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Does Dissociation Sometimes Feel Like This?

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Hi Srain

Mine is more like a complete detachment. It becomes gradually increased throughout the day. I'll notice myself struggling to listen to someone speaking to me directly. I often find myself looking away or literally not listening because their voice and words seem unreal. I've also noticed I come crashing back to reality with anxiety when I'm faced with a conflict too. The most minor things like not wanting to do something I should do, like go out to dinner, or even eat if I'm hungry! I've lost so much weight, anyone else?

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I definitely have problems just when the weather first warms up. (Your sentence was perfectly understandable, by the way :) This is probably because the seasonal depression catches up with me just then.

I have many types of dissociation. Some I developed as a voluntary thing as a kid, but now I can't control. There is a personality who is critical, in my head, and an apologetic, "explaining" kid in there too. Acknowleging either one is highly toxic and highly dissociative. I shut out sensory data I need to operate as a normal person when i let them take over.

I discovered talking to myself is a big dissociative symptom. That is the voice of one or the other, and eventually i will stop, and simply go entirely into my head. It is so toxic this usually results in severe anxiety, exhaustion, and hypervigilence.

One of Sam's biggest jobs is to break this spiral.

The ground waving thing is really disconcerting and unpredictable, and another huge piece of what Sam does. Apparently there is some kind of physical warning, because I have Sam on a mobility type harness and suddenly I will feel him start to pull gently to one side. Absolutely within five minutes he will have to do some full fledged "brace" work.

Before Sam, I would have weird, stupid, and crippling accidents twice a year. Walking on perfectly flat ground.

I have the fog or veil type dissociative events too. I am wigging out in a social situation and just cannot focus on the person speaking. It is like all my senses have gotten stuck focusing on the middle distance, at nothing in midair. I used to go find the bathroom and hide, or wash my hands a few million times, or come back and hide in a dark corner and give in to the nothing. Now I just say Sam needs to go out. Again, he is usually pawing at me anyway.

I developed a new type with some flasbacks, complete memory loss for long periods, like hours. I was having very tiny fugue sort of things last year, where I would get lost in a store, forget how I got somewhere, etc. But I also don't do anything during the longer ones.

I have had the dissociative symptoms my entire life. My doctore thinks this might be only made worse by the PTSD, since it never progressed to classic DID.
 
Hi Bachall.

Your discussion of Sam's role and function caught my attention. I have a guide dog, so her primary purpose isn't as a therapy support dog, but in reality she fulfils this function every bit as much as she fulfils her guiding function. I often find that due to extreme fatigue/lack of sleep, partial dissociative states, impending panic/anxiety or any of a number of other factors, I often feel extremely disorientated, lightheaded and generally unable to navigate my way through the world with confidence. So not only do I rely on my dog to perform her usual guide work, but also to just help me keep walking in a straight line and to keep from getting lost out of sheer disorientation.

I also had to smile at your "Sam needs to go out" escape strategy. I use this one all the time in social situations, and poor Del often has to go outside more often than you would believe!!

I'm glad Sam is such a multi-purpose aid for you - Del is the same for me, and going out without her now would be very daunting and difficult for me.

Maddog
 
I explained this to my therapist as "snapshots"- like those cameras that would take a second to open then shut to develop- and it continued the open and shutting for thirty times- then by the end, you don't know where you are, who everybody around you is, and what is supposed to be happening at the moment. The first time I dissociated, I had the snapshots, but I also felt the ground beneath my feet was crumbling and swallowing me up into the past.

My friends have to say "it's okay," and even reintroduce themselves... Well, one of them knew to-she has PTSD too. The other four or five I've dissociated around I'm too embarrassed to say that I don't know who they are and that they're a stranger. It's made worse by the fact that I dissociate at school in class sizes of like fifty people.

I also dissociate on the phone and email. With that, it's like I'm in a grey box, where there's nothing but my Iphone or my computer, and me. The twelve or thirteen year old me, saying weird things like "Maybe I am horrible after all! Maybe I did want to kill her! Mwahahahahaha!" It's like... Like a Mr. Hyde version of myself that scares me, cause that's not really how I feel. If anybody could give me some info on why my "Mr.Hyde" version comes out, it'd be a lot less horrifying for me when I go back to my email or cell phone later in the day and realize what I wrote probably scared the hell out of the recipient (and me).
 
I am sooo glad that I just read this thread. I thought I was completely losing the plot. This is exactly what it feels like to me. I was walking my dog the other day and it felt like the ground was moving and suddenly I was "not quite there" anymore. I have had the same problems in conversations. I stare at the person talking to me and suddenly I am "just gone". They look at me, call my name and ask if I heard what they just said. Of course, I did not hear a word. I did not mention this out of fear to my therapist. I am glad that I am not the only one experiencing this. Have not found out how to stop this yet but will try to work on it.
 
I've dissociated since I was a child. The first time I described it to my mom as feeling "spacey." We were looking for a dress for me for some big deal something and we were in a some store FILLED w/ round racks of dresses. She found me under one. I was adopted as a baby but as an infant passed around a few times before going to my family and more and more is now being discovered on how traumatic that is thus probably the reason I did start so young.

I now dissosociate in 2 different ways. (I'm 43.) This began after my most recent and also most severe trauma (I have 4 years of traumatic amnesia from it.) (It is funny because I always dissociate describing what it is like to people, so here I go...) In the new way I still feel removed from my head and limbs. And my voice does not come from within myself. But now I see everything very crisp and clear. Sometimes I see things in 2 dimentional form. and sometimes it's very sharp edged 3-D - like things are layered in front of each other - is that 3-D? or is that still a form of 2-D? Because everything is still flat but there is depth because things are in front or behind. ok I've probably lost everyone now. But my ears also get highly sensitive. It's almost like I am removed from the scene but now I am also acutely aware of things too. Very, very different than the other way where I am just kinda zoned out like completely out and can't get back to my body or reality. (maybe that new thing is something other than dissociating.)

However, I met a new friend who has Borderline and is dissociated most of the time; I was severely startled once when I was with him and I totally and completely zapped out. He taught me a great trick to come back. He had me start counting in foreign languages up as far as i knew and then back down again. I guess it was because I had to concentrate so hard on the counting backwards or something it brought me back -took a while and he had to stand right in front of me but this was one of my most severe, um, experiences too. Usually I come back quickly but I do this by myself now when I need to and it has always worked. And I only know some basic Spanish and German.
 
I'm still new to all this and finding the dissociation part confusing.

I was in a severely abusive relationship with threats made to end my life and my family's if I didn't 'co-operate'. At one point had a gun put to my head and the trigger pulled - I believed I was going to die. Then after that I thought at some point I would die. I remember thinking that I had to do what he wanted or I would not survive. After that, I have virtually no memory of what happened (3 years), until I escaped.

Not sure if this was a dissociative state and I have dissociation amnesia, or it's something else?

At times of anxiety and stress I have 'left my body' and it's like I know what's happening, but I'm not there. Like it's happening to someone else, but I am still in control - like able to walk.

Not sure if this is dissociation? I'm guessing this is.

It's pretty confusing.
 
Apparently I 'chronically' dissociate. I still haven't got my head around it either Shellbell. I can't pick up easily when I am dissociating, and I keep trying to explain all of these feelings to my T and she says 'Yep, thats dissociation' Where do you learn this type of thing?

I have just recently been having some 'episodes' which I think could be dissociation, but again, It's hard to point out what is and what isn't, when you really don't have a good grip on reality as it is.

What has been happening, is I feel like I have lost a few days at a time. I will 'wake up' or 'come back' and I will be sitting in a park, or sitting at my computer at work, but not really remembering how I got there, not really remembering anything at all for the few days prior.... I don't understand...
 
He had me start counting in foreign languages up as far as i knew and then back down again.

This is an awesome trick! Thanks for sharing it.

I am chronically dissociated, too. I go in and out of a checked out state all day long, a lot of times as a reaction to strong feelings (in myself or in someone around me). I can use the grounding exercises I've learned in therapy pretty independently now so I don't get as panicked as I once did by realizing I'm dissociating.
 
At Wikipedia, the definition of dissociation sheds a lot of light on it & highlights other conditions. Thought this would be of some help to everyone.

As for me I have that strange vision, shake, and yeah that surreal unreal sense, totally whacked.
 
For me it feels like I'm on a very small island in the middle of the ocean and what is actually happening around me is on a coastline very far in the distance sometimes not visible (if that makes sense).

Usually I get anxiety before this happens, my hands start shaking and I feel like I might have a flashback but I usually dissociate like this before it happens. I don't really mind it when compared to getting flashbacks those are terrifying.
 
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