I feel unreal all the time

[potor]

I have had anxiety for about a year now and really hasn’t seeked out much help. It clearly got worse over the year and I've gotten to the point to where I feel "unreal" all the time. I wish I could describe it better than that but I feel it has to do with my anxiety. I have the tendency to pay attention to my body too much and I often get worried about dying or getting sick. Sometimes I think I am losing my mind. This "unreal" feeling I believe is a big part of why I feel the way I do.

[joung]

Hey there, I'm new and thought I'd chime in here...

Feeling 'unreal' is a TOTALLY NORMAL ANXIETY SYMPTOM!! Basically I got quite bad anxiety after a particularly terrifying drug experience a while ago... had a bad trip/thought I was going to die, etc. etc. Anyway I experienced the 'unreal' symptoms too, and I know how terrifying it is. Essentially it's caused by your constant introspection, frequently worrying/thinking about yourself makes your mind kind of shut out the world and that's what makes everything feel so 'unreal'... basically when I had it bad I just put up with it & paid no attention to it - the worst thing to do is to get freaked out and try fighting it, that'll only make it persist. I've never been on meds for the condition so I can't say if that'll help or not, but I know that once I found out why it occured I worried about it alot less. Now it seems to happen fairly infrequently for me.

Just try not getting too concerned about it (hard I know), I was terrified of it too, I thought I was going mad or developing schizophrenia or something... urgh. Felt a lot better once I found an explanation though - I've read quite a few books about anxiety and none of them went into detail about WHY this symptom occurs. But if you haven't sought out help yet though I would STRONGLY advise it.

Hope that helps!!

[mablisaki]

Oh man have I been there it sucks but like the other guys said its normal I went through for bout 8months now its pretty much gone don't be afraid fear is the root once u conquer that fear you'll be on your way to a better happier life as for not knowing why it happens basically its your body putting up a defense mechanism its meant to help you not hurt your mind goes into almost like a cacoon to protect you so I know its hard but be happy your body is doing it means you are healthy and not crazy

[chaekyu]

Derealization and de personalisation are part of the minds natural defense mechanism against trauma and shock. It cushions you against reality and makes you feel as if either you or the world around you is not real.

Many sufferers will say that they feel spaced out and disconnected from the world around them, their eyesight is blurred, they feel woozy and giddy, they look at their body and it doesn’t look like it belongs to them or certain aspects of their body looks or feels distorted.
When you are in the middle of a genuine trauma such as a serious accident or a catastrophe, these defenses can save your life or sanity, by protecting you from traumatic events until you are over the worst shock. You often read of people saying ‘it was so unreal’ or ‘I moved as if I was in a dream’, because this is how they feel. However, the actual trauma would be their main focus and so the defense mechanisms would not really impact on their conscious mind in any unusual way.

However when we have anxiety there is not actual traumatic event happening and so the defense mechanisms of de realization and depersonalization are what we focus on and because they make us feel ‘strange’ we can start to be scared and ‘freaked out’ by them.
The more anxious they make us, the more we fixate on them and the more our mind triggers even more of these defense mechanisms to help us.

Of course this means that we end up in a cycle of fixating on the de realization/de personalisation and then producing even more of these defense mechanisms.



I hope this has been of help

Be strong and try and fixate your mind on other things and it will pass like most sensations