How to deal with depersonalization????

So I've been going through a really weird point...... I just got sober and stopped smoking weed everyday, all day. It helped get me out of my mind. When I first quit, for a few months I just felt really empty, hopeless and apathetic.

I'm finally starting to feel like myself again.... but I'm starting to remember why I don't like that. Most of the time I feel relatively normal, but there is this kind of underlying feeling like I just don't get it. It almost feels like ADHD, things just don't connect in my mind. While it's annoying, it doesn't get to me until I get really stressed out and all the sudden I depersonalize.

When it first hits I feel like a robot and like I'm just stuck in my own mind. Almost like its a completely different entity. I don't dissociate or get amnesia. But all the sudden I get this overwhelming feeling that I'm not normal. That I can't connect to people.

Does this happen to anyone else? How do you deal with it? I'm scared because to me, it feels ever present. I'm afraid it will always continue.

Well, I happen to go through similar phase from time to time. At least I suppose that it is similar (yet, in my case it's more of psychotic feelings and I don't feel depersonalization as much, since I just become different and as it ends I just sit there surprised that "was it really me?").

Anyway - usually it also starts with this chronic empty feeling. And it just seems like, when my brain is too bored - it starts to do this thing.

And I really don't know how to stop it - in my case it stops either when I involve into something (meaning relationship) or when I'm put on medication.

Hi there and congrats on getting sober. I know it's hard. I don't know how long you were using weed, I was a daily smoker too, for many years. It's taken me a few years to come out of the fog after I quit using.

Something that gets me more in touch with the present moment, is to be outside and talking to people (and I hate to do it so I force myself to do it). Since I live in my head, I need to do this pretty regularly or I can get lost thinking about the past or just overwhelmed by my emotions. I can go for many days feeling out of touch and I get scared and overwhelmed...

Simple things like cleaning, or something that gets me physically active. Calling someone to say hello (which people do in drug recovery and it's been helpful to force myself to reach out to people and do something nice for someone else.) There's resources that help with new sobriety...

Going for a walk-- sometimes for a couple of miles even, and sitting outside, even just being around people outside helps. I also talk about the disconnection with someone or on forum, and notice it helps me to connect again. Also avoiding stuff that will cause me to disconnect too much like music, solitary activities like internet use.