Depersonalization and anxiety are separate conditions that often co-exist, but exactly how they are related is not quite clear. Clinicians have known for a long time that patients complaining of feelings of unreality also frequently suffer from panic attacks. Even among the general population, anxiety is the single biggest predictor of the depersonalization/derealization experience and, up to a point, contributes to the severity of such experiences. Anxiety is also an effect of DP/DR experiences; people who experience episodes worry about their mental state, and are frightened that they are losing their mind