Feeling Unreal: Depersonalization Disorder And The Loss Of The Self

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Recommended: Trigger effects of Depersonalization Disorder

Imagine experiencing thoughts with no feelings, with no sense of emotional connection to the past or the present. Living a life with heightened awareness of thoughts parading through your mind however not having any sort of control over them. Constantly worried about living in fear of losing your mind. “I have no soul,” “what is the point of killing myself, if I’m already dead,” or “I’m not alive any more, nothing makes a difference.” Are terms of people suffering this disorder to describe what they feel in the book Feeling Unreal, Simeon, Daphne M.D., and Jeffrey Abugel. Feeling Unreal : Depersonalization Disorder and the Loss of the Self, Oxford University Press, 2014. Despite the feeling of detachment from one’s body or emotional disconnectedness it is still not classified as Depression or Anxiety. Depersonalization …show more content…

Clinicians, however, do not always agree, perhaps because are more comfortable dealing with the domains of anxiety and depression. Several researches and surveys were published in this book trying to shed light on what it was that caused this disorder in people. Triggers the book talks about are the following, heritability, drug use, psychological triggers such as traumatic events, overwhelming joy, childhood traumas which measures six types: separation and losses, physical abuse, sexual abuse, witnessing violence, and neglect. People suffering this disorder can easily correlate it to severe anxiety or stress, panic attacks, depression or drug use therefore causing them to pay a little attention to these symptoms which in time will decrease or it can become a fuel and increase anxiety levels and worsening depersonalization levels. The Diagnosis of Depersonalization is made clinically, by meeting with the patient and thoroughly conducting an evaluation. This book describes several descriptions of the symptoms and as spelled out in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition (DSM-IV), Symptoms are recurrent or

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