I've come across a few threads which have dealt with acceptance and depersonalization. For me, depersonalization/cohesive brain fog is probably the worst symptom of all. Beyond all the functional deficits which accompany PCS, the fundamental, underlying sense of lack of self has been almost too much to deal with.

I'm not sure if depersonalization (have to be wary of using psych terms) is precisely the right word for what I'm experiencing, but the best way I can describe it is a sense of utter blankness mentally and personally. It's not the kind of emotional hollowness found with depression, it's simply an ever present sense of things being cognitively off/altered and my not being remotely tied to the person I was pre-injury. The only ties I hold to that person are my vivid memories of things past.

This sense of utter mental blankness -- no inner monologue, no sense of or outside awareness of my thinking self -- doesn't come on in spells, but is rather omnipresent. Maybe the best term is loss of not just cognitive abilities but also everything that defines sentience -- emotional, intellectual, philosophical elements and the comprehensive sense of existence/self. My psychiatrist explains it by saying that there has been a fundamental change in the hardware of my operating system. Biologically that makes sense.

I'm sure that some of this is due to the fact that all the stimuli I encounter -- sights, sounds, noises -- is difficult for my brain to properly process, so I feel like it's reaching me through deep water or fog and even then, I only dimly register it. But even when I'm not interacting with external stimuli, there's no inner reality to withdraw into. Meditation is disconcerting when one fundamentally feels like there's a different thinking self inside. Parts of my body/brain seem to remember how to do things -- shopping, walking, cleaning -- but even if I'm "functionally" completing these tasks my experience and interaction is completely different -- foggy and mentally devoid of non-automatic response.

Apologies if this sounds mad. It's difficult to put into words and it's so bizarrely nebulous anyways. Is this what others mean when they speak of depersonalization? Is it post-brain injury psychosis of sorts?

Does acceptance mean learning to inhabit this new, disconcerting and unfamiliar mind? Does it ever lift? Any advice?