Looking In from the Outside

Let’s talk a little about Depersonalizing.

Some of you may have never heard of this before, so let’s talk about what it is first. Depersonalization is a disorder/trauma response in which the person experiencing it feels like they’ve become a robot, or detached from their body in some way. It can last anywhere from a few moments to several years in some rare cases. It can also be chronic, and it’s rarely something that is unattached to other disorders. From what I can tell, it’s a form of disassociation, but that’s just what I believe after reading some personal experiences of it and looking at some surface level psychiatric information about it.

And I’m pretty sure I’ve been doing it off and on for a very long time.

A lot of descriptions of it are something like a piece of glass falling between yourself and reality, or remembering things that happened to you rather than living through them. It requires diagnosis from a professional to really be certain of it from what I understand. Not that there’s anything to ‘check’ for, but they will look to make sure it isn’t something else going on. And since I don’t have a therapist at the moment I haven’t had an opportunity to really talk it over with someone. But the description seems pretty accurate?

For example, I don’t really remember most of today, and the parts I do remember feel… wrong. Like I wasn’t the person doing them, but just watching someone else do them. And once I realized what was going on, I looked it up and found some recommendations on how to deal with it in the moment. I tried some of them out and they helped a little bit, but it’s kind of like that scene in action movies where someone is trying to hold open a mechanical door that’s closing down from the top? The door isn’t going to get tired, it’s just going to keep going, but I’m doing my damnedest to keep it from closing just yet. It’s a really unsettling feeling.

And thinking back on it, I’ve had this happen a lot over the years, especially when I’m working on something. Where I don’t really live through working on it, I just vaguely remember having worked on it.

I don’t really have anything to say about it, and I don’t have the spell slots to think too much harder about it right now, I just thought I’d try to work through it while I could.

Once again I’d like to thank my wonderful Patrons, who support me in making these articles even though the releases are infrequent at best. I’d particularly like to thank:

John Beckelhymer

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Brett Schoonover