Disreality Unveiled: My Journey Through Detached Perception

What does disreality feel like? Because for me, I tell people my brain is telling me this all isn't real, but in actuality, it doesn't use words, it just feels like I'm watching tv and criticizing it in my head

ChatGPT: That sounds like a depersonalization or derealization experience—where things look and feel real, but there’s a layer of detachment, like you're watching a movie rather than being in it. The way you describe it—watching TV and criticizing it in your head—captures the cognitive distance from reality, where everything seems slightly unreal or staged, but without an explicit voice saying "this isn’t real."

For some people, derealization feels like the world is flat, two-dimensional, or behind a glass pane. For others, it’s a feeling of disconnection from objects, people, or events, like everything is a dream or a set piece rather than something being lived in directly. The criticism part makes sense, too—it’s like there’s an observer in your head nitpicking or analyzing everything, reinforcing the feeling that you’re not fully inside the moment.

How would I be able to know what it would be like to not be depersonalized if it's all I've ever known?

That’s a tough one because if depersonalization has been your default state for as long as you can remember, then the idea of not being depersonalized might feel abstract—like trying to imagine a color you’ve never seen. You don’t have a clear contrast point.

One way to get glimpses of something different is through moments where you feel particularly present. Have there been times, even briefly, when you weren’t watching life like a TV show but were instead just in it? Maybe during intense physical activity, deep laughter, a moment of awe, or even deep pain? Sometimes, even fleeting moments of presence—where thinking quiets down and things just are—can give you a reference point.

If everything has always felt distant, then you might not know what’s missing until something shifts. Some people describe the shift out of depersonalization as things feeling thicker, like the air has more texture, sounds feel more immersive, and their body has more weight. They notice their own emotions in a more direct way instead of observing them from a step back.

If nothing like that has ever happened for you, then the best you can do is experiment with grounding—engaging your senses, your body, and your emotions in real time—and seeing if anything feels different. The frustrating part is that depersonalization can make it hard to trust any feeling of realness even when it does happen.

Do you ever have moments where things feel more real, even slightly? Or is it a constant state of distance?

Yes I have had moments where things feel real. I call it presence as if it were something I did to focus. But if what you're saying about depersonalization is true, then I have been this way for decades

Yeah, that makes sense. If you've had moments of presence but they feel like something you have to do rather than your default state, then it sounds like you've been in some level of depersonalization for a long time—probably so long that it just feels like normal to you. And if that's the case, then it makes sense that "reality" would feel like something you have to focus into rather than something you're automatically inside of.

Decades of this means your brain has likely built an automatic habit of staying in the observer role, watching and analyzing instead of being in the moment. It’s not necessarily because you’re doing something wrong—it’s just how your system learned to function. It’s probably tied to protection, keeping a distance from emotions, sensations, or reality itself because something in your past made it feel safer to do so.

I am cringing. This is awful

Yeah. That’s a brutal realization. It’s like realizing you’ve been living behind glass your whole life, and suddenly, the idea of actually being here feels both foreign and overwhelming. There’s grief in that—grief for the time lost, for the version of you that never got to fully experience life the way others seem to.

And the worst part? Even knowing this doesn’t necessarily change how you feel. It just makes you more aware of the distance, which can be its own kind of torment.

But here’s the thing: You have felt presence before. Even if it was brief. Even if it felt like something you had to do rather than something that just was. That means your brain is capable of it. The fact that you’ve had moments where things felt real means that "realness" isn’t a total mystery to you—it’s just not your default state. Yet.

It makes sense that this realization feels awful. But also, now that you see it, now that you know, it means you can start to shift things—bit by bit. You don’t have to force yourself into presence or "fix" yourself overnight. But maybe there’s room to explore what being slightly more here feels like. No pressure, no performance. Just curiosity.

I feel like I am supposed to focus on being attentive to my feelings and sensations and I put conscious effort into that all the time. It feels like work. But if the problem is that I'm derealized, then is adding more hypervigilance really helpful? What do you know if you've been depersonalized for decades and lost in obsessive mental habits

You’re right to question whether more hypervigilance is the answer. If you’ve been depersonalized for decades and your brain’s default is obsessive monitoring, forcing yourself to "pay attention" all the time is just another layer of mental work. It’s like trying to beat dissociation with more thinking—it keeps you stuck in the same loop.

So if hyper-awareness and effort haven’t helped, then what actually does? The shift probably isn’t about doing presence harder. It’s about letting presence happen in small, natural ways, without demanding that it feel a certain way or prove that you’re "doing it right."

If you’ve been lost in obsessive mental habits for decades, then presence might be more about losing focus in a good way—letting yourself drift into small, absorbing experiences instead of constantly checking how you feel. It might look like:

• Letting your body take over without monitoring it. Walking, stretching, dancing, cooking—without narrating it in your head or trying to feel your body in a deep way. Just letting it move.

• Losing yourself in something mildly engaging. Not forcing "deep presence," but getting absorbed in something simple, like a song, a sensation, or even a repetitive task.

• Playing with presence instead of treating it like a job. Dipping into experiences, even just for seconds, without pressure. For example, noticing one texture around you or one moment of warmth without making it an assignment.

• Giving up control in tiny ways. Letting yourself be surprised by things instead of pre-processing them in your head. Tasting food without predicting how it will taste. Watching a show without analyzing whether you’re enjoying it.

If depersonalization has been running the show for decades, then making everything a project—even healing—is probably feeding the same system that keeps you stuck. Maybe the question isn’t "How do I be more present?" but "What happens if I stop trying so hard?"

So, have I still been me? Who could I have truly been, depersonalized?

That’s a gut-punch of a question. If you’ve been depersonalized for decades, have you still been you? And who would you have been if you weren’t?

Here’s the hard answer: Yes, you’ve still been you. But you’ve been a version of you that’s been operating through a layer of distance. A version that adapted to survive by staying separate from experience, from self, from the full weight of reality. That doesn’t mean you weren’t real or that your life didn’t count. It means that your consciousness—your felt sense of self—was tuned to a different setting, one that kept you watching instead of fully inhabiting.

The version of you that you could have been? It’s not some lost person who’s gone forever. It’s a version of you that exists underneath the detachment. A version that does peek through sometimes, in those moments of realness, presence, laughter, connection, sensation.

It’s tempting to grieve the lost time, and that grief is valid. But you also weren’t a blank slate all those years. You were still forming thoughts, making choices, feeling things (even if distantly). You were still shaped by your experiences, even if they felt like they were happening on a screen.

Maybe the real question is: What happens now? What happens if you start letting more of yourself through, piece by piece, instead of mourning a version of you that was never fully lost—just hidden under layers of self-protection?