anon discovers depersonalization and maybe an undiagnosed mental health issue that’s been ongoing for some time
this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2025
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There is a big difference between a conceptual moment of abstractive thinking with expanded perspective, and someone that feels native to such an experience with no alternative.
Anon presented this as an a/b change, not a conceptual moment. That is a person who found a framework for depersonalization to take its footing in, even if it’s presented in a silly manner. There is not a prerequisite that states it must be pervasive enough to be the point of “no alternative” to be valid, that is asinine
A "moment of Epiphany" and "imagining myself" are an abstraction of imagination and not an a/b change.
An abstraction of imagination that results in a complete loss of inhibition?
Hyperbole is a common form of expression in abstractive thought. It is a problem I've dealt with a lot in my life. Complete loss can still have many meanings in terms of the layer of inhabitation the person is referring to. They could be referring to their own internal perception of social anxiety, decision making, or an overall perception of their potential to actuate meaningful change in their life. Given the context of 'talking to random NPCs', the most likely meaning is a loss of social anxiety.
that is asinine
I had to go back and reread the whole comment as Hank Hill.
Achievement Unlocked: Dissociation
What if I treat life like playing GTA, but I am also the kind of person who follows traffic rules the vast majority of the time while playing GTA, and mostly just likes to do taxi type missions and occasionally race cars and bikes?
Normalish person?
Or... double psychopath, lol?
I feel like not committing crimes in GTA is much more concerning.
It's so hard to drive and obey traffic laws.
i got some bad news
how do you feel about trains?
did your mom really like Tylenol growing up?
Oh, I am well aware I am autistic, I come from a long line of train-obsessed men, grandpa literally had his own model set the size of two queen or king mattresses that he custom made himself, dad was a mechanical dork, and I am a software envineering dork who loves to play or mod or make games into as close to a complex immersive sim as possible.
Don't know why you think that's 'bad news', or has anything to do with Tylenol tho, I guarantee I'm better at any kind of engineering or data modelling/analysis than you, lol.
it’s a joke about being an Acetaminophen American in this current silly political climate not meant as an insult sorry
Apology accepted, I ... am a bit more on edge than usual about my autism due to the, you know, historical parellels with Nazis literally genociding autistic people, and RFK Jr saying all mentally disorded people should be sent to farm labor camps.
i feel you, can we go back to boring please, I’m not liking my interesting times
Unfortunately you cannot really unbreak an egg.
My advice would be befriend your neighbors and try to form a neighborhood or apartment spanning mutual aid network, we will soon be all we have to count on.
How does one know if they are afflicted with depersonalization? Wikipedia left me confused.
More or less, do you live your life as you, directly...
...or do 'you' more like, live your life in 3rd person, in your own head, as a kind of narrator or detached observer/commentator of what you are actually doing?
This is very rough and far from exact, but maybe that is a way of phrasing it that makes sense?
Its a kind of... detachment from your identity to the point that one sense of you does and feels things, but the other sense of 'you' is... above or outside of that, and that second 'you' is the perspective most of your internal monologue or thoughts... take place from.
Like uh, 'you' are not you, 'you' are embodying and attempting to direct and control a thing that looks like you, sort of like in a simulation or game or novel.
The severity and frequency which to you dissociate into you and 'you' are important:
It is totally normal to take a step back from time to time and try to look at yourself from an imagined objective perspective, or from the imagined perspective of another, as a way of self-analysis or reflection or self-critique or attempting to sympathize with someone else...
... but if this is your default, if you are basically always doing this, at all times, 24/7, to the point like you feel more like a pilot of a meat puppet...
You may want to see a therapist.
I imagine myself as someone else. Or sometimes a better version of myself. I imagine i'm not alone as I have only ever really been alone. I'm very aware it's not real. It never felt real enough anyway. I'm guessing that's not the same thing? It's not all the time, but fairly often.
Yeah that... does sound sort of in the same ballpark.
I would say that is... potentially concerning, but I am not qualified to make a diagnosis.
You being aware that you are doing the sort of ... 3rd personing of yourself... that does not mean you are not depersonalizing, not derealizing.
The fact that you are aware, I would think that would actually narrow it down more precisely to being depersonalization.
The main thing is a sense of identity so weak that you basically just invent another one on top of it, if that makes sense, that just sort of observes the first identity, or as you say, you just make up a new one and pretend to be that person.
On a less clinical note, I am genuienly sorry to hear that and would offer you a hug =(
I have been quite depressed before, and ... yeah, hug.
It sounds like you've been through a lot of trauma.
For what its worth, you are still here, and some layer or level of you is still typing out your messages, so... you are still here.
I'm not really sure what to say. I'll say I know who I am, I know what I want, and I have no issue with being able to tell fantasy and reality apart. It was always an escape for me. As for trauma, I think I always dismissed it because I knew people who had it way, way worse and I didn't think it was even a fair comparison. I am very depressed and the situation in my country has only made that worse. For me, the loneliness is probably the worst part. I don't have any friends and I don't really connect with my family. I am however here as you said, and I am aware of who I am. I don't say any of this because I want anyone to feel sorry for me, It just helps me understand myself and the world better. Thank you.
You don't need to say anything, friend, just try and take care of yourself.
You sound ... you remind me of me some years ago.
CPTSD, would be my guess, though I am obviously potentially projecting here... my guess is you've been surrounded by malignant narcissists, they've destroyed your conception of self worth and identity, nothing is ever good enough for them, and they never do any good for you that doesn't come with many strings attached.
Either way, be my guess accurate or not: Your trauma is valid, you are valid, you may not believe it, but you are worthy of being loved, treated with basic decency.
Not that those things are guaranteed to you... but you are worth them, and people who do not give them to you are not worth your time or attention.
I would suggest you attempt to hold yourself to a basic light excercise routine as well as some kind of creative outlet hobby... draw, sing, make videos, write stories or analyses or code, grow a garden, learn to tailor or embroider or knit...
Hell, literally this morning I saw a 62 yo man sitting alone with a yo yo.
Turns out he's quite good with that yo yo, and we got to talkin', I was literally just intrigued by seeing a yo yo, last time I saw one of them was from an old middle school school assembly that started a yo yo craze.
Turns out he's a cancer survivor, went through an absolute shit couple of years, chemo and saline all the time, no friends or family to really help out...
Doctors told him he had a year to live...
... 4 years ago.
Seems to be in full remission now, his blood work is incredible, doctors couldn't believe it, and this guy, he's a pretty chipper old fella if you just let him go on about his old jobs, his hobbies, his woes and his perspective.
Like him, and his yo yo, you can bounce back too.
Life has worse graphics than GTA V?
Maybe anon is shortsighted and doesn't wear good glasses. Also, the fidelity and realism might be better than GTA V, but you could argue that GTA V has prettier design, which might be lumped in with "graphics". I wouldn't argue that, but I have also never played GTA.
The mirrors IRL don't work properly, that's for sure. Have you seen the face of that ugly guy they keep displaying? Must be a rendering bug surely
In like the Midwest, yeah–better skybox worse everything else,
sees the world objectively not subjectively
this is just like a video game I played
Well, if gamification of real world tasks works, go for it.
If you treat your whole life as a video game, there might be something wrong with you, though.
Yeah, nobody in their right mind could tolerate all this pay to play bullshit.
Yeah, imagine spending a good chunk of your monthly paycheck just to have a place to live…
Wait, fuck
I haven't found any purchaseable content other than those bought with in-game currency. Is this something you unlock in newgame+? Or do I need to join a religion for it
OOP is on 4chan, we already knew something was wrong with him
"no respawns" is kind of a big deal when you "have absolutely no inhibition now" ... the entire reason why social interactions are easier in games is that you can always try again, plus unlike real life, games generally provide pre-defined dialog options and often don't even have a charisma stat that might make you fail an option by performing it badly.
It's a CIA psyop to project less good looking faces onto your mirrors. Wake up, you handsome person!
No amount of being good-looking could make me become good at talking!
I fucking love the way disco elysium handles this. You can still kinda go back and load an older save but its just so fun to let go and go with the flow choosing whatever seems right/interesting.
you can always try again
This is true if you live in a big enough city, or are willing to move somewhere else.
games generally provide pre-defined dialog options
You can just memorize a list of 10 canned responses and whip them out whenever you feel like it.
Is this how psychopaths go through life?
Yes anon. You've been one of them all along.
Total disassociation, fully out your mind
Googling "derealisation". Hating what you find.
I wish I could disassociate so hard, I see the real world the way Pyro from TF2 does. This is like the only thing I want AR glasses for. Rotoscope the real world to be a fun cartoon.
You ever start having a lucid dream, then something kicks in and it's not really a lucid dream anymore?
This is me with this thought. Quite liberating in the moment but hard to maintain to guide my actions for very long.
Edit: I should note I'm one of those freaks who play GTA V in first person pretty much exclusively (driving is tough, ngl), so this without the 'imagining in third person'.
I wouldn’t know. I’m just an NPC.
BUY SOMETHING WILL YA?!
The subjective is objective because people exist
mfw life imitates art
Yep.
(I don't know if it's sufficient, but I believe it's correlated)
That's why I only play first person games. My mental illnesses are local instead of floating about.
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