I am new to this website, and I am hoping to find people that have experienced in therapy what I have.
I am told I dissociate. My EMDR therapist with 24 years of experiences says my dissociation is the most severe he has seen.
When I dissociate, my T says that I go into a semi-conscious state where I am able to remember everything that I hear and see but I am unable to move or speak, but I am unable to recall what I was thinking or felt during this state. My psychiatrist calls this a dissociative form of "catatonia". I think it's some form of dissociative stupor. We are unable to find a trigger with my current and previous T.
I am hoping someone here has experienced something like this and will be able to tell me more about their experience, and if and how they treated it.
Right now my T and P are doing damage control, trying to avoid me going into this state.
@LOTR741 When I would wake up in the morning, I evaluate my vision and alertness or dissociation-
1-green (keep on going...stress level low-gonna be a good day),
2-vision not so clear, dragging a bit, moving slow, memory not sharp-in this state....I tend to essentials right away (protein shake, vitamins, medication, something cold, do the room senses activity (taste, touch, smell, hearing (make sure I put hearing aids on), and reread my list for the day, and see if there is anything I can cut to reduce stress in the afternoon if need be.....But a
3-red and foggy, memory is shit, (for you maybe
4 is catatonia). That red light, yellow light, green light way of tracking was easy.....
So, got a new T and I've been tracking my dissociation and rating it on a 0-4 scale. You can use whatever rating scale fits your situation with dissociative disorder.....but just use the same rating scale everyday. For me, at 4-I have tinitius so very loud that I can't concentrate or think and this is where I just want to go to sleep-hearing is so distorted....balance is poor, and attention to safety is severely impaired (kinda like tunnel vision.). Right now, to get a handle on grounding....I rate upon waking, and hr after meds, mid morning, lunch, an hour after lunch, mid afternoon, dinner time, hr after dinner time, two hrs. before bed and bedtime. It's a pain in the ars but the information is very helpful and noting the different triggers and activities throughout the day has been helpful. It is always a 1-2 when I walk in this new T's office, but my T is all about grounding first, trauma talk......only if I'm feeling safe....and not being grounded in her office....not a good thing. You are fortunate that your T realizes that grounding is an essential safety skill and wants you to feel grounded first. My last T didn't do grounding exercises, or teach me to ground at the end of the session, and I walked out of the office highly dissociated and had to cross the street......in a stupor. It wasn't safe. Sounds like you are doing good work!
I write what I'm doing at each interval, or write when anxiety(precipitator/trigger) increases as related to dissociation. If you use a numbered system, like a Likert scale, and it is divisible by 100 (rating scale of 0-4) then you can change it to percent.
