Is my therapist right about handling derealization without exercises?

Need advice🙏🏻

Hello, I would appreciate a lot if you read the whole thing, thank you. I am so pissed. Lately I’ve been experimenting derealization/dissociation, and if you have suffered from it you must know it’s not a pleasant feeling. I told my therapist about this, (who’s not from the NOCD team) and how making grounding exercises for anxiety helped me a little. And since this disconnecting sensation has happened often, I had in mind to try mindfulness on a daily basis, so I could slowly reduce this overwhelming feeling. But my therapist said, that I just had to handle that feeling and that I couldn’t try any exercises to relieve that derealization because it could turn into a compulsion. And this pissed me off so much because I feel it has nothing to do with OCD. Whoever that experiments dissociation/derealization would hate the feeling and would do anything to get that feeling away. So please do u think my therapist is right? What have you guys done to cope with derealization? And is there any tip that could help me to ease the disconnection feeling? Please and thank you.

Username: AmberMasAmberMas

Date posted: 2y ago

The weird thing about derealization is that if you just acknowledge it and move on with your day, it goes away pretty quickly, at least in my experience. I treat it like intrusive thoughts, it only has to have meaning and cause me distress if I let it or if I obsess and do compulsions. I experience derealization pretty regularly, but the more I just acknowledge and move on the less it happens.

Username: dealingwithocddealingwithocd

Date posted: 2y ago

@AmberMas That’s great to know, because now I see that that’s the right way to handle it, thank you so much for sharing that with me!

Username: JLG323JLG323

Date posted: 2y ago

I can't say for sure that I have experienced derealization myself. But if it is apart of an anxiety disorder, I completely agree with your therapist. Even if your therapist was wrong, it seems to me like they are trying to help you. You cant help if you are angry at them for their advice but I would suggest putting yourself in their shoes. If they didn't care about giving you their own best sound advice they would have probably just agreed with you and suggest giving it a shot.

Username: dealingwithocddealingwithocd

Date posted: 2y ago

@JLG323 Seeing other people perspectives helps me a lot, so thank you so much for sharing yours❤️

Username: JLG323JLG323

Date posted: 2y ago

I wish nothing more for my rocd feelings to go away, but doing things to make that happen have only ever made them worse. The only thing that has ever truly helped me was letting them be. I'm not saying that what you are experiencing is OCD, but I know what it's been like for me.

Username: thrutheweatherthrutheweather

Date posted: 2y ago

Your therapist is right. You have to be careful overdoing the grounding techniques… you do have to sit with the feeling and keep going about your day as normal or else you’re telling the anxiety that it should be there and intense when you derealize. Sit with the feeling and acknowledge it. https://youtu.be/WH86RW-KGaY here’s a video on derealization… I’ve experienced it for 12 years now… I don’t panic anymore or as much… I just acknowledge that it’s how I feel and keep going about my day as normal ‘maybe I’m real, maybe I’m not’ ‘this is where I am right now and how I feel, so let’s get on with it’. If you sit around constantly doing grounding techniques Everytime it happens, it can become a compulsion.. trust me. I don’t think you can ‘relieve’ the derealization what you’re relieving is your anxiety!

Username: dealingwithocddealingwithocd

Date posted: 2y ago

@thrutheweather Thank you so much for your help, I thought my therapist was wrong but now I see she wasn’t. I will check that out and try the way you handle it, thank you so much really!

Username: lk95

Date posted: 5y ago

Hello guys, I’m new here. I’ve been suffering mainly with Pure O since I was around 11 (that’s the first instance I think) but over the years have had numerous trips to the doctors to be told I have anxiety/depression. To be fair I didn’t really open up about my intrusive thoughts as I felt embarrassed and put up with it for so long. I don’t doubt I probably suffer with some kind of depression due to the OCD as it’s SO draining. But after going to a couple therapists we think I have depersonalisation/derealization disorder. However, I feel this is caused by OCD as I feel fine in the mornings but I then check in to see how I’m feeling and then that’s it, last all day and has done for what feels like years now. I have a terrible memory and feel drained all day long, no confidence. Does anyone have any advice on how to tackle this/how I can properly do ERP to help? Thanks so much in advance.

"Pure" OCD

Username: jessicabellomy

Date posted: 4y ago

How do you guys deal with depersonalization as a result of existential OCD? I normally go through phases of OCD tendencies, and my last one was centered on ROCD - I guess the distress of that theme has caused me to dissociate whenever the intrusive thoughts get too much. It just hurts when I look at my boyfriend (or even other people around me new) and my brain tells me they’re not real, or I don’t know them at all. I’m not sure how to experience it without simply crying. Any help would be appreciated.

Relationship OCD

Username: Johnny101

Date posted: 2y ago

Anyone ever got stuck in a ocd loop about dissociation? If so, how were you able to pull yourself out of it? I tend to over analyze everything around me all the time to see if I’m back to normal reality but I can’t quite grasp that expectation. It’s been a decent amount of time, maybe little less than a year. The intensity varies a lot but doesn’t quite go away a 100%. Hoping someone has dealt with this and can offer some guidance since it can be quite debilitating, especially when it comes to having responsibilities like school, work, and a girlfriend to care for.

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Is my therapist right about handling derealization without exercises?

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