Dissociation, What Are Examples?

[ms spock]

In my personal experience with dissociation, the sensations I feel vary....my body may go numb, or when it gets deep enough, I just "go to sleep"; I'm not tired when I do this usually, so it's not me just being sleepy, it's me fighting consciousness...

I did that today.

 

[ms spock]

I keep thinking about other things all the time.

 

[Abstract]

Me too...

 

[Leanne1]

I needed to call my therapist today. I couldn't remember her name. I read my phone contacts twice, then recognized it. :O_o:

 

[ms spock]

One way I feel recently is sort of like I have two separate emotional states going on. One is more surface, and I deal with daily living just fine. The other is underneath, and has to do with a lot of fear and being upset.

I have those levels too.

 

[Rachel L Y]

I can fake anything. Love, hate, anger, happiness, satisfaction, normalcy.. I never truly fit in anywhere. I was always playing a part. I can't remember a time, when I wasn't uncomfortable in my own skin. There have been a few select moments where I actually thought, wow, I'm going to be ok! But those were always fleeting and followed by extended 'forever seeming' periods of being deeply lost and alone. I feel like I know everything and yet nothing. I can understand almost any experience down to the most minor details, yet can't accept even the most trivial aspects of basic human interaction. Life is like a movie I'm watching through a veil. I feel unreal, like a stranger I've never met. I analyze myself constantly and pride myself on my 'extensive' self knowledge, yet when asked the most simple, common questions "what do you do for fun", "what are some of your interests", "what kind of music/movies do you like", im overwhelmingly puzzled as to how to respond. I honestly have no idea who I am. In any given moment I become someone new, usually to mold to each situation. The term 'chameleon' is a severe understatement.

 

[Queen Boudica]

OMG I could write exactly that about myself Rachel LY I'm not sure it is chameleon though, chameleons do fit in when they change colour, I still don't feel I do. Nothing works.

 

[Hush92]

Well for me dissociation is completely bizarre and weird and before I knew what it was I literally called it "tripping out" because it felt like I was on drugs or something. There also different types....I feel like it's something many people can experience differently, as it is such a subjective experience....

I've gone through a whole range. Feeling like I'm in a dream and absolutely nothing is real. Feeling like I'm looking out at the world through binoculars, hearing myself speak but it sounded like someone else's voice. Sometimes I would get sucked into my head into these powerful daydreams that I'd get headaches if I tried to focus on anything else...(I want to ask my therapist more about those...). Or the feeling of not being in my body but rather floating around my body. A lot of strong feelings of not being my body. I'll become more numb to pain and cold as well when this happens.

I think "normal" dissociation is like what you described, someone blanking out for a bit or forgetting what they were doing.

 

[Warrior Won]

One of my examples is the first time I was sexually assaulted when I was 8 yrs old. I remember waking...

Dee, I am so sorry you experienced this. Truly.

I suffered a trauma as a child (not anything like what you experienced) and realized only in my adult life that I had lived the majority of my life with my head in the clouds, so to speak. I was just not grounded to earth; I lived some place else....

But, I only really realized that this was disassociation (or soul loss) when I met with an astrologer who brought the incident of the trauma to my attention. (Prior to us meeting, I had no recollection of the trauma from when I was aged 5.)

I really wanted to search for the answer to what the trauma was and after a series of things - which involved speaking with my older sisters - they recollected the trauma. I've been able to put it to rest now.

I hope you have been able to have closure.

Warmly.

X

 

[Warrior Won]

Very constant. They were not there before abuse. I do NOT understand why this happens. It is like a runn...

When I spoke with my psychologist about my disassociation (soul loss) as a child, she mentioned that it was common for people who had suffered abuse or trauma... and that people who speak to themselves or have multiple personalities do this as a result of disassociation.

Interestingly enough, I learned about a new topic tonight: "neuroplasticity" which is basically how the brain wires itself through activity. Look into it. I'm clearly not an expert and these are just my thoughts that stem from just reading up about it, but it seems that you create patterns.

I am so sorry that many of you have had to deal with this.

I have not done regression therapy, but might it be a consideration for some of you?

I found some basic links that have to do with body, mind and spirit (and regression therapy) that might help.

Warmly.

X

 

[Sandpiper]

Dissociation confuses me a lot. When I was a kid and I was being abused I would feel like I 'went away' in my mind and sometimes it would feel like I went to other places, either I was in a tree house that I had seen in a picture book I owned, or I was over in the shelves with my toys or I was in the walls. Sometimes I would feel like I was watching what was happening from outside myself.

I had a vivid imagination too when I was a kid and I would become obsessed with TV shows and would live inside the shows and become one of the characters and all the other characters felt like they were my friends and I would have whole conversations with them.

As an adult, I have struggled a lot with feeling present. I used to describe this as being 'detached', like the whole world was happening around me but I wasn't really there, part of it, and sometimes it felt like a big fog and I felt 'floaty' and like I couldn't get 'back to earth'. And when I was like that I would interact with other people and go about my life like a robot, as if I wasn't really in control of what I was doing, like I wasn't in the drivers seat and the body was just in autopilot. This settled down after a number of years on very high doses of medication and now it barely happens at all except for occasionally when I get overwhelmed and/or sleep deprived.

I am also dissociated from the emotions connected to what happened. I really struggle to talk about the abuse out loud so instead I write a lot. Sometimes when I write about the memories it feels like I am writing about a movie I once saw, it doesn't connect that those things happened to me, that I am the little girl in those memories. Sometimes when I am writing I feel a bad feeling start to rise in my chest and then I completely 'space out', my mind goes blank and I can be like that for 10 or 15 minutes until I come back again. It's like the feelings can start to connect when I am writing and I can't handle it so my mind just checks out for a bit. I also see photos of myself when I was a kid and it doesn't connect that that is me. I recognise the little girl, and I know rationally that it is me in the photos, but there's no real connection, it's like looking at a photo of someone.

I'm glad I found this forum, it's helped to read other people's experiences.

 

[Journeyman]

Spero-

Wow! When you said about whole conversations in head......I do too! It was not until the 2nd t...

I understand not telling your therapist; I mean that was the point, but that's how the therapist can start helping you out. I'm curious, what are you worried about if the therapist knew?

Dissociation confuses me a lot. When I was a kid and I was being abused I would feel like I 'went awa...

how old were you that you remember having these? Also, do you have any seizures?