Depersonalization - definition. Causes, symptoms, treatment of depersonalization

Sometimes you get the feeling that all events are not happening to you. “This can’t happen,” “It’s not me,” “How did this happen?”, “I didn’t expect this from myself.” If some people rarely encounter this phenomenon, sometimes being amazed at their own capabilities, then in others, personality depersonalization often manifests its symptoms. The more often the reasons provoke depersonalization, the more a person needs treatment.

Every healthy person experiences depersonalization. This is a feeling as if you are not in your body, everything that happens does not happen to you, but to someone whom you perceive as yourself. You, but at the same time not you! This can happen to anyone, especially when external events are not encouraging.

If the frequency of depersonalization occurs rarely, the person is clearly aware of what he is experiencing, thinking and how he feels, then there is no need to worry. The mental health website psymedcare.ru indicates that similar experiences can happen to anyone.

Events unfold completely differently when it comes to the constant feeling of “not-self.” When depersonalization becomes a constant or periodic (frequently enough) phenomenon, then you should think about the help of specialists.

What is depersonalization?

What is depersonalization? To understand how to fight, you need to define the concept of the phenomenon itself. Depersonalization of personality involves a person’s feeling of unreality in himself. This is an abnormal condition, accompanied by alienation from oneself, a violation of self-awareness, and a disorder of mental processes. In simple words, depersonalization can be described as a loss of integrity of oneself.

In this state, a person seems to be split into two components:

1. I am an observer.
2. I am active.

The observer watches what the actor is doing, but it seems to him that the active part does not relate to himself. Both parts are perceived as separate, alien to each other, as if a person was divided into two people, each of whom has his own body, feelings, thoughts, ideas, only for some reason on the physical level both continue to remain in one body.

At the same time, a person does not lose the ability to be aware of the surrounding reality and assess the situation that is happening around.

Depersonalization is not always a manifestation of an exclusively psychological disorder. In 70%, as sociologists note, this condition is observed with some short-term frequency. This is accompanied by a feeling of unreality of what is happening, a loss of belonging to oneself.

Perhaps every reader can remember similar sensations. However, over time they pass and do not return soon. This indicates a healthy state of mind that does not require treatment.

A similar state often manifests itself during the formation of self-awareness in an individual. This is inherent in every person in childhood, when he only becomes aware of himself, forms his self-esteem, begins to separate himself from the world around him, etc.

This condition is not considered a pathology if it occurs periodically over a long period of time. However, this condition already requires treatment when it appears quite often or constantly. A person is lost in himself and cannot ask for help.

Depersonalization syndrome: concept

What is personality depersonalization?

Depersonalization is a mental disorder during which a person ceases to identify himself with the body, as well as a feeling of distance from his own qualities, character traits and other components of personality.

When the syndrome is active, a person perceives everything that happens to him aloofly, as if he is in a game, being more of an observer than a direct actor.

He develops a feeling of the impossibility of controlling both the body and the surrounding reality.

Causes of depersonalization

Depersonalization is sometimes called disorientation because it involves a disturbance in the sense of self. A person stops feeling what he experienced before and begins to feel new emotions that are alien to him. What reasons provoke depersonalization?

A common cause of this condition is a long-term stressful experience in which a person feels the fear of death. If something threatens him for a very long time, then he seems to fence himself off from what is happening by abandoning himself. This condition often occurs in women whose children were in mortal danger.

Other causes of depersonalization are:

• Hormonal imbalances, in which there is a disruption of the thyroid gland.
• Brain damage, for example the presence of a tumor.
• Experienced stressful situations.
• Use of chemicals that affect brain function (for example, alcohol).
• Consequences of schizophrenia or epilepsy.
• Vegetative-vascular dystonia.
• Cannabis use.
• Neurological pathologies.
• Susceptibility to increased blood pressure.
• Fainting.
• Convulsions suffered in childhood, traumatic brain or birth injuries to the head, infectious diseases with high fever.

More often, depersonalization of personality manifests itself in women under 30 years of age than in men. The cause is stressful situations accompanied by anxiety-panic disorders and depression. A person has a desire to hide from mental experiences that are provoked by external circumstances, which becomes possible by abandoning oneself.

Another cause of depersonalization is intrapersonal conflict, which provokes the division of oneself into two opposing camps.

According to the course of the disease, it can be divided into the following types:

1. Somatodepersonalization is a distorted perception of one’s own body. At the same time, the person understands the unreality of his experiences.
2. Autodepersonalization is a feeling that some changes have occurred in oneself, but it is not clear what. The emotional sphere decreases, one’s own opinion is lost, friends are lost.
3. Derealization is the feeling that the world has changed. It’s as if some kind of barrier has arisen between a person and the outside world that is interfering.

Causes

One of the common causes of depersonalization is a more serious illness, against which the first one occurs.

Such ailments include:

• schizophrenia (split personality);
• epilepsy;
• bipolar personality disorder;
• disturbances in brain function due to injuries to certain areas or tumors;
• exposure to substances. Temporarily - in case of marijuana use. On an ongoing basis - due to a special predisposition (childhood trauma, high blood pressure, neurological pathologies) associated with alcohol consumption.

In addition, one of the most common cases of depersonalization is severe stress.

Here a defense mechanism is triggered, the essence of which is to isolate yourself from difficult emotional experiences.

As if this did not happen to a person. The power of stress is so great that the personality can eventually become separated from the body and its memories and sensations.

Symptoms of depersonalization

Depersonalization can only be determined by the person experiencing the specific symptoms. This manifests itself in an alienated perception of oneself, which is accompanied by various emotions:

• Anxiety.
• Panic.
• Depression.
• Fear.

Typically, symptoms of depersonalization disappear as soon as the traumatic situation that provoked it disappears. However, the pathological manifestation lasts longer than this time.

Some people become fixated on the experiences that happened to them. This provokes the development of depersonalization in healthy individuals. It turns out to be a vicious circle when a person does not get rid of the experiences that he remembers because he is afraid, which provokes another fear, which forces him to isolate himself from traumatic situations by alienating himself from himself.

The initial symptoms of depersonalization are distortions in self-perception. Your own body seems alien and even belongs to someone else. The surrounding world is perceived as unknown, non-existent, theatrical, lifeless.

Other symptoms of depersonalization are:

• Maintaining consciousness.
• Loss of acute feelings of remorse, resentment, joy, sadness or anger.
• Neutral mood.
• Lack of reaction to what is happening, because the world seems gray and uninteresting.
• Temporal and spatial disorientation.
• Loss of warm feelings for loved ones.
• Loss of interest in life.
• Difficulty remembering what previously happened.
• Closedness and detachment.
• Depressed state.
• A feeling of duplication in which a person observes himself from a distance.
• Suicidal tendencies.
• A cynical attitude towards everything, an abdication of responsibility.
• Insensitive, inhumane attitude towards people.

Symptoms and signs

Among the most common and obvious symptoms are the following:

1. Alienation from one's own body. The most common sign. The person feels helpless, as if he cannot control or move surrounding objects. Because his body doesn't belong to him.
   In some cases, a person may lose contact with the main senses, with the exception of vision: smell, touch, taste.

   Sometimes during the course of the syndrome, people can harm the body by trying to “return to it” - they try to excite the skin's tactile receptors - poking, pricking, scratching themselves.

   Read also:  Otitis media bilateral acute serous otitis
2. Stranger in the mirror. When a person with depersonalization approaches a mirror, he simply does not recognize what is reflected in it. In the future, since this feeling of detachment from oneself is frightening, the person tries to move away from mirrors and other reflective surfaces.
3. Derealization. Along with the described syndrome, derealization also occurs. During the latter, the individual feels isolated from the world. It’s as if she got into it quite recently and doesn’t know anything about it, doesn’t remember anything about the surrounding objects. Buildings, roads, trees - everything seems like some kind of decoration.
   The most accurate description of the feeling: as if a person comes into a room where he has already been one hundred percent, but it seems to him that he is there for the first time.

   This also includes changes in the perception of space itself: colors become gray and dull; the picture seems to blur; disturbances occur in spatially oriented perception - everything around seems two-dimensional, flat.

4. Emotionality . The first is the feeling of being a kind of bot, a puppet. A mandatory symptom of depersonalization is the feeling that you are observing your body from the outside. In some cases, a person does not recognize his own qualities and physiological characteristics: voice, manners, gestures. Many experience a weakening or total loss of emotional attachment to relatives, loved ones, and close people.
5. The problem with memories .
   New events and data can easily remain in memory, but as for the distant past associated with loved ones, the person still feels the same detachment. Since the emotional sphere is blocked, difficulties arise in remembering not only important, but also small events - because our memory is selective and records mainly circumstances associated with vivid emotional outbursts. Ultimately, this may have a negative impact on the person suffering from the syndrome - relationships with loved ones whom he barely remembers, to whom he does not feel affection and with whom he has almost no integral memories - may be shaken.

Treatment of depersonalization

To begin effective treatment, it is necessary to understand the reasons for a person’s feeling of unreality and alienation from himself. This is possible through communication with a specialist who can refer a person to diagnose the body if there are physiological factors that provoke a painful condition. Depersonalization is often a consequence of another mental illness. To eliminate it, it is necessary to recover from the original illness.

Often depersonalization is a consequence of depression or schizophrenia. In this case, it becomes important to highlight depersonalization to the fore. If this condition is dominant in a person, then an appropriate diagnosis is made and treated.

Symptoms of the disease may alternate, persist for a long period, or disappear for no reason. You should also be aware that depersonalization is chronic. Symptoms often develop gradually (although cases of sudden onset of the syndrome cannot be ruled out). For some people it takes 15 to 30 years. 10-year-old children may suffer from depersonalization. By the age of 30, the disease is completely formed. In later life it never develops.

Therapeutic methods for treating depersonalization include various activities that calm the person:

1. Communication with nice people.
2. Reading books.
3. Self-hypnosis.
4. Listening to music, etc.

As for the use of pharmacology, there is ambiguous information. For example, anxiety is eliminated with anxiolytics. Only in severe cases is the patient hospitalized. Here the doctor tries to improve the patient's condition by eliminating panic and fear. Effectively used:

1. Sleeping pills.
2. Neuroleptics.
3. Antidepressants.
4. Tranquilizers.
5. Massage.
6. Physiotherapy.
7. Homeopathy.

How does depersonalization develop? What it is?

At the moment, experts cannot identify factors that are guaranteed to lead to a problem. It is believed that a change in one’s own perception may be due to the following reasons:

• severe shock, severe stress;
• long-term depression;
• physical injuries leading to changes in mental status;
• some psychiatric diseases (schizophrenia, manic syndrome and others).

Psychologists note that depersonalization can be caused by any difficult situation that requires an immediate solution and the exertion of all forces. In this simple way, the body tries to protect itself and builds a protective wall in the form of an altered perception of reality. Typically, such disorders are short-term and do not require special treatment.

Excessive alcohol consumption or drug use can also lead to the development of a condition called depersonalization-derealization syndrome. This development of events is especially typical when using marijuana. In this case, the process can be reversed only with timely contact with specialists and abstinence from intoxicants.

Bottom line

Depersonalization is common to many, if not all, people. This is a kind of way of self-distance from a traumatic situation, which is sometimes possible if you abandon yourself (your body, thoughts, feelings, etc.). The result becomes obvious, since the person calms down, thinking that everything that happens does not affect him at all.

However, with the progressive development of symptoms of depersonalization, you should consider refusing to avoid stressful situations in this way. In similar ways, you can completely lose yourself and your interest in life. As a result, this can affect life expectancy, since often people in a state of depersonalization have thoughts of suicide.

Depersonalization often becomes an indicator that a person is leading an unhealthy lifestyle:

• He does not solve pressing problems, but runs away from them.
• He shifts responsibility to others.
• Very physically tired.
• Not getting enough sleep or not eating enough.

You should reconsider your lifestyle if you want to correct the situation and not become a patient of a psychiatrist. Otherwise, protecting yourself from stressful situations through depersonalization will develop into a habit, which you will then have to treat.

Treatment

The best option for the patient will be when it is possible to clearly identify the factor that resulted in depersonalization. Treatment in this case will be aimed primarily at eliminating the cause. When combining derealization with other mental disorders, it makes sense to first take care of the remission of the underlying disease. If the disorder in the perception of the surrounding world is caused by depression, the doctor will prescribe special medications and also recommend a psychotherapy session.

In case of poisoning with alcohol or other narcotic substances, it would be advisable to use powerful antidotes and conduct detoxification therapy in a hospital setting. If endocrine pathology is detected, psychiatrists send the patient for consultation with the right specialist to select adequate hormonal treatment. In mild cases, you can limit yourself to hypnosis and psychotherapy sessions, as well as other rehabilitation measures.

It is important to know that depersonalization, the treatment of which was not carried out in a timely manner, can significantly worsen the patient’s quality of life. That is why it is so important to contact an experienced doctor to receive qualified help when the slightest symptoms appear.

Causes

Research conducted by specialists allowed them to identify a number of provoking factors that determine the formation of depersonalization:

1. A person’s prolonged stay in a severe stressful situation, when, for the purpose of self-preservation, the psyche is forced to switch attention and perception - a look at one’s life from the outside. This will help reduce the negative impact and intensity of stress. At the same time, a person remains able to reason, analyze, and think logically. The emotional component is usually absent.
2. In a number of cases, the provoking factor is a personality conflict - a kind of split in a person’s consciousness, as if dividing him into two halves, hostile to each other.
3. Neurological and mental pathologies that people have are epilepsy, schizophrenia, manic syndrome, and various neuroses.
4. Negative hereditary predisposition.
5. Congenital abnormalities in the development of brain structures or previous neurosurgical interventions.
6. Brain tumors that are benign or malignant in their structure.
7. Uncontrolled medication use - derealization and depersonalization can become a complication of drug poisoning.
8. Abuse of alcohol and narcotic products – states of “split” often occur among alcoholics and drug addicts.
9. Endocrinopathology - excessive production or, conversely, insufficiency of hormones has an extremely negative effect on the activity of the brain.

Establishing the true reason why a particular person developed personality depersonalization allows us to select optimal and effective treatment.

Diagnostics

An experienced specialist, already on the basis of a person’s characteristic complaints - about a change in the perception of his own body or himself as an individual, a part of society, is able to establish the presence of depersonalization, a presumptive diagnosis. Subsequently, to confirm or refute it, the doctor will conduct instrumental and laboratory examinations.

For example, using MRI images it is possible to identify structural changes in individual areas of the brain. A number of laboratory tests will also confirm a malfunction of the pituitary gland.

However, it must be taken into account that such a disorder often occurs in combination with other mental disorders, also accompanied by deviations in laboratory and instrumental diagnostic results.

Therefore, only the doctor should decide how to treat depersonalization. Self-medication will not only aggravate the situation, but will also lead to further progression of the disease and the emergence of severe complications.

Types and forms of the disease

Sometimes the feeling that one’s own personality is perceived as if from the outside - for example, due to a psycho-emotional shock, the death of a loved one, visits generally mentally healthy people. Such episodes of depersonalization are short-lived and do not require specialized treatment.

If the feeling of depersonalization persists for a long period of time, then we are talking about a painful mental disorder. Depersonalization syndrome can occur in several forms:

1. Somatopsychic – a pathological disorder of the body diagram, when a person ceases to adequately assess the location of the limbs, size or shape. Parts of your own body may be perceived as swollen, excessively heavy, too large or too small. At the same time, the absurdity of such sensations is fully realized.
2. Autopsychic depersonalization is a kind of loss of one’s own personality. A person loses his individuality, a sense of uniqueness, his own opinion and view of the world. Psycho-emotional processes occurring in the head are perceived as belonging to another person. There is an impression that thoughts, feelings, and thinking are not under control.
3. Allopsychic depersonalization – the perception of the surrounding world is distorted. The existing reality seems to be some kind of fantastic film, theatrical production. The surrounding space turns 180 degrees, becomes dim, distorted - complete or partial derealization.
4. Anesthetic depersonalization - is expressed in a decrease in the perception of pain impulses during long-term pathology, accompanied by intense pain.

The listed types of depersonalization can occur individually or in combination with each other.