# I am Detached from my Existence- Don't feel here, someone else



## TheGMan (Jun 10, 2004)

It's a very strange feeling. I am aware of having it before. Perhaps I have it all the time, but I am aware of having episodes where I just don't feel like I exist.

I was just sitting here looking in the mirror. It occurred to me that I didn't know this person looking back at me. I am in a house with people, but I don't know them. I mean I do, but it's not me that knows them. It's this person in the mirror. The person that I watch interact with people. But it's like watching a bad movie. I just observe the character.

I'm not really here.

Maybe it's always this way, but every so often I become suddenly aware of it.


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## shadowmask (Jun 22, 2009)

Depersonalization Disorder

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depersonalization_disorder

www.dpselfhelp.com


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## TheGMan (Jun 10, 2004)

Thanks,
Do you feel this also?


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## FlickeringHope (Oct 12, 2009)

I've felt it before.


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## epril (Mar 24, 2009)

I knew there was a clinical term for what you're experiencing. Yes, I've felt this before. It's not uncommon. Ex. I feel it a lot when I'm shopping alone, and previously at work.


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## miminka (May 10, 2009)

shadowmask said:


> Depersonalization Disorder
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depersonalization_disorder
> 
> www.dpselfhelp.com


I definitely have this.


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## millenniumman75 (Feb 4, 2005)

It is also called derealization. It's the spacey feeling the body gets that tells the mind "whoa....too much anxiety to process! I need to shut down to catch up".


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## shadowmask (Jun 22, 2009)

TheGMan said:


> Thanks,
> Do you feel this also?


Yep. I developed it suddenly at the age of 13 and haven't gone a moment without it since.


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## yellowpaper (Nov 13, 2007)

I don't think I really have THIS... but lately I see a huge separation between mind and body. I feel like my body is like an unnecessary extra baggage that I carry around. It's vulnerable and at risk for literally everything. I'm trapped in my body, and I'm at its mercy... idk how else to describe it. People are just an organism, like a bunch of colonies of bacteria, all over the earth. Everything we do is for the survival of the species. I really hate looking at someone and thinking how they're trapped in their body.. they're just a weird gross organism.

I wish I could be in a more "fantasy" state of mind... a happier reality.


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## glarmph (May 21, 2009)

I have had this happen quite a few times recently. It's a very weird feeling.


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## pokeherpro (Jun 17, 2009)

For about 2 or 3 weeks last year, I felt this way. It was the scariest feeling I've ever felt. With depression and the social anxiety, I always felt ashamed and embarrassed, weak, but I never felt actually....crazy. But then I did. Luckily for me, it went away and while I occasionally get that feeling again, it usually comes if I'm high, where I've gotten better at reminding myself that it's just the weed making me feel that way.

If this feeling is recurrent, or you start to get scared...I hope there is someone in your life you can ask for help, because depersonalization is terrifying.

I can vividly remember going to the bathroom, and on my way out, placing my hands on the counter, placing my face close to the mirror and just looking into my own eyes...and it felt so strange...like I was expecting the face in the mirror to act independently of my real face...that's when I got real scared.


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## epril (Mar 24, 2009)

pokeherpro said:


> For about 2 or 3 weeks last year, I felt this way. It was the scariest feeling I've ever felt. With depression and the social anxiety, I always felt ashamed and embarrassed, weak, but I never felt actually....crazy. But then I did. Luckily for me, it went away and while I occasionally get that feeling again, it usually comes if I'm high, where I've gotten better at reminding myself that it's just the weed making me feel that way.
> 
> If this feeling is recurrent, or you start to get scared...I hope there is someone in your life you can ask for help, because depersonalization is terrifying.
> 
> I can vividly remember going to the bathroom, and on my way out, placing my hands on the counter, placing my face close to the mirror and just looking into my own eyes...and it felt so strange...like I was expecting the face in the mirror to act independently of my real face...that's when I got real scared.


It can also work the other way, where you look in the mirror and do see yourself, like you're seeing you for the first time, like you're looking past your skin and into your soul, and you feel vibrantly real and alive. It's eerily amazing.


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## pokeherpro (Jun 17, 2009)

epril said:


> It can also work the other way, where you look in the mirror and do see yourself, like you're seeing you for the first time, like you're looking past your skin and into your soul, and you feel vibrantly real and alive. It's eerily amazing.


Felt that way too. It's such an indescribable thing. You can try to describe it, but you're always left feeling as if you didn't really describe how it truly feels. Words aren't enough.


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## TheGMan (Jun 10, 2004)

Fortunately this episode only lasted a couple hours that night. I have felt alright since.


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## Fuzzy Logic (Sep 16, 2009)

Yeah, I've experienced that quite a few times. It's like stepping outside yourself and your place in the world. Very trippy.


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## CopadoMexicano (Aug 21, 2004)

I get that detached feeling too. i think thats the source of my hallucinations when I start to panic.


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## xredsoxfan101 (Nov 5, 2009)

i have this feeling sometime, for a good month in a half i was in a haxe and dont remember anything
i also have another. idk if it id a coping mechanism or not but i feel likemy life is a tv show, tht me and my friends are stars and our life events are part of a story line. i think of the beginning of a school year and the end as a premiere or a finale. when my friend moved i thought of it as her getting her own spinoff, its very weird and confusing. somebody please help


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## TheGMan (Jun 10, 2004)

xredsoxfan101 said:


> i have this feeling sometime, for a good month in a half i was in a haxe and dont remember anything
> i also have another. idk if it id a coping mechanism or not but i feel likemy life is a tv show, tht me and my friends are stars and our life events are part of a story line. i think of the beginning of a school year and the end as a premiere or a finale. when my friend moved i thought of it as her getting her own spinoff, its very weird and confusing. somebody please help


Thats exactly what I'm talking about. I believe it is a coping mechanism in response to anxiety.

Someone posted a link here for dpselfhelp.com - might be helpful


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## Jimminy_Billy_Bob (Nov 26, 2008)

I was just reading through this thread and have to say that this is how I feel 24/7. Unless I consiously try and snap out of it, I always feel detached from everything, like my mind isnt actually inside my own body, but out flying around some where thinking about anything and everything except where I actually am and what is going on around me in my immediate area. I also have distorted, dark and unorganised thoughts, particularly when the weather is cloudy.


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## lde22 (Oct 19, 2009)

I feel like this sometimes. When I do, I get this scary feeling that my life isn't real, like my whole life is just someones dream or something. Or sometimes I feel like I am an alien from a different dimension or planet or something. I just feel like I have no sense of reality and no connection with people.


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## PeopleAreStrange (Jun 4, 2009)

After a bad marijuana trip, I had derealization for a few days. I finally "recovered"... but yesterday I relapsed. I'm so tired of this. 

I believe it will go away...


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## Drew Ftw (Nov 10, 2009)

This happened when I used to smoke a lot of weed and then quit. It took me months to get over it. I would look in the mirror and not believe that it was me. I would look at my hands and not think that they were actually my hands. Everything looked different, the trees, night time how I perceived everything. It was one of the darkest times in my life. It really isn't a fun thing and I'm so happy that I've moved on from it because it was very scary. 

Life has a totally different outlook now to say the least.


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## lde22 (Oct 19, 2009)

If you think marijuana makes things look different, try mushrooms. Mushrooms literally changed the way I perceive reality for the rest of my life. Usually it's not noticeable but once in a while I will be outside looking at a tree or something and feel very similar to when I was shrooming, the tree will look alive in a way and all the concrete around it will look so foreign and insane. After taking mushrooms you feel like society has gone completely insane ruining the earth and you feel extremely connected to nature, it's almost as if I can perceive life the way the people that live in tribes in the rainforest do that have never seen civilization. 

Not only that but when you are shrooming and a few days afterwards you feel like everything you have been told about life is a lie, and your ego and image of yourself is a completel illusion. It's kind of like mushrooms connect you to who you are as a natural being and shows you all the BS that society has burdened you with.


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## MadCap Laughing (Nov 20, 2009)

I'm pretty sure I've had this. Just two week ago or so, I remember feeling high. I just felt full of energy, and I stayed up for three days straight, and then suddenly I had this described feeling. I remember I was talking to my friend, and then he looked down on the floor, and it kind of felt like my mind snapped. All of a sudden it felt like nothing mattered, and that nothing existed. I felt like I didn't exist. It was a bit of a disturbing feeling. I told everybody there that I had to leave.

As I walked home, I just remember thinking that, we're all animals pretty much, in the sense that we're living organisms. Aside from physical differences and inelligence, I felt I was no different from the pidgeon on the sidewalk. it seemed like I was experiancg the world for the first time. Nothing really made sense anymore, I just found everything to be rediculous. Probably the worst feeling was the feeling that I had complete freedom. I could seriously hurt myself, and no one would really be able to stop me. Thankfully, I made it home without doing anything like that

I went home, tried to watch tv, but I saw some disturbing images on the tv that I know weren't there. AT that point I just went to my room, grabbed my teddy and hugged him in the fetal position until I got to sleep.

One word to describe the experiance would be disturbing. My emotions seemed confsed, I couldn't tell you if I was sad, scared, or angry, because I just don't know. It was like a mix of all the negative emotions of the human spectrum.

I was supposed to see my therapist and psychiatrist last week about it, but couldn't because of the flu. Now I won't be able to see them till friday. It's happened a few times since, but not nearly as badly. Any ideas? Because alot of what happened to me sounds like this, but some things I experianced, haven't been described by others.


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## shadowmask (Jun 22, 2009)

polythene said:


> I think I could probably deal with everything else I'm struggling with if I didn't have to cope with derealization as well.


Yeah. It changes your whole existence.


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## secretlyshecries (Sep 10, 2009)

I used to get this a _lot_. I still get it on and off sometimes and it weirds me out everytime.


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## My911GT2993 (May 14, 2009)

its either derealization or depersonalisation, i get this too sometimes and i dont like it
i think i heard it can come from sad


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## aerozepplin (Dec 16, 2009)

lde22 said:


> I feel like this sometimes. When I do, I get this scary feeling that my life isn't real, like my whole life is just someones dream or something. Or sometimes I feel like I am an alien from a different dimension or planet or something. I just feel like I have no sense of reality and no connection with people.


this is how i always feel
super detached like my life is a dream or a computer program

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulated_reality


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## Spettro (Sep 25, 2009)

I've felt it before, I can make myself feel it again sometimes when I get lost in my thoughts.

Allows me to see how ridiculously pointless life is, but gives me confidence to move on.

It feels kind of spiritual tbh. Everything feels like a dream, and questions come into my mind like: how am I seeing/touching/hearing the world through this body and not another?

Probally made no sense, hard to put my mind into words :b


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## brokenlight (Mar 10, 2004)

I have experienced this directed at myself and my own existence, but also towards physical objects around me. Like I can look at a street of houses and it will not make any sense. The structure of the buildings and the fact that there are houses. It is a weird feeling.


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## huh (Mar 19, 2007)

I feel like this sometimes. It's a depressing feeling.


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