Chronic Depersonalization: When You Don’t Recognize Yourself

Have you ever felt watching your life like when you watch a movie? Did you look in the mirror and didn’t recognize the image it gave you back? These types of symptoms, which can be disturbing and overwhelming, are typical of depersonalization. Many people come to experience them at some specific time; however, when they become persistent or recurrent, we may be facing a chronic depersonalization disorder.

Processing internal and external information can be difficult, especially in times of stress or situations of prolonged abuse. Therefore, the body can trigger defensive reactions that allow us to continue to function even under conditions of extreme stress.

Usually the sensation lasts a few seconds or minutes and the person returns to normal. However, it can happen that this lasts for hours, days or months; and even that it reappears or continues to become a chronic disorder. In these cases it stops being functional and begins to generate serious problems and great discomfort to those who suffer from it.

What is chronic depersonalization?

Chronic depersonalization is defined as the presence of persistent or recurring experiences of distancing from one’s own mental processes or from the body. That is, a disconnection from the self is felt that is normally very difficult to explain for those who feel it. Some of the most common experiences are the following:

• Feeling that the notion of time has been lost.
• Perceive what is experienced as if it were a dream or a movie, as if everything were false or unreal.
• Inability to recognize the body as one’s own, not to identify with the image of the mirror or to feel that one is not a human being.
• Great difficulties when it comes to feeling emotions or connecting affectively with others, persistent feeling of disconnection.
• Memories are experienced abnormally. The person may be able to remember what happened but feel as if it happened to someone else.
• Feeling like an automaton that has no control over what you do or say.
• Reality seems colorless, lifeless, or covered by fog or foggy glass.

How is it related to other disorders?

As you can imagine, this is a really unpleasant and distressing experience. However, those who suffer from it find it difficult to put their subjective experience into words, and sometimes they even tend to hide what they live for fear of being judged. This often takes  several years for the person to get an accurate diagnosis.

On the other hand, it must be taken into account that depersonalization frequently overlaps with other disorders, especially derealization and anxiety disorders. In addition, this is detected as a symptom in 60% of cases of other pathologies such as depression, psychotic disorders or substance use.

However, there are certain factors that can help differentiate depersonalization from other pathologies. First of all, the prolonged duration of the feelings of unreality alerts us that we may be facing a chronic depersonalization. But, in addition, those who suffer from it are aware that their perceptions are abnormal, and this awareness of illness does not usually appear, for example, in psychotic disorders.

Treatment of chronic depersonalization

Depersonalization symptoms may resolve on their own if they have arisen as a result of a specific event of great emotional tension. However, once the disorder has become chronic, targeted intervention is necessary.

Feelings of unreality interfere with daily activities and social relationships and cause great suffering. Therefore, the objective is both to address the stressful situations that may be at the origin of the disorder and to provide resources to the person to regain functionality despite the presence of symptoms.

Cognitive-behavioral techniques help to manage obsessive thoughts about the feeling of unreality and to shift attention to other tasks.

On the other hand, rooting techniques can be effective for the person to become aware of reality in the present moment. In any case, it is a complicated intervention that requires a significant investment of energy.