Not Really There?!?!

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I've never really talked about this kind of thing before but I figure this would be the right place. So my question is have you ever gone outside or into a store or mall and had this feeling of not being really there. I mean you're there but you're not there and you can't really mentally get yourself there. It's hard to explain. It's like you see the people and everyone going about their business and moving around you but it's like you're watching them in a weird place. I can't explain it any better. I can only hope that this has happened to some of you guys before. It happened to me again today when I went to Wal-Mart. So my question is what is it? and is it apart of asperger's or adhd? or something else possibly. Thanks for reading.

I get this sometimes. When I'm overwhelmed with too much noise or things going on. My body is there, but I am not! Apparently it's called dissociation and can be stopped by "staying in the moment"

I'm not sure if this relates completely, but I'm sometimes somewhere (normally in a public place) and it almost feels like I'm not actually there. That it's like a dream or something. It feels a little bit... blurry and unreal. I got it today when I was walking down the street. I don't really know why it happens.

Yeah, I get that a lot. For me it's almost like an out of body experience. Like I'm sitting on the ceiling and looking down and everybody. Almost like everything's fake. I also get that feeling when I get anxiety attacks except with anxiety.

Yes, I've had this feeling. It happens when I don't really want to be somewhere in the first place. Wishful thinking. It sort of works, but then, you know, I have to get out of there somehow.. don't I.. I guess so

I agree with ECJ; it's probably dissociation.

Everybody dissociates now and again. We call it daydreaming or zoning out. The only time it gets problematic is when it's distressing or when it happens when you don't want it to. I think the "in the moment" thing is a mental trick they teach to people with dissociative disorders and borderline personality--something like that? Anyway, if you take care to notice the world around you, the sensations and the information, then it tends to be easier to ground yourself again.

I got this feeling; of not mentally being there, sporadically as a child. Now I have it all the time. I never feel like I am there in the moment with other people. I think it is dissociation, but it has become a permanent condition for me. I don't know if I can come back from it.

After this one time I did some really strong pot that I wondered if it might have had something else in it I was getting that now and then. I'd just be walking down the street and I'd start feeling like I was really tall or hovering over myself and things just didn't feel right. I don't think that happens any more. I did that 17 years ago. The night it happened I remember standing in my friend's kitchen and felt like my head was almost touching the ceiling.

I get the same feeling whenever I am at a new place, a place I am uncomfortable, or if I am having an anxiety attack or I'm in the verge of a melt down or shut down, or even in one. Sometimes I am neither of those things but do have some sensory overload.
It is very weird, sometimes when I return home from being in a place I felt that way I get this feeling, like that was all a dream, I know it wasn't but it still felt very unreal. The more sensory overloaded, uncomfortable, and verging into a shut down or meltdown and an anxiety attack; the more unrealistic it all feels. I also get that feeling when I am scared.

Yes, every now and then. But I only rarely get total diassociation except under shut-downs. And once, with a sever fever. Which lasted two days and was pretty scary looking back at it..

Sincerely,
Matthew

I used to have this disassociation feeling/phenomenon happen to me regularly during my childhood, teens, and youth but it dwindled in my 20s, and especially after my diagnosis at 27. I still got it occasionally in later years like at work when I was being grilled by a middle manager on something that I felt was an overreaction, and I just spaced out and thought how did I end up here...before snapping back to reality. Also, when I went to far-away and exciting places, one of them being Paris at the age of 26, I had that spaced out feeling that I wasn't really there, it felt so magical, but I think an NT's first visit to Paris might have produced the same sentiments!

It is a dysphoric condition called "derealization" or "depersonalization," (they are not the same but what you have described falls into the description of either).

When I am fairly stressed I do this. I explain it as going on auto pilot.

I've kind of had weird experiences on drugs where it's almost like I see myself for who I really am. I over-analyze myself way more than I usually do and some of it is so true and some of it is stuff that I shouldn't be getting upset over. I also get more emotional and I feel like I've been treating people like crap. In a way it's good because I realize things about myself but on the other hand it's depressing because you put yourself down as well. It's like you peel back your layers of coating and you see yourself for who you really are, raw and real. Then when you sober up, your layers grow back and you don't really think that way anymore. In a way, I think of it as that's how my emotions would work if I were neurotypical. Anyway, that's partially the reason why I don't do drugs anymore.

I didn't know that ... thanks!

wow, it's nice to know it has a name since that means people have actually heard of it. So is depersonalization or derealization something that most people experience then?