Mindfulness and My 4D Life - Part 3 (Depersonalization)

Depersonalization: Who am I again?

This is generally called an identity disorder, because it plays with your sense of who you are.

Some folks say they feel unreal, or like they don’t recognize themselves.

I’ve often said I feel like an alien and not totally related to the human race.

For me it really isn’t about losing my identity, or thinking I’m not really a human being. It has to do with the perception of the Self. Instead of feeling associated – connected – to humanity, I feel set apart from the people in my life. I don’t feel like they’re odd or unreal; it’s all a perception of me.

For me that’s the difference between Depersonalization and Derealization: Depersonalization is me; Derealization is everything else.

What happens is at some point a perception shift occurs. I go from experiencing “David” as a regular Joe who I hardly notice to experiencing “David” as a being totally alone, totally removed from “his kind,” or people like him. I become hyper-aware and hyper-focused on my uniqueness, and that only amplifies my sense of detachment from humanity.

Sometimes I like the notion that I’m significantly different from what I perceive as patterns in humanity at a particular moment. But honestly, sometimes I wish I had someone just like me to talk to about how I see and feel things, someone who “really gets it.”

Since it’s a perspective thing, I feel a bit better when I really wrap my focus around a few facts that I forget in those moments:

·         We are all unique, and in that sense there is no one “like” us. Even twins and clones will have differences in time.

·         People may never totally get what it’s like in my head, but there are many folks in my life who love me unconditionally anyway. They will do their best to listen and be there for me. Just as I don’t have to totally understand everything they go through in order to be there for them, they can be there for me regardless.

·         There actually are a bunch of folks around the world who are also feeling disjointed, disconnected, alien. It turns out that I’m not as unusual as I feel.

·         A bit ago, I felt fine and connected, which means that if this thing has a start point, it will also have an end point.

A Depersonalization episode can be very distracting, not to mention scary. Few people like to focus on themselves at vulnerable moments, but suddenly you have no choice. You are grabbed by the shirt collar and forced to look at the image in the funhouse mirror. What you see is distorted and you just can’t imagine what you see is actually you.

Having a disconnection from yourself can lead to a person being so distracted by the sensation that they start removing themselves from active involvement in things, whether just at the moment or perhaps entirely. How you feel about you affects how you interact with others and the world, so by thinking there’s something so wrong with you it can’t help but filter out into everything else.