**NB:** This article describes my personal experience with depersonalisation disorder (DPD), anxiety, and recreational drug use. It is not intended as medical advice. If you are struggling with your mental health, please seek professional support.
I'll warn you from the outset: this isn't an easy story to tell, and it may not be the easiest story to read.
A good friend recently suggested that writing about my experiences with depersonalisation disorder might be therapeutic. Whether that's true remains to be seen. What I do know is that for more than thirty years I've lived on and off with a condition that most people have never heard of, and which many medical professionals still struggle to recognise.
Depersonalisation.
If you've never heard of it, you're not alone.
The simplest way I can describe it is this: imagine feeling disconnected from yourself, from your thoughts, from your own existence. Imagine looking in the mirror and feeling like the person staring back isn't really you. Imagine feeling detached from reality while knowing perfectly well that reality is still there.
That's the strange contradiction of depersonalisation. You know something is wrong, but you can't explain it to anyone in a way that truly captures the experience.
My first brushes with it happened as a teenager in Manchester. Long before I had a name for it, I would occasionally trigger strange states of awareness while staring into a mirror. I would suddenly lose my sense of self. It frightened me enough that I'd reach for music or a guitar just to feel grounded again.
Years later, after a period of heavy recreational drug use during the Madchester era, those fleeting experiences returned with a vengeance.
What followed would become one of the darkest periods of my life. Hell on earth comes to mind - and then some. Jean-Paul Sartre called is The Filth.
Doctors couldn't explain it. Therapists struggled to understand it. Medication offered little comfort. For months I lived in a state of terror, convinced I was losing my mind.
Eventually I learned that I wasn't going crazy.
I was experiencing depersonalisation disorder.
And while there wasn't a cure, there was a way through.
Today I'm 57 years old.
I've lived through several episodes of depersonalisation. Each time I've been convinced it would never end. Each time, eventually, it did.
The latest chapter arrived after years of upheaval: moving countries, raising children, navigating relationships, building businesses, and trying to carry life's weight without always acknowledging how heavy it had become.
When the symptoms returned, I found myself turning once again to the practices that had helped me before.
Running.
Cold water swimming.
Breathwork.
Meditation.
And above all, Ashtanga Yoga.
Yoga hasn't cured my depersonalisation. I wouldn't make that claim.
What it has done is give me a way to remain present while moving through it. It has given structure to days that felt chaotic. It has given me moments of peace when my mind was anything but peaceful. It has taught me, repeatedly, that difficult experiences are temporary, no matter how permanent they appear at the time.
The drugs didn't work.
They offered escape, but eventually demanded repayment with interest.
Ashtanga offered something else entirely.
Not escape.
Presence.
Not a way out.
A way through.
As George Harrison sang, all things must pass.
And as anyone who has spent time on a yoga mat eventually learns, every breath is a new beginning.
For now, that's enough.
And if you've found your way to this article because you're struggling with depersonalisation yourself, know this:
You're not going crazy.
You're not alone.
And however impossible it feels today, this too shall pass.
