Dissociative disorders are that category of disorders which are not much prevalent in the population. These disorders break the association of the personality. For example, sense of one's own self is an association within the personality. When this association breaks, Depersonalization takes place. During this disorder, an individual loses his sense of reality. An individual may feel that, he is not himself, and that he is detached from his own body and mind. All the processes of the body and mind are not taking place within him rather one feels that he is the character of any movie or he is living in any dream.
Feelings of Derealization also take place during the course of the depersonalization. During the stage of Derealization, weird changes appear in the perception of the surroundings. People feel changes in the size of the objects and sounds also change their quality. Some changes also appear in the sense of the time. Individual becomes unable to estimate time normally. Now, you can understand that the person, who is unable to see things in their normal sizes, and sounds appear differently than normal, such a person becomes fearful of the whole situation. It becomes difficult for him to adjust with these ill perceptions, and he develops anxiety, depression, stress and dizziness. The common understanding of the sufferer is that he is going to be mad.
Although the situation is problematic for an individual, but the individual does not lose his contact with reality. He is capable of distinguishing between reality and unreality. A person may feel that all the people in his surroundings are animated creatures or characters of a cartoon movie along with his own self. People suffering from the situation do not experience memory lose that is, their memories remain intact. They have full awareness of who they are. Symptoms of the disorder appear suddenly but disappear gradually. Extreme stress can induce feelings or brief period of depersonalization in an individual.
Till now, I have talked about the symptoms which appear during the single episode of the disorder. There are many people who experience these symptoms for once in their lives. It means that they have experienced single episode of the disorder, but they have not developed full disorder. We diagnose a disorder when a person experiences such episodes of detachment again and again. Recurrent experiences of detached feelings can produce distress in the person, and it can disturb his normal functioning. The reason behind this is that, during the disorder, an individual thinks that he is going to be crazy. This feeling prevents him from concentrating at anything which can affect his occupational life eventually.
One should be careful while diagnosing any disorder because different disorders often share some characteristics. For example, these feelings of detachment and unreality can also occur after drug use. So this disorder will be diagnosed only when the person is not under influence of drugs. There may be different causes of the disorder. Recovery of the individual depends on the cause of the disorder. If there is any neurological cause, it may take more time in treatment. If the individual is suffering depersonalization because of any stress situation or childhood trauma, then recovery may be relatively easy through psychotherapies. Usually, some people consider that majority of the population can suffer from mild symptoms of any of dissociative disorder, but it is not the case.
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