Depersonalization

Ever feel you're not yourself? Now imagine feeling that way for an extended period of time. Depersonalization refers to feeling yourself as unreal, feeling estranged from yourself. It is sometimes spoken about as if you are observing yourself. During periods of my life when I had chronically high activation this is how it was for me.

Don't get me wrong you're still able to perceive reality. (And naturally there are folks whose reality testing is not intact that report feeling this way too).

But it's actually more common than you think. What makes this harder for people to detect is the fact that the normal functioning of the brain means we are constantly becoming desensitized to our current state. We are adapting. This adaptation happens so gradually that we don't even know it's going on. This means as we change we forget how we were before.

The reason that I assume it is more common than we think is that I have observed that as clients progressed they recognized it only when they were no longer feeling that way.

That's exactly how it was for me. So one minute I'm living my life and then in a moment of reflection--maybe some residual old feelings were accessed-- I realized I didn't feel so different. In fact, as time went on and I became healthier emotionally I felt more of me.

Probably the best description I ever heard came from the words of one of my clients:

"My character's name was Susan. And I was acting a role in a play called, 'My Life'."

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