Is This A Form Of Dissociation?

[Kintsugi]

I have been having moments recently--and I have felt this way in the past when my emotional state was getting worse and worse--where I feel as if I am evaporating. Generally when I identify that I am dissociating, I have either been lying on a bed unaware of any sensation, passing of time, or even thought. The thoughts that do come into my mind are usually fleeting, distant, weirdly irrelevant to me, like they could be coming from someone else. Either that, or I am in a social situation and realize that I have been dissociating when someone asks me something several times and I am completely unaware. Snapping out of it has always been a rather distinctly painful experience, too.

But this sensation is different. I feel like I am either leaving parts of myself behind on the ground, like fragments of me should just be littered in my wake and I should disintegrate into nothing but dust soon, or I feel as if my whole body is evaporating from the friction of me and reality, like little atoms are floating upward and away from me, and I am just fading, and I cannot understand how I am still lying/sitting/standing/walking. I have the intense urge to roll my eyes back into my head and lose consciousness. I have often hoped that I would pass out during this feeling. I feel so gone from everything. I just want some kind of true unconsciousness to come to me so that I don't have to stare at the world while I feel myself evaporate into nothingness.

Is this a form of dissociation? Has anyone else experienced this?

 

[Behindthemirror]

I experience this quite often, not in the exact manner you've described...but much the same. It is a frightening experience but one that my psychiatrist says is quite normal for people with PTSD and is in fact a form of dissasociation.

 

[Kintsugi]

Thanks for the information, BTM. I'm at once sorry that you suffer from this and glad that I am not alone.

 

[Behindthemirror]

You are very welcome, it's good to know I'm not alone too. I'm sorry you suffer as well, I know it can be frightening.

 

[Powder]

Agreed..."snapping back to reality" is almost painful. The D. place is one cultivated to be a "safe, peaceful" place of low stimulation. Perhaps, we still need it to counteract the overstimulation of the para sympathetic nervous systemin PTSD states. Like sleep, perhaps the Dissociated State is a necessary escape until further healing and skills and better coping mechanisms are learned? Don't feel bad about this, you didn't elect to have it.

You said "parts of me" which may indicated dissociative ego states? I am not the expert, but I have done a little research, as I believe I had this with my DID/PTSD. Up until recently, I have been resentful of the alter who keeps hiding relevant info and memories of abuse from me, like she's sabotaging my recall. However, lately I realized "she/I" did it to survive and keep a less traumatized self program running so I could eat, sleep, go to school and actually pay some attention and learn other skills, make friends, etc. Now, she is just doing "her job" really well and hiding the memories of trauma from my conscious mind the best she can, although all my other parts are digging for the recall so they can deal with it now that I'm actively working on healing my worst PTSD symptoms. People say, Don't force it, but how can I heal if I don't know what happened? So I have remembered some, just enough to get the gist.

Dissociation was a mechanical coping mechanism that now doen't need to keep happening. With therapy and adding lots of positive emotions with supportive relationships and taking really good care of your body with healthy food in correct portions, water, juice, sleep, gentle excercize, laughter (watch funny stuff, no violence) and other supports, you won't find yourself D so much. Crowds are too overstimulating at first. Smaller groups are much better until you are ready to go back. Avoiding triggers is (according to research) a way females tend to cope with PTSD vs males, who tend to lash out in anger and cool their jets that way. Avoidance is more female, while staying angry and aggressive seems to be associated with males, but I see both genders doing both things.

What have you done in the past that may be D?
XOXO Muse

 

[Kintsugi]

I know that I dissociate a lot in terms of feeling completely removed, dead, really. When I was going through my worst period of dissociation (which was also the first time I started dissociating in public places, social events, driving--scary situations. My T informed me pretty far after the fact that if she had known I was dissociating in these situations she would have recommended meds), I literally felt like I was dead except that outside forces interrupted my nothingness by provoking a response from me, which, as I've said, I experienced as very painful. The first thing to go is feeling capable of movement. Sound starts to seem imperceptible. I can hear words, but they have no meaning or place. It feels a lot like hearing low static or humming, kind of like a foreign language I'm not paying any attention to, and then I experience it as more of a pricking or itch, like having pins and needles in my ears. I hear words in my head, but I'm completely indifferent. The less I think the more peaceful and easy it is to be completely gone. I can't move or speak. I can't feel. Nothing has any substance at all. Then my vision is gone, irrelevant. I could be seeing anything. Unfortunately, when I start losing my ability to perceive my environment, I found that I was incredibly susceptible to flashbacks. I don't know if anyone else experiences this transition, but it is terrifying and so hard to get out of. It's really the only reason I really don't want to dissociate. Otherwise, this type of dissociation feels like the peace of death, and I was very addicted to it until it went bad with the flashbacks.

But there are other things that I don't necessarily view as dissociation that may be a form of it. I was an extreme playing-pretend kid. I lived in my own world of imagination %95 of the time. It was complicated play that took me completely out of reality. I didn't see what was around me at all. I was constantly in trouble for failing to hear the phone or doorbell ring or to hear my family calling for me from another room. I had very specific characters that were forms of myself, and some of them shared the same universe and others had their own. I did not always know the difference between characters being imaginary and being real, at least with one character who I swore I could see. This ended when I was around nine or ten. I started writing instead. I wrote elaborate fantasy with full narrative arcs and that were full-length stories. From the time I was twelve until I got my license at around 16, I wrote in every spare second of my day. All the time. I used to say goodbye to people around me, my family generally, when I started to write, because I literally stopped interacting with anything around me. It was like the immersive experience of reading a good book or watching an enthralling piece of cinema, but it was a much stranger experience because I was able to type furtively without actually seeing any of the words or keys or having any notion of reality. This started fading the more I learned intellectually about writing, though, and as my process became more deliberate, I have only been able to go into these trance-like writing states when writing in a specific manner about a pretty specific range of topics in a specific setting (closed room, no electronics, no view of the outside world from windows).

I don't know if these circumstances are a form or aspect of dissociation, or if they have particularly dissociative qualities, but I have always found my dissociative spells reminiscent in some ways of those activities.

When I say I feel like I'm leaving fragments of myself behind, I mean I literally feel like a melting candle trailing wax. I feel as if I should be literally and physically falling apart, melting, disintegrating. I feel the friction of wind on my skin and feel as if I can feel the atoms being eroded from me, like the fabric of my very matter is being ripped away slowly. It's both an emotional and physical experience. Maybe this is just another form of having an overactive imagination. I imagine things so vividly that they become incredibly sensual. People say that one can't feel pain in dreams. I have never understood this. I have painful dreams all the time, where I wake up in pain. I had a series of bee sting dreams recently, and I experienced distinct and very realistic pain from each bee sting. I've been burned in dreams. I'm very good at lucid dreaming depending on the situation, but I've also never been able to breathe in reality while underwater in a dream. My point is that my perception shapes my reality very viscerally sometimes, and I lose touch with what is real and what is in my head and where the line is, even as an adult sometimes, and maybe this is a part of feeling like I am actually eroding physically as well as going through many brief periods of dissociation like what I was describing earlier.

Thanks for reading.

 

[Powder]

Wow, I started following you for two reasons, both the similarity in what you have described and my own perceptions and also just because you are a such a wonderful, descriptive writer! Then you said you have written your whole life, basically, so I am thrilled I picked up that about you. :tup:

Your description of leaving fragments of yourself behind didn't make sense at all to me until you further described the sense that wind is blowing your atoms away. Okay, that was me at 20...I tried to tell my Therapist and he didn't understand it at all. This must be part of PTSD. Do you have comorbid Depression? The reason I ask, is I was depressed and confused a lot then. That was before I left home to have my own family. Since having kids, my depression has lifted considerably; I think the key for me is living for them and not for myself. I find loving and living for my family to be far more interesting and uplifting to my life purpose than living just for myself. Makes sense if I've had PTSD since age five.

However, maybe it's the cause or type of PTSD that makes this feeling of fading away. When you're ready, there is a trauma diary under PTSD Diaries, Members. I found that was key for me to move forward. Maybe not everyone here would agree. There is something different in writing for just oneself and writing for an internet audience. Somehow releasing the trauma or even the notion of it into the "wild" of the internet was very eye opening.

I also have had a flashback. Just one. I dissociated a little bit for just a minute before they (it was like a double fb) hit. So I agree on that point also, it's like punishment for allowing oneself to dissociate. :cry:

Have you tried medication?

Take care! Muse

 

[Kintsugi]

You are a such a wonderful, descriptive writer! Then you said you have written your whole life, basically, so I am thrilled I picked up that about you. :tup:

I am thrilled, too. I appreciate your kind words and also admire your communication.

Do you have comorbid Depression? The reason I ask, is I was depressed and confused a lot then. That was before I left home to have my own family. I find loving and living for my family to be far more interesting and uplifting to my life purpose than living just for myself. Makes sense if I've had PTSD since age five.

Yes, living for others in my life is helpful. I have recently come into contact with my biological brothers (3) and sister. We have a complicated dynamic, but suffice to say there is family out there not connected to my trauma who cares a great deal for my well-being. Also, my sister is a year younger than I am. I cannot abandon her. Of course, my fiance, his family, and my puppy are also people for whom I live.

However, maybe it's the cause or type of PTSD that makes this feeling of fading away.

Yes, I am realizing increasingly that I have relied deeply my entire life on others cuing me on who to be. I think that the nature of my abuse and my relationship from ages infancy (my brother's name was my first word) to about fourteen years old (we shared the same circle of friends from about ages 11-14) has created a drive in me to seek out older male authorities to tell me how to behave. Perhaps any authority. I have successfully buried myself in academic rigor in devotion to professors of both genders in attempt to create a specific image of myself that I believe they want.

My fiance is who has really provoked my consciousness of this phenomenon. He has an incredibly strong sense of self, and he often points out that I abandon myself too frequently in the search to become whatever my present company wants, or, perhaps more dangerously, when I abandon my own reasoning and turn religiously to the advice of specific people whom I revere. Often when an influential person leaves my life in some way, I have either an identity crisis in which I feel no self-image and a sense of lostness and goneness or a radical change in habits and personality provoked by a new person in my life whom I connect to significantly in some way that is irrelevant to the changes I make (This is getting convoluted!).

I think I am experiencing an intense form of loss of self, maybe, or some kind of weird disconnect because I am recognizing these habits and patterns in myself. I am feeling like maybe I never, ever developed a self, and if I did, I have no clue where she is. At the same time, I feel like I have developed dozens of selves and just fossilized them in my writing. These thoughts lead me to think that maybe both of these statements are true: perhaps it is that I have developed definitive selves, but they aren't integrated into a personality cohesively, and they also have never interacted with reality. Thankfully, just writing about these realizations make them feel like something I can hold onto. Awareness seems to be integral in combating my symptoms in most situations so far.

When you're ready, there is a trauma diary under PTSD Diaries, Members. There is something different in writing for just oneself and writing for an internet audience. Somehow releasing the trauma or even the notion of it into the "wild" of the internet was very eye opening.

Mine is called Everything Was Beautiful. I find it very helpful. I wrote a memoir about trauma for my senior thesis and found that experience cathartic as well. I received both peer and professor criticism--that was also an interesting and somewhat freeing experience. Crafted artifice is a great method of externalization. Horrifically, as part of my senior requirements I had to read several passages of my piece for a public reading along with the rest of the senior writers, though long-term this was empowering and positive. Publicly speaking out is powerful, though intimidating. The diary is a little different. I think because it is more for me, informal, and being projected at an audience that I know is supportive. I am accessing things--emotions and associations--that I would not otherwise delve into if creating something more for an audience than for myself. My thanks goes out to everyone who is kind enough to play the part of supportive audience in what may be the most selfish writing expedition I have participated in since I was a young teen.

I agree… it's like punishment for allowing oneself to dissociate. Have you tried medication?

Yes, in some way I'm glad that there are consequences. I recently read that dissociation actually releases opiates into your brain. I can see why this would be addictive. I don't want to be addicted to a false feeling of non-existence. Thank god, I just got back on my meds after a hiatus almost four times as long as the length I took the meds to begin with. >.<

Thanks for your support and words.

 

[Powder]

Wow, you have such a brilliant IQ for words, description, and coherence in your expressions. I used to teach Composition 101, of course, the nuts and bolts only, not creative writing. But someday, that is what I'd love to be able to facillitate at least.

I love your use of detail; it makes reading your posts a poetic journey rather than a utilitarian experience.

Muse

 

[Kintsugi]

Well that's flattering. You still far outrank me in education. If someone offered me a comp one class to teach right now (9 credits from a BA), I would probably cry for joy. Also, I'll be sure to tell you when my memoir is published so you can talk it up to your friends! ^-^

In any case, I'd love to chat further with you in a private conversation. Changing gears back to the original post...

I have heard that many people who suffer from PTSD suffer from a lack of self-image. Perhaps this sensation is actually an extreme manifestation of this? Does anyone know anything about if the vividly imaginative reality I've experienced is a by product of dissociation? I don't think that I have multiple personalities, but until the past few years I always envisioned my mind as a conversation between all of the main characters of every made-up world I'd created (either through younger play or later writing. The most recent characters included in my mental conversations were made when I was 15 or 16), sometimes writing out these conversations to reflect on. The literal, physical me was not present, though. I truly felt as if I were in some way governed by these personalities. There were sadistic, raging, villainous characters, depressive characters, righteous characters, slutty characters, meek/modest characters, self-hating characters, logic-driven characters, ect., and they would just fight over whatever I was mentally struggling with, whether it be how to address an issue I had in a classroom or how to cope with distress. Is this a dissociative problem, or just me being really bizarre? I often find I have a hard time understanding anything at all unless I can verbalize it or, especially, write it out. Perhaps I am just working with this skill in extreme and odd ways?

Also, to address an earlier question from Muse, yes, I am very, very depressed, but as I understand it, this is just common to PTSD? My biological family has a history on both sides of depression, alcoholism, bi-polar, and my mother was probably PTSD, because she was raped throughout her childhood by her stepfather. I don't know if any of these have played into my struggle. All of them just look like they could be conflated into the PTSD I suffer from due to specific and multiple traumas, so I'm not sure if it really matters if there is true co-morbitity?

 

[Powder]

To look at both issues specifically, (DID and Depression) as comorbid, a therapist should be able to delve into those in detail and let you know if you exhibit some of those traits to the extent that a DSM diagnosis is appropriate; however, for our discussion, we are informed enough to decide for ourselves if we think we have it. Anthony has said, self-diagnosis is not a diagnosis, and that is correct. But the fact is, therapists are not in a wave of dislike of labels, it seems. 15 yrs ago, they were label crazy, when the new SSRI's started to appear on the Rx market. There was a rush to try them all out on everyone. Therefore, the diagnostic labeling, and over-labeling that is still happening to this day, in the exhuberance of medicating the masses. A therapist who is dedicated to "being there for you" is more hesitant to name things. There are some studies that show that just being labeled is a setback in some ways.

Self-discovery is not self-diagnosis, but I can see a mental image of a Venn Diagram. :rolleyes:

Dissociative Identity Disorder is something I would have immediately dismissed for myself until recently. The difficulty making decisions without having an internal debate or concensus is listed as a feature of DID. I have to do this, too.

Another feature, for me, is having dreams with the main "alters" (characters inside my personality) collaborating on various tasks to get me well. Alter is short for alternative personalities, but more accurately, alternate parts of one's personality. The main thing I get from it is that trauma repeated over time tends to compartmentalize various aspects of one's experience and later personalities, or strengths/skills, weaknesses or general attributes. Thus, my personality "switches" into these alters; but for me, they feel more like "modes."

For example, when I feel in the mood to tackle an intellectual task, my "professor" comes out. I live entirely in my head while I work on the task, and can focus for hours without taking any notice of my physcial body, but I have to switch into that persona to do this task well. This is the secret to my success, academically.

In the past, when I was younger and new to college, my sexualtiy would stand in the way of the Professor and demand attention. I don't know that is was a true alter, but it could be. Sometimes, just tying to study and switch into Professor mode was impossible if Sex was not dealt with first. I don't know why, but I chalked it up to raging hormones, (and still do... :roflmao: I mean, how many 18 year olds aren't sexaholics?) Also, I'd drink coffee before a study session, and have seen over the years that coffee in particular as a form of caffeine is an afrodisiac to me.

Then there is the nurturing alter, when I am her, I am empathetic and caring...totally, and cannot think about my own needs.
There is the angry, raging, destructive (even self-destructive) alter, who also hides the memories of trauma. I should call her Kali, the Hindu Goddess of Destruction. But she is "Belle" in child form, and "Beatrix" in adult form. She always appears to be so beautiful in my dreams, but this only serves to obscure her true intentions, which are homicidal. She is like "the Madwoman in the Attic" in Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. I keep her locked up pretty well, but she gets out at night in my dreams.

Michelle, the caring nuturer, the "Professor," and Beatrix have made appearances in my dreams. I didn't think of them as alters until recently. As I have said, I have difficulty seeing myself as a true DID sufferer since I don't exhibit it much at all.

I do Dissociate, sometimes dramatically, but rarely in an obvious way.

There is one thing that makes me think I have DID. During counseling, I tapped some buried grief over the loss of my grandfather. As the conversation continued, I must have D'd a tiny bit to numb the pain just to stop crying. I felt like a child again, very in pain and alone, so I must have. Then, suddenly, I began talking in a more confident voice that sounded male to me, and the Professor had taken over the reins so that I could finish the session without the emotions getting in the way. It was almost scary, as I tried to "turn the voice back" to my normal one, and she didn't seem to notice, but I did. Maybe she thought my voice was husky from the tears in my throat, but it wasn't that. The fear kicked in when I felt I was on autopilot with that masculine, emotionless voice, and I didn't like it. It took a minute or two of talking in that voice/alter, then a pause and a breath, and I was "back on" as "me" again. This took me by complete surprise. So now I do think I have at least some DID.

Your characters sound like DID alters to me. They contain vastly diametric emotional ego states that have polarized into full personalities. That is what DID is about. But it really needs to be exhibited in other ways then just our dreams or imaginations (or even maybe internal dialogues). For a diagnosis, you have to exhibit "switching" I think. Only those close to you and maybe the T. will be aware of it, because, like I said, you will be one person at work, one at home (with triggers like anger causing you to "switch"). Switching is often misdiagnosed as Bi-polar b/c they can appear to be the same, especially if you have only two main alters. But since I have at least four main ones, and several subsidiary "fragments," and I don't exhibit any bipolar traits, such as mood flux at all, then I'm more likely DID, which is common with C PTSD, although it didn't make the DSM this round.

Hope that helps with the DID discussion.

Depression is another topic. I think it's more biological and can be influenced by diet and other body patterns. However, cognitively, I have learned to monitor my negative self talk and get it down to a minimum, which has really helped over the years. It's also been major to stay away from my parents, from whence the self- castigation was being internalized. They are the source, so I cut the cord. That has done more than any pill ever could.

But Depression is complex and can take many forms comorbidly. It's probably the most important thing to remove from one's mental playground, like a vicious bully, before further play and improvements can be realistically made. Not enough fat in the diet, not enough quality sleep (or frequent nightmares), not enough play and movement and excercise and sunshine, all these matter. I also personally feel that it is the symptom of having repressed anger and pain that needs to leak out in a very supportive way. Releasing that tension leaves room for more happy thoughts and positive futuring. Also, positive affirmations directly run against the grain of depression, and though they may intitiallly inflame negative self-talk, you simply note the neg-talk, and let it pass by like a passing sailboat, and keep sailing into the positive port you want. Have you read You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay? While she is a bit New Age for me, the bulk of what she says works for most people who try it.

When one is young, finding out one has depression, PTSD, and such is horrifying and self-limiting. A dark cloud appears and joins the others and the future takes on those tones of am impending storm. Where will it all end? But, with just a little patience and a lot of energy and gusto, it actually can end rather well. For you see, it is not what we have right now, it is what we want and the choices we make in love that matter.

Recently, I attended a funeral. There were several people there, and although the woman had no degree, no "career" as such, and was not beautiful, she had the most wonderful funeral I have ever been witnessed. Her children clearly admired and loved her, and they told of her devotion. She was active in all their childhood pursuits, such as 4H club and events, which she served as Secretary for years. They showed a picture of her smiling with a horse and her kids also. Her grandchildren thought the world of her, and her husband and his family grieved the loss of a wonderful, loving "angel" in their world. She was not fancy, but she was Love to many people.

It has long been my goal to not let PTSD turn me into someone unlike the forementioned lady. Though my rage comes out once in a while, and I can get blue or low energy, or sick a lot, I want my family to see my devotion in many forms. Love is what I live for now, and not only for myself, but for my own family and co-workers. Self-sacrifice is a hallmark. Though it is not seen, it is there. Right now, it means getting up early so I can see my oldest off to school with a hot breakfast and a hug, though that has been hard with a baby keeping me up most of the night (and PTSD doing its worst to my body.) So I am always tired. But it's worth it. Each day is another day I had something to give, something to offer someone I love.

Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning highlights the hallmark of this creed. That we have the best life if we can take another's burden from them, and carry it ourselves.

 

[Kintsugi]

Unfortunately, I think that this kind of self-sacrificial positivity is what gets me in the doghouse with myself. I begin to totally ignore my needs due to my interest and investment in the needs of others, particularly with my family/parents. I stop listening to what I need and press myself to live because I have a role to play in the lives of others. I am not trying to offend you. Your words are supportive, encouraging, helpful, and uplifting.

But my most clear concept of this nature (self-sacrificing love) going too far is the image of my mother. She is a very warm, very caring, loving, supportive mother. She is always there for every child who has ever asked for her help (except for me, I guess, but that's a complicated and bitter issue), and she is always wiling to sacrifice her own health for the health of those around her. She gives everything to her family. In turn, she takes responsibility for everything we do. Our failings become her failings, how could I be such a bad mother, why didn't I stop this from happening, etc., etc. She is ever the martyr, and it takes away from my autonomy as well as destroys her individual life.

I never want to be that woman, and recently I've been taking steps against trying to become that woman, because part of me is naturally becoming like her. I want to make sure that having a family will never mean the end of my personal adventures in academia and the professional world, and I don't want to build a life where I am merely a supporting role.

I'm not saying that this is you, Muse. I just have realized through my fiance's family that individuals have great power to come into control of their lives and lead healthy, unstressed lifestyles while maintaining a family but not taking that family too seriously as an integral piece of who they are. I want to have strong family bonds, and I feel like I do have that with my biological family, but I don't want to take it upon myself to be the well-being of others.