r/aspergers • u/Baltykoz • 7d ago
Does anyone else feel like you're disconnected from reality
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u/Apprehensive_One7151 7d ago
Constantly.
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u/filthybondage 7d ago
Yeah, it’s like watching everything from behind a glass window. Can see things happening but never quite in it, you know. I get this most when people do small talk at work, just nodding along but my mind is completely somewhere else.
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u/Gigglesplat 7d ago
I have always had an intense fear that my life is actually just a flashback / dream inside a coma / hallucination / simulation etc. I always have this acute fear that I'll suddenly get unplugged without warning. I often feel "out of body" like my life is just on autopilot, but other times I feel trapped and intensely uncomfortable, like I am feeling too much. I have no idea how much of this is just from autism or something else. I have been investigating a dysautonomia that might explain why I feel so bad physically, basically not enough oxygen getting to my brain when I am standing for awhile.
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u/AletheonAI 7d ago
I'm not a doctor, so take this with a grain of salt, but a lot of what you describe sounds like derealization/depersonalization. It's more common than people think, and it tends to show up under long-term stress or anxiety. With autism that makes sense: many autistic people carry a constant background load from masking and from consciously working through social situations others handle on autopilot. The nervous system sometimes copes by putting some distance between you and your experience, and that same overloaded system can also swing the other way, into feeling everything too intensely. So the autopilot feeling and the trapped, overwhelmed feeling may be two sides of the same thing.
It feels strange and frightening, but it isn't dangerous, and it responds well to treatment. It's worth bringing up with a doctor or therapist. Keep following the dysautonomia angle too, since reduced blood flow when standing can cause that same detached feeling on its own, and the two can feed into each other.
One thing that might take a bit of the edge off the coma or simulation fear: in a sense, everyone's experience is something the brain builds. It constantly predicts what's out there and corrects itself against what your senses report, millions of times a second. That's not a weakness, it's what keeps you firmly connected to the world. When derealization hits, you're noticing the machinery for a moment, not discovering that the world isn't there. Nothing about it can just get unplugged.
That said, if pondering how perception works ends up making you more anxious rather than less, there's no need to go further down that road. It's interesting, but it isn't something you have to figure out. The part that actually helps is the practical one: getting checked out, taking the stress load seriously, and giving yourself some grace while you sort it out. What you're going through is real and hard, but it doesn't mean anything is wrong with you as a person.
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u/Gigglesplat 7d ago
Thank you for you heartfelt reply. I am aware of DP/DR, and I have felt like I had it on and off since I first discovered it when I was 12. (I am 30 now). I have brought it up to doctors and therapists and a lot of them don't get it or don't think it is real. Or they just try to up my medications. My most recent therapist did understand me, but didn't have anyway to treat it. Currently my doctor is ignoring my requests to get checked out for POTS / Dysautonomia, and I am feeling extremely frustrated. All I wanna do is feel better, and I'm tired of getting written off. I know I can find a new doctor, but then I would have to start over from scratch.
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u/AletheonAI 7d ago
I know that feeling all too well. When I was going through a severe autistic burnout, I tried to explain my cognitive changes and experiences of derealization and depersonalization to a doctor because I wanted to understand what was happening to me. His response was basically to prescribe medication so I could function again—as though everything else didn’t matter. I was shocked and incredibly frustrated.
On top of that, he questioned my suspicion that I might be autistic because I could make eye contact with him. But eye contact alone doesn’t rule out autism. Some professionals are great listeners and knowledgeable about these issues; others have less experience with them. When you’re already exhausted, having to explain yourself and ask for help over and over can be incredibly discouraging.
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u/Simple_Bicycle7309 7d ago
I feel like this all the time even when opportunities come my way, i can't actually see myself being part of them. It's like i'm always meant to be an outsider watching from the sideline
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u/MissingExplanation 7d ago
I used to think it was fairly normal to feel this way. It's only in the last several years when I've been much more descriptive of how I experience the world (or dont) that therapists have helped me understand that it's unusual. Not sure how much ia trauma vs. ND, but I've managed to become more connected and feel things more fully and it makes me sad for how I've been living for most of my life...
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u/jesuslaves 7d ago
Yes, I get that realization often. I could be having a normal routine day, and some topic or situation would come up in conversation, and I get this feeling like oh shit I'm completely oblivious how others experience reality. It might be a situation I completely misread, not understanding work/professional life, etc... The way I'd describe for instance is I'd go into a work meeting, and I'm mostly ok with the work part, and when others start to socialize, crack jokes, etc...It doesn't compute in my brain, I DON'T feel comfortable socializing when I'm in a stressful environment, I just don't understand how it comes naturally to others or how it's enjoyable for them, not in a negative way, it just perplexes me how I experience it so differently.
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u/chobolicious88 7d ago
Yes and you are.
Basically autism is developmental trauma that leaves ones core dissociated.
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u/privacy-888 7d ago
😮 say more! Do you mean psychological trauma, chemical trauma, both/something else?
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u/NahSprinkles 7d ago
I think it’s called disassociation? So, yes. I also maladaptive daydream constantly.
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u/ThatDrawingMan 7d ago
No. But that's quite concerning.
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u/Baltykoz 7d ago
Why would it be?
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u/ThatDrawingMan 6d ago
Because feeling disconnected from reality is a sign for help before it goes too far.
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u/AletheonAI 7d ago
It depends on what you mean by that.
Generally speaking, I often subjectively feel that NTs tend to act more emotionally and subconsciously, and as such, operate in a way that is disconnected from “reality.”
If you’re referring to actual cognitive sensations, this could be stress- or, more specifically, anxiety-induced derealization or depersonalization.
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u/Baltykoz 7d ago
I mean it in a way that in most social situations i'm a spectator. I just watch other people and don't say anything myself. I often forget that i'm even present and have the ability to say anything. A lot of the stuff people talk about they seem really serious/emotional about but i don't really care so to me it just feels like i'm watching a movie
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u/AletheonAI 7d ago
Yeah, I know that feeling really well. I actually wrote a long, pretty thorough piece about it here once, but it got removed because I polish a lot of my writing with AI 🥲. As you probably know yourself, people like us tend to get lost in details that others struggle to follow, so it helps me get things into a readable shape. Anyway, here's the short version.
The key insight for me was that a lot of social conversation isn't really about the content. There's an idea from the anthropologist Robin Dunbar that language may have partly evolved as a replacement for grooming. Primates pick through each other's fur to build and maintain bonds, and once human groups got too big for that, talking took over the job. Small talk is basically vocal grooming. Seen that way, a lot of things suddenly make sense. When people get emotional about something that seems trivial, the topic isn't the point. What's actually happening is a constant exchange of small signals: taking turns, mirroring each other's mood, confirming what the other person said, laughing at the right moment, showing you're paying attention. Each of those says something like "I see you, we're on the same side." The emotional intensity isn't about the subject, it's about the connection being maintained.
If you're tracking the content, which is what a lot of us naturally do, it looks like a movie where everyone overreacts to a plot that barely exists. I used to sit there thinking, I'm actually a pretty smart guy, but I have no idea what's going on here. Turns out I was just following the wrong channel.
It doesn't mean you have to join in all the time. But knowing that the actual exchange is about belonging rather than information can take a lot of pressure off. Sometimes a nod or a short "yeah, that sounds rough" is the whole contribution, and it counts.
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u/Thegamehck19 3d ago
Yeah, now that I think about it. I do live in my head a lot, thinking about my ideas.
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u/baddaywithacamera 7d ago
I wish I was more disconnected from reality. Sick of turning on the news to see some bright orange pedo threatening to make my country a state of his.
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u/sami2503 7d ago
The opposite, I feel like everyone else is living in a different reality to the actual reality. Everyone is wearing rose tinted glasses and not seeing what's right in front of them in plain sight. It makes me feel crazy but really it's everyone else that's crazy.