i keep bringing up feeling derealized to my therapist and he never expands on it no matter how much i bring it up. it’s really affecting me and he keeps doing it

So understanding what is happening in your brain is very important. When you feel detached from the real world it’s because your brain is trying to protect you from an impending doom. I know it sounds counter productive “like okay, I don’t like not feeling like I’m here, so why is my brain doing this to me if it’s trying to protect me?” The Mind is the most powerful tool in your arsenal, however just like everything else it can make mistakes. This happens to be one of them lol. So when you first start to feeling anxious your brain is releasing Cortisol into your body, everywhere. Cortisol is the chemical that is responsible for making you feel “on-edge” like something bad is about to happen. So since your feeling anxious your mind release this chemical in order to keep you hyper aware and constantly scanning everything both internal and external for any threats (Impending Doom). So once you start feeling physical symptoms of anxiety this when your brain will send Adrenaline to the parts you feel the symptoms for example: a tight chest, stomach problems, numbness, whatever it may be. Now when you feel detached from reality it’s because two reasons: one a lot of the adrenaline is being sent to the lower part of your body, especially your legs. To make you feel like you have to run away from said danger and now your brains isn’t really paying attention to your optical nerves, now it’s just focusing on, okay there is danger we need to run away! So that’s why you feel like hazy and dreamy almost because your brain is sending a ridiculous amount of adrenaline to wherever it feels danger. The second reason is because when your in an anxious state you breathing patterns change without you even noticing. So your brain is pumping a lot or a very little amount of oxygen to the brain which than makes you feel hazy or dreamy again. So my best advice is when you feel anxious “tell yourself okay my mind is relasing cortisol to my body right now.” Than tell yourself “okay I know your trying to protect me but look I’m fine there is no danger.” Really sit with the anxiety and ride it out. Try not to panic or worry about it, just know anxiety cannot kill you or hurt you in anyway. Once you start to feel an anxious symptom, tell yourself “okay you just released adrenaline to my heart, or stomach or whatever.” Than again sit there and tolerate it. Try not to scan both interanllay or externally for danger. Your not in any danger, your brain is just doing it’s job. Also remember it will pass, why? Because your body only has a finite amount of cortisol and adrenaline it can produce in a certain time period. So it won’t last forever. Just sit with the nasty feeling and retrain your brain to be like “okay, we’re not getting the reaction we’re use too so there must be nothing wrong.” Your brain will learn. Hope this helps.

No problem like I said the best advice I can give you is to literally sit there and take the uncomfortable feeling it gives you. I know trust me I hate it! I still get it from time to time. However, I just sit there and let it be there until it’s ready to go away. I don’t try and solve why I’m feeling like this or I have to do something right now to make it go away. Nope I just sit there and eventually it goes away. You have to re train your brain and yourself not to fear it. The more you fear the more your brain is gunna “protect” you lol

i’m so sorry. maybe look into a new therapist? you need someone that will talk about the stuff you need to. sending you love

So I can give you some advice in DP/DR as I have been dealing with it for 6 years now. I’ve learned to manage it. If you care too, message me on here