Feeling Disconnected from Yourself? Understanding Depersonalization and Anxiety - Video Transcript

Hey everyone, I'm Kristen, the anxiety therapist, and today I wanted to share a story about a conversation I had with a good friend of mine earlier this week. Basically, what happened was she called me after a job interview, and I asked how it went. She said that she thought it went well, but that she sort of blacked out during the interview.

I don't mean blacked out like she went unconscious or passed out or anything, but blacked out in the sense that she didn't really remember too much of what she said or what she talked about.

This is something that a lot of my clients have reported as well, where there's sort of this feeling of disconnection or detachment from yourself. Almost as though you're having an out-of-body experience and you're outside of yourself, observing your thoughts, feelings, and actions from outside your body.

This is something that's really common when people feel particularly anxious or stressed. This also has sort of its counterpart which is derealization, and this is a feeling of detachment from our surrounding environment. Depersonalization is detachment from ourselves, and derealization is detachment from the environment, as though things are sort of surreal or there's this feeling of unreality in some capacity.

Both of these concepts are associated with anxiety because they fall under our body's natural fight or flight response. When we feel stressed or when we feel like there's danger or there's a perceived threat in some way, it triggers this fight or flight response in our brains. Then this sets in motion a series of physiological and psychological changes that are ultimately meant to help us survive.

But, in the modern world, this presents itself as high-stakes situations that cause anxiety, such as a job interview or public speaking or giving a presentation to your colleagues. When this anxiety response is triggered too frequently or too intensely, it can lead to depersonalization or derealization as a coping mechanism to help us disconnect from the stressful situation so that we don't go into panic mode or have a panic attack.

This can feel really distressing and uncomfortable, and it can contribute further to feelings of anxiety and panic. Sometimes people who are experiencing these symptoms almost feel like they're losing touch with reality or going crazy. But it's important to remember that this is your body responding to stress and that it's a really common symptom of anxiety.

So, the idea here is that if you find that you're continually experiencing these things, it's going to be important to address the underlying cause of the anxiety or stress that is triggering the symptoms. Therapy can be a really useful way to do that. You also want to make sure that you're practicing self-care and stress-reducing techniques such as exercising on a regular basis, meditating on a consistent basis, or doing things that are going to be natural stress relievers and anxiety reducers so that your anxiety is not in this pressure cooker and causing your brain to want to detach and disconnect.

I hope that this was an informative video. I think these are things that are super common, but people don't necessarily know what's going on or how to identify it or that it actually has a label and a name. So feel free to ask any questions if you have them or share your own personal experience with depersonalization or derealization.

I know I have personally experienced it multiple times, definitely when public speaking, which I know is one of the biggest fears out there. If you feel like you need more help or assistance, I do offer free 15-minute video consultations to see how I might be able to help you out. So go ahead and visit my website Cathartic Space Counseling dot com to schedule that or you can check me out on social media at Cathartic Space Counseling.

I hope you have a great week. I will see you next time.