Depersonalization

AWARENESS.

For a long time I searched for that certain "out-of-body sensation," but it disappeared.
At least seemingly.

Deep down I somehow sensed that it hadn’t been our last encounter, which only opened the way for even more fear.
What’s most oppressive in this is the feeling that it’s just lurking in the background, until the very moment you least expect it.

I had already written earlier about this vicious circle.
It is the fear of fear itself, which for a while completely pushed away my ability to let go.
The state of constant alertness became permanent, consuming even more of my energy.

By then it must have been early spring, when after a long search a description suddenly came my way.
I was stunned to discover something that confronted me: there is a definition for my experiences.

Depersonalization, or derealization disorder, is the official term.

Reading this was both liberating and frightening – facing the fact that I was not the only one going through it.

I sat for hours in front of my laptop reading different case studies, while examining several perspectives.

From a neurological point of view, this state is a defense mechanism linked to the brain.
With anxiety, the amygdala (the alarm system) becomes overactivated, while the prefrontal cortex tries to mute the intense emotional response.

As a result, the person may experience sensory dullness, as if they were not in their own body.
The insula (the brain region responsible for self-perception and bodily sensation) underfunctions. Because of this, the brain does not receive the emotional coloring for experience.

Thus, depersonalization is often a so-called dissociative defense, when the psyche detaches the self from fears or traumas that feel impossible to endure.

But ironically, it was precisely this “defense mechanism” that generated the greater part of my anxiety, which is why the picture didn’t add up.
After all, this is not some morphine-like dream state, but an extremely alien condition, where not only bodily sensations but even memories seem like lies.
That is how I experienced it.

At the time, I did not consider myself either a materialist or spiritually inclined.
I didn’t deal with such questions; I was simply more concerned with whether I might win another pack of beer with the pull tab I had just opened.

After a while, however, I did give space to a different perspective, one that required much more openness – but that was something I never really lacked.

From a spiritual perspective, this state is a forced initiation, a glimpse into layers of consciousness that usually open only through deep meditation or transcendent experiences.

If, however, someone is not yet prepared for this, the psyche cannot integrate the event, which can lead to anxiety and panic.
It is a threshold experience – a passage between ego identity and deeper states of consciousness.

In depersonalization, it can easily manifest what spiritual traditions describe: “the world is not as real as we thought.”
The Maya (the veil of illusion) may fall away, but if the individual is not adequately prepared, it can bring not freedom but madness.

Despite my openness, the materialist approach seemed to offer greater safety, particularly cognitive behavioral therapy.
It was encouraging to see that there was already a well-trodden path directed at this condition.

However, the sense of liberation was soon replaced by discouragement, seeing that in most cases the process ended in medication.
No matter how effective it seemed according to the descriptions, every fiber of my being resisted it.

Not for me – I thought to myself.
Instead, I found myself at morning sessions of a therapy group, hoping that cognitive behavioral therapy would bring me back into life in my full reality.

To my greatest surprise, however, not only people with anxiety were present, but others struggling with completely different issues.
I was the only one there as the “representative” of depersonalization.

There were those who came because of family problems or to quit smoking, and even someone who simply couldn’t bear the sound of dogs barking.

To be honest, I had no idea what I was doing there.
Whatever was said, whatever test I had to fill out, I gained nothing new.

As spring was arriving and life was gradually awakening around me, I felt as if I were standing still, stuck in the isolation of winter’s barrenness.

In previous years, at this time I could never be kept indoors, yet by then my apartment had become my prison, which I left only with a stomachache born of leaving behind that fleeting sense of calm.

It was a strange contradiction, yet from time to time a glimmer of hope appeared.
I don’t know where it came from, for it had long seemed that everything would remain as it was.

Somewhere deep inside, however, a spark of trust rose up, breaking through the veil of hopelessness for a moment here and there.

This feeling usually found me in the evenings, then slipped into my dreams, where I found myself in an alternative reality.
There was no anxiety there, only endless carefreeness.

After a few weeks, this loving suggestion manifested itself in the form of a film.

At first it seemed insignificant, yet it became an important encounter.

The title of the film was Adam’s Apples, which at that time became a good friend to me.
A grotesque drama or black comedy, difficult to categorize, that showed me what I felt to be the distorted yet somehow real nature of faith.

That everything falls into place in the end, like the lost pieces of a puzzle.
There was something in it that touched me very deeply at the time.

As if my inner voice had projected itself outward to give me a small push.
That is why I felt it was addressed personally to me.

Almost every day I would put it on to play in the background, whether while cooking or exercising.
It simply soothed me, and allowed me to let go of control a little.

It is strange how much strength or perseverance one can draw from films.
For me, this was one of the first encounters with a higher, more positive shade, which revealed itself into my reality through this film.

It suggested something to me like nothing ever had before.
Something filled with love, which I could easily connect to, even with my then-closed-off way of seeing things.

From time to time, a person receives signals, smaller or larger initiations, all measured to their given level of consciousness.
This was such a moment – perhaps the very first that reached my waking awareness.

This film preserved the heavy yet somehow beautiful emotional imprint of those few weeks, which has continued to mean much to me.
Because now I know what awaited me afterward.

No. I was not freed from my feelings overnight, and for a time quite the opposite of what I had planned happened.

Time and again, stronger states hurled me back to the bottom of the pit, until at some point my attachment to my own coping methods was overturned.

Enough, I thought.

By then I no longer cared how. I just wanted to get better.