Why Do I Feel Unreal? Depersonalization vs Derealization

Independent external medical and religious specialist review has not yet been completed.

In Umm Abbas: Bringing Back the Beloved and the Divorced Woman, these concepts can help us read Maryam’s distance from her own experience without giving the reader a diagnosis for her or for themselves. That is the subject of this article: how do we describe the experience accurately, understand that it can have more than one cause, and then return to the human question opened by the novel?

This is general educational material, not a medical diagnosis or an individual religious ruling. Do not stop prescribed treatment on your own.

You may describe the experience by saying, “I feel like I’m living in a dream,” or search for the term “depersonalization.” Start by describing what you feel and when it happens; do not let the label alone become a diagnosis of your condition.

The difference between depersonalization and derealization

The American Psychiatric Association describes depersonalization as a sense of detachment from the self, mind, or body, and derealization as detachment from the surroundings. A person may appear emotionally restrained even while the experience is deeply painful. A calm face alone therefore does not measure the amount of suffering.^[3]

The difference can be illustrated with two examples written for this article: “I know this is my hand, but I do not feel its usual closeness,” and “I know this is my home, but it looks distant, like a scene.” The examples clarify where the sense of strangeness is located; they are not a test that proves or rules out a disorder.

The word “depersonalization” can suggest to some readers that the person’s identity is disappearing, but the term here describes an experience. It is not a judgment that the person has lost their worth or that their existence has become less real. Precise language helps a family listen without loading a medical term with a moral meaning it does not carry.

Does this mean I am losing my mind?

Recognizing that the world has not literally changed is important in describing this disorder. But fear of “losing your mind” should not become a judgment against yourself. Diagnosis draws on the history of symptoms and the overall assessment; it cannot be extracted from one sentence or from an online test.^[1]

This article does not offer a home checklist that settles the distinction from psychosis, nor does it assume that every person experiencing psychosis lacks all insight. What matters is telling the clinician what the person feels, what they believe is happening, and when it began; the task of distinguishing causes belongs to clinical assessment.

Why not reduce the cause to trauma or possession?

Mayo Clinic lists stress, fear, trauma, anxiety, and some substances among associated factors, while also stating that the cause of the disorder is not fully understood.^[2] Association does not mean that every person has the same cause, or that every reader must find a trauma story in order for their suffering to be believed.

MSD also notes that dissociative experiences can occur with other disorders, including some seizures, and that a standalone diagnosis requires alternative explanations to be ruled out. A clinician may request tests depending on the nature of the case; not every experience is a reason to perform every test.^[1]

This is where the error of conflation becomes clear: the name describes something about the experience, but it does not automatically give us its cause. Likewise, a description of estrangement in a religious or folk story does not provide a ready-made cause for every similar case. The existence of several possibilities does not make the evidence for all of them equally strong.

What does an original neurological study say?

In a 2019 study, Heydrich and colleagues examined records from patients with drug-resistant epilepsy who underwent presurgical evaluation at a single center. Nine patients described depersonalization-like experiences and seven described derealization-like experiences; they were compared with 28 patients who had other experiential phenomena.^[4]

The first group was more often associated with frontal epileptic foci, while the second was associated with temporal foci. The study was small and retrospective; it excluded people who had both experiences and did not use a systematic questionnaire when the records were collected. It therefore cannot be generalized to psychological depersonalization/derealization disorder and does not estimate the likelihood of epilepsy for every reader.^[4]

What the study gives us is evidence of a documented neurological pathway for some similar experiences, not a diagnostic test based on description alone. The study did not investigate possession or prove it. The researchers also distinguished the feeling of observing oneself “as if” from outside from an actual change in visual perspective reported in other experiences; these descriptions should not all be collapsed into one category.^[4]

The study helps us formulate a more precise question, but it does not answer an individual case outside its sample.

Maryam on page 184: who speaks, and who owns the interpretation?

After the previous scene, Maryam shifts her gaze to her father and then her mother. The narration describes a feeling that part of her watched what was happening from a distant place. When she starts talking about the voice, her father tells her not to speak, but she continues. In this reading of the page, distance within the experience sits alongside a struggle over the right to describe it.

The concept of depersonalization helps us notice that distance, but it does not settle the meaning of the scene. Maryam is a fictional character, and the narrative builds ambiguity from clues that do not become a real clinical file. We do not say that the novel diagnosed this disorder, nor that similarity of wording proves either a medical or unseen cause.

Her relationship with her father gives the scene another layer: the voice of the person having the experience is delayed behind the voice of someone who wants to stop her from speaking. This is a literary reading of how speech is distributed on the page; it is not a real-world accusation against the father or a clinical rule about every family.

This is how the research connects to the novel through the structure of the scene itself: the body is present, the experience feels distant, and talking about it does not easily reach other people.

The dark margin on page 185: possibilities, not verdicts

The margin opens the interpretation of the episode through functional seizures, then discusses the internal voice through possibilities that include dissociation, hallucinations, and intrusive thoughts. These are not synonyms, and one does not diagnose the presence of another. Most importantly, the margin states that the scene alone is not enough to establish possession.

This is where the literary function of the margin appears: it gives the reader other vocabulary while the narrative keeps its unease. Its role is not to make every possibility true at the same time. Nor do we take the medical language inside the novel as a substitute for an external clinical source; we separate what the manuscript says from what a reference can establish.

In the article’s reading, that separation helps avoid two temptations: using the novel as pathological evidence, or turning a medical concept into a key that explains every detail in it. Ambiguity remains part of the literary construction, while discussion of a real person remains bound by the limits of knowledge and care.

Verification and seeking treatment in religious texts

In Qur’an 17:36, God says: “And do not pursue that of which you have no knowledge.” Al-Sa‘di explains the verse as calling for verification in what a person says and does.^[6] Applying that principle to accusing a person of possession is an ethical inference in this article, not a medical interpretation of the verse or a claim that it speaks about depersonalization.

In the hadith of Usamah ibn Sharik in Sunan Abi Dawud 3855 comes the instruction: “Seek treatment.” The source page displays al-Albani’s grading of the hadith as sahih.^[7] This supports seeking treatment; it does not promise that every proposed treatment is effective, nor does it supply the name of a treatment for this disorder.

Belief in the unseen does not justify jumping from a feeling of estrangement to assigning an unseen cause. Seeking medical assessment does not require a judgment about a person’s faith. The article rests on responsibility in what we claim and on seeking care, while referring detailed discussion of jinn texts and the limits of inference to the separate religious article.

Sheikh Ahmad: care does not wait for certainty about the cause

On page 194, Sheikh Ahmad keeps the doctor involved and rejects seclusion, touching, and money in the situation presented by the narrative. He also asks that Maryam not be turned into a battlefield between her parents. The scene does more than offer a sermon about gentleness; it specifies actions that limit the authority of someone who claims to be helping.

On page 200, he does not answer the mother’s question about possession with a categorical answer. He shifts attention to the girl’s harm and refuses to turn fear into a sale. In this reading, the standard for help changes: does the person first need to be rescued from other people’s interpretation before they need a final name for what happened?

These pages connect with the medical concept in one specific way: the strangeness of an experience and the difficulty of describing it do not remove a person’s right to be heard and treated with dignity. That is a literary and ethical conclusion drawn from the scenes, not proof that a healing ritual works or an endorsement of any real practitioner.

Is there help? What do we know about treatment?

Mayo Clinic presents talk therapy as the main treatment and explains that medications may be used for symptoms or accompanying conditions, while no medication has been proven effective for treating the disorder itself. It also advises following the treatment plan and staying connected to supportive people.^[10]

In a preliminary randomized trial published by Hunter and colleagues on 10 December 2025 and appearing in the 2026 volume, 30 participants were assigned to cognitive behavioral therapy adapted for the disorder or to treatment as usual. Only 19 completed the final assessment, about 63 percent. There was an early signal of greater improvement in the therapy group, but the purpose of the study was to assess the feasibility of a larger trial, and no inferential test established therapeutic superiority.^[5]

We therefore do not promise the reader a guaranteed cure or a fixed number of sessions. The study adds a promising research path with clear limits; it is not permission to stop treatment or choose medication without a clinician.

When should you seek help?

Seek an assessment if the feeling recurs, distresses you, or disrupts your relationships, work, or daily life.^[2] You can prepare notes about when the symptoms occur, what makes them better or worse, medications and substances being used, and questions you want to ask the clinician.^[10]

If sudden confusion occurs, or the person no longer knows where they are, seek urgent medical help; acute confusion has multiple causes and should not be treated as if it were merely derealization.^[9] If there are suicidal thoughts, seek urgent support, and if there is immediate danger, contact local emergency services.^[8] The UK phone numbers listed in the sources apply to UK services and should not be generalized to other countries.

Frequently asked questions

Does feeling estranged mean there is another person inside my body? This description alone does not establish that idea. We distinguish the person’s feeling from the interpretation attached to it, and the cause requires assessment.

Is depersonalization the same as multiple personalities or memory loss? The American Psychiatric Association classifies these as distinct disorders within the field of dissociation; their names should not be used interchangeably.^[3]

Can reading the novel help diagnose my experience? It can help us think about fear and how a frightened person is treated, but it does not replace a medical interview.

For further reading: the Umm Abbas book page, memory gaps, hearing voices, and jinn and demons in religious texts. Each article addresses a defined question and states its limits.

Sources and reading locations

Umm Abbas: Bringing Back the Beloved and the Divorced Woman

A forthcoming psychological-horror novel by Ahmed Alhafiz. Explore its world and status, then read the related research files according to the question that interests you.

Explore the novelRead about jinn and the limits of inference