Anyone suffering from depersonalization regularly?

Smoker's Lounge Medical Club
#1

So, I’ve had some weird experiences the last few months. Life feels like it belongs to someone else sometimes, I’ll be driving and my hands on the steering wheel sort of phase into the car and away from my body. My dreams seem more real than life sometimes.

So in my research I found this symptom is called depersonalization or it’s close friend derealization. This is actually the third most common psychological symptom after anxiety and depression, respectively. It’s also commonly linked to cannabis.

So I thought I’d ask; is there anyone out there regularly consuming cannabis, regularly experiencing depersonalization/derealization events? I’m not talking one offs, bad phenotypes, etc… Regular experiences.

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#2

dude i hope things get better but try talking to a professional about this.

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#3

I will agree…

Mental health should be a top priority for everyone and it seems to be, these days we live in aren’t helping.

Have I experienced it, yes… not a lot… But occasionally I’ll go into bouts of feeling like one day, someone turned the switch off on something and everything was different…

However… I do believe that maybe you should tell this to someone that can help you a little better than us. We’re good but we can’t help with everything :slightly_smiling_face:

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#4

This was part of my research, but as I’m already treated for anxiety and depression there wasn’t much different they chose to do. It’s a response to the stress of the first two symptoms.

I’m just curious; is the cannabis causing more symptoms than it’s treating, you know?

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#5

I would definitely stop if it’s causing those symptoms

“FEP using cannabis showed higher levels of positive symptomatology, dissociative experiences and worse functioning than their non-user counterpart, despite a comparable antipsychotic treatment. At an eight-month prospective evaluation, FEP using cannabis still showed higher levels of positive symptomatology and dissociation. Moreover, global functioning worsened over time in FEPp using cannabis, whereas it improved those not using it.”

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#6

I’m sure Cannabis means different things to different people, as well as it causes different results for different people. Not to mention all the different strains and the different effects they have.

I only consume Cannabis here and there, but i was a regular user, and it was doing stuff like what you are describing, i would certainly change up the playlist (if you know what i mean). Frequency, type being used, hell, i would go cold turkey for a month to rule it out.

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#7

In some situations, I believe that canabis does exacerbate things…

I find that concentrates like wax and such make me overly anxious and just weird feeling in general… So I stick with flower and it’s perfectly fine for me

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#8

I occasionally suffer from dissociation.
Weed can definitely make it worse.
I find that in it is in moments of extreme stress, moments that before would have made me reach for the bong, is the most important time for me to not.
I have found some strains/ types of herb make me more prone to dissociate than others, some will even trigger it from seemingly nowhere. I don’t want to elaborate too much on that as I don’t want my personal experiences with which strain causes “blah blah blah” to steer you one way or the other, as opposed to you finding your own path here.
But yeah, it affects it, sometimes big time.

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#9

Yeah I microdose for this reason. A jar of half gallon weed and I’m set for over half the year. I feel depersonalization the next day after waking up sober. It feels like I’m not real. What I do is stay busy on a schedule because when I just get Hugh and chill watching tv or bsing around depersonalization hits like a motherfucker. It’s incurable according to doctors.

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#10

This is not my experience; CBT and talk therapy are suggested to help and patients who receive this are shown to no longer meet criteria for a disorder after time.

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#11

Yup. You can actually go into like a trip of feeling not in control of yourself. Like panic attack. High THC can trigger events like this. I had researched a lot about it all I have severe anxiety disorder. Had to start taking medicine or weed would literally throw me in outer space. Scary at times.

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#12

This is a trick your conscious mind learns at an early age as a short term safety stratergy, for dealing with high levels of physical or emotional pain.

After time these represed emotions and memories create there own mechanism for each individual depending on how often they are experienced, thats why everyone has different symptoms for the same type of disorder.

These mechanisms are basically personality neuroses developed to avoid the original situation happening again.

Its kind of like going into shock for something that happened a while ago when the mind connects something happening in the now to something traumatic that happened in the past at an early age and repressed.

When it happens at a later age and the memories are not fully repressed or you are partially aware of what is causing it, its called PTSD.

Memories and emotions can trigger hormones and other chemicals that affect our consciousness and the way we feel and experience personal reality.

The association of repressed emotions and events can be very losely connected to each other by the unconscious part of the mind which is a little primitive as it deals with the running of the body in the background.

Its like having windows 95 as an operating system on a computer with your added individual software programs for what you do on that computer but the unconscious mind is constantly learning making associations and adapting unlike computer operating systems.

So you may have emotional or memory associations created by the unconscious mind that appear completely irrational in there association but have the same chemical response which creates the emotional or physical response.

That original repressed event now triggers the dissociation from your present situation because it may be considered the same or similar to the repressed experience by the unconscious mind and needed to be avoided or at least emotionally supressed as much as possible again to protect your conscious mind.

For some people weed breaks down these barriers between conscious and unconscious mind, and it triggers a bleed over from one to another which may trigger the protective dissociation mechanism.

Edit. This is a very simplistic explanation as its early in the morning, its a lot more complex in its entirety.

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#13

Sound write up. but I think you are giving too much credit to our minds with the win95…its more like windows ME…

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#14

Sometimes I wonder if this is what I have acquired over the last few years, I obtained anxiety 5 years back, even went into psychosis for a week. Been much better for a year or so until recently as I just had a horrible month. I hope things improve for you, truly I feel you, if you ever need to talk please hmu

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#15

Yeah I couldn’t remember what came before win 95, as it was a traumatic experience lol.

To clarify it a bit further, its like running MS DOS as your operating software, and programs for win 95 upwards to win 10, as your added software program’s for daily living without the legacy compatibility mode, so expect it to crash occasionally, when it does not comprehend the instructions fully :wink:

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#16

I equate it to a ships engineer, shutting down systems to conserve power for the shields during an intense battle. Except you are the ship, not the captain.

I think you’re very on the nose there, this is a… skill? If you want to call it that, developed at an early age. Just like anxiety often is. You learn that’s the best way to deal with it and that’s how you live your whole life.

I’ve only begun talk therapy this year, no real benefits yet, for anxiety, depression, or whatever. Trying a ketamine treatment that is suppose to make it so much easier, aid with PTSD. All that. Be a nice injection of code to hopefully make things less buggy.

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#17

CBT is what has helped many of my fellow veterans with PTSD the most as far as therapy.

One guy I know gets hives and puking from his trauma, but CBT he tells me Is working wonders.

Of course, that’s why they give you a giant bag of tools to use, hobbies, exercise, therapy, SSRIs, Vitamin D therapy, diet corrections, essential oils, sleep hygiene the list goes on and on, because none of them will “cure you,” they all just add up to allow you ti be in the moment and not get overwhelmed and when you do get overwhelmed, you can snap out of it quicker instead of being in Fight, Flight, or Freeze animal brain.

You actually have to do the work though and it’s on you in the end to workout your mental health, which is one of the most difficult parts about it I think.

Microdosing shrooms can work very well also if you have access.
:peace_symbol:

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#18

I think what’s kept my depersonalization in check is what @Dr.VitaminGreen said. I got baked last night and I don’t feel as if I’m in my body right now. Ive been 6.5 years sober from alcohol, I stretch/yoga every day Mon-sun for at least 30 min, I run everyday for minimum 1 mile, I try to eat healthy (I mostly cook my own WHOLE FOODS meals), I have growing as a hobby. Doing all the above has helped immensely. It will suck at first but once you do it enough it’s like breathing and you’ll automatically do it. I’ve gone to cbt groups twice but I will admit I don’t apply it often. It’s like I’m cbt resistant or what the docs call it treatment resistant depression. I’m diagnosed with major depression and with the routine I do now I’ve been off meds for over 3 years.

I like cannabis because it helps me see myself from a different perspective. It helps me express all the emotions I’ve repressed during my lifetime. every high has a degree of paranoia for me but I feel whatever I’m thinking high is something that needs to be solved especially when it’s a bad feeling. It’s funny how when I’m sober I can never see the perspective Of when I’m high. NEVER been able to.
That hives thing got me thinking. I’ve had very stressful days this year and I’ve gotten them. I’ve never in my 27 years of life ever gotten hives. Not that I can remember. Might be something to evaluate.

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#19

If anyone ever saw “The Botany of Desire” they had an entire chapter about marijuana. Interesting concepts and stories throughout, but the marijuana segment always had an idea that stuck with me.

“Bovinity”, as in bovine. Like a cow. The guy related the feeling of being high to like being a cow. You aren’t thinking about the pointlessness of your life. Or impending doom. The slaughterhouse.

You are just in a sunny field, chewing some grass, and it feels pretty good man. But living in that state ends up like living in a dream. You are just going through the motions. No past or future. Just in the moment and it isn’t so bad.

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#20

I would definitely get a professional opinion and screening for diagnoses for mental health. I have had great success with micro/macro dosing psilocybin for critical chronic PTSD and Major Depressive disorder. I have no experience with “depersonalization” I do have experience with being very sick and the best thing I ever did for myself, and my family was seek out and continue mental health services. Peace.

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