anita,

Thank you again for your thoughtful response.  I greatly appreciate your insights.  It is definitely possible that I have adopted that punishment-based philosophy as part of my own.  Also, I didn’t mention this before as we were discussing my relationships with my parents in the past, but I do feel that my relationship with my mother has always been draining on me.  I feel that she has quite a negative outlook on life, can be judgmental and doesn’t seem to care as much about me as I care about her.  However, I decided yesterday to refrain from contacting her to which I expect positive results.  Spending time with her and feeling that I was responsible to uphold the relationship just because she is my mother has been an area of difficulty in my life, but I am learning that I must set boundaries even when the choice is difficult.

How you explained depersonalization and derealization as states of intense anxiety does resemble how I thought of them in my mind.  I know in my heart that it is just intense anxiety, yet they feel so convincingly real and it makes it difficult to distinguish what I know from what I feel, if that makes sense.  The way you explained DP/DR does ease my mind a lot, still.  I just wonder what may be causing me to hurt so much–if it really could have just been that almost-relationship I was in, as that is the only thing that has been very painful as of late.  Also, world events have taken a significant toll on me, but I stopped looking at/caring about the news a few weeks ago.

Your explanation on DP/DR does provide comfort.  As I mentioned earlier, too, it helps me so much to remind myself that “thoughts are merely thoughts and nothing more.”  I have been resting a lot, too, and trying to take it easy.  I find that I have to talk myself through situations where anxiety/nervous thoughts begin to bubble up: “I am safe; nothing is going to hurt me; this is just anxiety talking, I can choose to ignore it,” etc.  And simply confronting the thoughts that frighten me has helped, too: “So what if I have thoughts questioning reality?  I’m not going to let those thoughts stop me from living life and enjoying it.  I am here, I have a life–I have a right to enjoy it.”  Doing these things has helped me a lot.  And remembering that it wasn’t always like this.  Still, I do miss that feeling of being absolutely present, that feeling of freshness and vibrancy.

I would greatly appreciate hearing any more thoughts you might have.

~steph