Is a complete recovery from derealization in possible?

[Codes84]

Hey everyone. I've been suffering from symptoms of derealization since January this year. At the start I was having severe daily intrusive thoughts and thought I was losing my mind. I was getting severe anxiety as well and couldn't even go to work for at least six weeks. My days consisted of sleeping and trying to stay sane. I've been put on medication and tolerated it relatively well. It's helped with the intrusive thoughts and my sleeping has gotten better. I'm back at work a few days a week and have started going back to the gym. I'm avoiding alcohol and caffeine to try and help. My anxiety has gotten better and the symptoms of derealization has reduced greatly but I'm recently I'm starting to feel them creeping back in. I'm trying to reassure myself as much as possible and do grounding techniques but I don't feel like it's working. When I'm distracted at work it's not as bad but as soon as I start thinking about it it gets worse. Has anyone completely recovered from derealization? Whether it was for only a few months or several years? Does anyone have any advice about a "complete" recovery?

[therising]

Hi Codes84

I feel for you so much as you face such a mind altering and sometimes seriously scary experience. While our sense of reality is what grounds us, no one really talks about when things begin to feel completely unreal.

I'm going back quite a number of years when I speak of my own derealisation experience, which tells you that this is well behind me now. This period of time became very scary for me, especially when I found no one could help me make sense of it. It got to the point where I recall one night crying out loud 'I just can't do this anymore!' It had become mentally exhausting and felt truly torturous. I too felt like I was going insane. Eventually, I found my way out of it with the help of some solid advice - Ground yourself in as many ways as possible, almost to the point where life becomes mundane. Looking back, I now realise that during this grounding process, I was focusing on the mundane as opposed to focusing on 'what seemed real and what didn't'. I wasn't so much in my head, trying to decipher my thoughts all the time.

It wasn't until some months later that I came across an article about something called 'Kundalini Awakening', also know as 'Spiritual Awakening', 'Spiritual Emergence' or 'Spiritual Emergency'. I couldn't believe it, I ticked just about every mind altering and body altering symptom on the list. When I say 'body altering' what I mean is symptoms including physical hyperactivity, states of sudden exhaustion and so on. So, from there I began focusing on aspects of spiritual emergence, which is what has led me to where I am today. This journey began more than 15 years ago.

I know anything that has the word 'spirit' or 'spiritual' in it can be incredibly off putting for some and I understand that, I really do. I've come to realise over the years the benefits of looking at things from 3 perspectives - Mind, body and spirit. Another way to phrase this is Psychological, biological and natural. Actually, there's a book I love written by Dr Joe Dispenza called 'Becoming Supernatural' where he takes Mind/Body/Spirit and translates it into Neuroplasticity/Epigenetics/Quantum Physics.

It's seriously tough when you're trying to figure out which reality is real. It can definitely feel torturous without some solid guidance. Of course, mine is only one perspective. I hope others can offer you their experiences and ways they managed.

I should add that once I became grounded, from there life ceased being mundane. Quite the opposite.

🙂

[Petal22]

Hi Codes104,

what you describe sounds like ocd .... is it the same thing?

I have recovered completely from OCD, I can explain more if you want me to?

[geoff]

Hello Codes, and a warm welcome to the forums.

I'm not qualified to say, however, I suffer from OCD and have intrusive thoughts, so the question asked is that if you're having 'intrusive thoughts' and from what Petal has said, is that derealization can reoccur because the stress of any type has once again begun and may be caused by any relationship, financial or work-related issues, which we may not have expected.

There may be many different triggers that can cause this, some of which you may have been taught on how to cope with them, while other times there could be unexpectedly different ones you weren't prepared for.

Some people can supposedly recover from this by using psychotherapy, while others seem to cope most of the time, but then something unexpected may happen and catch them off guard.

To overcome OCD takes strength, and I've done an online course but as soon as it finished back came my obsessions/compulsions, so it's about learning to understand and then cope with how they affect your life, so a psychologist may say yes, but a sufferer may say no, it's all up to how you can handle each situation.

Best wishes.

Geoff.

[therising]

Hi Codes84

Thought of something that might be of some help. Hoping so.

Paying closer attention to what comes to mind can be helpful in the grounding process. Give you an example. Can remember having the thought at one point during my struggle 'What if I don't go to work today'. While one part of my brain was saying 'Is my job actually real? What if I just don't go', another part of me was saying 'Of course it's real and you will lose that job if you don't show up'. Trusting in the thoughts that we know deep down make the most logical sense can be part of the grounding process. On this occasion I trusted in logic and went to work and in the process of physically being there and focusing my attention on my job this is what led me to be completely grounded out of my 'reality shift' on that occasion.

While I've found a healthy sense of wonder to be positively life changing, there can actually be an unhealthy sense of wonder in some cases. In the case of derealisation, I found that staying in a state of wonder did not ground me in a way where I needed to be grounded, in order to function effectively. I could have stayed in a state of wondering whether my job was really real and then wondering what would happen if I didn't show up and wondering whether I'd actually get a call from my boss but I managed to snap myself out of it.

May sound like a strange question but do you find yourself wondering a lot these days?

It is said that by entering into and exercising different parts of the brain this can influence our perception and chemistry. A daydreamer, an entrepreneur, an inventor, a writer etc will access certain parts of the brain that an accountant, a banker, a logistics expert etc typically won't. While certain sections are responsible for inspiration, imagination and intuition other sections relate more to logic, facts and everyday basic mental processing.

Being a very open minded person who wonders a lot and occasionally questions the nature of reality can come with unforeseen and intense challenges. I've actually come to notice lately that more and more people are developing this nature. Developing it without guidance and grounding can be problematic.

Hoping you're gradually finding more ways in which to ground yourself.

🙂