- For people who have made a full recovery,
isn't the prospect of depersonalization
coming back in the future very daunting?
It may have been caused by weed, trauma,
even a panic attack.
So what's to say that you won't have another experience
like that and find yourself back to square one.
Hey, everyone, I'm Shaun O Connor,
author of "The Depersonalization Manual."
I suffered with chronic depersonalization for two years
before I recovered completely.
And in the more than 10 years since then,
my book, "The Depersonalization Manual"
has helped thousands of people around the world
to recover from DP.
And today, we're going to answer
one of the most common questions associated with DP,
does depersonalization come back after you've recovered?
Let's get started.
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So to answer this question,
we first need to talk a little bit about recovery itself
and what the process is.
Remember that recovery from DP
or any anxiety based condition
isn't just not having the feelings anymore,
it's also based on understanding
what the condition actually is.
Let me explain.
Depersonalization is essentially
a psychological self-defense system.
It's your brain reacting to what it thinks
is an ongoing traumatic or dangerous situation.
Even if there isn't one actually happening.
It's the same feeling that people regularly report
when involved in car crashes, house fires, et cetera.
You need to get out of that dangerous situation
without being paralyzed by fear,
so your brain numbs your emotions
and makes the world seem slightly dreamy and unreal.
And when you get out of that situation,
the DP fades away and you get back to normal.
For people who get the condition from other causes,
the experience can often be quite different.
If DP happens because of, say, a panic attack
or a bad drug experience,
it's very common to think that DP is a standalone condition
that has appeared without explanation.
And you focus on it intensely,
which makes the anxiety worse, which makes the DP worse,
generating a feedback loop that can last much longer
than the initial trigger event.
In these situations,
when you first encounter depersonalization,
it really feels like your whole life
has been turned upside down.
You think that you must be going crazy,
having a psychotic break, et cetera, et cetera.
I developed DP completely out of the blue.
And in the first few weeks and months with the condition,
it was just horrendous.
I was scared out of my mind,
thinking I was in a dream,
that I was going to disappear off the face of the earth,
that I was in purgatory, et cetera, et cetera.
This stage can be so horribly overwhelming
that even when you eventually identify the condition
and start to find rational information about it,
that initial fear of it can still remain.
And of course, this isn't helped by the torrent
of confusing and contradictory posts
that you will inevitably encounter
on various depersonalization forums.
The bottom line is that there's such an intense fear
of the condition ingrained in you
that it can feel difficult to overturn.
But that's only until you have a full understanding
of what the condition actually is.
A perfectly normal and very common defense mechanism.
So common in fact, that 75% of people will experience it
at some point in their lives.
It's only when DP is focused on
and interpreted catastrophically
that it generates a feedback loop
with the anxiety that's causing it
and drags on for longer than it should.
But no matter what caused it or how long it's lasted,
it's still just a temporary condition
and it will fade away completely
once you stop the anxious feedback loop
that's causing it to persist.
When you understand all of this, what DP is,
what caused it in the first place,
you stop being afraid of it,
and you take away all of its power.
Even the terror of that initial experience with it
starts to make total sense.
This calms your level of anxiety
and causes the DP to fade away and stop.
So one of the main effects of recovery
is that it allows you
to have typical day-to-day levels of anxiety,
like going to the dentist, nerves before an exam,
a job interview, et cetera,
without it triggering feelings of depersonalization
and spiraling into a panic attack.
There's a beautiful phrase that says,
"Anxiety is caused by the fear of anxiety."
And the same goes for panic attacks,
and the same goes for DP.
Depersonalization is ultimately caused
by the fear of depersonalization.
You see, recovery from depersonalization
isn't about hoping it'll go away
or worrying that it might come back.
It's about getting rid of the fear of it
through understanding it.
It's about understanding why it happened in the first place
and recognizing that it's a normal,
temporary and completely harmless reaction.
Once you do that, you know that after recovery,
even if you ever do happen to feel pangs of DP
at times of particular stress in the future,
which, again, is perfectly normal and extremely common,
you won't interpret them catastrophically
as something bizarre and unexplained,
causing you to spiral off into a panic attack
and an anxious feedback loop.
Instead, you will recognize it for what it is,
know how to react to it
and allow it to fade away on its own,
which is exactly what it's supposed to do.
Again, just like anxiety,
depersonalization is caused
by the fear of depersonalization.
The core of DP recovery is understanding what it is.
Once you do that, you stop fearing it
and it loses all of its staying power.
And you certainly don't need to worry
about it randomly coming back sometime in the future.
And that realization is a hugely important step
on your path to complete recovery.
If you want tons more information
on depersonalization recovery,
check out my website at dpmanual.com
where you'll find everything that you need to know,
including my complete guide to recovery,
"The Depersonalization Manual."
If you have any comments or questions,
leave them in the comment section below,
and I'll make sure to answer and help you out.
Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel.
And if you've found this video helpful,
please do like and share.
Thanks for watching.
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