Dissociation, What Are Examples?

[AzureMind]

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 feel like I'm either being pushed outward and projected above my body watching the experience happening to another person who is just 'there' or I feel as if, I'm being pulled "inward" to my inner world, and I see a bright white light that represents the "external world" in my minds sky. I can hear conversations or people talking to me only faintly echoing through the darkness, but usually I'm speaking to another one of these people, and they may keep me in, while they go out...alot of emotional states that I had to internalize usually cycle through me, and I can feel as if I'm dissociated, but that these words are coming out but they're not "mine" as they aren't synonymous with my current state of mind: i.e. when I'm happy, angry words may erupt out of me, and i feel like they aren't mine....I have no reason to be angry when I'm happy.

My mind has the ability to "submerge" itself when I'm overwhelmed...most of the time i can dissociate an experience and when i go to summarize the event, I can recall virtually NOTHING abut it.....it's just a blank....I've been doing this for quite a while, I can "pigeon hole" experiences if they are overwhelming.

It's easier to do this when dealing with my father....I live with him still, and he's so guilt ridden over the past, that he asked me

"was I a good father to you?" I say all the time

"Yes, I'm sure you WERE..but I don't remember those days so well, dad"

Everytime I try to remember something he changes the subject, or when I ask my mother she says "Nothing happened worth remembering. You had a normal childhood"

lol it's funny.....I have a few friends who had a "normal childhood" and none of them seem to be unable to recall HALF of their 22 year old life....hmmm.....I don't think you just "don't remember" half your life, I don't care HOW normal/boring it was!! lol I've gotta laugh about it, because I'd go INSANE if I could, but I guess it's too late for that so nix the last bit!! :)

 

[Spero3]

OMG! You do what I do! I get very sleepy when I dissociate. I just want to go to sleep...and never wake up. My brain just shuts down.

Spero

 

[Lionheart]

The way my therapist explained it to me was, when under the stress, the mind tries to make the situation seem less real.

One time when I was young, the abuse was so bad that I was struggling to shut myself down and I had to "go away in my mind." I latched on to the sound of blackbirds singing outside the window and I "flew away" with them. Each bird had a piece of "me." It became my alternate reality. I was no longer in the room where the abuse was taking place although my body was there.

Another time I 'projected' (for lack of a better word) my "self" into a mirror because Alice through the Looking glass was on the television and the parents were having a bad fight. I remember a deepening sense of umm, unreality, (if that makes any sense to anyone). I was pretty young when that happened.

Anyway, the way I understand it, these 'dissociations' were my minds way of helping me to cope. They were like hallucinations, or more precisely, out-of-body experiences, (that's the best way I know to explain them).

Other times, I "blank out" and "lose time", but I don't know if that is a symptom of the same phenomena.

 

[OKRADLAK]

I still do not know if I do it, but when I have these episodes, my senses get exquisite. It is like what I hear Extacy is like. I never too it, but that is what it sounds like. THings I touch, smell, etc.

My sense are already too sensitive, but during these times, it's way off the hook

 

[webVixen]

I describe this as being as though I have wax in my ears and a veil over my eyes. I can see and hear, it is just very distant, very insignificant.

Didn't do it so much before my breakdown last July, but now it is very frequent and the past two weeks it seems constant.

I think therapy has brought it on.

 

[Linda Strawberry-Coloma]

I dissociate. Here is what it is like for me. I'll be there and then I feel my body go numb and i don't feel connected to it like I am slightly above myself. I feel like i'm going 'somewhere'. I grab ice cubes, pinch myself, jump, anything to try to stay connected to the ground because when they go deep I recall everything crystal clear and I lose my surroundings. I dissociate all the time. Especially in the car which is why I don't drive. (I'm working on that because now I am a mother).
The other day my husband found me holding ice cream and a bag of frozen peas pacing the kitchen. C'est la vie.
I don't remember huge chunks of time and then they come back when I see people. It is weird though when I hear names I think I know and find out I spent significant time with them and my friends have to tell me about it as if I wasn't there. I have distanced myself from alot of my friends subconsciously because they do this without thinking about it and trigger me. I didn't have the 'word' for it for a long time. I just called it out of body experiences and 'spaced out'. It's nice to know that there is a name for it and that I am not the only one.
Someone above said they think you only dissociate if the abuse was before a certain age. That is not true. I was 22 when my trauma started.

 

[OKRADLAK]

Dang, I know it is terrible to have that, but I am usually in so much aware pain and so damn aware of it that if I could go right out like that I would try to do it 24/7. I know it is terrible for those of you who have it, but it is kinda of a relief?

I do not get relief.

 

[webVixen]

It is a retreat for me. When a flashback is coming on, I welcome the dissociation. Usually they come together for me. That is where I get my lapse in time. I am really experiencing something else somewhere else. I just don't try to connect to it.

 

[RosieNorth]

Wow, so many things in this thread remind me of what I've experienced. First, the conversations in one's head. Many times I've talked to myself like there are two people in my head discussing everyday subjects. Like "I really should clean this place up" "Yes, you should you lazy bum" etc. I've always thought that everybody thought like this.
I've read a lot about dissociation and all the articles agree that (aside from the normal daydreaming or highway hypnotism) there are several kinds: depersonalization-when you don't feel real
derealisation- when the world doesn't feel real
fugue- when you forget who you are and run away from your life
D.I.D. development of different alters.... and there are several other forms of dissociation
In the past when I didn't know what dissociation was, it terrified me. I suffered from derealization and at it's worst I felt like I was trapped inside a glass cage, through which I could see everthing but feel nothing.
Sometime I get the feeling of floating through the air over fields and forests.
Nowadays it's more like my head going into another space where nothing really matters.
Sometimes I think that some people pay a lot of money for illegal drugs that make them feel this way, and I'm getting it for free!
Spero3, last week I had the same experience in mediation with my now ex-husband! I shut down and couldn't talk. So then he talked for two hours and said things that made me so angry that I snapped out of it.

 

[LaurenRose]

I finally understand. The terrible D's: Dissociation, Derealization, Depersonalization. The fabric of my life is all three and yet, both the 'realization and the 'personalization are collected under the umbrella of dissociation which also shelters identity, memory fuge and amnesia. Gods! I have yet to understand why big words and bigger phrases have to complicate something so completely - especially to those of us who are taxed out with the energy required to process our trama's. Somehow it seems almost cruel.

Now I would have understood: Dissociation - memory, identity, perception, and consciousness become disconnected from each other, where sometimes I can...


... feel like I am in a dream, where I am removed from a sense of myself, a passenger in my own body, an impostor, a trickster - myself being unreal (dissociative depersonalization).{Often I am only able to feel my body and the sensation would be similar to what I feel when I hold anothers hand. I only know that I am being overwhelmed by the cues I notice happening to my body - shakes, palpitations, sweat. I get reality "wobbles" like standing in front of a fun house mirror looking back at myself, reality distorts and wobbles insanely. I suffer tremendous shame when I go out into the world and put on "normal" and pretend.}

Or I can sometimes doubt my surroundings and may have difficulty recognizing once familiar people and things, that I am in a movie - the world is unreal (dissociative derealization). {No emotional attachment to colour. The world is a cartoon strip. Or like I am in a video game and my only job is to stick to the rules of engagement. I miss finding beauty and joy and awe.}


Or I can sometimes have difficulty seeing myself as a whole person, not know who I am, may have voices or even people living together in my body, maybe even where everyone has a role to play or a job to do. (dissociative identity) {I am a collection of individuals each with their own voice, inflection and agenda - uniquely separate and at the same time, me. I don't know how to define the "who" anymore}

Or I may sometimes have a real tough time remembering stuff. It could include blocking out present memories so a continuous sense of time becomes disrupted, or it could be blocking out memories of traumas from the past so completely that life can be lived in comfort in the environment where the trauma occurred. (dissociative amnesia) {being told that an event had happened and I was a participant and having no recollection but understanding that if I did remember at the time, it would have been very very bad. I have also recovered two horrendous traumas that happened twenty years ago that I had absolutely zero recollection of and when the knowledge of it smashed into me, I was experiencing them for the first time. I have betrayed myself and am deeply suspicious of what else I might have buried, or are currently burying.}


Or I may even become a brand new person with no memory of who I was before (dissociative fuge) {When my PTSD activated, I just up and left life, my man, my son, my job, my country, picked a spot on the map, bought a ticket and just left. I didn't know how to do life anymore and now I know that this is called PTSD - a lifetime of suppressing that suddenly would not be suppressed any longer}


I am reading that and am getting all wistful thinking that it has taken me three years to get it straight. I wonder if there is a Dr. Seuss book on dissociation.

I am talking to my trauma psychologist and my addictions/trauma counselor. My counselor is working with me on my body and connection, experiencing it and learning what it has to say. My psychologist is working with me on the others. I was terrified to talk out loud about what was happening to me. I was in the chrysalis being melted down and I didn't know what was happening or why, so totally caught up in just hanging on. I was so horrified at the thought that if I tell them to what degree this is happening, especially around the voices "me", that they would turn to me and say "you are really not okay." and then where could I go. I got to the place where the pain of trying to continue to be silent and heal became greater than the pain of hearing something like that. I am still in shock in many ways when I hear them say, "this is normal" or "this is dissociation" or "this is PTSD". I am very glad I have told on myself as the type of therapy I am now receiving is hitting the core of what is going on.

Oh how I struggle though even with this. I am living on that edge, trying to retain some semblance of a "reality" that I can hold on to. My thoughts/emotions are running rampant and it is like trying to herd cats to keep them in one space. I am continuously swallowing that panic that I am going to lose my ability to make sense of anything and get lost into a place where I have no idea what goes on. Or worse, that I will lose my ability to make sense of why it is important to keep working on it.

I am grateful for this thread and for everyone who is sharing, and for my being able to share too. This is one of the efforts, the sanctuary that my recovering self gets fortified.

 

[OKRADLAK]

What is it called if you are trapped in it for many days, or like 2 weeks? I have heard it is transient, but what if the severest side of it lasts for weeks?

By that I mean feeling like you are not you and cannot relate to any of your things, etc. What if it lasts for weeks?

 

[RosieNorth]

Hi Okradlak, If you are stuck in an abusive situation, it could last untill you are in a safe place. In my case it lasted for years when I was a kid and then came back when my husband became violent. When I was a teenager I would flip back and forth from one state to another, not knowing why. The last episode lasted about 4 years. Now that I know what's going on, am in a relatively safe place, in control of my life it's not so bad. Now when I'm triggered and dissociate I try to feel what I'm feeling and not worry so much about losing my mind.
Jellymint, you have a way with words! That was a very descriptive and passionate few paragraphs. And I think that all of Dr. Seuss's books are on dissociation.