symptom of an anxiety disorder and not a stand alone condition. How do we know this? Because depersonalization cannot exist without anxiety BUT anxiety can exist without depersonalization.
In each and every depersonalization sufferer that we have treated, as we have eliminated the anxiety, the depersonalization disappears completely.
Depersonalization is caused by a shift in the part of the brain that provides us with a 'real' awareness of our environment; this part of the brain is directly linked to the Amygdala, the organ in the brain responsible for anxiety.
Terms commonly used to describe the symptoms and sensations of Depersonalization:

• unreal
• disembodied
• divorced from oneself
• apart from everything
• unattached
• alone
• strange
• weird
• foreign
• unfamiliar
• dead
• puppet-like
• robot-like
• acting a part
• 'like a lifeless
• two dimensional
• 'cardboard' figure
• made of cotton-wool
• having mechanical actions
• remote
• automated
• a spectator
• witnessing ones own actions as if in a film or on a TV program
• not doing one's own thinking
• observing the flow of ideas in the mind as independent.

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Derealization

A change in an individual's experience of the environment, where the world around him/her feels unreal and unfamiliar.

Unlike depersonalization which effects the perception of oneself, derealization is a change in an individual's experience of their environment, where the world around him/her feels unreal and unfamiliar.
Again, derealization, like depersonalization, is caused by a change in the way senses perceive our surroundings due to sensitized, anxious, nerve signals reaching the brain. Derealization is completely harmless but can be very disturbing. The more you give derealization credibility, the longer it stays with you. As anxiety levels are reduced, derealization disappears.
Terms commonly used to describe the symptoms and sensations of Derealization:

• spaciness
• like looking through a gray veil
• a sensory fog
• spaced-out
• being trapped in a glass bell jar
• in a goldfish bowl
• behind glass
• in a Disney-world dream state
• withdrawn
• feeling cut off or distant from the immediate surroundings
• like being a spectator at some strange and meaningless game
• objects appear diminished in size
• flat
• dream-like
• cartoon-like
• artificial; objects appear to be unsolid, to breathe, or to shimmer
• "as if my head were inside a Coke bottle and I'm viewing the world through the thick glass at the bottom"

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Whilst they are harmless, they are also quite disturbing, but can be eliminated very quickly using a method which addresses the cause of the anxiety imbalance at its root in the Amygdala. Reduction of the 'benchmark' anxiety level will produce a lessening and elimination of depersonalization and derealization and their symptoms.
The Linden Method has treated tens of thousands of people, the vast majority of which experience either depersonalization or derealization at some time.
The Linden Center is always available should you wish to discuss these, or any other, symptoms which concern you.
Discover how The Linden Method will eliminate Depersonalization and Derealization.