How to Explain Depersonalization
Suffering from depersonalization disorder is a traumatic experience. You may want to confide with friends about how you're feeling, but it is really difficult to explain the feelings. It's hard to explain feeling unreal. This article gives you some suggestions and tips about how to tell a friend, a family member, and even your doctor how depersonalization affects your everyday life.
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Instructions
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To explain feelings of depersonalization disorder ask your doctor, friend or relative if he or she has ever experienced feelings of the outside world seeming hazy or unreal especially after a stressful event. Most people can relate to this. Explain that depersonalization is similar to their feelings only yours last longer and can be more intense causing severe anxiety.
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To describe feeling of depersonalization use phrases such as, "I feel separated from the world like I'm going to disappear. I feel unreal at times or most of the time. It's almost as if I have one foot in this world and one foot in another. My brain somehow darkens my experiences connected with everyday life. Sometimes I look into the mirror, and it looks as if a stranger were looking back at me."
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Educate the person about depersonalization symptoms. Tell them that it is usually a separate disorder from depression and your feelings of anxiety increase after or during stressful events. It's the brain's way of numbing itself to emotional stress. It's not a form of insanity. Rather it's a normal process from the brain's reaction to the fight or flight response. Depersonalization usually clears up by itself, and there is no one single cure. Much more research needs to be done about the disorder.
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Suggest the person do a google search on depersonalization symptoms. There are some excellent websites that will help educate people about the disorder. People can also go to youtube and type "depersonalization" or "depersonalization index" into the site's search engine and hear other people's stories about depersonalization. See more resources for depersonalization in the section below.
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Resources
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