When I was 14, I was invited to my friend’s house party.
Boys would be there and her parents had promised to sit in the front room - TV on, door shut.
We would have the kitchen and backroom to ourselves; a swarm of 15 or so hormonal teenagers caged inside just two rooms.
By the time the party rolled around, anticipation was high and it wasn’t long before someone turned off the lights.
People began kissing, indiscriminately so. It didn’t seem to matter who - just as long as they kissed someone, anyone. The more the better.
Braces collided, noses bumped and teeth clashed; a pool of frenzied teenagers driven by that potent blend of hormones and fear of rejection.
The closest thing I can compare it to is a Love Island challenge, minus the clear skin and great physiques.
After what felt like a lifetime in that salivary swamp, I emerged from the room and closed the door. I walked to my friend’s kitchen and made myself a glass of squash.
Leaning against the counter I sighed, relived to be out of that hormonal cesspit. Sipping my drink, I could hear my friend’s parents watching Saturday night TV in the other room - the crackling of logs on the fire.
I felt a deep pang of envy. I wanted to run in there and join them, to leave this new, unstable world of adolescence and resume my place in the old lineup. I wanted that safe world of slippers and folded newspapers, a sleeping dog and two adults. I wanted to watch Jonathan Creek.
It’s then that I began to feel anxious and it’s then that it happened.
A New Reality
Looking around the kitchen, I was suddenly overwhelmed by the sensation that I was watching television: my own life now a TV show.
Everything and everyone had a strange opaque quality to them - as though they were wrapped in clingfilm. My own voice sounded detached and distant, as if I’d retreated to an echoey backwater of my mind.
I stood up, startled by the severity of the sensation. Like Alice falling through the rabbit hole, I felt intensely disoriented and scared. Watching as my friends walked casually around the room, I desperately tried to rejoin them - to reach across the infinite universe now separating us and to clutch at their hands.
I tried to speak, but felt ghostlike.
Like Matthew McConaughey in Interstellar, I was floating in cold, dark galaxy; fragments of the world I’d left behind suspended in front of me. They seemed near, but in reality they were dimensions away.
I ran to the bathroom, locked myself inside and waited for madness.
So, What is Derealisation?
Looking back, what I experienced that night was evidently derealisation. Of course, I had no understanding of this at the time, but derealisation it definitely was.
Perhaps it was caused by that challenging cocktail of change and transition. By the creeping realisation that night that my childhood was being hijacked by the Wild West of adolescence. That the door to the reassuring warmth of my childhood was now shut, and a room filled with teenagers and a Craig David soundtrack now beckoned.
(Or perhaps the scent of Wrigley’s Airwaves and Lynx simply proved too much - who knows).
Whatever caused it, it was unpleasant.
However, and having experienced spells of derealisation since, one thing I do know is that it’s a surprisingly common, yet rarely discussed, anxiety symptom. In fact, it’s estimated that 1 in 50, or 1.3 million people in the UK have experienced this sensation firsthand.
Millions of us, all floating in that parallel abyss.
Depersonalisation
This otherworldly experience can also present itself as depersonalisation - the feeling that you are not real. This is something I’ve only experienced a handful of times and can confirm it’s equally as unnerving.
Each time it’s appeared, I’ve felt like Alice after swallowing Rabbit’s sugary pink wafer. I suddenly feel lurchingly tall; my feet and the ground now miles from reach. My hands no longer feel like my own and the face I see in the mirror is a stranger.
My body - my lifelong home - is now an unfamiliar, abandoned building. It’s a rental property that I no longer recognise.
It’s a horrible experience and one I’d gladly never go through again.
Why Does DPDR Happen?
Both derealisation and depersonalisation (DPDR) are thought to be bought on by periods of intense stress, anxiety or trauma. Alternatively, a sudden traumatic event will do it. A car accident, or an evening inside a dark room with teenage boys, for example.
Either or.
Both are officially classified as dissociative disorders, although the length of each experience can vary. I, for example, am only plunged into that alternate universe for a few minutes at a time, while others can feel stuck there for months.
But, why? Why would feeling anxious, or stressed, result in such a glitch in the matrix? Why would anxiety cause us to feel as though life is a dream?
Interestingly, it’s speculated that DPDR is simply a misunderstood coping mechanism - a mental safety blanket. Sensing the stress and anxiety pummelling your mind, it’s thought that our brains deploy derealisation to blunt the sharper edges of reality.
In short, it’s a mental anaesthetic, a powerful numbing agent. A stiff drink poured directly over our brains, a mental hazmat suit.
Its objective is to protect, rather than scare.
But, Why Does it Scare Us?
Given that DPDR is, apparently, a chance for our overheated minds to reboot and cool, why do we find these sensations so scary?
Shouldn’t comfort blankets be warm and fluffy?
Firstly, and at their core, both sensations are extremely disorientating. If you haven’t experienced them before then spoiler alert: they feel like the prologue to insanity.
As with most anxiety symptoms, experiencing DPDR when you aren’t in the throes of a traumatic event is predictably jarring. While this dreamlike feeling would no doubt protect as you stepped from a burning wreckage, experiencing it as you stand in your friend’s kitchen, drinking squash, is terrifying.
Yet, what I think is the most frightening thing about DPDR is what it reminds us of.
That our reality, or our perception of it, is fragile.
For many with anxiety, control is important. Reassuring routine, structure and the promise of forever, all help us to feel grounded and safe. We like the idea of permanency and certainty. We like our feet to be tethered tightly to the ground.
DPDR undermines this. Not only does it untie our feet, it causes the ground beneath us to fall away entirely.
DPDR challenges us to accept sudden and surprising new realities; to acknowledge that our powerful brains are capable of shapeshifting. It’s an unwanted reminder that the reality on which we rely can be instantly blurred; a dirty paintbrush across a watercolour painting.
When DPDR comes a’knocking, nothing feels certain.
This, for me at least, is what makes DPDR so frightening. My brain, that friend in the attack, can go rogue - a galloping stallion escaped from its stable.
It scares me to know its power.
Coping with DPDR
Having spoken extensively about DPDR with my therapist, I’ve learned that the only way to deal with these fleeting episodes is to - predictably - accept them.
Boring, right? Even I’ve begun to wonder just how much more I’ll have to endure. Panic attacks I can just about stomach, but feeling as though I’m a permanent resident inside the Truman Show seems somewhat unfair.
However, and as ever, she was right.
When it comes to DPDR, I try to now fully surrender to the sensation. By assuming the mindset of a neurologist or psychologist, I explore this experience with quiet fascination; let myself float in that muffled reality with calm acceptance.
Sure, it might feel as though I’m silently spiralling through an existential crisis, but I know that’s not the reality. The ground is still beneath my feet and my loved ones are still there; their hands warm and hugs tight.
I know that if I don’t panic, DPDR will soon pass, and reality will return, crisp, vivid and familiar.
Like stepping off the plane after a long trip away; home always awaits. As the comforting smell of wet tarmac and cold air hits me as the airplane doors open, I take a deep breath and rejoin reality.
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I also experience DPDR. I didn't know what it was for 30 years until my therapist mentioned it. I experience it as moments where I don't recognise myself in the mirror or in photographs. Sometimes I feel like I'm here but also 100 miles away. Sometimes it is like I'm sitting inside my head looking out through the windows of my eyes. And sometimes parts of my head and face goes numb as if they are missing and instead replaced by gaping holes. It's like my mind is taking a drug to escape reality, but the drug is dissociation. Slowly but surely I am getting to understand and accept it. Thank you for sharing. Good to know I am not alone. I look forward to reading your alphabet of anxiety.
I've known people who experience this, and re-empasising accepting the feelings does feel like a boring even inadequate solution. But as you say, it works. When our own heads work against us - even if they don't intend to - it can be important to remember that acknowledging the feelings helps, that this too shall pass, and that having physical reminders of the world and those around us helps us reground.
Thank you for writing so eloquently on this alphabet of aspects of anxiety.