If, as you read this, you think “Hmm, she just described me” I want to impress upon you that trauma doesn’t have to be a life sentence. Except they didn’t take anything and it doesn’t go away. I know some people wander through life feeling like they’re on some sort of a bad drug trip. Which is why I make a point of spreading the word about this. Sometimes people in a state of depersonalization forget what they look like or feel afraid to look in a mirror. He may know that he is the one talking and moving his body but not feel as though he is the one doing it. He may hear his own voice or see his own body movements but not feel as though he has control over them.
In a state of depersonalization the individual feels disconnected from his body. “In a state of derealization the individual knows that she is on the same plane of existence as the rest of the world, but feels as if she isn’t.”Īs disturbing as derealization can be, depersonalization cranks the freakiness factor up several notches. Some people go in and out of derealization, depending on their level of stress and other factors, while others live in that state much of the time. She may feel like she’s in a state of tunnel vision, or like she’s watching everything around her from a distance or as if it were a movie. In a state of derealization the individual knows that she is on the same plane of existence as the rest of the world, but feels as if she isn’t. Enter our little friends derealization and depersonalization.ĭerealization is the experience of feeling disconnected from people and events around you. Those who survived multiple traumatic events or lived in constant trauma or chaos as children may spend a great deal of time in a dissociative state, sometimes without knowing it. As adults, we may do the same thing during a traumatic event like a car accident or a mugging. This allows them to disconnect from the experience. When kids experience an unsafe situation and they can’t escape, they usually dissociate. When we feel bored or tired or frightened, or anything else that we don’t want to feel, we can just “go away.” Dissociation allows us to simultaneously be “present” and “not present.” Pretty weird, huh? Also pretty cool.ĭissociation happens much more frequently for folks who’ve had a lot of trauma, especially childhood trauma, although not exclusively. Dissociation provides us humans with a fantastically superb coping mechanism. Any time you realize that you’ve spaced out during a conversation or a lecture in class (who, me?), or you drive home on auto-pilot without really paying attention, that’s dissociation. Let me start by saying that we all dissociate. I’ll explain a little about dissociation in general before digging into the other two. The symptoms of PTSD most likely to make someone feel completely freaked out are derealization and depersonalization, two flavors of dissociation. And if any of this sounds familiar to you, neither do you.
They don’t have to spend the rest of their lives jumping out of their skin at the slightest noise, or with muscles tense and ready to spring. The relief becomes stronger when I tell them that we can fix this. Clients frequently feel great relief when they hear this. I also emphasize that my client is not alone many people share the experience and just never tell anyone. I explain how our brains process trauma and give a name and a meaning to what’s happening. (For more about this see my blog post about PTSD and the brain, here).Įarly on in the therapy process for trauma I normalize these experiences for my clients. I periodically hear from clients that they have never told anyone about their sense of hypervigilance or disconnect, out of fear that they would sound crazy to others. Often the client has never talked with anyone else about these feelings or experiences. They do know that they feel scared, uncomfortable, or completely out of sorts. Sometimes the individual doesn’t realize that what he or she experiences is the brain’s normal response to an abnormal situation. I hear exactly that on a regular basis from people seeking help with trauma or symptoms of PTSD. If you found yourself spacing out and not remembering what happened or wandering through life feeling disconnected from people and events around you, you might feel like you were losing your mind. Imagine living in a constant state of high alert or sensing danger all around you without knowing why. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) makes people feel crazy.