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Summary
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A 20-year-old reports brief episodes in which their sense of self seems to fade and then return. They worry that the symptoms may be untreatable or disrupt their future.
The response emphasizes seeking a doctor's referral for psychological or psychiatric evaluation rather than drawing conclusions from the limited description.
It lists trauma-related depersonalization, anxiety, and other mental-health conditions as possibilities, while explicitly acknowledging that more information is needed.
The answer stresses that professional assessment can clarify appropriate treatment.
Question
Reader · Identity withheldHello doctor,
\nI am a 20-year-old male. Since I was 16, I have started experiencing something that I find hard to describe. It feels like I am losing myself, or as if my personality fades and then comes back.
\nThese episodes last around 30 seconds, and then everything returns to normal. I am very worried that this condition cannot be treated or that it may affect my life.
\nRegards,
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Answer
Allan Schwartz, Ph.D.First, let me assure you that you can be treated for the symptoms that are affecting you and causing you so much worry. You need to speak to your doctor and be referred a psychiatrist for evaluation and medication or to a psychologist for evaluation, diagnosis and psychotherapy. If you need medication, your psychologist can refer you for medication.
\nThe question is what is happening to you? We can speculate about a number of possibilities but, please remember, we do not have a lot of information about you.
\nOne possibility is that you are experiencing symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The sense of losing you self or of fading could be a form of Depersonalization that can happen to people when they have been through a terrible trauma. As a twenty year old perhaps you were in Iraq. If not, you may have been in a traffic accident, the victim of a crime or you experienced severe traumas while you were growing up and are now having these symptoms.
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There are also responses to trauma that are known as referred Fugue States, Amnesia, Depersonalization and Multiple Personality Disorder. These are problems are the result of suffering terrible and overwhelming traumas during childhood. Sexual molestation, massive child abuse, child neglect and other such types of disasters that were ongoing during childhood can create the types of disorder mentioned above.
\nYet another possibility is that you are beginning to experience the onset of some type of psychotic disorder. I do not know if you are experiencing auditory and visual hallucinations but, if you are, then you could have some type of psychosis. Even some forms of psychosis can be responses to extreme stress and trauma.
\nI will mention one more possibility and that is that you could be experiencing severe anxiety and panic attacks.
\nWhatever is going on for you I want to repeat and reassure you that help is fully available and, with that help, you can overcome these symptoms. This is why there is psychogical testing and evaluation and this is why there are all types of wonderful medications.
\nDo not wait, go and get help now and best of luck.
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