Anxiety and Depersonalization / Derealization (Ep. 020)

SPEAKER_02 0:03

I felt like I was in the room, but it didn't feel like it was in the room. It looked like I was living in the room that I saw in the mirror.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Everyone looked weird. And it interestingly, when I was 19, I had my first panic attack. It was the first thing I felt. And I interpreted that as this is what it feels like when you're sort of slipping out of your body, I guess, at the moment of death. Until you've experienced it, you you don't know what to call it or how to describe it. I think that makes it scarier for people because it's such an unusual, subjective experience.

SPEAKER_02 0:34

Derealization, depersonalization is a self-perpetuating anxiety symptoms in the sense that the more you poke around at it and obsess about it and monitor it and try to get rid of it. The kind of longer it sticks around. If you just leave it alone, it will pass.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Welcome to Disordered. This is episode 20 of the podcast, where we're going to talk about depersonalization and derealization. I'm Drew Linsolata, one of the co-hosts of Disordered. I'm a graduate student in clinical mental health counseling on way to being a licensed therapist here in the U.S. And I am in New York.

SPEAKER_02 1:09

And I'm Joshua Fletcher, also known as Anxiety Josh, and I'm a psychotherapist who specializes in anxiety disorders based in Manchester in the UK.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Welcome back, Josh.

SPEAKER_02 1:20

Big topic today. It's one of the ones that we get asked about a lot and something that we're very experienced in.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Yeah, I'm going to put it in the top five for sure, in terms of like what people want to hear about.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

Yeah, really, really, yeah. I yeah, I'd say that. Maybe even top three.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

It could be. So today we're going to talk about depersonalization and derealization, which you may sometimes hear referred to as DPDR for short, um, or dissociation. These are states of dissociation to dissociative states. So now that we have all the jargon out of the way. What are we going to say about DPDR?

SPEAKER_02 1:54

Yeah, so uh for me, I it was really helpful to find I'm talking from a perspective of when I was suffering. So this is one of my first symptoms that I that I had that no one could really explain. Um, you know, you're experiencing derealization and depersonalization when you suddenly everything just seems and looks a bit weird. Um you feel disconnected either from your environment, yourself, or both. Uh now just rest assured, this is an illusion. Um, actually, it's a sensory illusion. Um, due to um a and I don't know this as a fact, but I've been told by several psychologists, uh respected psychologists, that uh it's due to a slight delay in um brain signaling between our sensory input and processing when we're stressed, so or experiencing kind of acute fear. For me, I did not know this. Um for me, it except I felt like I was in the room, but it didn't feel like it was in the room. It looked like I was living in the room that I saw in the mirror. Um, I felt like I was some kind of flesh automaton that could um hear my own voice. Everyone looked weird, like little clay creatures and stuff. Basically, I felt it was like I smoked a blunt and didn't realize that I had. Yeah, whoa, get all really existential and horror, but without the joy. Not that I've ever done that, but you know, those kind of things. Uh and yeah, it was very dissociative. Um, did you have you experienced it, Drew?

SPEAKER_01 3:24

It was the very first thing that ever happened to me. My first panic attack that I ever had was I I felt now. I know what it was. I was dissociated. I was I felt both depersonalized and derealized. And I did not know such a thing exists. I'd never heard of it before. Although, interestingly, I now know that as a child I would experience it sometimes. I just didn't give it a second thought. Everything just looked weird and far away.

SPEAKER_03 3:48

Yeah, we spoke about it this way, right?

SPEAKER_02 3:50

I used to sit in school assembly and like every and I'd be like, everything just looked like I was looking at it through uh like a fish eye lens.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

Yes, it was far away, like everything seemed far away. So I I and it interestingly, when I was 19, I had my first panic attack, it was the first thing I felt, and I interpreted that as this is what it feels like when you're sort of slipping out of your body, I guess, at the moment of death. That was my literal interpretation of that state. It scared the hell out of me, and that started a 25-year wild ride adventure. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

It's very common though, isn't it? Um it's either what what if this is the sign of my demise or losing control in some way? Yeah, for me, it was I genuinely thought like I'm going crazy, I've finally lost my mind. Yeah, you know, because for me, it happened for me at eight o'clock in the morning when I was feeling okay. And I was obviously there was a lot going on, I was very stressed at the time, but I was actually feeling okay that morning. And I found, I don't know, this might just be me, but I found that I I get hit with derealization after kind of good news, after I kind of relax a little bit, and then suddenly for and I hear this from others too, it might not necessarily apply to you, but for me it was like, Oh, I can enjoy some relief, some downtime now after a very stressful period, and suddenly I'll just be stood there and I'd be like, Whoa, oh my gosh. Like, well, I'm in the matrix, except I can't do any of the cool stuff that Neo does. I just can just cry.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

DPDR is such a tough one, too, because I think everybody can say, you know, let's say if you're dealing with OCD and you have a specific thought, you can express that thought. I'm afraid that maybe I accidentally hurt someone with my car. You can express that. Or if you have physical symptoms of anxiety, I I feel dizzy or it feels like I can't breathe, I'm short of breath. You can express that. DPDR, until you've experienced it, you you don't know what to call it or how to describe it. We stumble for words. It's like, it's like this, it's sort of like this. We struggle for analogies. I think that makes it scarier for people because it's such an unusual subjective experience for each person.

SPEAKER_02 6:01

Yeah, well, no, when I went to the doctor with this when I first thought, you know, I first had undiagnosed panic disorder, OCD, agrophobia. Uh, I went to the doctor and trying to explain this to the doctor, and I could see the doctor just, you know, if it if he had like a little red button under the desk, you know, like help it help. I was just like, hi, Doc. Um, I don't feel like I'm here.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:21

I think reality is an illusion. I can't, my hands don't look like mine. I can hear my own voice, and people look like clay. And he's there going, Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. It's one cuckoo, he's gone. Um, yeah, and that's basically what it felt like. And and and that was frightening. I couldn't, I wasn't able to explain it, and people couldn't really understand it.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

Yeah, I I think unless somebody has some that's the word I'm looking for here. Unless a helper, be it a doctor or whoever, has some background in this and has heard of this before, they might not understand what you're saying either. So that would be clearly your physician who probably meant well and wanted to help you, but didn't had never heard that before, possibly. Uh, although what's interesting is in doing a little bit of homework before this episode, because believe it or not, Josh and I do do our homework. We don't just wing it most of the time.

SPEAKER_02 7:07

Actually, I didn't do any. You you did the homework. I did the homework. Uh, the weekend when I'm out with friends and hanging out with really cool people and enjoying attention. Drew sits at home in a dark corner reading the DSM file.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

I'm literally chained to my desk with the I'm chained to the DSM. I tried to bring it to the beach, it was so heavy. No. So uh interestingly, and even you'll see it in all the literature, the vast majority of adults, at least in the Western world, when we look at this, will experience a dissociative state transiently one or more times throughout their life, and it just happens, it happens to everybody. We don't realize it, and they exist on a spectrum. Like it could be as simple as, oh, I was in a fog for a while, like, or that that thing where like you're driving and it's like, wait, were those last four lights green or red? And you don't remember what happened? Like, those are all the same thing, believe it or not. So it's not automatically indicative of some sort of horrible disorder or a pending psychotic break or anything like that. It's an actually a very common experience, just that most people don't think anything about it, comes and goes, and then it's over and they don't think anything about it.

SPEAKER_02 8:12

Yeah, and it will leave, it's never permanent or chronic. Now, I want to address the people that who've tuned in for this, but I went on Reddit and someone said that they've had it for 37,000 epochs, and it's just like, well, we'll explain potentially why that might be the case in this episode. But in general, it's like any symptom of anxiety, and particularly following on from the episode on health anxiety that we did several weeks ago. Um derealization, depersonalization um is a self-perpetuating anxiety symptoms in the sense that the more you poke around at it and obsess about it and monitor it and try to get rid of it, yeah. The kind of longer it sticks around. Um, but it's really important, it sticks around. It doesn't, it's not like a your permanent disposition, it just sticks around. You know, it's not hurting you, it's not dangerous. It just it's just like if you just leave it alone, it will pass.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

Yeah, it's frustrating, it's stubborn. It's I still experience it now. I mean, I very rarely like if I'm going to be extra stressed or maybe have an anxious day, my first indicator that I might be a little bit of uh, you know, under the gun a little bit is I will feel a little depersonalized. Still now. I just don't do anything with it, and it comes and goes pretty quickly. But it's such an incredibly common thing to the point where, again, to address, you know, and there's the assurance thing, it's always okay for us to give people assurance. Like officially, diagnostically, you would not officially be correct in diagnosing somebody with like dissociative disorders if they have panic attacks or they have OCD or they are depressed. It is such a common symptom of the things we talk about that the fear that, oh, this must mean that something else is wrong with me, you would not be diagnosed with a dissociative disorder because these things exist so often in the case of panic disorder, OCD depression.

SPEAKER_02 10:01

And that says that in the DSM 5.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

Later, I have it sitting on my desk right now. In the differential diagnosis for dissociative disorders, it will always say you don't, you know, it it's it's really these are common states if somebody has panic attacks, OCD, or depression. So it would be improper to say you have a dissociative disorder because it's so common for people who experience recurring panic and therefore agoraphobia because those things are tied together. OCD, depression association is going to be part of the deal.

SPEAKER_02 10:28

Well, I'm glad that's a thing. Um also, as well, like I I have a theory, this isn't backed up with it by any empirical evidence. It's only firsthand experience of working with hundreds of people. Yep. Um might be in a thousand now, I don't know. Who cares? And um, it's I always stand by this as someone who's gone through it. I think derealization and depersonalization is a symptom of stress. I don't actually think it's a symptom of anxiety, uh, particularly that and it would explain why everyone experiences dissociation at some point when subjected to either prolonged, prolonged or built up or acute stress. And so, therefore, when that that happens, the body dissociates as part of that kind of whoa, what's going on here? You know, we need to, you know, this acute stress I'm misinterpreting. It's that, and yeah, don't get me wrong, anxiety is stressful as well. But I think, and for me, like it struck me on a morning where I wasn't anxious. This is the thing, it was it, I was, I was very stressed in my life, extremely stressed. Yep. And I was feeling good that morning, and then bang, something happened, and then yeah, and then the anxiety then followed, the panic followed that. It was like, oh, what's happening now? Um, so and I and that's something I found a lot with with with clients. It's like, you know, what were you doing when it struck? It was like, oh nothing, I was fine, I was at home watching TV. I was like, Oh, what was happening? Actually, yeah, I was going through a divorce and it was messy, and sure works. Not been great. And I was like, ah, yeah, interesting.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

Yeah, DPDR is tied, it's it's literally glued to PTSD in all the literature. It's most likely studied in the confines of PTSD. And you know, it's even looked at is there's there's protective or positive dissociation, which is like that defense mechanism. It gives you a little bit of a break, it backs you away from the from the stressor, if you will. And then there's the negative impact, which is like dissociative amnesia, which is you forgetting things and you're getting a little bit more for forget again, still not permanent and dangerous, but so common. Positive dissociation. What's that? Interestingly, I was surprised when I when I was heard it called that.

SPEAKER_02 12:48

Like, you know, I'm loving how Drew's over in Dictionary Corner. I don't know if you have countdown over in the US. Do you have countdown in the US? We don't have countdown. We probably have some ripped-off version of it. We just call it countdown. It's quintessential British, it's brilliant. There's just dictionary corner where they'll have like two words in that show, and then they'll give you the history of the word and what it means and where it comes from and its origins. Um yeah, you're you're in dictionary corner today.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

Is that entomology or etymology? One is words, one is bugs, I never get them right.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

So I'm I'm we're recording and I'm too scared to guess.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

Um yeah, I was I it was interesting to hear one referred to as almost positive dissociation, which I guess if in the context of as a defense mechanism or it serves a purpose. Whereas dissociative amnesia, which is just temporarily like increased forgetfulness that might last for minutes or an hour or two, it is non-productive because it doesn't really do anything for you other than make your life a little bit more difficult for a little while. So I, you know, I I don't know if those are necessarily you know official clinical terms, but I found them again and again in the literature, which is so interesting.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

So when I'm scrolling through Instagram and I see another healing post about, you know, whatever, you know, healing, healing this, healing that, everything's healing by my herbal tea. Um, I can positively dissociate from that.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

As a matter of fact, yes, you can positively dissociate from that. I would recommend you do that. And that thing where you get lost in the scroll is also sometimes a form of dissociation. That thing where you just lose track of time, or you're reading a book, or you're so tied into the podcast you're listening to, nothing exists around you. That is a change in your perception of reality. But nobody will freak out over that.

SPEAKER_02 14:26

I don't think we get that on this trick.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

No, is everybody like totally getting wrapped up in disorder to the point where they lose track of what's going on around them?

SPEAKER_02 14:33

Disorder gave me DPD.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

It made me worse, actually. Um, I I've experienced it while recording with you. I don't know, a couple of weeks ago we were recording the middle.

SPEAKER_02 14:44

I get it once a week for about five minutes. I just don't care. And I think that's the important part of this episode is that it's our interpretation and reaction to it, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 14:56

Yeah, always. For me, uh, I mean, I can share some of my own personal experience on this, would be, and and I think it rings true for so many of the people in my community that overcome this. I would hang on. It feels to me, it felt like slipping away. So I would hang on so tight. And so much of the resistance or the lack of tolerance or surrender in anxiety is that hanging on in resistance, it was the thing that I hung on against the most. I felt like I had to hang on. I don't know, hang on to what I couldn't define that if you paid me, but it felt like I needed to hang on really tightly and I would do all kinds of checks, like it happened, it would used to happen to me when I was driving because I'd be stressed when driving because I was afraid to panic while driving. So I'd have it most often in the car. And I would count the little ridges on the steering wheel, and I would count the the clicks on the the fan, you know, turn up the fan on the air con or the heat. I would count the clicks to feel them, or I'd put my hand out the window to feel the hot air or the cold air. Like just compulsions. It was I would go into a frantic like attempt to try to feel real again, or grounded air quotes, or whatever you want to call it, to snap myself out of it. That made it worse.

SPEAKER_02 16:03

That's really interesting. I I never felt I it doesn't resonate with me that I felt like felt like I was slipping away. For me, it felt like I was just stuck behind glass. I didn't think I was, I just felt like I was stuck behind glass and I couldn't access the room or the occasion or the occasion I was in. Yeah. Um, and another common one I hear is particularly from parents, and this is a big one as well, and uh, you know, it breaks my heart a little bit. It doesn't break it too much because I know that you can get to a good place with this and realization can can leave, no matter how long you've been on the hamster wheel of it. But when parents go, I just look at my my daughter or my son, and I just they just don't look the same, and I don't feel that connection, it's like, yeah, just know that yeah, you're looking at it through the lens of dissociation right now. Someone has an opinion on this, and that's usually our friend Craig or Craig the Critic. He's always the critic. He's always knocking about, and he'll say, Oh, look, see, you can you can't even look into your children's eyes, and you can't feel that loving maternal, paternal connection you should have. Shut up, Craig. You know, you just go and I don't know, pass out in a fast food restaurant. You know, just like yeah, no, what you need to do is just ignore that. Like, okay, I'm looking at things through this the the glasses of dissociation today. So things are gonna look weird. Just like if you, you know, drink a large glass of wine, or you, you know, you you you're very tired one morning, or whatever. You see things through these different lenses, and derealization, depersonalization is just one of them.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

Yeah, I think um that's true, but then that that extra judgment, which comes along a lot, parent anxious parents say that all the time. All I can think about is how I feel. I I I'm not feeling joy with my kids, I'm not present. Like, yeah, I get that. Yeah, that's just Greg the Critic. Just dismiss it. We're not even gonna be bothered.

SPEAKER_02 17:54

Like, you it's just nonsense. If you want to engage with all that, we know what he's gonna say. Oh, you should be doing that, you should be doing that. Yep, you should be over DPDR right now. Here's one. I don't know if you ever hear this in your community, Drew, but um it's been a year since I've had derealization and I'm still not over it. Like, stop putting anniversaries in.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

It's my anniversary of DPDR. Yeah, that's a that's fair because again, the more you're trying to get rid of it, like every other part of what we talk about, the more it tends to persist. That glass analogy is good, like you can't access the room.

SPEAKER_02 18:25

For me, when I was frantically trying to like you're being sucked off into the void, and I'm just encased in sap like a mosquito.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Well, in the end, I was trying to reach through the glass, so I was it's similar, like I was trying desperately to access the room through that barrier that goes up. It was to feel like it was going to be okay. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:46

Side note again, I always never forget the OCD crowd, you know, they're the ones those who with existential OCD. Oh boy. So if you have existential OCD, or even just kind of existential anxiety at any point, these are the people that you know question the meaning of life, the you know, the building blocks, what what is an atom, what is consciousness, what is a fragment of time, what yeah, all the stuff the 16-year-old who's just discovered cannabis would ask. And that's frightening when you're experiencing DPDR. Oh, because you're looking at instead of looking at through the lens of intrigue, you would, like the 16-year-old cannabis, going, hey, well, this is cool, what's life? You know, what's this? You know, what's the earth? You know, that's through the lens of intrigue. When you're looking at through the lens of stress and anxiety and DPDR, whoo, it feels more dissociative because what you're doing is adding uncertainty onto something where you already don't want to feel uncertain. Uncertainty is great, and I love studying, you know, like I say studying, casually reading about astrophysics and stuff like that. Do not study astrophysics, but you know, I love I love reading about stuff like that, you know, and um uh watching Neil deGrasse Tyson and then walking around like I said it, um, that kind of stuff. Uh oh, here we've got Brian Cox the extreme beauty of the universe, and it's a solid tax impression. No, I couldn't get the man quite right. Um, but anyway, yeah, it's like yeah, the OCD people with uh existential OCD or existential anxiety. I've got you, just it makes it for try and step away from the rumination there, you know, you're not gonna work it out. Never always think about this stuff, all but do it through intrigue, not when you're in the cycle of compulsive rumination and trying to find answers to why we're here and stuff like that. Because one, you ain't gonna find out, and two, it's just gonna keep triggering your threat response.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

And I think that sensation, too, of of things feeling unreal and you lost touch with reality a little bit, or you don't know who you are, or you do know who you are. By the way, that's another very important part of like classification and diagnosis. The reality check remains intact. So people who interpret it as I'm having a psychotic break or I'm I'm losing my sanity, no, because people who experience a dissociative state have an intact reality check. I know this is an unusual state. It's not that you get into this state and you think that's the new normal and you don't realize it. You realize it and that's what freaks you the hell out. So keep that in mind, also. It's really important. It's literally like it's written about. But I think um, you know, the other thing is when you are, if you're struggling with those big questions, then you feel this thing. I would interpret it as some sort of like not a sign, but see, this is this is proof now that that this might not be real, or I might not be real. You gotta drop all that. I temporarily have an interruption in the way I'm perceiving myself and the world around me. Okay, it's not worse, it's different. I'm comfortable.

SPEAKER_02 21:47

Is this uh what you're gonna remember? And and this we'll talk about you know the advice bit properly now, because you've probably got here and uh this is what you've got to remember is that uh psychoeducation here is really important. This will happen, or most likely will happen, if you're stressed and anxious, particularly over a long time. It's nothing new that's happening, it's just your body trying to bring you back to a state of equilibrium. This state will maintain itself or keep triggering the more we worry about itself. So the problem here isn't actually derealization and depersonalization. Drew and I have both experienced it last week for a little momentary amount of time. It wasn't a problem. We weren't scared. It is entirely possible to have this phenomenon and not be scared. There is no fusion between the threat response and the dissociative state. What you need to realize is and what you need to work on is I have a phobia of derealization and put depersonalization now. So rather than framing success as oh my god, I went two days without DPDR, it's how good was I at being able to be with DPTR today whilst doing what non-anxious me would do without changing anything I need to do because it's safe, you're okay, you know, it's all right, you can still do all the things you can do. It just feels skew with, you know, just feels a bit strange. You need to work on the phobia of it. And like we said in the past, the paradox of anxiety is the more you're willing to have it, or the more you just don't really care about it, the kind of the the less it the less it appears, the less it's likely to appear, and the shorter the duration will likely be when it does. Yeah, because I've been over a year without having it, and then it can just crop up a few times a week, usually when I'm stressed. Yeah, but I don't add the add the layer of rumination on top. Like, why is this? Am I going crazy? Because that's the one that's always yeah, is this the first sign of me going crazy? What if this is anxiety and something bad's happening? What if uh no, just it's okay. It's okay, it's all right. Um, go ahead, you finish.

SPEAKER_01 24:01

No, no, I just had a point I'll bring it up in a minute. Okay, yeah, you know, I think when when Josh says the best way to deal with it is just to to practice being with it, it's exactly what I had to do. So I'll put that in in practice for you. For you know, my deal was I I found that one way that it one thing that helped me put that into action was to say, I'm going to have to act as if this is not happening. I clearly it was. It wasn't an attempt to ignore the fact that I was feeling it. It wasn't an attempt to not care. I really cared, but it was still like, well, let me act like this is not happening. I know it feels unreal, but let me keep driving like everything is real and I'm controlling the car. And sure enough, I was. So it was only that repeated, and that was hard. I had to let go of all that resistance and like I was afraid to do that. But those repeated experiences told me that, like, oh yeah, this is uncomfortable and I hate it, but it's it's this is not dangerous. I can handle this. And then it began to shrink away as soon as I came to that realization of practice more and more and more. So it wasn't that complicated, it was just hard. It's it's simple, but hard, as always.

SPEAKER_02 25:10

It's a bit like um what is what's it you said the other day? Oh, yeah, behave how you want to feel. Yeah, fake it till you make it, fake it till you make it, behave how you want to feel. Yeah, but remember the brain and the amygdala can only rewire itself when it is active.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

Yeah, that's true. You have to be you have to be triggered to stop being triggered.

SPEAKER_02 25:32

Yeah, yeah. It can only the wiring will not open to to do it. You have to, yeah, you have to do it. Yeah. Uh in in that sense. Um, yeah, well, I was also gonna say as well, and this is something subjective to me, and something I've heard of I I realize now that I mostly only get when I'm um depersonalized or derealized, and bear in mind, it doesn't happen a lot, but I've noticed that when I am and I can see this now with through the lens of intrigue rather than fright and terror and get rid of this, I'm bloated. My stomach bloats at the very same time I'm dissociated and derealized. And it feels and it's they always go together. And I'd love to know if other people experience that. And if you do, drop us a message um on disorder.fm because I am never dis dissociated without some form of bloating or pressure in the stomach. Um, and I find that fascinating. I was like, I wonder if that's something to do with the kind of sensory processing or or whatever. I don't know what's going on there, but I always feel that that that bloating. Um what we know is that that bloating is, and we'll we'll get doctors earlier on to talk about this soon, but that bloating is part of um the threat response where lots of the oxygen in our well, not oxygen, but the gas in our large intestine gets squeezed and pushed up into our abdomen. So it does show us that that derealization, depersonalization is part of the threat response that's that's been that's reacted to stress. But I want to know if that applies to anyone else. It we had a chat about it, didn't we, Drew? It's one of the first things I ever asked you when we met, I was like, Can you explain this something to me? And you were like, Well no.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

Yeah, it was so interesting. And I remember getting that message like if anybody's gonna know this, it's gonna be you. I'm like, who put me in charge? And it was a good question, but I didn't have an answer to it. And then we got it when you had uh when you had your guest on the on the panic pod. Yeah, yeah. Oh, we're gonna get it driving back from school from campus, and I was like, This is awesome.

SPEAKER_02 27:30

This is a great yeah, we've got to we've got to get Dr. Sudan again. That'll be amazing.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

It's really good. Uh do you want to talk for a second? We probably have to mention this because I know that at least some people that are that are listening are gonna bring this up. You talked earlier about how like, well, it felt like you had like smoked a joint without knowing that you had smoked a joint. People are gonna bring this up. It happened, it was weed. I smoked weed and then I I was depersonalized and it's never gone away.

SPEAKER_02 27:55

Yeah, we've if I had a pound for every time I heard well, I went to Amsterdam and tried mushrooms, yeah, smoked weed for the first time. Yeah, and what happened was you had a panic attack, and part of the symptom of that panic attack um was derealization, dissociation. Everyone who's having panic attacks, I would argue, well, everyone, a lot vast majority maybe experience DPDR in the sense that you're so stressed and anxious that it kind of puts you in a dissociative state. Um yeah, but that's the thing that you notice, that's the thing that your threat response latched onto. Suddenly my reality has changed a little bit, and it scared me, and it's exacerbated. I've had panic attacks um about 10 years ago when I was used to smoke weed and stuff, and my heart would pound and stuff like that. But there was it was the derealization that made you feel like, oh my god, you know, am I going crazy or whatever? Um, but what the worst part of it was it was the constant compulsive checking, monitoring, um, looking out for it, um, safety behaviors that followed that kept the response on. Um, can't wait to do an episode on checking and monitoring. That's one of them, it's gonna be a good one.

SPEAKER_01 29:07

Yeah, I I know for me, excuse me, I was checking and monitoring for DPDR all the damn time. And I think people that had, you know, sort of a cannabis-related experience, that was the first time I ever felt depersonalized or dissociated. Now I I'm worried that I've ruined my brain and something broke in my brain, it's never gonna go away. I mean, that's a little bit outside the borders of what we're talking about today, but there's a there's a you know, be careful. All I would say about that is that's a compulsive checking thing. Just be careful about where you're getting your information about that. Don't get it from Joe Rogan, please. Like I'm looking at a paper right now on dissociative states and cannabis use, and it's not what you think, generally speaking.

SPEAKER_02 29:41

No, yeah, no, not not all like that's not don't go there. So yeah, yeah, just yeah, just be careful where you get where you get your information from and stuff, and um yeah, that that's cool. Um do you do you how much do you kind of hear a lot of people fearing DPDR and then actually get into a good place with it? Because I hear that quite a lot.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

Oh, yeah, all the time. People fearing DPDR. I and last week when we did the health anxiety one or whatever, that one just is the one that well it's been a couple of weeks ago because we're out of sequence with what you're listening to. But you know, I would always say the most stubborn uh form of anxiety that I encounter in my my community is health anxiety because it's so obsessive and it's so insistent that it's real and it needs to be accommodated, and these is real fear, and you don't understand. DPDR is a close second to that. It's not its own form of anxiety, but people who are afraid of DPDR can really dig their heels in on this. But surprising, no, this is the most important thing. I I wish I had heart racing hard. This is the worst thing there is. This is really bad. You can't, how can I possibly deal with this? But it's amazing to see those same people come back six months later, eight months later, four months later, a year later, and say, Oh yeah, I I remember the last time it happened to me. Like I'm over that now. It's it's fine. I'm not worried about it anymore.

SPEAKER_02 30:57

Because the threat response is latched onto something else, and that feels real, which is what people with OCD, health anxiety, and panic, or the that the threat response will monitor and and and choose something as the threat. Yeah, and in this case, yeah, it's it can be DPDR. Um, remember that you know you got look at your um criteria for success or recovery here. If it's like, oh, I can only rest when it's gone and I'll get my life back. No, no, no, you that's you're gonna be there for a while. It's like, okay, how well can I and again, you know, we'll get this on a study t-shirt. How much can I willfully tolerate this? You know, uh and um oh, not forgetting the people that you know, people with DPDR and fear of going crazy, which is demetophobia. That's a big one. Uh, these people will compulsively avoid anything that makes them feel anything other than neutral or anything. So these people will avoid watching movies of horror movies of people going insane or losing control or becoming mass murderers. These people avoid having alcohol or any kind of drug or opiate or anything, whether it's prescribed or not, because they don't want the DPTR to get worse because at the core of it they feel like they might lose control and go crazy. Yeah, they find that that doesn't happen. It doesn't that's it's not even the same part of your brain that's doing that.

SPEAKER_01 32:19

No, but that's a again, that that we we could say that all day long, but uh, those people are also tend to dig their heels into it because they will insist that they are they are this close, like they are just a a step away from finally snapping. And it's like, no, that's that's not a thing. And unfortunately, that willful tolerance and the way that you turn down the threat response in in response to DPDR is you're you are rolling the dice. It feels like you're rolling the dice. I guess I'll have to let my well, people say, Well, what if I go crazy? And my response sounds like a very callous, I guess you'll have to go crazy then. You know, and that sounds nobody wants to hear that, but it feels to them like they are rolling the dice. What if this is permanent? What if my brain is broken? What if I do slip away? What if I do have a psychotic break? You're you are taking the chance when you try to practice that willful tolerance and surrender, it feels like you're taking a chance, I should say. You're not what I said.

SPEAKER_02 33:06

I hear that, I hear that love a practice. It's like um uh, you know, I'm am I crazy? I'm like, you may be crazy, but it's nothing to do with your DPD.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

It's a totally different thing altogether, right?

SPEAKER_02 33:18

Uh yeah, I totally we'll look at your insanity, but it's nothing to do with this. This is fine.

SPEAKER_01 33:22

Very normal, very expensive, very normal, very common. You know, when when I you talked about like, do you see people who have overcome it? Yeah, and those some of those people were insistent that this is impossible to deal with, it's just too uncomfortable. And either they did the willful tolerance thing and they practiced, or something else became more important, and suddenly this thing that was the utmost of importance isn't important anymore. What does that tell you about it? It's uncomfortable, but not terribly consequential.

SPEAKER_02 33:49

So yeah, don't try and get rid of your leg pain by punching yourself in the leg. Yeah, you know, it doesn't work that way. Yeah, um, we could talk more about DPDR at a later date, but I wanted to shoehorn some celebratory stuff if that's okay, Drew, unless you've got anything else you want to tell me. We can always do a DPDR part two, return of the dissociation, or or or we can do that at some point. Um, but I've got a lovely did it anyway, I wanted to share. Yeah, it's done. Um here we go. One of my biggest fears, being put to sleep, happened yesterday for my first ever surgery. I was freaking out for two weeks and had a huge breakdown in the morning. Did you? Or did you have a panic? And then my fear was panicking on the surgical table. After my first shot of relaxing agent, I had a big freak out and it did the opposite on the table before the surgery. Then I calmed myself down and let it happen, and then was eventually given the shot to put me to sleep. I was petrified, but I did it anyway. I came out of surgery and I was so happy that I did it. It was far from perfect, but who likes perfect? I did it anyway. This is lovely. Thank you both for all that you do. The come down from the anaesthetic was actually fun and not scary like I thought. Uh good, you deserve that. Um, they've not given me permission to say the name, but yeah, well, that's absolutely brilliant. Well done. 100%. Ready? Studio audience weighing in. Some applause. Thanks for watching. Matthew McConhey was back today. He said he couldn't be here at the last episode, but it's back. Front row, he loves it. That was a great did it anyway. It was really good. Well, I loved it. Wasn't perfect, good. Go, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:33

Yeah, that might have been the best part. Who needs perfect?

SPEAKER_02 35:35

Yeah, who needs perfect got through it. Doesn't matter how you did it, you got through it. Well done. Um, and yeah, superb.

SPEAKER_01 35:43

Well done. Yeah, great. Well, we're about 35 minutes and we could probably wrap this one. Oh, you know what I want to add? When when that person said, I guess you can't say your name, his name, whoever's name, their name. I didn't read that one. But um, I I think the interestingly, the come down from the anesthesia was actually fun. Do you know what was one interesting fact about DPDR that maybe we'll end the episode on? My my biggest viral social media hit ever was my DPDR reel or video on TikTok.

SPEAKER_02 36:08

Oh, and then you became famous on TikTok for about four days.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

Yeah, for like a month or so. It has like five million views, and it's responsible for my entire TikTok audience. But I was blown when a thing gets viewed five million times. There's a ton of comments, right? A ton. The number of comments where people said, Oh, I like that feeling, blew me away as somebody who used to be terrified of it. There's so many people like, no, I like it. It's relaxing. I like that feeling.

SPEAKER_02 36:32

Like that's why people drop acid in shrimp. I don't like that, and that scares me. But like in general, yeah, that's why exploring the dissociative because it's treating it like it's transient, isn't it? Whereas people with DPTR and they obsess about it because they feel like it's never it's not going to be transient. But when you realize that all feelings are transient, yeah, you can learn to step away from it again. And now I don't really feel anything towards it, which I'm happy with.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

Yeah, I'm ambivalent to it. I don't love it, I don't hate it anymore either. I just it's just whatever. It is what it is.

SPEAKER_02 37:00

Come drop us a voice note or a message um on disorder.fm. Follow us on social media, uh The Anxious Truth or Anxiety Josh.

SPEAKER_03 37:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:09

And we'll be back next time.

SPEAKER_01 37:11

Yeah, we'll see you next time. Thanks for hanging out. Hey, it's Drew. Thanks for joining us for this episode of Disordered. Josh and I both hope that you're finding it helpful in some way. For more information about Josh or me or the Disordered Podcast, find us on the web at disordered.fm. That's disordered.fm. Pop on over and find links to our social media platforms, join our mailing list so we can let you know when new podcast episodes are available, and we'll send you easy ways to ask us questions and share your wins so we can answer questions on the air and share your successes with the community. And if you're listening to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or any platform that lets you rate a review, do us a favor and leave us a five-star rating and maybe write a review if you're digging disordered. It really helps us out and we appreciate that. Thanks again for coming by, and we'll see you in the next episode.