My childhood, teenage years, and adult life has all been defined by excesses. Nearly everything in which I have involved myself has been done full throttle and entirely committed. Oftentimes this personality trait has served me well and in some instances it has hurt me. Excess can be defined in many different ways: staunchly loyal, overdone, fierce, diligent, overwhelming, and obsessive to name a few. Mostly, I have associated excess with the positive aspects of my personality and have often taken pride in the fact that I can "do more" or get more out of life than the next person. I studied for hours on end in school, I stayed up late and woke early, I committed myself to a difficult workout routine, I have refused to turn my back on people who hurt me, and I have gone out of my way for the service of others on more than one occasion.
However, the laws of nature and the forces of society suggest that excess fails to prove favorable to a sustainable and fruitful life. Crops need rain, but if it floods they are no good. Working out is good for your body until you do it so much that you injure yourself. Having a drink to celebrate a promotion is fun, but getting drunk and driving your car into a pole clearly serves no one. The point is, and we have all heard this at some point or the other, anything done to excess can end up hurting us and others.
I believe that this is particularly relevant to people who experience symptoms of depersonalization and derealization. My psychiatrist diagnosed me with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, which among other things includes anxiety, DP/DR, and obsessive thoughts. Undoubtedly there are many causes, characteristics, and manifestations of DP/DR, but I think that many of us share the experience of excessive thoughts. There is a difference between thinking and feeling. Just as there is a difference between visual distortions and focusing on the visual world to a point where you start to feel alienated from the environment. I believe that more than anything DP/DR has been an affliction of perception rather than reality. Yes, there are many aspects of DP/DR that I cannot directly control, but there are many things I can.
This is where I believe obsessive thoughts and my lifelong experience with living in excess comes into play. Many of the ways in which I have dealt with DP/DR seem to be antithetical to the way one should respond to a problem. In order to avoid the feelings of discomfort in my environment I retreated into my mind and obsessed over the characteristics of my surroundings and more importantly how uncomfortable they made me feel. Given that feeling derive from thoughts, it is easy to see how my destructive thought patterns led to negative feelings.
So the next question will naturally be, well how do I stop obsessing over these thoughts? How do I control my thinking? And how do I do so when this experience is so uncomfortable? There likely is not a one size fits all approach to answering this question, however I will almost guarantee that it will start with ceasing to research the topic. All of the information should come directly from a mental health professional. I only say this because of the fact that everyone's experience is different, the onset of symptoms vary from person to person, and finally most of what you will find on the internet only adds to your confusion. I am not fully healed yet, but I have witnessed sustained and noticeable improvement and it all started with the last time I typed DP/DR into Google. This was the first small step in my slow but steady recovery. Other tips that I have found helpful have been: finding things to distract you, making yourself as comfortable as possible, spending time in familiar places, invoking positive emotions, journaling, among other things can help to divert your attention away from your discomfort.
In many ways DP/DR is and can be treated like an addiction. There are parts of the addiction over which we have little control. Still there are other parts that we can control, like the obsessive thoughts and worry. For the parts that we can not control I would recommend at least exploring medication. Zoloft (after about four weeks) really has helped with my anxiety. As for the parts that we can control, please start by obsessing a little less. You can't think about something if you don't spend all of your time thinking about it. It is much easier for an alcoholic to stay sober if he/she stays out of the bars. So keep your DP/DR out of its bar and don't feed it with thoughts that harm you. Take some time to reflect on what makes you feel bad. Then think about what makes you feel good. Finally, commit yourself to focusing on those positive things more frequently. This has definitely helped me.
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