How can I live with myself? Beyond my closest relatives I’m increasingly struggling to relate to other people. I guess depersonalisation and derealisation are getting the best of me. Also my memories feel fake, but I guess that’s a normal part of getting old. Do you struggle with similar issues?
I don’t hang around anyone irl. I panic when I have to go out in public.
The best bet is to treat other people as though they are real. In that way if you are wrong then you haven’t made any mistakes. If you are right and people aren’t real (including my very own real existence ) then what harm have you done?
Nope. I think you should go back on your meds.
By going back on meds.
That’s ninjastar’s argument as well, but Man will not live by probability alone.
It probably will…
Antipsychotics are not suitable for DP/DR.
Actually there is ECT which is what they gave me when I dissociated for over 3 weeks. Mine was a more serious fugue, but still depersonalisation.
The after effects was a huge ache all over my body and muscles. I don’t actually remember the shocks as I was dissociated at the time. How ever much time later I had hallucinogenic after shocks.
I would never undergo ECT, but I’m relieved that at least I don’t suffer from schizophrenia. Have you been diagnosed with a dissociative disorder?
Personally I wouldn’t have said yes, but I wasn’t aware of the world at the time to say yes or no or anything else at the time.
They won’t let me see my medical records to see what happened.
Just curious, what is your definition of real?
I mean, other people definitely exist. I’m one of them. Do you mean that you think you’re hallucinating all of us?
Not something Im used too
Is he the real deal??
I simply don’t know what’s real or what’s not. I don’t hold delusional beliefs, just radical doubts. I think I’ll be getting rediagnosed. These are symptoms of depersonalisation disorder and existential ocd, not schizophrenia.
I used to get derealization from meds. I was a fool to have believed it was my ‘schizophrenia’…
Did you get rediagnosed?
Nope. I’ve had episodes of psychosis over the past 3 years, but my symptoms don’t persist, so I don’t think I have schizophrenia.
Make art, learn to play an instrument, start taking care of plants. I get the same feelings, but I find my hobbies to be a sort of tether that keeps me grounded. Its hard to relate to others, especially if they don’t have the same experiences, but you could potentially reconnect through discussing these hobbies. If not, at least you’ll still have art. Art is just as much of a connection to this world as any other aspect!
“real” is something even physicists argue about the meaning of
I am mostly happy to live at the abstraction level of an everyday human, with average goals and frustrations and a reasonable number and severity of character faults and quirks.
I guess you know people are real now.