I would say it felt like the reality I was in wasn’t the real one. Like I was stuck in a bad dream. I’d look at my hands and it would be weird to me. Like “OH MY GOSH, they are attached to my body” and moving felt like I wasn’t doing it. I was always super spaced out and like zombified. I was at my parents house because I didn’t want to be alone in case I did randomly die, and they even said I was nothing like my normal self. Always staring off into space and super quiet. But I was always talking over my thoughts in my head so I was just stuck on my panic thoughts and going over them over and over trying to get out and back into a “real reality”

I’ve had this too. Took a while to fully pop out of it. Was a very uncomfortable time.

Yes to panic induced derealization. It was a horrible string of panic attacks from a health diagnosis that basically was equivalent to “if my body acts up I could suddenly die” (turns out I was misdiagnosed) that I was freaking out from to the point where I couldn’t sleep well and I basically stopped eating and drinking. Eventually I went back to the hospital and tried to get into a psych ward. But since I wasn’t suicidal they wouldn’t admit me. They recommended this day program where you go Monday-Saturday 9am-3pm for two weeks or when you’re ready to be done, where you work in a group setting (people that have lost someone super close to them, has suicidal ideation, anger issues, etc) and then they pull you off each day to meet with a psychologist and a psychiatrist to really dive deep and get you started on some meds.

That gave me the first sensation of being normal again. Someone to talk it through with and the group therapy to learn coping skills. That may be extreme for most. I had to take off work for 2 weeks and such so it was hard to pull off but it got me back on the right track. Not eating and drinking can lead to worse things so that’s why I went ahead with it. Also because the room wouldn’t stop spinning even in a “state of calm” from how intense the panic was. When I would tried to sleep I would wake up 5 min later shaking and sweating so it was worth all of the time off and money it costed.

If anything what helped me most was forcing myself back on a schedule and trying to find normal again. Sitting there thinking about my panic all day made it worse.