depersonalization with no trigger, no detachment, no pattern

hi all,

so in the past year-ish i've read a lot about this trying to figure out exactly what was going on. i experienced these symptoms for the first time last winter. they began right after new years last year and lasted about 3 1/2 months. they returned this year at the end of january / beginning of february and haven't stopped yet (there was one hiatus but i'll get to that in a bit).

last year i coudln't find a name, all i could come up with was something called "brain fog" and a few sites about diet allergies. they all sounded bunk quite frankly, like psychosomatic neurotic projections out of nowhere by extreme hypochondriacs making up a disease.

this year when it returned it scared me, but at least this time i know it is possible to go away...last year i thought i would feel that way forever. this year when i searched the symptoms i found derealization and found out it's a dissociative disease (??!).

here's the issue i have with all of it -- the symptoms and triggers as described in checklists and tests only seem to scratch the surface of what's going on here. they all focus so hard on PTSD or severe anxiety or an event so horrifying that the brain dissociates. that just is not the case with me. i admit that i tend to run as what i would guess to be moderately more anxious than average. i also know i fall into winter funks, had panic attacks in the past, had traumatic experiences in the past (nothing in my childhood however, and nothing sexual, which seems to be what most info keeps insisting this results from -- just stemming from a few stressful adult relationships, ONLY), and get migraines. i do not feel these are the root causes of my problem however. well, maybe the migraine, but definitely not the "psychological protective measure". i have nothing to protect AGAINST, and i am being honest when i say that

what i feel seems to be almost exclusively physical. my anxiety shot through the roof when this STARTED, not before. i feel sick, head-pressure-y, like everything's surreal and distorted, like i'm borderline hallucinating. my equilibrium is off and my head constantly hurts. the days that my head hurts worst are the days when the derealization is worst. my ears are fine and my bloodwork shows no infection, just the usual anemia. this year however we did uncover a severe vitamin d and calcium deficiency.

while i feel detached from reality i absolutely do not feel detached from my emotions, memories, or relationships. it is PHYSICALLY affecting my ability to work and function. i can't get this feeling out of my head and my eyes.

i live in the pacific northwest, aka, gloom central. earlier this winter i took a week vacation to mexico and did not experience these physical symptoms once. they came back the instant i came home.

i don't know what to make of this. i've tried to look up physical causes of this feeling and keep hitting dead ends. the lack of physical research into this phenomenon is discouraging. everything that it seems like it might be physically -- the deficiencies, the headaches, whatever -- ends up having no real link. it seems like every resource keeps coming back to conjecture, or theorizing about PTSD or childhood abuse like those are the only things that cause this and following those paths in therapy are the only way to cure it. it's frustrating!

i can understand if this is anxiety-driven, but even then, i have no clue what to pin it on or where to go. how do you take a personality trait you've had for 35 years, and then use it to explain something you've only experienced for 1?

is there anyone here who gets this feeling as if it were a physical problem, not as a secondary symptom of an unprovable inner emotional state? what do you do to get rid of it???!

Hello,

I'm sorry to hear you have been going through this lately and that you haven't been able to work out yet what it is that is the cause of this experience for you. I think you mentioned headaches at some point during your post, headaches are a very common symptom of dissociation and you will be able to check if they are dissociatively related because dissociative headaches don't improve if you take painkillers/paracetamol for them.

You say that you don't have anything to be protecting against that would be causing the dissociation. I think you should keep your mind open to the fact that this may not be the case. I never actually noticed any of my dissociative tendencies and experiences until I was about 21 or so. After that, I learned from a family member that I had experienced an extreme trauma that I had previously had no memory of. So it is possible for the dissociation to block the experience of trauma to the point that you actually think you have none in your past and it is possible to remain oblivious to the dissociative symptoms you are experiencing until a later point in time. So I'd suggest you keep an open mind, just in case...

What I think could possibly help you is if you find a therapist who is experienced in treating dissociation and have a talk to them about what you are experiencing. They will know some techniques in which you can get in touch with your subconscious and it may help you work out what is behind these dissociative experiences for you. A therapist who is experienced in treating dissociation would also have studied other causes that exacerbate and cause dissociation and so they also may be able to guide you through working out if there is something else that is the cause behind your experiences...