Sunday 16th August 2026

I’ve just come home from two weeks in the States. I spent the first five days in Los Angeles, before flying to Utah for the rest of the trip to attend one of my best friend’s weddings. I travelled thousands of miles from home, spent time in places I had never been before, stayed in a hostel, navigated airports and unfamiliar cities, met dozens of new people, and experienced a completely different way of life. And, of course, I did all of that while managing depersonalisation derealisation disorder.

This trip gave me a lot to think about when it comes to travelling with DPDR, particularly the fact that I don’t need to feel completely normal in order to experience something extraordinary.

Los Angeles

The journey to LA itself was completely fine. Travelling alone and being somewhere new naturally left me feeling a little spaced out, but these were things I had done before. Nothing about the journey felt particularly overwhelming. And I was so excited.

LA has always been one of those places that exists somewhere between reality and fiction in my head. It is a city I had seen countless times in films and television, and I couldn’t wait to experience it for myself. I wanted the Hollywood experience; to see the famous places, walk the streets I’d seen on screen and experience the LA lifestyle I’d built up in my head. The reality was… very different. My hostel was right on Hollywood Boulevard, which, to be completely honest, was incredibly trashy. And the hostel itself was perfectly fine, but the overall atmosphere was nothing like the hostels I had experienced in Europe. My experiences staying in hostels across Europe have generally been really positive. I’ve met incredibly friendly and sociable people, there have been organised activities and opportunities to meet other travellers, and there is often an immediate sense of community because everyone is there for a similar reason.

LA didn’t feel like that at all; I felt incredibly isolated. I hadn’t really anticipated how lonely I would feel, especially because I had imagined myself meeting people and having all these spontaneous experiences. Instead, I found myself spending a lot of time alone in a city that felt very unfamiliar and, at times, quite overwhelming. There were a few upset phone calls home where I just needed to vent. Sometimes you need to hear a familiar voice when everything around you feels unfamiliar. And my DPDR symptoms definitely increased.

Being somewhere completely new, travelling alone, feeling isolated and constantly taking in unfamiliar surroundings all gave my symptoms plenty of opportunity to show up. There were moments where I felt particularly detached from myself and my surroundings, and moments where the whole experience felt surreal. But something I’ve worked incredibly hard to learn is that experiencing symptoms doesn’t mean I have to stop living.

So I stuck to my mantras. I reminded myself that I was safe, that unfamiliarity does not mean dangerous, that I didn’t need to feel completely comfortable to be okay, and that I had chosen to come here. This wasn’t a failed trip just because it wasn’t the trip I’d imagined. It was an opportunity to gain experience, see something completely new and push myself outside of my comfort zone. And, weirdly, there were times when my DPDR actually worked in my favour. Being naturally quite detached from my surroundings meant I could sometimes take a step back from the pressure I had put on myself to have the perfect LA experience. Instead of constantly trying to make the trip look or feel a certain way, I could simply observe what was around me and appreciate it for what it was. I was in Los Angeles. Even if it wasn’t the LA I’d imagined, I was still there. And I was proud of myself for staying.

Utah

Then I flew to Utah. And thank goodness I did LA first, because if Utah had been the first leg of my trip, I genuinely think I would have walked out of LAX, taken one look around and turned straight back around.

Utah was stunning. I’ve never seen anything like it. There are mountains everywhere you look. The landscapes were enormous and completely different from anything I’m used to seeing at home. The scale of everything was almost difficult to comprehend. But even more importantly, Utah meant being reunited with one of my best friends. We first met in the summer of 2025 when we were both solo travelling and staying in a hostel in Valencia, Spain. We hit it off almost immediately and, despite living on opposite sides of the Atlantic, we’ve kept in touch constantly ever since. So when she asked me to come to the States for her wedding and be one of her bridesmaids, of course I said yes. I spent just over a week surrounded by her friends and family and somehow I quickly found myself feeling incredibly comfortable around them.

The life I experienced in Utah was very different from the life I’m used to at home. The surroundings, the culture, the people, the routines and even the little everyday things felt unfamiliar. But instead of that unfamiliarity making me feel completely disconnected, I found myself embracing it. And honestly, I’m really proud of myself for that.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how DPDR can make unfamiliar situations feel threatening. When your surroundings already feel unreal or distant, putting yourself somewhere completely new can feel like adding another layer on top of that. But this trip reminded me that unfamiliarity isn’t necessarily something I need to avoid. Sometimes unfamiliarity is where the best memories are made.

I was incredibly lucky to experience Utah surrounded by people who were so welcoming and generous. Their kindness made stepping into a completely different world feel much easier. And then something happened that I don’t think I’ll forget. Someone I met briefly had looked at my personal Instagram and found my blog, Mostly Kate. She mentioned that she had experienced depersonalisation herself. It was only a brief conversation. But it meant more to me than she will probably ever know.

Because there I was, thousands of miles from home, surrounded by people I’d only just met, in a completely different part of the world, and I was speaking to someone who understood something about my experience that many people in everyday life never will.

It reminded me why I started talking about DPDR publicly in the first place. This disorder is so much bigger than most people realise. There are people experiencing depersonalisation and derealisation all over the world. People who feel detached from themselves. People who look around at their surroundings and wonder why everything feels strange. People who are frightened by sensations they don’t understand. People who feel completely alone in an experience that is actually shared by so many others. And yet DPDR is still so poorly understood and so rarely talked about. Meeting someone who had experienced it on the other side of the world made that reality feel incredibly tangible.

If there is one thing I am taking away from this trip, it is that I don’t have to wait until my DPDR is completely gone to live my life. And neither should you. 

I travelled alone to new and unfamiliar places, felt lonely and overwhelmed, I experienced intense moments of detachment. But I still saw LA and Utah, I still met new people, I stood beside one of my best friends on her wedding day. I laughed, explored, made memories and experienced things I never would have experienced if I’d stayed within the boundaries of what felt comfortable. I’m not going to pretend this trip was completely easy, because it wasn’t. But I don’t think success should be measured by whether I experienced zero symptoms. Maybe success is travelling somewhere new while experiencing symptoms and learning that you can handle them. Maybe it’s feeling detached and continuing anyway. Maybe it’s having a bad day in a completely unfamiliar place and knowing that you don’t have to run away from it.

Love, Kate x