Imagine looking in the mirror one day and not recognizing who you see staring back. You look around and something just doesn’t feel right. You feel like there is a pane of glass between you and what is happening in front of you. You can only describe it in this simple three word sentence.
Nothing feels real.
This is the reality for 2 percent of the population living with a condition called depersonalization (DP). While the instance of DP is not rare for someone to experience at some point in their life, it is uncommon for the feelings to last very long.
Most people experience DP in the event of something traumatic or highly stressful like a car accident or house fire in order to allow them to save themselves. It is designed to help their mind detach and handle a perceived threat.
“It's the reason why people so often describe traumatic incidents or events as being like a dream, or they say they feel like [they were] outside their body [or] they weren't really there, that's depersonalization,” Shaun O’Connor, author of The Depersonalization Manual, said in a recent interview.
On August 31, 2005, Connor was having a day like any other when he suddenly experienced a panic attack out of nowhere, in an effort of self preservation his brain caused him to become depersonalized which continued for the next two years.
After his panic attack subsided the feeling of disconnectedness remained. He, as many do, tried to sleep off this feeling, but found no luck the following morning.
During those two years Connor quit his job, moved home, lost weight, and lost sleep all because of this anxiety based condition. It completely turned his life upside down.
Every small task seemed like a huge hurdle to overcome, every day was filled with fear and anxiety.
“I used to play video games on my phone. [But I] never really played a lot of video games. So it was something that I kind of had to force myself to do, but it was good, it was really good,” Connor said.
At times the only way to escape this scary experience is to find an escape through a very stimulating activity.
Connor spent every day of those two years battling with his own mind, constantly anxious. He did recover though, it is possible to get through something as intense as this.
“My recovery was actually quite quick, relatively quick when it happened, but it only happened when I started doing all the right things that I hadn't been doing for a long, long time,” Connor said.
The length of your recovery is entirely dependent on you and how you go about it. The most important step is to know that this is temporary. Anxiety and DP are like a fire, the more fuel you give it the bigger it gets.
“I just became obsessed with it. And part of recovery was winding that down, and realizing that, [as] positive as it seems to, you know, obsess about something that you think you can fix that way. [It can] often be counterintuitive to, you know, obsess about something like that, which in itself is based on habits of thought,” Connor said.
Those with DP already feel alone, due to it being uncommon most probably don’t have anyone to relate to. If a friend reaches out to you about something like this, listen to them. DP is a scary thing, but it is also a beatable thing.