Depersonalization is making me lose strength (tw)

4 months with this and I just can't keep going. I've always been a strong person but I can't do it. I don't even know if this is DP anyways, it feels farther than that.

I basically obsessed my way into Depersonalization from trauma and OCD. I went through a hard couple months before the onset, and I've always been a deep thinker and over analytical. It's as if DP has made me "figure it all out". I look at people now as just mammals and nothing more, I'm extremely existentially obsessed to where just thinking about existence makes me nauseous. I used to have it all. Good job, good family. I don't even know how to love anymore. And I'm losing my job. And I'm almost completely lost my identity. I'm on a horrible sleeping schedule where I basically sleep the entire day away. I'm losing so much weight I'm growing weak and look borderline anorexic.

This hyper awareness of reality and existence is just terrible. I can literally feel reality and existence.. I notice it with every waking moment. Constantly in panic because I'm alive and in reality. I can't even cry anymore, because as soon as I even feel emotion the thought of existence and the absurdity of it all follows right behind it and shuts off my emotions. I've lost my faith because of this. Everything is pointless and absurd.

I know there is no going back. My life is over. I just see the way of the world now that no man should... I used to be so happy. I feel like I'm in some kind of horrible game. I feel like this is all just an illusion and it never stops getting worse. Throw a little bit of solipsism in there and I'm at my worst nightmare. Where did everything go wrong... I'm not psychotic but at this point I just can't help but the think this is all just a horrible game being played on me. Or maybe I just have a irresistible glitch in my conscious where I cannot live. I want to live, but I can't keep living like this. I've been stripped of everything. From happiness, to emotions, to my own reality. The air around me makes me uncomfortable, everything I look at because existence is just so scary and absurd.
The life I once loved is a life no more. And I mourn myself and my old life everyday.
Thank you everyone for your help. And please try to enjoy your life. I just can't believe I'm in this state, i mean existence itself annoys me and freaks me out at the same time.

Is this the first time you've experienced derealization?

When it happened to me the first time, I felt like I could hardly breathe... everything was so bizarre, nauseating, uncomfortable... it felt like I was in some strange nightmare.

I had no idea what it was. It took years to figure it out. I thought I had just lost my mind.

It subsided on its own... over time. I learned to live with it. Though... it took a very long time.

I have other problems on top of this, so... I'm no picture of success, but, as far as dissociation, depersonalization, and derealization are concerned... I've learned to deal with it. It can still be unsettling, but it isn't the nightmare it once was.

You have an advantage. You know what it is. You know you haven't lost your mind. It certainly can feel that way... but you're still you, and you're still in there... the life you had is not irretrievable.

well, for some reason the hyper awareness of reality and existence makes me feel like I can't get back to my old self. my views on the world have completely changed and i feel completely different person.

^^
This is how I feel as well. I honestly sometimes doubt my own existence, and the existence of everyone else. Maybe it sounds sort of 'reductionistic' ... but look at people and it barely seems like them, I have to look a little harder, and then they just seem like a bundle of processes -- emotions, vital organs, subjective experience, it's fkn weird.

I really admire the movie 'The Matrix' because it often describes the unreality I always feel -- we are born into a system where we get an education, slave at a job working for someone because it's the easiest way to make cash/survive, get married, and die. GG no re, thanks for playing.

We are living in a dreamworld. And like you said, because my now distorted world view has become so deeply ingrained, I can't really 'go back'. Really all we can hope for is for this illusion of 'reality' to return so we can pretend that this disassociation was just that, and forget it ever happened and continue with our lives. Do you ever feel like you've sort of lived before? I do. It's like I've been alive for more than 18 years, but I don't remember anything that happened. And now I'm watching my life go by, still physically present, but not mentally.

Anyway I'm not saying this ^ is the truth, it's just my own perception. And honestly nothing good comes of focusing on the dissociation, that just makes it worse, ignore it and it should at least not be as bad.

... Based on what I've read of DP Disorder, it's caused by an over-sensitive fight or flight system. This makes sense to me as the only time I feel 'better' is when I'm at peace with myself -- no anxiety, no depression, no insecurity. But at the first instance of these things, I because distant from my environment, and I can only really notice what's right in front of my eyes (I'm semi-oblivious to everything else). It sort of feels like I've turned the volume, color, and brightness down on my personal remote that controls how I see the world, then lost the remote lol.

So the way to feel normal again is, in my opinion, to find a way to be at peace with yourself for as much of the time as you can. Sadly, it's a semi-chronic/chronic disorder so getting rid of it completely would be difficult to say the least. With this in mind I think CBT could be useful, as it very effective for these sorts of symptoms, among other things. Although you could for sure try to alleviate it without therapy, but it would still help. Honestly I think people with DP Disorder are so neurotic that we almost need it. I mean it does make things sort of easier to deal with doesn't it? (whilst also causing it own issues sadly).

Also there's a movie on DP Disorder called 'Numb' with Mathew Perry. You could probably find it online. It's a good watch and it goes over a lot of the problems that people with DP Disorder face.