Is this derealization?

[ATaylor]

I have this really strange thing happen if I am out with my family in the early evenings. We like to go for walks by the sea for eg. In the summer but are now put off because on quite a few occasions I go really weird and everything around me seems really different like noises sounding a lot more noticeable and I have to hold my husband's hand and can't even walk normally and just want to get back home and sit on my place on the sofa, the weird thing is this happens when I am happy and not too stressed. Wonder if it's a tiredness thing? Does anyone else experience something similar?

 

[Friday]

My disassociation DP vs DR shorthand:

Depersonalization = I am not real
Derealization = The world is not real

I go really weird and everything around me seems really different like noises sounding a lot more noticeable and I have to hold my husband's hand and can't even walk normally and just want to get back home and sit on my place on the sofa, the weird thing is this happens when I am happy and not too stressed.

To me this reads more like hypervigilance, &/or anxiety/panic, than disassociation, but both are often found together… one kicking the other off. In either order.

 

[ATaylor]

My disassociation DP vs DR shorthand:

Depersonalization = I am not real
Derealization = The world is not real


To me this reads more like hypervigilance, &/or anxiety/panic, than disassociation, but both are often found together… one kicking the other off. In either order.

Thanks for your explanation, I just find it confusing and upsetting that this happens when I am quite relaxed and happy.

 

[BlackBearFamily]

...I go really weird and everything around me seems really different like noises sounding a lot more noticeable....

No, this is not derealization. Derealization means that suddenly the world around you - and everyone, everything within it - suddenly feels very far away. Sort of like you are looking at something far out at sea with binoculars.

 

[Friday]

Derealization means that suddenly the world around you - and everyone, everything within it - suddenly feels very far away. Sort of like you are looking at something far out at sea with binoculars.

Or like Alice in wonderland. Or underwater/distorted. Or cartoonish. Or like you’re dreaming. Or fading in and out. Or, or, or. About 1,000 variations of “not real”. INCLUDING very far away.

The sense of disconnect (IE the tether to reality that says “this” is not right/ not normal/ not how it should be & always has been & will be) is what keeps it under the dissisociation umbrella, rather than tipping over into psychosis.