https://mdsc.ca/forum/ vBulletin Forums en Wed, 13 May 2026 03:06:08 GMT vBulletin 60 images/misc/rss.png https://mdsc.ca/forum/ https://mdsc.ca/forum/forum/mood-disorders/depression/54512-disassociation-depersonalization-derealization%E2%80%A6 Sat, 09 May 2026 06:27:33 GMT
After a long hiatus I’m checking in again. Glad to see this forum’s still active. The few ‘hands on’ resources here and elsewhere in Canada are fewer and harder to access. There’s probably a correlation between COVID and trauma induced depression, anxiety, alienation and the like, but it’s just a vague feeling on my part. I’ve been in avoidance mode since the pandemic and some of it is coming back to bite me and many of my friends.

Haven’t seen a post in this forum on this topic more recent than 2020 and it would be incredibly helpful to get some insight from anyone who’s been there. Describing disassociation is challenging at best so I won’t try to. I’m sure that anyone who chooses to read and/or respond already has some idea of what these terms are. For me they are interchangeable; I’m not strong enough to figure out the difference.

Since I first started here (2018) I have managed to get considerable relief from the CPT variant of cognitive behavioural therapy. Not much difference in the two, I guess, but cognitive processing therapy seems to have given me my best tools, thanks to a truly gifted therapist and the financial support of a very old, very dear friend.

Just last week I travelled back to my ‘second home’ to perform during a celebration of sorts in the venue that I appeared at for 20 years. I succeeded in completing the three shows but at great cost. Within a few hours I had so many images of old friends destroyed and the forgotten nature of the lower tiers of the entertainment industry shoved in my face so profoundly that my stress levels climbed to barely manageable heights. The trip was in many ways a mistake which resulted in a return home Tuesday past to nervous collapse complete with periods of disassociation/depersonalization/derealization (DDD for short).

So far I have managed to throw down with all of it:

1) deep breathing: my first line of defence,
2) mindfulness: in concert with breathing exercises usually, as I find undirected mindful states difficult to achieve
3) the three column method of situation/feeling/thought: after processing, the best self response I’ve yet run into is “will it stand up in court” (my therapist’s advice)
4) just this evening I found relief in mindfully doing the dishes. It was surprisingly effective.

I don’t believe that this state of mind is over. It will come and go as it always does. Although I did make a few bad judgement calls in the last 2 or 3 years none have been extreme. I have some tough stuff ahead, though. This probably will not be looked back on as a good year but I hope to remember some of the good times. It’s been suggested that, despite a clear MRI, I have both retrograde and anterograde amnesia so memory is not my strength.

If this rings with you in any way, please comment. If you have online resources (freebie stuff) please post links here! I’m sure there are plenty of us could be happy to learn these things.

good night]]> Depression Paul57 https://mdsc.ca/forum/forum/mood-disorders/depression/54512-disassociation-depersonalization-derealization%E2%80%A6