Question:
Hello… This is my first post, and I don’t know if I belong here, but you seem like a friendly group (I’ve been lurking for several days) and I don’t know where else to turn. I feel very alone, because I don’t know anyone who feels like I do. Maybe someone here does? My problem is perpetual spaciness. When I read various things about derealization/depersonalization, that seems to describe pretty closely how I feel. I’ve felt this way for years (since I was a teen, at least, and now I’m 34), and these past few years I’m realizing how much the spaciness interferes with my life. I feel like I’m in a perpetual dream state. Everything – events, objects, etc. – seems unreal. I feel oblivious to what’s happening around me. And I’m feeling more and more numb, which may be because I’m depressed about not being able to find answers to how I can get rid of the spaced-out feeling. I’ve been seeking psychiatric help but so far no results. I’ve been on several antidepressants (zoloft, serzone, wellbutrin, effexor – none of these did anything to me, good or bad; prozac made me really sleepy and didn’t help with depression, although I was only on for a week and at a very low dose), none of which have had any effect on the depression or the spaciness. I’m not good at making phone calls – easy ones, or hard ones (i.e. looking for another therapist). And I’m doing my own research, trying to figure out what’s wrong. But I do that in spurts, too, because it tends to make me more depressed. There were some traumatic things that happened to me as a child; and I was emotionally abused/neglected. So that probably caused the spaciness to start? Can anyone relate to the constant spacy feeling? I know it’s a symptom in panic disorder, but it probably goes away when the panic goes away? For me, this is a constant. to write me privately)
Response:
Hello… This is my first post, and I don’t know if I belong here, but you seem like a friendly group (I’ve been lurking for several days) and I don’t know where else to turn. I feel very alone, because I don’t know anyone who feels like I do. Maybe someone here does? My problem is perpetual spaciness. When I read various things about derealization/depersonalization, that seems to describe pretty closely how I feel.
<words snipped to save space Hi Amy, welcome to ASAP. I have to say that what you describe certainly does (to me) sound like derealisation/depersonalisation, but I’ve never heard of it being there all the time. In my case, I find it increases more or less in proportion to the proximity of a panic attack – more anxiety, more derealisation – but it decreases that way, too. I can only sympathise with you here and hope that you can find a psychiatrist or other therapist who can help. Please let us know how you get on. Good luck, — Gary Cooper
If you like this post and would like to receive updates from this blog, please subscribe our feed.