What is the difference between “dissociation” and “derealization”?
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Dissociation is you are seeing/feeling/etc. What is happening, but your brain is taking you to an outside perspective so maybe you won’t be really traumatized or effected by the experience. For example, maybe a mass shooting. You remember it happened but you saw it from somewhere else, not a first-person perspective. I think this is one (of several factors) as to why police can get 20 different accounts on what the shooter looked liked.
Derealization is a kind of like a break from reality. Like, your brain can’t accept what is happening therefore it creates a new reality for you. If you are being SAed, your brain could make a new reality where its not happening like this way. Your brain says “I had consented,” even if in reality, you did not. I think this is one of the reasons people have false memories about their past. Your brain doesn’t want you to remember it. However, the body does keep count and one day it will surface. Hopefully in a safe environment like with a therapist.
Depersonalization is when your brain doesn’t accept that you are you. Therefore you feel like you don’t know who you are. Maybe not even recognize your face in the mirror. Not like “oh, I thought I was a white male but I’m a actually a Latina.” You see or feel yourself and it isn’t “you” but it isn’t someone else either. Your brain is telling you that what you think you look like is correct, not what you really look/feel like. This is not to be associated with trans people. They recognize themselves, but do not feel as if their body is correct.
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