Depersonalization-Derealization Disorder

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ex-l

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Depersonalization-Derealization Disorder

Post22 Oct 2018

From: Depersonalization-Derealization Disorder, also 6 Warning Signs You Suffer from Depersonalization Disorder (psychcentral). Depersonalisation disorder: the condition you’ve never heard of that affects millions

Without excluding the potential of any supernatural influence, I am still working on the theory that BKism was born out of Lekhraj Kirpalani's mental illness, that was shared among the original core members (shared psychosis/folie a plusiers) and institutionalised and, somehow, the practise exploits and induces various states of mental illness that adherents associate with or accept as evidence of "spirituality" or, as they say, "soul consciousness".

I don't think that this would explain the totality of BK experience, but I do think it explains part of it ... and that the BK so called "teachers" are not sufficiently trained to recognise this let alone treat it. That they encourage and exploit it.

It would also apply to states of minds that individuals were suffering from when they sought relief through BKism.

Admittedly, psychology is not my field, and I am not sure how Depersonalization-Derealization Disorder - one of a number of dissociative disorder - would fit in, but offer it up for consideration due to its obvious similarities to elements that are actually encouraged within BKism.
Overview

Depersonalization-derealization disorder occurs when you persistently or repeatedly have the feeling that you're observing yourself from outside your body or you have a sense that things around you aren't real, or both. Feelings of depersonalization and derealization can be very disturbing and may feel like you're living in a dream.

Many people have a passing experience of depersonalization or derealization at some point. But when these feelings keep occurring or never completely go away and interfere with your ability to function, it's considered depersonalization-derealization disorder. This disorder is more common in people who've had traumatic experiences.

Depersonalization-derealization disorder can be severe and may interfere with relationships, work and other daily activities. The main treatment for depersonalization-derealization disorder is talk therapy (psychotherapy), although sometimes medications also are used.
Depersonalization symptoms

Symptoms of depersonalization include:
    Feelings that you're an outside observer of your thoughts, feelings, your body or parts of your body — for example, as if you were floating in air above yourself
    Feeling like a robot or that you're not in control of your speech or movements
    The sense that your body, legs or arms appear distorted, enlarged or shrunken, or that your head is wrapped in cotton
    Emotional or physical numbness of your senses or responses to the world around you
    A sense that your memories lack emotion, and that they may or may not be your own memories
    Derealization symptoms
Symptoms of derealization include:
    Feelings of being alienated from or unfamiliar with your surroundings — for example, like you're living in a movie or a dream
    Feeling emotionally disconnected from people you care about, as if you were separated by a glass wall
    Surroundings that appear distorted, blurry, colorless, two-dimensional or artificial, or a heightened awareness and clarity of your surroundings
    Distortions in perception of time, such as recent events feeling like distant past
    Distortions of distance and the size and shape of objects
    Episodes of depersonalization-derealization disorder may last hours, days, weeks or even months at a time. In some people, these episodes turn into ongoing feelings of depersonalization or derealization that may periodically get better or worse.
Here are six signs that you may have depersonalization disorder.

1. You Feel Like a Completely Separate Entity from Your Body.
    Your body feels like a stranger to you. Your head may feel like it’s been wrapped in cotton, and your body hollow and lifeless.

    Some people lose their sense of touch, taste and smell, and may feel the need to pinch, poke or hit themselves just to try to feel normal again.
2. You Don’t Feel Any Connection to the Person You See in the Mirror.
    You feel a sense of profound detachment when you see your reflection, so you try to avoid it. In fact, you avoid other things in addition to mirrors, like leaving the house or being with people.
3. You Experience a Sense of Detachment From Your Environment.
    Often times, depersonalization is accompanied by derealization, and you not only feel disconnected from the world but you’re also unfamiliar with it, individuals, inanimate objects, and/or all surroundings. Derealization often involves subjective visual distortions such as fuzziness, heightened sensitivity, a larger or smaller visual field, two-dimensionality or flatness, and exaggerated 3D visions or altered size of objects.
4. You Feel Like a Robot.
    When experiencing depersonalization, people sometimes feel like they are an observer of their own body and mental process. Their voice may sound unfamiliar and their thoughts, the way they speak, and the things they do no longer feel spontaneous. Instead, they feel as if they’re just going through the motions.

    Another major factor sufferers describe is the inability to feel emotion, even to those closest to them.
5. You Think Your Memories Belong to Someone Else.
    You may struggle with attention and memory, and have trouble remembering everyday things, have trouble taking in new information, and experience thoughts that are accelerated or confused. Your memories may lack an emotional core or you may feel as if they’re so far away from you that they can’t possibly be your own.
6. You Know That There’s Something Wrong.
    You aren’t delusional; you know that something isn’t right with you and the way you view the world.

    The best treatment for depersonalization is talk therapy, since there are no medications specifically designed for this disorder. Though, certain medications designed to treat depression and anxiety such as Prozac, Klonopin and Anafranil may help.
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ex-l

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Re: Depersonalization-Derealization Disorder

Post25 Oct 2018

My logic on this is ...

I don't deny many people have experiences doing BK practises, what I am question is the interpretation of them.

If we study other groups and their practises, they have similar or identical experiences, e.g. Scientology (and psychotherapists) do eye to eye meditations or staring, and have similar experiences of what they call "exteriorising" in the former case, or cathartic emotional releases in the latter case.

How can it be possible to tell them apart, or assert the BK experience of them is somehow different or superior?

Here, above, similar or identical experiences are determined to be states of mental illness.

Again, given their ultimately subjective nature, how can it be possible to differentiate them from experiences with BKism? Is it not just the context, labelling and interpretation of them that is different?

Where would the dividing line be, between mental imbalance and spiritual states or experiences and how can tell how? It's not as if the BKs have invented a "yoga-o-meter" to tell who is having specifically waht experience ... or even any experience at all.

This is not to deny the multifold of spiritual or psychic experiences. I do not know what they are, but it does seem to me that we know some of the mechanism by which they are invoked, eg as stress reactions through abstinence.

What if I am some kind of crazy and you are completely dependent on me, like a child you mould yourself around the nature of my crazy, and then I make you crazy - imbalance you - like me too. Then we give it a name and market it as a religion.

Is BKism just some kind of crazy turned into a religion?

In my opinion, some of it most certain is. I suppose it then depends on how crazy the society within which one's crazy happens that determines whether it is acceptable or unacceptable or not.
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Pink Panther

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Re: Depersonalization-Derealization Disorder

Post25 Oct 2018

ex-l wrote: Where would the dividing line be, between mental imbalance and spiritual states or experiences and how can tell how? It's not as if the BKs have invented a "yoga-o-meter" to tell who is having what experience ... or even any experience at all.

It is always a tricky question. Karl Popper, one of the main thinkers around the philosophy of science - what makes something scientific or not - was very strong on "falsifiability" as a pre-requisite to something being considered to be in the realm of science.

That is, he wasn't saying that things which were not falsifiable were not real and to be ignored, just that they could not be considered ”scientifically” and needed to be considered in other ways.
“For Popper a key feature of any hypothesis is that it has to be falsifiable. He used this idea to explain the difference between science and what he called ‘pseudo-science’. A scientific hypothesis is one that can be proved wrong: it makes predictions that can be shown to be false. If I say ‘There are invisible, undetectable fairies making me type this sentence", then there is no observation that you can make that will prove my statement is false. If the fairies are invisible and don't leave any trace, there is no way of showing that the claim that they exist is false. It is unfalsifiable and so not a scientific statement at all.

Popper thought that many statements made about psycho-analysis were unfalsifiable in this way. He thought they were untestable. For example, if someone says that everyone is motivated by unconscious wishes, there is no test to prove this. Every bit of evidence, including people denying that they are motivated by unconscious wishes, is, according to Popper, merely taken as further proof that psychoanalysis is valid. The psychoanalyst will say, "The fact that you deny the unconscious demonstrates that you have a strong unconscious wish to challenge your Father”. But this statement cannot be tested because there is no imaginable evidence that could show that it was false.

Consequently, Popper argued, psychoanalysis wasn't a science. It couldn't give us [definite] knowledge in the way a science could.

Popper attacked Marxist accounts of history in the same way, arguing that every possible outcome would count as support for the view that the history of humanity is a history of class struggle. So again, it was based on unfalsifiable hypotheses.

In contrast, Albert Einstein's theory that light would be attracted by the sun was falsifiable. That made it a scientific theory. In 1919 observations of the apparent position of stars during an eclipse of the sun failed to refute it. But they might have done. The light from the stars was not normally visible, but under the rare conditions of an eclipse scientists were able to see that the stars' apparent positions were where Einstein's theory predicted they would be. If they had seemed to be somewhere else, this would have undermined Einstein's theory of how light is attracted to very heavy bodies.

Popper did not think these observations proved that Einstein's theory was true*. But the testability of the theory, and the fact that scientists had been unable to show it to be false, counted in its favour. Einstein made predictions which could have been wrong, but they weren't.”

- Nigel Warburton, ‘A Little History of Philosophy’.

[Part of this view is that no theory can be proved to be [i]absolutely true, you can only absolutely prove a theory false. When a hypothesis proposes something will happen in a particular way, and it does happen, the ‘happening' is undeniable (it is the meaning of the word ‘fact’). However, the explanation may be mistaken and it happened for other reasons. But if it doesn't happen, then the hypothesis was false.

For example, If a hypothesis is that ”A particular rooster crowing makes the sun rise” we observe that, indeed, when that rooster crows the sun does indeed rise soon after. This does not prove the hypothesis absolutley true as the cuase of the sunrise may still be something else not yet proposed. But the hypothesis is falsifiable. If we silence that rooster but the sun still rises , then the hypothesis has been proven false [/i] ]

One of the other ways things can be considered is not in terms of true or false but in terms of efficacy. e.g. the theories behind acupuncture cannot be falsified - there may or may not be undetectable energy meridians traversing the body. The theory attempts to cohesively describe why the application of the technique achieves the outcomes it sets out to achieve. So if the acupuncture treatment does indeed relieve the symptoms or alleviate the pain, the theory may not be true but the patient doesn’t care!

The modern scientific method when applied to acupuncture ( for example) has indeed been able to ‘falsify' the theory - for some conditions for which it does little good. But it cannot explain why it works so effectively for other conditions, so the 'working model’ holds while the ‘experience” adds to the body of knowledge of what it works for and what it doesn't.

In the same way, a lot of debate goes on in Buddhism about what enlightenment is and what parts of the various doctrines and schools are correct etc. But the goal of the teaching is about removing or at least alleviating suffering and the distresses of life.

If someone’s suffering is alleviated, it does not prove Buddhism is ”true” but like the patient, who cares?

It may be a co-factor in that reduction or it may be mere coincidence. In the same way, if the suffering or distress does not reduce, it does not mean that Buddhism is ”false”, it may be that the person did not understand correctly or could not apply it. And the same paradox ex-l mentions about measuring ”spiritual experiences” - how objective is any ‘measuring’ of reduction of suffering? This is outside the realm of "science” in that sense.

So, with BK meditation experiences (or scientology, or psychotherapy) the question to ask, what it comes down to is ... what does the individual hope to achieve and is it being achieved?

One of the differences between Buddhism or psychotherapy and cults like BKs, Scientology or whatever, is ...
cults divert the person from their original purpose and replace it with a purpose that serves the cult. The person may have gone along to deal with sorrow at the death of a loved one then gradually becomes enculted.

Now, the same thing can happen in therapy or in a particular Buddhist community, but the main body overseeing therapists or Buddhists would call out the perversion by contrasting the situation with the commonly held tradition of what the practice is for.

But in a cult, they do not.

The overseers (Seniors) will congratulate the subordinate for serving the cult and getting others to do the same, regardless of their original purpose in attending. They will never say, ”Dear so-and-so, you came to find a way to deal with your grief, and it seems you have done that. You do not need to come any more".

They will do and say whatever is necessary to keep the enculted serving the cult and to keep the truth of their power over the enculted person from being revealed or what that power is, claiming it is all voluntary.
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ex-l

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Re: Depersonalization-Derealization Disorder

Post25 Oct 2018

Pink Panther wrote:They will never say, ”Dear so-and-so, you came to find a way to deal with your grief, and it seems you have done that. You do not need to come any more".

They will do and say whatever is necessary to keep the enculted serving the cult and to keep the truth of their power over the enculted person from being revealed or what that power is, claiming it is all voluntary.

Or inducing further tensions and crises within the individual that keeps them hooked as only they, the cult/the BKs, have "the cure" for it.

Your post is worth considering further re the "scientificality/non-scientificality" of belief and practises but my time is short right now ... but it appears to me that on its demonstrable false, revised, inexplicable and impossible beliefs;
    a) the BKWSU is a madhouse now run by the inmates, and
    b) what is most important to them (the oldest and most powerful inmates who have the power of at least "spiritual" life and death over other more recent inmates ) is one's acceptance and unquestioning conformity to the madness (the belief system) and equally unquestioning loyalty and submission to them.
Of course, accepted, the madhouse does offer some comforts and perhaps even superficial treatments to attract and hold people in. It may even defend them from even greater cultural madness, eg a forced arranged marriage for a young lesbian Indian Sister.

It may even have become a very rich and fancy madhouse with lots of big properties and estates.

But it's still a madhouse and its unscientific practises belonging in the dark ages of pre-modern 1930s Sind. They can - not always - have an effect but they don't really know what it is and there's been no real study or how or why or to what effect.

Perhaps they ought to rename it, the BKWSA ... the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual Asylum ... where, like back in the days of Bedlam, the grandees of the day (VIPs and politicians etc) can all come and observe the patients.

Lastly, I have to say, despite all the huge amount of effort put into studying, promoting and practising psychotherapy, from Freud onwards, I am tending to agree with Popper right now. But at least they keep trying and have institutional safeguards put in place to protect subjects.
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Pink Panther

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Re: Depersonalization-Derealization Disorder

Post25 Oct 2018

ex-l wrote:Lastly, I have to say, despite all the huge amount of effort put into studying, promoting and practising psychotherapy, from Freud onwards, I am tending to agree with Popper right now. But at least they keep trying and have institutional safeguards put in place to protect subjects.

Indeed. That was the reason I included it with the examples of acupuncture and Buddhism, that due to its intangible nature it cannot be "falsified" and that the only real measure is efficacy.

So this could be an example of the difference between science and art (or ”skill" - the ancient term for any art and the one used by the Buddha to describe what he was teaching). Beware any ”spiritual teacher” who uses the word ’science’ for what they do. At best its a loose metaphor, at worst it is deception (most likely born of ignorance).
    You can prove a ”scientific" theory or hypothesis false.
    You cannot prove art is ”false” or ”bad”.
    You can show that an art is effective or ineffective in what it sets out to do (hence ”healing arts”?)
So, relating that back to original topic - the quote describing Depersonalisation-Derealisation Disorder does say that the symptoms are common but it is considered a clinical pathology when the person loses effectiveness to function in relation to the people and the world around him.

Currently in Australia there is a serious issue with the condition of asylum seekers who have been indefinitely detained on offshore islands for over 5 years now as it’s a ‘political’ vote winner amongst xenophobes. The people, particularly the children, are now suffering the later stages of what is called Resignation Syndrome - whose early stages are not unlike Depersonalisation Disorder but which progresses into a kind of passive slow suicide. They have ceased to ”function” as children and vital adults. Not showing any physical injuries, the hardline govt stance sees its bureaucrats refusing treatment because the illness is not ”scientific”, i.e. tangible cause and effect and they can accuse the asylum seekers of acting.

The Australian govt’s massive funding of the camps on foreign soil represents the single biggest money earner for the tiny nation of Nauru. The Nauruan govt last week evicted the chief medical officer who was reporting on the childrens’ condition and the week before they expelled MSF (Medicins San Frontiers - Doctors without Borders).

I could go on about this, but the main point is that the Nauruan govt is another organisation that has fallen into a kind of collective sickness which considers its own benefit as more important than the people it exploits. Organisations like a national administration or government, or like the BKSWU, are abstract entities. People are real. I am sure both the BKWSU and the Nauruan govt do some good things in some parts of their work, but, like any criminal, they are charged, tried and convicted because of the crimes they commit, any good they’ve done is no excuse.

The detained asylum seekers on the the other hand, have not been charged with any crime, let alone convicted. The corruption (of democracy in this case) happens when the end justifies the means.
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ex-l

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Re: Depersonalization-Derealization Disorder

Post25 Oct 2018

Pink Panther wrote:The people, particularly the children, are now suffering the later stages of what is called Resignation Syndrome - whose early stages are not unlike Depersonalisation Disorder but which progresses into a kind of passive slow suicide.

"Traumatic withdrawal syndrome", or resignation syndrome ... sounds like what keep "senior" BKs in after the first 10, 20, 30 years of failed predictions of Destruction and historical revisions. Beyond the point where one wakes up and realises that one has destroyed one's "normal" life, family and community connections.

That's more than a half-serious suggestion.

It's not exactly the same ... BKs are kept entranced and spaced out in a mental prison camp, hoping and waiting for the End of the World to come and saving them, kept busy on largely futile exercises and by putting on entertainment for the camp commandants and kapos ... but I think we are identifying a general form of malaise that exists within it.

Once that keeps them afraid to just chuck it all in.

I think the terms "science" or "scientists" within BKism is merely used for its social or kind of "magical" value. Clearly Lekhraj Kirpalani understood nothing about its principles, nor cared; and, at best, his core followers pick it up and use it like proud but ultimately really stupid Indian aunties, cooing at their children's rise in social status ... along the lines of "our daughter's an -ologist, you know!".

To a C19th village Sindi like Lekhraj Kirpalani, "Western Science" - and its enviable power of dominance, destruction (and wealth creation) - must have been equivalent to the giant UFO out of 'Close Encounters' landing for Westerners today ... and its wielders as fascinating at the idea of an advanced race of aliens.

Hence their deification in the original teachings and Murlis.

Part of the BK madhouse or mental illnesses is the projection from that point, somehow, these all powerful, earth detroying gods had come to serve the Brahma Kumaris Om Mandli and were subject to the BKs mental influence at a distance.

You can see how it's merely a skip and a jump from equivalent gods in the Hindu classics, merely with a new wrapper.

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