• 💖 [Donate To Keep MyPTSD Online] 💖 Every contribution, no matter how small, fuels our mission and helps us continue to provide peer-to-peer services. Your generosity keeps us independent and available freely to the world. MyPTSD closes if we can't reach our annual goal.

Pseudo-hallucinations, depersonalization and derealization

Status
Not open for further replies.

Polyfractal

Learning
I have been professionally diagnosed with complex PTSD, I have what my psychiatrist called--pseudo hallucination, which is voluntary, a safe hiding place for me. I would hallucinate on a daily basis to my safe hiding place by merging the physical realm to my safe realm. I would find myself living in the underground, where no intruders would come to hurt me. For example, when I am sitting in my study room, I am sitting in this other safe realm. The hallucination is not my choice, I have been abused to the point that I need to find a place that would be harmless to me. I have been abused on a daily basis for many years. An underground place seems to be a cold place, but I have chosen to create this place, paradoxically as my trauma experienced was also cold and brutal.

I have been seeing a wall of glass in front of me, separating myself and the world since I was 8 years old. I searched it up and this is called derealization. I also had depersonalization, out-of-body experiences during the trauma and abuse that I have suffered. I would observe myself from a third person perspective. I was raped on a daily basis for many years and this would happen. I couldn't count the amount of times I have been abused.
 
this would be the first i've heard of "pseudo hallucinations," but your underground pseudo hallucination sounds like the bare bones of my favorite "safe place." a "safe place" is a grounding technique i acquired through psychotherapy to calm my hypervigilance. underground places do not sound cold to me. the geothermal places make many underground places warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer. i love underground places. the "safe place" i call, "the mud caves" even have geothermally warmed mud baths, rinses and saunas. they are phosphorescently lit so there are never any eye-stabbing bulbs to blind you.
 
this would be the first i've heard of "pseudo hallucinations," but your underground pseudo hallucination sounds like the bare bones of my favorite "safe place." a "safe place" is a grounding technique i acquired through psychotherapy to calm my hypervigilance.
Same here. I used creative visualization to create a safe place inside where I go often when things feel threatening.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top