Like almost everything I know about DPD, I learned from Harris Harrington. I strongly recommend to buy his program and / or read and watch his online youtube materials, because the guy is really I believe the top top in the subject. My posts are really just the same knowledge with my twist.

So, one of the biggest problems in DP/DR is the disconnection between your daily actions and your thoughts. For some reason, what Harris calls "self-constancy" is ruptured in people with DPD. In a more practical way of putting it, for some reason, you stopped following your own way in life. And THIS, trust me, enough for all those irrational feelings and thoughts to arise.

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​Do you want a one-click solution for depersonalization? A so simple solution to such a terrible state? Well, there is. People who experience DP/DR underestimate the importance of a personal narrative. You, your SELF is nothing more than a narrative. People with DP start life with a weakly-founded personal narrative, that eventually collapses (you are unable to continue life with it or it'd be too uncomfortable), and they are at a state of no-self.

It is very natural that people don't realize this, since it is NOT something anybody every taught or even told you. People just take their "personality" as granted. Which is cool.

You, in DP, have another perspective, you kind of "realize" that our personalities are kind of mind-created "illusions", but you also come to the wrong assumption that it is a kind of destiny. Some people say that "depersonalization is an irreversible insight into emptiness", also call it "enlightenment's evil twin".

Truth is, you can EASILY go back to having a self, and to have a fulfilling life, just like everybody else.

To be honest, you'll probably have the potential to be happier than the average Joe (sorry, Joes), because after DP, you know that you are free to be anyone you wish.

But this freedom can become a trap. When you have the opportunity to become anyone you wish, you may tend to jump between different "selves", and someone who has 2,3,10 different "selves", basically has no self. Because a self has continuity.

So, what you should do? Easy. After you came out of dissociation (because it is a neccessary first step), you should just decide who you want to be, and build your life around that "person". Only include things that fit that "image" (which is a self basically), so it feels coherent.

This will give you a place in the world, an "ego", a scenario so you can relate to people, things and places. 

It is really, really, really a simple thing to do.

But beware: In depersonalization, especially if it lasts for years, we tend to "play around" with thoughts like they are nothing. On this road, you will realize that your thoughts are pretty powerful things. Thoughts can build but can destroy just as powerfully. Watch your thoughts.

If you google the subject, you can find articles and videos where they compare DP/DR to enlightenment. Enlightenment is a state where they say you realize your true being, and you get disconnected from the false self, ego. People describe it as an empowering, wonderful experience. Therefore , you can find a lot of people on spiritual sites who are desperate to achieve the state through meditation, etc..

Now, DP/DR is a state, where you feel like life and especially ego is an illusion. 

Here is my take on it. DP/DR is an enlightened state of a person who simply don't want it / not ready for it. People who get in DP/DR, I think "accidentally" get into the enlightened state, because they kind of feel this is what will solve their problems in life.

Anyone who feels these words apply to him/her, I'd suggest to take this without fear, and understand this state is not something you want, and that you can get back to "ego" anytime you wish. There are people whose GOAL is to achieve enlightenment. That is fine. But there are people who are just curious, and accidentally get there. If you want to get spiritual, I'd say if you still have those "egoistic" goals in this life, just accept that this lifetime is not the one you want to get enlightened in, and let go. You CAN get back to ego, anytime.

From this perspective, depersonalization is nothing more than losing something you have identifiyed with TOTALLY, and that is the False Self. What I describe here is basically sounds exactly like Narcissistic Personality Disorder (which is often the cause of DP), but I tell you how I think some psychiatric articles go wrong with it, or maybe it was just ME who interpreted it wrongly.

A False Self is a term they usually connect to NPD. For long, I thought that if you have a False Self, you are pathologic (have a personality disorder). As I learn more and more about this and myself, I now realize that a False Self is not just a good thing, but neccessary for a meaningful life.

So, how it can be a good thing and cause Narcissistic Personality Disorder and depersonalization?

I tell you my opinion. A False Self is a creation of your mind (you can say it is an "illusion"). Every single person whose life is worth living has a false self. A False Self is the ingredient of healthy narcissism. It is something you identify with, therefore have a unique sense of self, so your life starts to have meaning. You have a narrative connected to it, which is your life story.

Without a life story, you are living in a meaningless wastelend. Some people connect this to enlightenment, which I believe to be true, others call depersonalization "Enlightenment's evil twin". I don't want to talk much about spirituality here, but I beleive that depersonalization is when someone gets "enlightened" for the wrong reasons. If your life goal is to achieve that state, fine. But if you have totally different intentions, and see "enlightenment" as a solution, "losing your ego" (becoming enlightened) is a terryfing experience.

So, I think in depersonalization, you simply experience the "loss" of the "false self". Why do I used double-quotes on both words? Because you aren't really losing your false self, and your false self isn't really false.

First of all, since your false self is something YOU have created, you can't lose it forever, you can recreate it anytime. Secondly, the False Self (which EVERYONE has, EVERYONE) is not really false. It's just a phsychological phenomenom that is simply can not be called neither real or false. Your sense of self (your False Self) is an idea about yourself in your mind, which you then MANIFEST in the real world.

EXAMPLE: "I will become the best lawyer in the world". Or "I am the best lawyer in the world.". Now, is there anything pathological about that? Well. If you BELIEVE you are the best lawyer in the world, but you have just finished college, is it kind of false, or you could say arrogant, or big-headed. But, if you were one of the best students in college, and you are really on your way to become the best, is that false? How false it is? Is there such a thing that a "BEST" lawyer? If you start to examine the f*ck out of the question, you'll come to the conclusion that there IS no best lawyer. Even if you win every single case, you can still find a lawyer who won a more difficult case you ever had.

But, if you are really a GOOD lawyer, isn't it VERY HEALTHY, and PRO-LIFE to think yourself as the best as long as you keep your ego in place and work hard?

Do you get me? So, I think, a False Self only becomes "pathological" if it is WAAY out of sync with reality, and I think there is NO sharp dividing between a pathological and a "normal" false self.

So how the false self goes wrong in NPD and DP/DR? Well. Here is my take. First of all, I believe that the more fragile or sense of self (false self is), the less confidence we have in it's "realness" (which is subjective anyway), the MORE we identify with it. It is a totally self-defeating human trait, but we still do it.

And when we get DP/DR and panic attacks, that means 1.) Our false self got destroyed or damaged so much 2.) We IDENTIFY with it too much.

So the solution is:

Realize that you, as a human being NOT EQUALS your false self. If your false self CRASHES, you still have value, you are still a human being with 100% worth. You just feel worthless. This is a FALSE belief.

----> PROBLEM: When we realize (because in DP we realize) that our false self was only a creation of our mind, we think it's an ILLUSION, so we think life is MEANINGLESS. It is black-and-white thinking at it's best (=worst). Why have another false self if it is all fake?

Realize that you are STILL ALIVE. You have lost your false self and survived.

So my recipe is this: create a NEW FALSE SELF. IDENTIFY WITH IT, but create a BALANCE. 

If you don't identify with a false self at 0%, your life becomes meaningless, empty, you'll float around in space without purpose. You'll have ZERO motivation, ZERO ambition, ZERO interest in life.

If you identify with a false self at 100%, you will feel like your WORTH and ultimately your LIFE depends on it, and it will create perfectionism, procrastination of tasks (your inner rebel will NOT like the idea that you have to work your ass off JUST to have a basic worth as a human being).

So, the solution is to create, work at and ENJOY your false self while keeping a DISTANCE.

You are NOT a "lawyer", not a "musician", not a "mother", not a "basketball player". But you can create all of them out of you, do the best at them, enjoy being everyone of them, without feeling like you HAVE TO BE any of them.

Feel free to comment!

I was suffering from depersonalization since 2010, and as I see now, I had ALL of the neccessary resources to heal from it after 2-3 months of onset, yet, it took 8 years to totally heal. And that is because there is a world difference between understanding something mentally and understanding it ACTUALLY and applying it.

My life saver was Harris Harrington. I watched his program and it did NOTHING to me.  The only "benefit" I got from it that when I felt totally insane, out of this world and crazy, I started to watch it, and it calmed me down, because something deep inside me KNEW that he was right. Yet, I remained in DP.

Now, I tell you why I failed so many times, and why I think you have failed so many times, and how I believe you can heal from a personality disorder (which a lot of times comorbid with DP).

Here is my cure.

Here is my model for the human brain from the perspective of DP and PDs (personality disorders).

Let's take a look at yourself this way: 

1.) The CORE you: your sense of self, beliefs about yourself, plans about how you should act in certain situations, what, who you want to be. These are THOUGHTS you have IMPLANTED in your own mind LONG before depersonalization started. You probably don't even remember the times and occasions you have put these beliefs inside your brain, but believe me, a belief that you have planted into your sense of self 10 years ago that took ONE SECOND, is JUST AS REAL as the computer screen or phone screen you are looking at this moment. Your brain is a SOLDIER and you are the CAPTAIN. 

You can ask then: OK, but WHY THE HELL then I feel like I am the SLAVE and my mind is the MASTER? I tell you. Because your brain is not only the soldier of you NOW, but the soldier of you BACK THEN.

That means, if you tell this soldier: "Kick me in the ass EVERY TIME I want to eat chocolate." IT WILL. Even if you 2 years later decide that you want to eat chocolate, it will STILL KICK YOU in the ass every time you want to do it, UNTIL you OVERWRITE the order you gave it 2 years ago.

The CORE of you, that sense of self DICTATES your everyday choices. And if you think about it, this is the ONLY WAY you could function and survive. Would you like to RELEARN every single letter and word in an article EVERY TIME you read something? NO. You have learned that this is letter L and this is letter R 30 years ago, and now you just KNOW it. This is how it goes with EVERYTHING.

2.) The OUTER, "CHOOSER" YOU: This is the YOU, that is navigating your life. This is the you that decides what to do in a certain situation. This is ALSO the you that can learn NEW things. This is ALSO the you that can PLANT or OVERWRITE beliefs stored in the CORE SELF.

BUT.
The OUTER YOU is NOT FREE. It only THINKS it is FREE to do anything in the moment, but it is NOT. The OUTER YOU, when faced with ANY SITUATION, is being SERVED by the CORE you with 2,3,4 or 43 different CHOICES, which ALL fits the CORE YOU. Because you DO NOT WANT TO MAKE A CHOICE that is NOT fitting the CORE YOU. That is how you feel SAFE.

When you drive a car, it would be LIFETHREATENING if the OUTER, CHOOSER YOU would be enabled to turn the wheel towards a brick wall at 156 mph. You would DIE. So it is only allowed to make choices that is "SIGNED" by the CORE you. So you survive and arrive at your destination.

How does it go wrong in depersonalization?

Simple. Depersonalization happens when you are facing a life situation that your CORE SELF has CONFLICTING beliefs about. It's like, you love your father, but your father suddenly wants to kill you, and the only choice you could make is to KILL him. Wouldn't you feel depersonalized? Of course you'd do, but this would be such a short and shocking scene you wouldn't even realize.

DP/DR is the SAME, it is just a longer period than a few seconds. But doesn't matter if it is a few seconds or 30 years. The mechanism is the SAME.

So how to heal? You have to understand, that you CAN NOT SOLVE depersonalization by simple choice. You can only heal DP by using your choosing self  NOT TO DO ANYTHING IN THE CURRENT LIFE SITUATION, NOT TO do this, NOT TO do that, but to FIND the core belief(s) that is causing you the problem.

I repeat. There is NOTHING you can do to fix DP until you don't fix the CORE belief that creates it.

And ONLY YOU, ONLY YOU can know those beliefs. 

After suffering from DP/DR for 8 years, I think I've finally been able to see the forest from the trees. Right now I look at DP/DR not as something, but a lack of it. It is basically a state of non-living, lack of direction, lack of momentum, lack of life. This condition is far less complex, far less difficult to understand that sufferers often think. It is only the strangeness of it, the anxiety it causes, and the super-hight intelligence and creativity of the person that creates this mystic, giant, out-of-this-world state, which results in every single cell of your body and mind telling you you'll never ever get out of it.

And it's true, you can't get "OUT OF IT", because DP/DR in ITSELF is an "out of it" state. Out of life. So you need to get back IN LIFE, and DP/DR is gone. The solution is so simple and so easy that we miss it.

We tell ourselves things like these:

• This is a feeling I not only never experienced in my life, but never even thought that such a state even exists, it HAS TO have a reason.
• This feeling is so overwhelming, so "spiritual", that this reason HAS TO BE deep and huge.
• I FEEL like it is the end of the world, so it must be true.
• etc..

I believe the reason behind this is that ALL our lives our feelings kind of dictated our actions. We feel scared, our mind tries to find the reason. We feel happy, we know usually why and what to do. We feel anger, we know usually who we are mad at, or at least we think so. We feel hungry, we eat.

But DP/DR feels this whole system is messed all the way up. The first time in our lives we feel overwhelming feelings and have zero idea what they are, why they are, what to do about it, and on top of that, because of this "disconnection", we feel like we are even going mad, and no logical explanation can bring us out of the existential terror DP/DR causes / is.

Still, I tell you, DP/DR is NOTHING but a lack of life, lack of things to do, lack of momentum, lack of task or plan for the next minute. NOTHING more. 

Most of you probably

My answer is, no, you are not insane, and can't even become insane, but you are doing EVERYTHING that is humanly possible for a sane person to become one. So I suggest you to THINK about yourself as you are insane, so you may get your answers quicker.

I experience(d) DP/DR because of my narcissistic personality disorder. There are a lot of articles (I like Sam Vaknin's articles the most) about whether a Narcissist is insane or not, and I think that pretty much applies to DP/DR too.

Sam Vaknin says that some psychiatrists call narcsissists "borderline psychotic". And I think it describes the situation perfectly.

What does "borderline psychotic" mean?

I'd describe it as a SANE, even INTELLIGENT person having an EXTREME version of reality. You know about the classic psychotic example when someone believes that the FBI is after him, when in reality he committed NO crimes, been never in organizations that could have anything to do with FBI or authorities like that, is a totally average person with a normal job. But the person FIRMLY believes it is true. Now that

"Trick" is in quotemarks because it is not really a trick but rather a technique, "heal" is in quotemarks because you are not ill. But I use those words because trick indicates something that's easy to do (and it is), while heal is the word people with DP like to use.

I strongly believe t​hat self-deception is a key component in deperesonalization. Because I believe, DP (initially) is basically not much more, than when a person's idea of him/herself is not matching the reality of him/her (DP), and when the person's idea of the world is not matching reality (DR).

So, if you think about it, such a disconnection from reality can be caused logically by two things. 1.) The person is simply mentally ill 2.) The person lies to him / herself.

Now, since people with DP are AWARE that something is "off", to me, that indicates that they are totally sane. So, that means, they have to have some OTHER reason for self-deception.

Pretty logical, isn't it (comment below!)?

So I think, DP is usually (or at least in my case) caused by inner dynamics, emotional stuff, personality, rather than a simple dysfunctional thought process that could be controlled by will.

I believe this is why people get stuck in DP for years, because they constantly think about what they are DOING wrong instead of looking into themselves.

I'm a lot more careful now than I was when writing about DP, so I'm just suggesting that DP a lot of times, I believe is connected to a personality disorder, like BPD or NPD. It's a fact, that DP/DR always involves a kind of disconnection from reality, and I believe that is due to the "alternative narrative" that people with personality disorders have.

So what's the trick?
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The way I learned and am learning it is to learn to STOP thinking after a certain thought. People with PDs and DP/DR are throwing around pretty heavy and strong thoughts like it's nothing. For example, people with NPD like myself learned to simply IGNORE thoughts we don't like. This leads to serious disintegration, and after a while, DP/DR, which creates even MORE disintegration.

So for ANYONE who gets depersonalization, I'd strongly suggest a few things:

• Understand, that you have a few DYSFUNCTIONAL ways of thinking
• Understand, that it is 90% sure that when you try to solve your DP, you'll use the EXACT SAME dysfunctional thinking patterns that created it in the first place.
• If you understand the above point, you also understand that DP ITSELF is an illusion you have created. DEEPLY understand this. There is no such thing that you are not yourself. There is a reason that you describe it as "I'm not FEELING like myself." instead if "I'm not myself.".
• You have to EXPECT thinking in a faulty way.

So, I'd suggest to get a magnifying glass, and take a look at your thoughts from second-to-second, minute-to-minute, hour-to-hour, day-to-day, because all the answers are there, in you.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder and DP

As I learn more and more these things like DP and NPD (read: instead of doing what I actually want to do, read and write - otherwise valuable - things about psychological shit that won't create any progress in my life), I now see how DP is unavoidable for someone with Narcissism. 

So for ANYONE who suffers from DP and even slightly resonates with the idea that (s)he is a pwNPD (person with NPD), you have to know that solution for your life (not DP, life) is pretty simple: stop thinking you are special. Noone is special in a way Narcissists think they are.

How a pwNPD thinks about specialness? 

"I deserve everything good because I am [insert any REAL, imagined or exaggerated trait]."

instead of

"I deserve XY because I did [insert any real work, act, behaviour in the past]."

Do you understand the night-and-day difference (I guess you do, it's just for me, a pwNPD a big thing). A Narcissist may know that (s)he is EXTREMELY talented (maybe it's 100% true), and (s)he thinks that because of that, (s)he deserves to be rich. WITHOUT WORKING FOR IT.

Actually doing hard work for it is something that is HUMILIATING for

Derealization and depersonalization are mirror-images of one another. They are mirror-images of one another in what they bring about, and the phantasies that are their vehicles are mirror-images of one another in their content. In derealization we deny a part of the world: in depersonalization we deny a part of ourselves. In denying a part of ourselves, we come to regard it as dependent upon our thoughts and feelings: that is how we come to phantasise it. In denying a part of ourselves, we come to regard it as independent of our thoughts and feelings: that is how we come to phantasize it. Derealization, in denial, of some part of ourselves, in effect denies us a life altogether of our own.

Both derealization and depersonalization, carried far enough, lead to madness. Of the two, depersonalization is the more radical. It is the more radical in that, whereas derealization induces a depleted or erroneous picture of the world, depersonalization induces a confused or incoherent picture of the world. In point of fact the two processes are invariably complicitous.