When the self slips: Individuals living with depersonalisation disorder bring vivid

When the self slips

Jane suffers from depersonalisation disorder (DPD) – a condition that typically manifests as a profound and distressing feeling of estrangement from one’s own self and body, including one’s experiences, memories and thoughts. Often, depersonalisation is accompanied by derealisation, an alienation from one’s surroundings and environment. Sufferers report feeling like zombies, robots or machines, just going through the motions of their own lives. This disorder has been recognised in some form since the late 19th century, and according to studies in the US and UK is estimated to affect between 1 to 2 per cent of the population. But it remains poorly understood.

Just as a transparent window might become visible only when it cracks, I became interested in what DPD might reveal about certain understudied aspects of our experience of selfhood – and, ultimately, consciousness itself. In recent years, it’s become fashionable for philosophers to question the idea that the ‘self’ is real, or to suggest that it’s little more than an ‘illusion’ that our brain creates in order to keep us alive in a constantly changing world. Yet if the self is a mere sham or a trick, why does the loss of ‘self-illusion’ trigger such dramatic feelings of unreality? Why does losing a link to your self make you feel as if you are dead or sleepwalking? If depersonalisation is a misfiring of some psychological coping mechanism, why is living with the condition so unbearable?

Perhaps the feeling of being fully and properly alive, then, depends on a kind of pre-reflective selfhood that allows us to move seamlessly between the objective and subjective points of view. In phenomenological terms, we might say that we shift back and forth across the bridge between the external realm of Körper/Leben and the internal one of Leib/Erleben. When it is functioning well, this experiential openness remains tacit and imperceptible, even as it pervades and sustains almost everything we do. But when we lose the link, as Jane seems to have lost it, the feeling of inhabiting reality itself also slips away. We get stuck in the I-as-object realm, and no longer have a sense of affecting and being affected by the world and others.

When the depersonalisation is very deep, I still seek to ‘be’ and be with someone else, because it feels like that constant source of interaction is the only thing that allows me to maintain a connection with the world. This includes seeking physical contact with whoever I’m with. It’s like I need to be that other person because my own sense of self is not strong enough to sustain me.
As the years have passed and I’ve been in and out of bouts of depersonalisation, I’ve built up a body of evidence to suggest that I will never lose touch with myself completely, though I still feel uncomfortably close to losing that tenuous link. Even when I’m struggling to knit one second together with the next, my theoretical understanding of who I am has remained. This lack of a slide into psychosis is one of the defining features of the illness.

This is something I'm sure I experienced as a teenager; that or de-realisation, which is a similar but different phenomena. 

For me, the first time I got drunk as a teenager, it totally changed my experience of consciousness and when I woke up the next day, I don't think my mind ever got back to the pre alcohol stage. It was something that really really bothered me at that age for a number of years, that along with tinnitus, it all kinda forced me into my head and changed the way I experienced life really. 

Also interestingly, it was around this time that I began to experience 'visual snow', and even went and done a test as a subject, for a student doing their postgrad thing on visual disturbances. I remember that they strapped some sort of ecg onto my actual eyeball and recorded stuff. I apologise for the vagueness of that account but it was over ten years ago now, but they basically confirmed that I was experiencing visual snow and had no idea how the brain was causing it (that was their thinking at the time). I also remember reading that the tinnitus and visual snow may be linked, along with the de-realisation. 

Overall, I'm pretty okay now as I've gotten used to it all. My tinnitus has habituated into the background and does not bother me, the visual snow does not bother me, my de-realisation type experiences I don't know as it now could be the norm now. 

But if I could definitely say one thing is that, I've never gotten back to the sharp, full on consciousness that I used to experience as a kid and teenager. Strange stuff.

Hey Max_B,

Not sure. I was only a wee teen at the time, but it is possible. I definitely wasn't that drunk compared to some of the benders I've had as an adult but perhaps at a younger age the body cannot deal as well with it. 

But if so, why would there be a residual effect on my consciousness/perception of the world? Permanent damage to some area of the brain maybe? 

For me, it appeared to cause my consciousness to 'recede' into some part of my self that was deeper. Following this obvious change that I could perceive, I became aware of the visual snow element and how things 'didn't look right'.

Its been a good read hearing about your experiences in this thread. I had a similar occurrence, following a severe vitamin deficiency during my undergrad years. It seemed my peak 'consciousness' was around 10 years old, and it gradually waned until I was 20 years old. 


Now I am almost 30, and I finally have regained some of that sense of 'beingness'. Its taken a long time, and I'm not quite there yet, but I'm definitely closer than before. If ya'll are interested, I can share some of my strategies/findings

Its been a good read hearing about your experiences in this thread. I had a similar occurrence, following a severe vitamin deficiency during my undergrad years. It seemed my peak 'consciousness' was around 10 years old, and it gradually waned until I was 20 years old. 


Now I am almost 30, and I finally have regained some of that sense of 'beingness'. Its taken a long time, and I'm not quite there yet, but I'm definitely closer than before. If ya'll are interested, I can share some of my strategies/findings

I would be most interested to hear of your strategies/findings darkcheese please!

Hi diverdown,

Alright, here goes. A little backstory, because it sounds like I may have encountered some aspects similar to your experience.

When I was around 10 or so, I started to become less connected. This could have been caused my multiple factors, but I didn't sleep well, didn't eat well, etc. When I was around 14, I had benign positional vertigo in my ear, likely viral in origin, and as a result have tinnitus and high-pitch hearing loss in my ear (which somehow is actually less noticeable now that I think about it as I write this! Still there though.), and floaters in my eyes (still there). When in college, I had a severe vitamin D deficiency that led to a whole host of problems (could go on and on about this..., related to an NDE like state). Concurrently, I also drank a lot of alcohol for several years, which probably exacerbated things. In more recent years, I have pushed back on these and actually encountered a great deal of success, so I thought I should share it as long as other people wanted me to spout about. 

Now, there's a couple of potential areas that I think can cause this 'disconnect' from the world, but they are interconnected. One is general health, and the other is your senses.

I'll start with the senses since they are more direct.

As far as hearing, I don't have direct strategies for this. I suspect getting a hearing aid could help, but I haven't taken a plunge on that yet.

For vision, I have actually developed some vision specific strategies here. Now, something I had noticed is that my right eye had become dominant. Thus, I didn't really see anything in 3D anymore. One exercise that I used to determine this is, well, lets say you are reading this post. Try covering one eye and reading some, then the other eye and reading some. Does one eye feel more difficult? 

If so, try using that eye more often. Cover your 'strong' eye, and start reading some pages with the weaker one. 

For both vision and somewhat hearing, and using them to link your brain to the world. here is another strategy that seems to help with integration. Wherever you are try to picture your surroundings. Then, if you are able to safely, close your eyes, and try to walk a little bit, but track where objects should be in your head. Map them out as you move, and turn, maybe reach out to where wall should be as your reach it. Open your eyes, and see how your were right and wrong. This exercise has helped me out quite a bit. 

When I do these exercises, I can  feel 'something' going on in my brain, and it seems to help over the long term.

Now, lifestyle changes are another important one.

Since quite a large portion of the brain is made of fat, and you are trying to essentially invigorate your brain, eating some good fats should help. I've noticed a recent boost in my health, and a large portion of that is due to the integration of larger amounts of omega 3's in my diet. Personally, I take fish oil and krill oil. Also, I have gone a bit crazy with a bit of virgin coconut oil, and nuts as a snack when I need something.

One of the most recent things I've implemented which has resulted in a large gain in terms of how I feel is the time restricted diet. Essentially, you try and compress your intake of anything non-water to within 12 hours at a maximum, and perhaps ideally even less (I try and shoot for 9 hours). This helps with the gut microbiota, and can give you essentially a mini-fast every night. In general, it is best to shift the schedule of eating to earlier in the day if you can. So, you might start with your first non-water item at 9 am, and finish your dinner at 6, then have nothing else except water (note, coffee or other non-water drinks counts as starting/ part of your eating time).
Since I've started this, acne which I have had on and off for years has gone away, and I sleep much more soundly too. The first couple weeks were a bit rough, but this actually had huge and very noticeable gains. I've lost about 10 pounds of fat, and its been amazing. Would recommend looking up Rhonda Patrick or Satchin Panda if you have more interest in this area.

Other little ideas that may or may not have helped, cut out simple sugar whenever you can, minimize bulk carbs (pasta, breads/pastries, rice, etc). Oh, and adding fermented foods might be helping, I'm not sure. Have been eating natto and kimchi. Could definitely help gut microbiota.

And lastly, vitamin D is very good to have at a healthy level. When I had a severe deficiency, the best way I can explain it, being awake felt like looking through a frosted glass window to what life should be like. Even if you live in a sunny place, you can still have such deficiencies. One of my fellow coworkers had a vitamin D deficiency while living in Arizona! I can't guarantee that you have such a deficiency (and I hope you don't!) But if you do, as I suspect I had for many years, it can definitely contribute to a sense of detachment.

All of these items are somewhat interconnected, and have worked well for me in the past couple of years. Maybe you can take some of them and use them, some of them are probably just me going overboard. But yeah, its worked so well for me (especially the time-restricted diet, which seems so simple, but yet has had a huge impact), I feel its my obligation to share.

Hi diverdown,

Alright, here goes. A little backstory, because it sounds like I may have encountered some aspects similar to your experience.

When I was around 10 or so, I started to become less connected. This could have been caused my multiple factors, but I didn't sleep well, didn't eat well, etc. When I was around 14, I had benign positional vertigo in my ear, likely viral in origin, and as a result have tinnitus and high-pitch hearing loss in my ear (which somehow is actually less noticeable now that I think about it as I write this! Still there though.), and floaters in my eyes (still there). When in college, I had a severe vitamin D deficiency that led to a whole host of problems (could go on and on about this..., related to an NDE like state). Concurrently, I also drank a lot of alcohol for several years, which probably exacerbated things. In more recent years, I have pushed back on these and actually encountered a great deal of success, so I thought I should share it as long as other people wanted me to spout about. 

Now, there's a couple of potential areas that I think can cause this 'disconnect' from the world, but they are interconnected. One is general health, and the other is your senses.

I'll start with the senses since they are more direct.

As far as hearing, I don't have direct strategies for this. I suspect getting a hearing aid could help, but I haven't taken a plunge on that yet.

For vision, I have actually developed some vision specific strategies here. Now, something I had noticed is that my right eye had become dominant. Thus, I didn't really see anything in 3D anymore. One exercise that I used to determine this is, well, lets say you are reading this post. Try covering one eye and reading some, then the other eye and reading some. Does one eye feel more difficult? 

If so, try using that eye more often. Cover your 'strong' eye, and start reading some pages with the weaker one. 

For both vision and somewhat hearing, and using them to link your brain to the world. here is another strategy that seems to help with integration. Wherever you are try to picture your surroundings. Then, if you are able to safely, close your eyes, and try to walk a little bit, but track where objects should be in your head. Map them out as you move, and turn, maybe reach out to where wall should be as your reach it. Open your eyes, and see how your were right and wrong. This exercise has helped me out quite a bit. 

When I do these exercises, I can  feel 'something' going on in my brain, and it seems to help over the long term.

Now, lifestyle changes are another important one.

Since quite a large portion of the brain is made of fat, and you are trying to essentially invigorate your brain, eating some good fats should help. I've noticed a recent boost in my health, and a large portion of that is due to the integration of larger amounts of omega 3's in my diet. Personally, I take fish oil and krill oil. Also, I have gone a bit crazy with a bit of virgin coconut oil, and nuts as a snack when I need something.

One of the most recent things I've implemented which has resulted in a large gain in terms of how I feel is the time restricted diet. Essentially, you try and compress your intake of anything non-water to within 12 hours at a maximum, and perhaps ideally even less (I try and shoot for 9 hours). This helps with the gut microbiota, and can give you essentially a mini-fast every night. In general, it is best to shift the schedule of eating to earlier in the day if you can. So, you might start with your first non-water item at 9 am, and finish your dinner at 6, then have nothing else except water (note, coffee or other non-water drinks counts as starting/ part of your eating time).
Since I've started this, acne which I have had on and off for years has gone away, and I sleep much more soundly too. The first couple weeks were a bit rough, but this actually had huge and very noticeable gains. I've lost about 10 pounds of fat, and its been amazing. Would recommend looking up Rhonda Patrick or Satchin Panda if you have more interest in this area.

Other little ideas that may or may not have helped, cut out simple sugar whenever you can, minimize bulk carbs (pasta, breads/pastries, rice, etc). Oh, and adding fermented foods might be helping, I'm not sure. Have been eating natto and kimchi. Could definitely help gut microbiota.

And lastly, vitamin D is very good to have at a healthy level. When I had a severe deficiency, the best way I can explain it, being awake felt like looking through a frosted glass window to what life should be like. Even if you live in a sunny place, you can still have such deficiencies. One of my fellow coworkers had a vitamin D deficiency while living in Arizona! I can't guarantee that you have such a deficiency (and I hope you don't!) But if you do, as I suspect I had for many years, it can definitely contribute to a sense of detachment.

All of these items are somewhat interconnected, and have worked well for me in the past couple of years. Maybe you can take some of them and use them, some of them are probably just me going overboard. But yeah, its worked so well for me (especially the time-restricted diet, which seems so simple, but yet has had a huge impact), I feel its my obligation to share.

Fantastic response darkcheese, thanks!

Very interesting indeed. I live in Scotland so we don't get much of the sun   But as you say, even people living in Arizona can have this deficiency of vitamin D so it might be something to look into.

Diet wise, I pretty much already have most of my meals in a shorter period anyway; I seem to have issues with digestion and I don't like eating too much over the course of a day, as in the morning I end up needing to go to the toilet too often and skip work. Though I've always loved things like gherkins and the like so it might be a shout to start consuming more to see if it helps with my gut. IBS runs in my family though, so more likely than not, it is something I have inherited unfortunately. It's not debilitating, just annoying and uncomfortable. 

I also used to follow a ketogenic/paleo diet and I found many benefits from that, but one of the drawbacks was that I was quite lethargic and depressed on it. Might have done well with upping the carbs a bit more! But I do enjoy lots of olive oil usually and I tend to have lots of chorizo in the morning for my breakfast as it contains loads of fat; a bit strange yes, but it works as I'm not that hungry until dinner time 

Your wee bit about the eye exercises got me remembering something. When all this was going on as a teen, I also had problems with worsening eyesight, probably to the point that I needed glasses, as I was on the PC literally all day long for days on end. But as I did not want glasses, I was reading a forum one day that suggested all you need to do is take a break and your eyesight will return to normal, as glasses alter your eyesight permanently in some fashion. And low and behold, my eyesight returned back to normal. It was probably more to do with eye strain affecting things but none the less, I thought I'd mention it. But I do wonder if what this dude said about glasses being a conspiracy with businesses wanting more money and covering up knowledge that glasses alter things permanently, had even a smidgen of truth in it. Perhaps aye, perhaps no