Anyone else feel derealized or detached from their memories?

[rationaldeath]

I feel like I'm on "autopilot" almost all the time and even when I do try to be more conscious things feel very artificial and detached. I feel like I'm barely present in my own life and when I am there I'm just an observer. This extends to both my short and long term memory too, I can't really identify with any of my past experiences. They seem like a very vague representation of someone else's memories that I was told about or that I just watched on a screen.

Can any of you relate to these kinds of feelings? I'm not sure when or why it started in myself but I don't think Ive always been like this. Maybe it has something to do with depression, or it could be a lingering effect of a traumatic lsd trip I had a couple years ago that left me pretty shaken and detached from reality.

 

[Gsvko]

I think that's me? I don't feel like I exist, the only thing I feel is pain from not being able to relate to anything. Like an ego death? I can remember only one event, the one that caused this collapse. All the previous shit, or good things too are gone, like they never happened.
Btw I have no diagnosis that'd explain it

 

[Mr2005]

All it would really take to be happy is different memories. I have one playing on a loop. Everything before is like someone else and everything after doesn't matter a damn

 

[Snake of Eden]

Yes there are parts of my life that are completely wiped out from my conscious memory. Things resurface in my dreams seldom but for the most part i never think about them. There are other painful memories that I cant get rid of somehow and they keep haunting me.

 

[LastLoveLetter]

I have a dissociative disorder and this resonates with me. This sounds very much like a form of dissociation, such as depersonalisation and derealisation. Drug use, depression and trauma are all known to be linked to dissociation, so it could be any of the reasons you provided or all of them combined.

My personal experience of depersonalisation and derealisation are that everything around me feels unreal. My dreams and nightmares at times feel more real than being awake. I often feel as though I am floating (it may sound pleasant, but it isn't), feel completely disconnected from myself and my own body and feel as though I am watching my life unfold before my eyes but instead of sitting at the steering wheel, I am in the passenger seat.
In addition, I struggle profoundly with dissociative amnesia. I also frequently "check out" mentally for long periods of time, staring blankly into space for many hours, unable to move. Just sitting in one position, staring at the wall or the floor.

I'm sorry you had such a traumatic LSD trip, that must have been awful.

 

[Luchs]

I have a similar problem in that I feel very detached from my life, it feels like my mind has disassociated from reality, but I feel to attached to my memories. I am pretty much the same person I was 10-15 years ago, because those were happier times, so I am clinging to the past in the hope that I can be happy again same as back then, I am afraid that if I let go I'll loose all the connection to my happy past, but still be miserable. At this point I'm not sure if I even can let go anymore.

 

[Angst Filled Fuck Up]

I have a dissociative disorder and this resonates with me. This sounds very much like a form of dissociation, such as depersonalisation and derealisation. Drug use, depression and trauma are all known to be linked to dissociation, so it could be any of the reasons you provided or all of them combined.

My personal experience of depersonalisation and derealisation are that everything around me feels unreal. My dreams and nightmares at times feel more real than being awake. I often feel as though I am floating (it may sound pleasant, but it isn't), feel completely disconnected from myself and my own body and feel as though I am watching my life unfold before my eyes but instead of sitting at the steering wheel, I am in the passenger seat.
In addition, I struggle profoundly with dissociative amnesia. I also frequently "check out" mentally for long periods of time, staring blankly into space for many hours, unable to move. Just sitting in one position, staring at the wall or the floor.

I'm sorry you had such a traumatic LSD trip, that must have been awful.

This is exactly what I have. I have been a member of a DP/DR community for years now since I developed it 7.5 years ago. I feel constantly floaty, like permanently lightheaded. It's like being mildly drunk but without the euphoria. With me it also comes with very severe fatigue and an inability to absorb things properly. The world feels unreal and I'm having an increasingly harder time following conversations or TV shows etc. It's hellish, and nobody's ever been able to help me with it. I'm sorry you have this too.

 

[Crazy4u]

I started feeling like this after covid lockdown. nothing is real. I am a ghost

 

[NumbItAll]

I had DP/DR for a couple years and it was incredibly distressing. I had panic attacks almost every day and couldn't leave the house. That whole time period is very foggy. I'm not an expert but I think it's a symptom of stress... at least in my case it was. I had to make a lot of lifestyle changes just to get to a semi-functional level again, which as you can tell from my presence on this forum, has not been a smashing success.

 

[Nightmare Painting]

My entire life has been like this because I was traumatized as a child and it's become ingrained as a involuntary coping mechanism. I never had anyone to turn to so I numbed out from the trauma, abuse, and neglect to tolerate it all. Isolation and other stressors have just made it worse over the years and decades.

It has always been my version of "normal" which is why I didn't know what was wrong with me for most of my life; or at the very least I had no way of labeling it.

It happens when you're incapable of facing with a stressor head on in a healthy way. Deal with the stressor/s and the fog might gradually lift over time but that's easier said than done.

 

[markimobzzdeasui]

Last year some severely traumatic shit events have happened. Since then I am constantly in a state of depersonalisation, derealisation and complete ghost like state. I have almost lost the capacity to safely feel my own feelings unless they are extremely intense or suicidal. Most of the times, I am just playing philosophical/rational/scientific/mystical games with my memories without actually feeling them like they aren't mine at all.

 

[Sherri]

2015 changed my life forever in a traumatic way, since then until now, time just passed so fast that I have no idea what things really mattered between then and now, it's all a fog.

 

[Wails]

I relate to this a lot!!! I am constantly dissociated and also feel like I'm fragments of the same person. My memory is all foggy and I can't even clearly remember what I did an hour ago most of the times.

 

[InezSerrano]

This is how I feel. I wasn't sure what to call it. I've done ketamine and it feels similar but a bit more so, so maybe its dissociation.

 

[Deleted member 8975]

I wish. Instead I've been living the past decade like it's not even real. I wonder if I have ever been alive.

 

[mistvissione11e]

I have a dissociative disorder and this resonates with me. This sounds very much like a form of dissociation, such as depersonalisation and derealisation. Drug use, depression and trauma are all known to be linked to dissociation, so it could be any of the reasons you provided or all of them combined.

My personal experience of depersonalisation and derealisation are that everything around me feels unreal. My dreams and nightmares at times feel more real than being awake. I often feel as though I am floating (it may sound pleasant, but it isn't), feel completely disconnected from myself and my own body and feel as though I am watching my life unfold before my eyes but instead of sitting at the steering wheel, I am in the passenger seat.
In addition, I struggle profoundly with dissociative amnesia. I also frequently "check out" mentally for long periods of time, staring blankly into space for many hours, unable to move. Just sitting in one position, staring at the wall or the floor.

I'm sorry you had such a traumatic LSD trip, that must have been awful.

I have not been diagnosed, but would an example of dissociative amnesia be forgetting your own self, i used to experience this frequently where i could not relate myself to an identity in myself and would forget certain objects (or perceptions) in reference to myself. I lost my ego in a sense. I was one with only the being movement and nothing else.

 

[Eternal Pessimist]

I feel detached from my memories because I've regressed so much as a person they don't feel like my memories anymore. I used to be independent to a degree and was able to do things for myself, but now I'm very dependent on other people. When I look back at the kind of person I was in my early 20s it is hard for me to believe that it was me who lived like that and was able to be self-sufficient, at least to a degree. When I think back to that time it makes me really sad because I was approaching what could be called a somewhat normal life, but now I've regressed so much that a level of independence like that feels very far away.

 

[CogitoMori]

I realized within the last few years that I've been disassociating for most of my life without realizing it. Any time I try to be "present" in my body all I can focus on is the tension, pain, and dysphoria, so I really don't think I can go through life completely sane. Either I'm disassociating and therefore constantly experiencing a symptom, or I'll go through life being aware of constant physical pain and emotional sorrow which will drive me to aggravated insanity.