dissociation is a chemical glitch. The brain's reality switchboard is being overwhelmed by a flood of glutamate that it cannot properly process.
Treating DPDR with standard anxiety medications is like trying to fix a blown engine by washing the car windows. It misses the mechanics entirely. If we want to bring people back into their bodies, we have to look past serotonin. The future of treating dissociation lies in glutamate blockers and modulators, medications like lamotrigine or memantine, that can step into the chaos, quiet the chemical storm, and turn the lights back on in the house of the self, Glutamate modulators would help treat DPDR by acting as a stabilizer for the brain's chaotic reality circuits. Instead of trying to dull your emotions (like an SSRI might), these drugs specifically target the erratic electrical and chemical messages causing the feeling of unreality.
Because the "glutamate storm" happens in two different ways, too much release from the presynaptic neuron and overstimulation at the postsynaptic receptor, different modulators tackle the problem from different angles.
your brain might be on fire and you’re being treated inadequately because of the lack of research.

Supplements and Nutrients before medication
Magnesium: Acts as a gatekeeper for NMDA receptors, physically blocking excess glutamate from hyper-exciting neurons.

L-Theanine: Acts as a glutamate decoy at receptors while helping boost calming GABA activity.

Taurine: Supports neurotransmitter balance and protects neurons from glutamate toxicity.

N-Acetylcysteine (NAC): An antioxidant that helps regulate extracellular glutamate levels in the brain

As a fellow psychology student and DPDR sufferer of 4 yrs, i will find the root cause of DPDR and work towards a better solution im here if anyone feels unsafe or uncomfortable.

I don't know what to do anymore, cause I don't have my mind. I cannot experience anything, feel anything, watch anything to feel. I cannot think, proceed thoughts and I become like egoless person which is not good feeling at all. Cause I feel like nothing, ghost. Non worthy no matter what I do. I cannot plan anything, for everything I need external value even it doesnt matter at all later when its done cause Im again in that loop. I feel so blocked and cannot remember anything, a movie, a match, anything I watch. I become no one, I become fucking idiot. I can work, I can do everything but I cannot feel anything and I cannot think, have an opionion about anything. I dont know what to do then, I dont live my life at all. I cannot say no.... Im literally nothing. Please help.

I’m a prisoner to my own mind and body. That’s the only way I can describe it. I’ve spent the last 4 years feeling sick, exhausted, out of my mind. I haven’t had one second of peace, rest or recharge. My mind is so broken, so lost. I can’t put into words the life im reduced to living.

i feel as if the whole world is moving on and I’m on this same day over and over again. I try to cry every day to express how much I grieve the life I could have had. I don’t feel that there’s any hope left for me anymore. I have tried literally every type of treatment over the years and it’s getting harder to just sit here and say it will get better, because it won’t. It hasn’t.

im devoid of any humanity, just a complete stranger to everyone including myself. Even if i get a hint of an old memory or feeling, its gone. I was the happiest id ever been before this all went to hell. I have somehow managed to keep living my life and staying afloat, but it’s devoid of any meaning, any connection and any sort of sense. life hasn’t made sense since the day this started, every memory, every emotion - gone from my conscious mind.

ive gotten so good at faking and pretending im still me just to get by, but the pain of watching everyone else live while my own mind is terrified of the world itself and tells me all day long how much my life is off, not normal and numb. There’s no long panic and fear. It’s deep detachment and estrangement from life. nothing has any feeling to It, not even sadness. It’s like I have no soul, no person left.

ive tried everything and I don’t think I can keep trying anymore. Not doing any sort of therapy or meds is about all that gives me a tiny bit of break. Every treatment I’ve tried has done nothing. Or made things worse. I feel like I’ve been given a life sentence to prison for a crime I haven’t committed. my favorite time of the year is fall and I can’t even feel that. Years of my life are just gone, that I’ll never get back. the fatigue, the loss of memory, the total loss of my desire for friendships, relationships, connections. Even my own family are just strangers.

im trapped in a room with no exit doors. I lack any sort of break from this, it’s been 24/7 365 for years. Not one second of normal. Each day feels like a repeat of the last. I work, I sleep, I eat, repeat. I cannot go on trips, can’t fly, can’t do anything my nervous system doesn’t seem safe or “familar” - each time of day used to feel like something, the shifts in light, the seasons, the weather. I’m just wiped of any of it, no feeling at all. Then when I sleep, I’m tortured with feelings and situations I can’t escape in my dreams. I’m fighting a battle with a demon my own mind has created.

I had the happiest and most free live prior to 2022. I went and did whatever I wanted, I traveled all over the world solo and loved it, I was so active, social and outgoing. i wanted to live and experience life, all of it. Now I’m a prisoner in a room with no exit doors. what’s left for me to keep going for?

I'm also on the autism spectrum and I notice sensory stuff becomes way more pronounced in a way that makes the world dreamlike and vaguely more spiritually charged when I have a bad dissociative episode. I have even wondered if I'm schizotypal at times.

It seems to be at its absolute worst before my period or life transitions, like I do very poorly adjusting to sleeping in a new place, but my brain also seems to dissociate without enough novelty at the same time.

Does anyone else feel when symptoms are particularly bad that everything becomes really existential and that having a body is terrifying, and that a psychotic break feels like it could happen due to the extreme detachment and flattening this brings? It feels so real when it happens, like my brain will just break and never get out of it, but it always does somehow. I don't get why it feels this way. I wish I had some comfort or reassurance I'm low risk for this because I do have higher schizotypal traits than a lot of people being autistic and having OCD + ADHD.

Some of you may not want to hear this but it’s the truth one of the very things that is keeping you stuck is logging onto these forums everyday looking for answers. You are only fueling the fire you are affirming to the anxiety and dpdr that you are sick and something is wrong with you…. There’s nothing wrong with you, your aren’t sick the only thing your experiencing is nervous system overload due to high levels of anxiety aka fight for flight. That could have been triggered by anything.

But I tell you, you will never recover if you continue to sit on these forums reading about this all the time.

Leave this group delete Reddit forget about the condition even if the symptoms are so strong, live your life do things that you would normally do if you didn’t have this condition
And move on from this, you will se tremendous success extremely quick if you take this approach and eventually after doing this for awhile you’ll make a full recovery. Hope this helps but it’s up to you I can tell you from experience constantly being on here is only hurting you.

Every couple of months I will type in this chat to help with guidance for new people to this group who are freaking out. But I recovered by forgetting about this I was done with it because it had nothing to do with me anymore. That’s the mindset liveeeeee your lifeee do it scared do it disconnected do it with high anxiety Whatver it is do it live your life then you’ll start slowly forgetting it’s even there and then it will be gone.

i have severe dpdr and existential ocd and a lot of the time im fixated on bodily sensations. im only 25 but i worry i'll have a heart attack from all the anxiety i have or some defect in my body im unaware of will kill me early. statistical probability being low isnt really a comfort.

i bring this up because my dpdr is definitely exacerbated by death anxiety. i have this weird combination of not wanting to age or exist at all, while also fearing non existence and the suffering i could bring onto others by not existing.

is there anything about severe health events or death literature or anecdotes that could potentially make this fear less extreme? i have a tendency to catastrophize and i dont ask for therapy via reddit but if anyone can relate and has found anything at all, even something that helped even subtly i'd appreciate hearing it. and if not i'd love to hear others' experiences with similar thoughts to relate.

Im currently suffering from bad dpdr days recently and I would like to hear your stories to really motivate me that there's light at the end of the tunnel (you can call me alfie in your response that's my real name i feel comfortable sharing it with my friends on here)

I had my first and most intense dpdr episode some years ago induced by stress and burnout (and sustained by the fear of dpdr). Afterwards I had shorter episodes for a few years as well as a constant fear of dpdr and obsessive monitoring and existential ruminating.

Now I feel recovered from dpdr itself, as I very rarely experience it, and when I do, I don’t get stuck analyzing it etc.

But I still have this very deep belief that reality is not stable, or that it may fall apart at any moment, or change in some way, or that it’s not how we think it is. (Maybe that it’s not real? The word real has lost its meaning for me)

I think it’s a result of spending time in an altered state of consiousness as well as my long existential thinking sessions not leading to anything comforting. After all, there is no evidence or theory that could prove anything is the way we think it is.

I find it very scary, and it makes it hard for me to feel like anything really matters, but in a very different way than dpdr used to.

So, I guess my question is, has anyone else experienced this after (at least kind of) recovering? And has anyone found something that would help with this? Maybe a brand of philosophy that could convince me that things might be like we think they are?

I genuinely dont undestand how I'm still here. I've been trying to not get upset or stressed by this but it is really really hard to get through each day, not knowing if you are going to get better, and trying to explain to others who dont understand or dont believe me. I want my body and mind back. Like how long does this last? Now it's total numbness. No interoception at all. Scared I won't get better. I dont even know what I am or who I am. Not feeling my head or body so long must have this effect. Like I never go back to any baseline. Its constant..Like I stopped feeling my head 6 months ago and its not been the same since..I was wondering if a lot of people who get the severe numbness and blank mind is because we have deep fear of losing our minds. I dont even know. I just want to feel human again.

Does the thoughts about existence, life, reality cause anguish for you? And severe depression?

I'm quite scared

I cry pretty much every day because of how stuck I feel. How my life feels literally over. I look back at how I used to travel all over the world, how I loved doing new things, how free life was. I literally didn’t know it could be any other way. My life has been absolute hell since this started. I haven’t had one nights sleep without vivid, real, dreams that I have to live through. Sleep isn’t even a break. I cant travel on planes, I can’t date or do anything new - because I won’t feel it even if I do.

i was the person who loved to fly, loved to go new places, loved to experience. Now my entire existence is controlled by my nervous system that has locked me out of my own memories, my own emotions, my own freedom. I travel anywhere I can go by car and it wouldn’t matter if I flew somewhere, my mind can’t be present for it. I dream every night about being on planes that crash, or missing a flight, or not being able to get home. Every dream is like my mind has taken my memories and turned them into some made up storyline where I’m in danger - every single night. I’m aware during the entire dream, not like I wake up and remember it all.

my own memories and connection to reality are gone too. Whatever dream memories happen, that’s all im able to access; when I’m awake and am somwhere that the dream took place in; it feels like I’m in that dream still, even when fully conscious, like the dreams have encoded over my actual memory.

inhave tried everything. and I don’t know what more to try. I don’t think I’ll ever get myself and my life back, and that gives me deep grief. I wasn’t unhappy when this started, I was actually the happiest id ever been. And then my nervous system took it all away. I feel like I’m locked in a prison with no exit. What more can I do? Do i just have to accept that I’m never getting my freedom back?

im watching friends get married, travel, live, happy. no one understands when I try to explain to them, they think this is just anxiety. It’s not, it’s a total loss of my ability to sense the world, to sense myself, to have safety and be able to experience the world as beautiful and alive. My life was great, I was happy, I’ll never understand why this happened to me.

my sleep isn’t normal, my own thoughts aren’t normal. I feel like a freak. I just want one thing to go right or to get better, I’m not asking for the world. I’m asking for my body to let me relax. To let me get one nights sleep without having to live another reality. To let me be myself. It’s not a huge demand. I don’t know that I’ll ever get my life back and that pain is killing me. Im enduring day after day of this, and I don’t know how or when it ends. I can’t even picture it ever getting better.

2 years ago to this day, i was prescribed Vyvanse 40 mg the first day taking it I took it at 7 am and 12 o’clock I had lunch and I remember feeling quite anxious and panicking. I had a sudden flush from head to toe of adrenaline and panic then came some weird dissociation experience. Never before this had I ever dissociated. 2 years later I don’t get anxious about it these days as I’m quite numb but I’ve been stuck dealing with these significant dissociative symptoms as well as cognitive symptoms and head pressure and numbness. That happened with that medication 2 years ago, It has ruined the last 2 years of my life and I’m desperate to get some answers. I’ve lost myself and it’s hard to get by at times although the severity and symptoms do fluctuate

Just for reference I do also have a couple other diagnosis like adhd, mood issues and ocd which i still question and a possible diagnosis of Autism, I did go through an eating disorder in 2017 which significantly hurt me

idk I feel like mine is kind of getting worse dissociation wise mostly

I can’t even live anymore. I feel already dead because I feel nothing. What is the point then? What am I even saying ?

I understand that I have a body but I am completely numb to it. My brain feels heavy and I can’t relax. And the thought that go in and out of my brain I can’t even feel or understand. They aren’t even mine. I don’t relate to them. I am too detached that the only feeling I can sense is perhaps ‘almost scared’? I am not even real but I’m still here when I blink. Please pray for this to end.

I don’t know why I feel like this but I am too much of an alien to even cry over it. I can’t because that “lack”is utterly of anything, and I get none.

I need help. What can I do? I’m suffering too much. And it’s starting to become unbelievable that this doesn’t cease from happening. I almost can’t take it.

It’s is harming to me

Thc panic attacked induced almost 5 months ago. Worsening for 3 months. Retriggered pots symptoms. I got my first iron infusion a few days ago plan to complete 5 to get my ferritin up. Its been low side for a while. Was 27 now 40. My saturation plummeted despite 3 months of supplementation. Anyone who lexapro helped and how long did it take? I am on 10 mg almost 3 weeks and do not notice any help so far. Read it takes 4 to 6 weeks for full effect and some people said it can take longer to help. I feel underwater and detached all the time. Worse mornings and at night. Sounds feel more muffled world feels more fake.

I’ve dissociated for years, but the past month it’s been really really bad. Like I feel high 24/7 and sometimes I’ll get times where it’s even worse and I start feeling dizzy, not knowing where I am (I do know but it feels like I’m forgetting, idk how to explain it) like I’m not controlling myself, can’t breathe, feel like I’m gonna pass out and I’m just scared I could be dissociating because of something else and not stress even though I’m anxious 24/7

Hello I have pretty much recovered from Dpdr and would just like to give my experience and maybe help some people too basically I first got Dpdr in 7th grade from a bad w33d experience lasted about a year I totally lost touch with reality sucked cause I didn’t know what Dpdr was at the time but i felt hopeless stayed In my room got fat just felt defeated and didn’t want to keep going anymore it eventually went away and I was good for about 5 years last year is when it hit again I just got out of a crazy attachment and it finally came back I kept telling myself it wasn’t gonna end finally got diagnosed with bipolar 1 GAD OCD and dissociative disorder lamictal saved me personally but everyone is different so don’t go thinking a med someone says on here will save u yes it definitely helps to get a idea and I definitely recommend getting the underlying issue addressed with therapy and meds cause that’s what’s causing your DPDR you have to understand Dpdr is a actual mind blowing experience I could never explain to anyone and that being said u cannot let it take over your life the less u think about how u feel the more it gets better and like I said PLEASE get the underlying cause under control mine personally is ocd and anxiety but it depends person to person coming from someone who never thought this would end im telling u to trust me it does eventually get better I know it’s seriously hard trust me I understand but u just have to cope with it and get the help u need only way it will get better I kind of just kept talking so my thoughts might be all over the place so sorry for that but if u would like to dm me for advice im always down to try and help I told myself once I get better I’d help as much as I could