Complete recovery is possible for many people with depersonalization/derealization disorder, especially if the symptoms result from stresses that can be dealt with during treatment. Other people do not respond well to treatment, and the disorder becomes chronic. In some people, depersonalization/derealization disorder disappears on its own. Symptoms, even those that persist or recur, may cause only minor problems if people can keep their mind busy and focus on other thoughts or activities, rather than think about their sense of self. However, some people become disabled because they feel so disconnected from their self and their surroundings or because they also have anxiety or depression.

This defensive function of depersonalization is most evident in trauma, acute anxiety, and panic attacks. When the level of panic reaches a certain threshold, depersonalization comes as a savior; continuing the comparison, as if a threshold of mechanical shock triggers the explosion of an airbag. Depersonalization appears as a kind of “airbag” built-in the human psychological structure to be employed in the threatening situations of stress, panic or trauma. Depersonalization is a very complex defense system that requires a high level of mental organization.

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.

At a certain level of virality, you cannot stop motivated people on the internet from piercing your veils. In the case of that woman from Blair’s flight, her legions of “fans” are digging day and night to find more information, to meet the female lead of this summer’s hottest rom-com. They want to know what happens next. They want to make her finish the story. Go on a date; now kiss; now get engaged; tell us what it was like. We need to know more. More. More. Until she has nothing left to give, and the next thread about some other person plucked from obscurity comes along.

The ethics — and even the definition — of doxxing is murky. It is the dissemination of often publicly available information. And, some at the protest asked, are you really doxxing a person if he or she is marching on a public street, face revealed and apparently proud? It is not as though they are hiding their identities.

The subcommittee noted that there was a 17 percent increase in reported hate crimes in 2017 from the previous year and a 31 percent increase since 2014. And in spite of the ADL’s report that white supremacists were responsible for 78 percent of extremist murders in 2018

Now imagine a world where checking your mirrors before switching lanes was rare, three standard-deviations-out behavior. What would the roads look like?