Pronounced dee-PER-suh-nuh-ly-ZAY-shun
Also known as Derealisation, Depersonalization, Derealization, Depersonalisation-derealisation disorder
Feeling detached from yourself, as if watching your own life from outside. Its twin, derealisation, is when the world around you seems unreal, foggy or dreamlike.
In Psychology
Depersonalisation is the unsettling sense of being outside yourself — observing your own actions, thoughts or feelings from a distance, as if in a film. Derealisation is the related feeling that the world around you is unreal: flat, foggy, lifeless or dreamlike. People can have one or both, for moments or for much longer.
Brief episodes can happen during intense stress, exhaustion or a . When they persist or keep returning and cause distress, the diagnosis is depersonalisation-derealisation disorder, a form of .
People with depersonalisation know the feeling is not real — that is what makes it so frightening, and many fear they are going mad. They are not. That insight is what separates it from .
has the best evidence of any treatment. Treating accompanying or often helps the unreal feeling fade too.
Psychology
A panic attack is a sudden surge of fear with a racing heart and breathlessness. It feels like dying, but it is not dangerous, and panic disorder is very treatable.
27 Sept 202610 min read
