Elisabeth’s Story: The Great Unreality
“The feeling of unreality has really asserted itself, the nasty f***ing thing. It is really interfering. I am so me, so aware I am me, that I won’t let others exist. I know they do exist. But I don’t feel their existence,their presence. I really don’t feel I exist…I also feel I’m the only person with something inside me, the others are just facades.” (1971, aged 16).
I recently received a master’s degree for my exploration of depersonalisation using my adolescent journals (quoted above). Not knowing what afflicted me, I called it the Great Unreality – great because of its impact, making the world look meaningless, and myself feel false. Fast-forward five decades: I retrospectively self-diagnosed depersonalisation using the Cambridge Depersonalisation Scale. Unbeknownst to me, I had experienced classic symptoms from the age of ten.
However, being undiagnosed did not impede my recovery. I realised I had taken steps (albeit imperfect ones) to address the alienation. For instance, instead of going to university, something I have regretted, I spent three years as a live-in voluntary co-worker in a therapeutic community. Inspired by R.D.Laing, the community was a place where mental illness could be explored in contrast to the 1970s medical model which suppressed symptoms with sedation and surgery.
The community was experimental and flawed. However, I learned a new language for thoughts and feelings. I came to see the Great Unreality, not as a visitation, but a psychological defence originating in early childhood. The unreality abated and ceased to dominate my journals. I was not suddenly cured. However, the knowledge I gained set me on a lifelong path of self-inquiry.
The unreality has become a barometer of my internal weather: I measure my wellbeing by how real I feel. I note how things which help me feel more present (exercise, eating for health, etc) are recommended for trauma recovery. Trauma means many things. In my dissertation, I adopted the idea of “little trauma”. For instance, when the caregiver is not attuned, the child’s ability to develop emotional attachment is disrupted leading to dissociation and a loss of self-regulation, according to trauma experts. The good news is self-regulation can be learned so we may better understand and manage our own responses.
In my journals, I noticed how I berated myself for feeling cut-off. We beat-up ourselves for having a disorder when really we need self-compassion, the kind of care we would give a friend. I know it is not easy. There is no quick fix. Recovery from depersonalisation is a daily practice. But an interesting one. It presents opportunities to become more aligned with the self.
It was mind blowing contacting Unreal and, for the first time, meeting others with the same condition. I was privileged to be interviewed for the charity’s forthcoming film project on depersonalisation-derealisation about how I had managed my own experience, undiagnosed and pre-internet. In the interview, Joe Perkins asked me, “If you had the choice, would you choose to have lived your life without the disorder?”. I answered, “No!”. Depersonalisation, and my efforts to address it, have made me who I am.
Image: © Elisabeth Winkler, 1970