This is a key distinction between derealization and other mental illnesses. Derealization can last for as long as the panic attack lasts, which can range in length from a few minutes to 20 or 30 minutes. In some cases, however, these sensations can persist for hours and even days or weeks.
Symptoms may appear infrequently, and episodes can differ in length. Some may experience depersonalization for a few minutes, while others may have the same detached feeling for days or weeks at a time. If symptoms appear often enough, you may find it difficult to function at work or school.
Episodes may last for only hours or days or for weeks, months, or years. Episodes may involve depersonalization, derealization, or both. The intensity of symptoms often waxes and wanes. But when the disorder is severe, symptoms may be present and remain at the same intensity for years or even decades.
People who experience derealization often describe feeling more like an 'observer' of their life and surroundings rather than a participant in them. They are usually aware of where they are and what's happening around them, but their experience of reality feels unreal during dissociative episodes.
It can often feel like you're not really in the environment surrounding you or that the world around you is unreal. You may feel like you're watching something going on with no understanding of what it is or that the world is a dream that you aren't able to escape.
Episodes of depersonalization or derealization can be frightening and disabling. They can cause: Difficulty focusing on tasks or remembering things. Interference with work and other routine activities.
Four stages of the formation of depersonalization were identified: vital, allopsychic, somatopsychis and autopsychic.
Complete recovery is possible for many people. In some people, the disorder disappears on its own. Others recover by going to therapy and dealing with the triggers. Therapy helps resolve the underlying issues.
This is Not Psychosis
People with schizophrenia or psychosis commonly experience hallucinations or delusions that are difficult to distinguish from reality. Individuals with DR may feel strange about themselves or their surroundings, but they do not typically experience hallucinations or delusions.
However, anxiety attacks are not the only cause of derealization. Other causes can include trauma, drug use, depression, dementia, schizophrenia, and depersonalization/derealization disorder.
While this can be jarring, passing experiences with these feelings are common. However, when these feelings keep coming back or don't go away, depersonalization-derealization disorder — also referred to as dissociation — might be the cause, as it is for about 1% of the general population.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) can teach you to challenge intrusive thoughts and manage symptoms of depersonalization. Trauma-focused therapy like eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR) can help you process traumatic memories. Once your trauma heals, symptoms of depersonalization may lessen.
Most depersonalization episodes last from a few minutes to a few hours before fading. But more severe episodes can last for a day, weeks or even months.
However, temporary derealization symptoms are commonly experienced by the general population a few times throughout their lives, with a lifetime prevalence of up to 26–74% and a prevalence of 31–66% at the time of a traumatic event.
This disorder is episodic in about one-third of individuals, with each episode lasting from hours to months at a time. Depersonalization can begin episodically, and later become continuous at constant or varying intensity.
Severe stress, anxiety, and depression are common triggers for DPDR. A lack of sleep or an overstimulating environment can also make DPDR symptoms worse.
Depersonalisation-derealisation disorder
Derealisation is where you feel the world around is unreal. People and things around you may seem "lifeless" or "foggy". You can have depersonalisation or derealisation, or both together. It may last only a few moments or come and go over many years.
Derealization is one of a range of symptoms coexisting in a panic attack. Some youth who have panic attacks don't experience derealization but for those who do, it can cause them to think, “I'm going crazy,” or, “Something is horribly wrong with me.” Fortunately, they are not going crazy and probably are quite healthy.
Brain damage to the occipital or temporal lobes may also cause both depersonalization and derealization. Drugs such as marijuana, hallucinogens, pain medication, and even large quantities of caffeine may contribute to derealization.
Approximately 50% of the general population have had at least one transient experience of depersonalization or derealization in their lifetime. However, only approximately 2% of people ever meet the criteria for having depersonalization/derealization disorder.
If you're having an episode of depersonalization, distracting yourself by throwing cold water on your face, doing sudden quick movements like jumping jacks, or engaging in deep breathing can help bring your awareness back to reality, says Dr. Parmar.
We found that increased use of digital media-based activities and online social e-meetings correlated with higher feelings of depersonalisation. We also found that the participants reporting higher experiences of depersonalisation, also reported enhanced vividness of negative emotions (as opposed to positive emotions).
Self-reported derealization symptoms in the full sample were also associated with greater symptoms of PTSD and depression 3 months post-trauma. These associations were again independent of childhood maltreatment and earlier PTSD symptoms.