Depersonalization/Derealization anxiety episode after emptiness insight.

[AJBrew]

There's an insight I had a couple weeks ago where I realized or felt that everything was space or emptiness. This insight was a bit too much for me to handle and I froze for a couple seconds. The next day I felt detached from the present and my body. I noticed part of my attention was on whats in front of me and the other half of my attention felt like it was in the back of my head. I did further research on this and talked it over with my PCP as well and its seems to be a potential Depersonalization/Derealization episode triggered by intense anxiety. The following days to weeks I noticed I was detached from my body and my surroundings, I recognized the same environments I've been in for years but they felt unfamiliar even though I was able to recognize them. It felt like I was living up in my head and my psyche was trying hard to resist the present moment so I practiced grounding meditation and feeling into presence which helped quite a bit on-top of hot showers. I also noticed that focusing on tasks like work and socializing brought me tremendous relief as well, I was extremely sensitive to the point of feeling overwhelmed by the littlest things and haven't been this sensitive to anxiety since I was a child.

There was a point I was in the shower and my psyche was strongly resisting "what was" or simply resisting this reality or this life itself, I then tried to focus on the present as deeply as I could with compassion and this seemed to have resolved this. I had this lasting dissociative episode for about three weeks were I was hyper aware of my environments and my body (even though I was dissociated at the same time) to the point where I was able to hear and sense things in my body that I've never been so intensely attuned to before. Resting on the couch with my cats, watching shows and playing some lighthearted video games after work seemed to help this episode, hot showers and sleep were definitely the most effective as speeding up the recovery from this episode as well.

 

I'm posting this in-case someone else has had a similar experience to receiving insights that were too intense for their current state of consciousness and have had their nervous system burn out like in this instance. Any advice or feedback on this would be greatly appreciated as well as this seemed to have lasted three weeks but I seem to be back at baseline now thankfully. 

Edited 3 hours ago by AJBrew

[Judy2]

1 hour ago, AJBrew said:

 I noticed part of my attention was on whats in front of me and the other half of my attention felt like it was in the back of my head.

yes, sounds familiar. that's depersonalisation/derealisation. 

1 hour ago, AJBrew said:

 I did further research on this and talked it over with my PCP as well and its seems to be a potential Depersonalization/Derealization episode triggered by intense anxiety. 

it can also be vice versa: depersonalisation/derealisation can trigger anxiety because it's a very odd, intimidating state. i experienced a pretty intense panic attack last year during dissociation. 

1 hour ago, AJBrew said:

I recognized the same environments I've been in for years but they felt unfamiliar even though I was able to recognize them. 

yes! that one also feels very familiar. it's like the state warps even familiar environments into something structurally different.

1 hour ago, AJBrew said:

. It felt like I was living up in my head and my psyche was trying hard to resist the present moment so I practiced grounding meditation and feeling into presence which helped quite a bit on-top of hot showers. I also noticed that focusing on tasks like work and socializing brought me tremendous relief as well

yes, very good! 

hot/cold showers, ice cubes, physical exercise, using your senses to ground yourself. 

 

i would also describe any type of dissociation as the ego's attempt to "go into hiding" and, indeed, dissociate from the physical, emotional, and mental attributes it usually attaches to. typically, it's a reaction to help you deal with overwhelming circumstances or when responsibilities feel like they are too much for YOU to handle....so you almost take a step back and pretend like you're not even there anymore, or not personally involved. it's a stress-response, typically reserved for traumatic events. once this pathway has been activated, though, the activation threshold has been lowered, so it can keep getting activated more often without proper reason for it/can even become an unhealthy coping mechanism for some and an obstacle to successful psychotherapy, because intense emotions cannot be accessed, felt, or worked with.  

from what you describe, it sounds like you have also come to recognise the confusing aspect of how dissociation borders on the spiritual, but it can equally be driven by a lot of fear despite resembling an experience of no-self. personally, i found it hard to navigate this confusion as the dissociation was felt so spiritual and very addictive, and it was tough to let it go.

 

three weeks sounds exhausting, though. how are you doing now?

Edited 1 hour ago by Judy2

[PolyPeter]

I had something very similar happen. It's like becoming present about being present in the room, almost becoming the room itself, awareness becoming aware of itself, and then the nervous system panicking because nothing in ordinary life prepares you for that. It took me years of questioning what it was, and also I've talked about this in a therapeutic environment, and the diagnosis was "stress-induced dissociation / depersonalisation / derealisation."

The symptom was the resistance to the insight, not the insight itself.

You figured this out in the shower when surrendering. That's the whole move.
 

As awareness increases it goes beyond what the current ego structure allows. If it expands too much too fast the ego will feel pain, and that pain often shows up as dissociation.

Just curious, have you been practicing any awareness expanding practices by any chance?

[Cred]

I'm calling this "the void". I described it in this post:

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A space that looses both unity and duality dissolves and becomes the void. 

This is the ultimate risk of neither unity nor duality, neither infinite being nor finite being which is nirvana. The void is a state of apathy, depression, and nihilism. It is devoid of both life and love. It is a loss of will and the ambivalence of death. The void is the dark night of the soul.

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The acceptance of the void will enable one to engage in non-action and therefore reach emptiness and end suffering.

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In horror [...] The void manifests as the loss of will, apathy and nihilism.

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depictions of the void in art and literature

• No longer Human—Osamu Dazai
• The Stranger—Albert Camus
• Crime and Punishment—Fyodor Dostoevsky
• Anything from the band Nirvana

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This is a pretty good contender for the best void music. It is pretty well known (it gets worse and worse):

Edited 42 minutes ago by Cred