Wondering What This Experience is Called...

[Lionheart]

I remember as a young boy, being carried under an adults arm as if I were a log. I felt like I was an inanimate object. No thoughts, just a feeling of "deadness."

Can someone help me make sense of this experience? I know that I was sexually abused at a young age, but don't know who was carrying me under their arm, I just know it was an adult male and I was pretty young at the time. I suffered other sexual abuse trauma when older that I do remember but this is like a fragment of a memory, tho still very vivid.

It is a troubling memory. I don't think I ever had words for how that experience felt when I was younger. Even now I am unsure what to call it and what it means.

 

[Ronin]

No idea.

For all we know, he might have been saving your life, carrying you away from danger / while already hurt and not fully lucid.

 

[Lionheart]

I should have been more specific about what I wanted to know. I wanted to know about experiencing myself as an inanimate object in relation to child abuse at a young age. A previous therapist I once had, had a name for it that I can't recall. I wondered if it fit into the category of Depersonalization or Derealization?

 

[Jade-]

I'm not sure the proper term but it does sound like dissociation for sure.

I had an experience in childhood of pretty severe sexual abuse by 4 people at the same time and I described feeling just really "bored" during it to my therapist.I wasn't sure how else to describe it and he said it was dissociation.He didn't say what type,just that it was.

After reading your post I realize "deadness" would probably have been a better description of what I was feeling.I had no thoughts,no feelings,no connection to what was happening to me.

I know that doesn't answer your question.I just wanted to let you know I can relate to it.

 

[Ronin]

I wondered if it fit into the category of Depersonalization

Yep, very much.

 

[Lionheart]

Thank you both!!! It feels good to be understood and to know that I am not alone or "crazy."

 

[katz]

I also have a memory of being carried back to the other bedroom. I can even see myself being carried and by whom. I know that this is dissociation. But, I remember reading about the stages that your mind/body go thru as your being attacked. The panic. The "trying to escape", and finally the 'giving up" and "playing opossum" stages. This last step in self preservation is to go limp and play dead, this is something that our bodies/minds do naturally for keeping ourselves alive. It is programmed into us as living beings.

For me, I know that once I realized that escape was not possible, I remember quickly looking around the room for something to focus on, so I could dissociate. Then I remembered being carried to the other room and hearing them say "she won't remember it in the morning."
Maybe what you're remembering is the "trip" back to the other room, and you're just still a bit dissociated? I realize that the way you were being carried is horrible - but it is just a thought.

 

[grit]

Was it annihilation of the self? Where you completely gave up on life and felt like an object.

 

[Freida]

Yep -- that whole -- nothing to see here move along mentality that I had a lot during my adventures. Classic dissociation
good news? You get kudos for recognizing it. That's a big step!

 

[Deanna]

I should have been more specific about what I wanted to know. I wanted to know about experiencing myself as an inanimate object in relation to child abuse at a young age. A previous therapist I once had, had a name for it that I can't recall. I wondered if it fit into the category of Depersonalization or Derealization?

Deperonalization. I know the term you are talking about.

 

[Lionheart]

Thanks for the replies, everyone!!! I was pretty young when the experience occurred. I had no words for it then, but when I look up the meaning of depersonalization it all seems to fit well with what I went through. I am not sure if the annihilation of self matches for me or not as I seem not to have had any awareness of a will to live, to begin with. But I suppose it could be the same. I certainly felt "dead" and I recall that I was outside my body watching myself being carried as If I were someone passing by. Kinda difficult to put words to it.

 

[katz]

Thanks for the replies, everyone!!! I was pretty young when the experience occurred. I had no words for it then, but when I look up the meaning of depersonalization it all seems to fit well with what I went through. I am not sure if the annihilation of self matches for me or not as I seem not to have had any awareness of a will to live, to begin with. But I suppose it could be the same. I certainly felt "dead" and I recall that I was outside my body watching myself being carried as If I were someone passing by. Kinda difficult to put words to it.

I have a lot of my memories from before I could speak also. As I grew older, I realized that a lot of my memories were just feelings. Even as an adult it can be hard for me to find the right words to describe what I remember.