Dissociation, What Are Examples?

[Kintsugi]

Hi guys,

Apologies because it is a bit late and I didn't read through every single post so far. I just wanted to share that dissociation for me comes in a couple of forms, but the form with which I am most familiar is a paralyzing loss of all senses (I lose movement, hearing, feeling, and seeing in that order, then sometimes slip into a flashback after losing my sight for a while). I can't talk. Time seems incomprehensible. I know that I used to do this for hours and hours on end. Hours and hours and hours. But I felt completely, perfectly dead. I liked it for a while, until the flashbacks happened.

I too have vehement conversations in my head amongst thoroughly developed characters that seem to occupy my headspace. I am actually doing writing exercises now in which I am trying to basically evict them, because I think that they are impeding my ability to create a Self. I also think I depersonalize when I feel as if I am evaporating into particles, eroded by the breeze going by, and that no one should be able to see me because I am vanishing. This I think scares me the most, because I can feel my eyes begin to roll, and it feels as if I am going to black out. I can't tell if others can notice that I am struggling to continue walking/holding my head up/keep my eyes focused and seeing, but it doesn't matter in the moment, because I literally believe that no one should be able to see me. I am gone. I am just a voyeur of the world.

 

[OKRADLAK]

Anti......Oh my I get that with the breeze!! I can feel the wind going right though me and I am there only in the sense that "particles" are there. If I look in the mirror at those times I am confused and angry. Why do I look like me still?? Why can my mind go places that my body refuses to follow?! Maddening!!

 

[LaurenRose]

*Smiles* Dr. Seuss I think knew dissociation well. "Oh The Places You'll Go" is like a road map of life for all ages. My favourite quote is "Be who you are and say what you feel. Those who mind don't matter, those who matter don't mind." My troubles with that though is that my words can be fractured and I often don't know how I feel. I know what I want to feel, but when I look deeper, I realize that I don't even know if that is true for me.

I paint/draw my emotions. I did a poster with tiny markers. I used dots - thousands of dots of a woman in profile with her head thrown up to the sky in a scream. On different parts of her body, I made less and less dots to give the visual of her disintegrating, her essence crumbling and blowing away in the wind. I fully know that space where it feels like my molecules are separating and the wind of life is carrying me away one cell at a time. A very surreal space and very ungrounded within myself and this world. It used to be terrifying, now it is bewildering yet familiar.

Eroding is such a good descriptive word. I also have been paralyzed by overwhelm. I have been cemented to my bed and hours of time has gone by. Thankfully this does not happen as frequently as it did before. Kind of sucks, when my nervous system is revolting (both meanings of this word intended), it bounces to either extreme, catatonic or completely manic - frozen on my bed, or locked in that bathtub. Now it tends to sort of take a holiday and abandons me and this is when I feel myself begin to disintegrate, deteriorate, dissolve. Wow, three Ds - like "Dissociate, Depersonalization, Derealization" How fitting.

 

[Kintsugi]

Anti......Oh my I get that with the breeze!! I can feel the wind going right though me and I am there only in the sense that "particles" are there. If I look in the mirror at those times I am confused and angry. Why do I look like me still?? Why can my mind go places that my body refuses to follow?!

Oh, OKRAD, I feel you so hard. I too get very confused when looking in mirrors often, with the same sentiment attached to this feeling. Or I simply don't recognize myself, and I wonder why I am still tangible when I don't feel like I am.

I fully know that space where it feels like my molecules are separating and the wind of life is carrying me away one cell at a time. A very surreal space and very ungrounded within myself and this world. It used to be terrifying, now it is bewildering yet familiar.

I feel similarly about this by now. I didn't start getting this feeling until a little while ago (maybe 8 months) regularly, and athough I had it a couple of of times in the past, I am now finally at a place of quasi-comfort--familiarity really says it best I would say. It is still bewildering, though. It feels a little like being under the influence of some sort of substance, but it is not really like any of them. I would say if anything, it feels a little like the come-down or come-up of Lucy. >.< Depersonalization is much less fun this way, though.

 

[LaurenRose]

I am still a little stunned to be reading stuff that is so similar to what I am going through. That "aloneness" has always been so profound. Even though I have always known that I am not the only one, I haven't felt that connection that others truly do know what I am going through, and are going through similar. Reading it in some book isn't the same as hearing people speak in real time their experiences. It can be a bit overwhelming, and yet grounding at the same time. Does that make sense?

 

[Kintsugi]

Yes yes yes it does.

I was a very odd child who felt incredibly grounded and connected to nature, but there was a wall between me and Everyone Else.

 

[AzureMind]

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

yea spero, I just never want to come out....that's a HUGE problem.....it's interfering with school I'm a college student, so it's gotten pretty bad for me....I constantly feel that there is a wall between myself and the rest of the human race.....i just want to be "inside" away from others.....away from the pain, away from the hurt, and away from the lonliness....it's like I can never win.....so why bother? i can stay where I wanna be and the rest of the world can get along fine.....everyone wins :)

 

[Grim]

I have various forms of dissociation which automatically kick in when I feel threatened by a situation.

Sometimes I get an out of body experience where I am looking down on the room I'm in - as if I'm remotely viewing whats going on.

Sometimes my brain plays a trick whereby it looks round the room for objects to concentrate on in a sequence. So I may look at all of the legs of a chair in sequence followed by the surround of a fireplace. This viewing sequence repeats, until the distraction overtakes my feelings of danger. Odd I know .. !

I also have the unfortunate ability to switch of my emotions and cut away from people. I can go from full blown emotion to as if I'm talking to a lump of lard in seconds.

Very sadly I ended a relationship like this. At the time I didn't know about PTSD or dissociation - to my former partner it must have been a very cold way of suddenly ending a relationship. We have never spoken since.

Unfortunately, I've only recent discovered that I do this sort of thing - before it was just how I was. I'd never thought of it as an odd behaviour.

 

[Nighthawk]

I see my dissociation as traveling. I have not figured out were I go but it seems to be rather quiet. Some trips are shorter than others and most of the time I am not aware I am gone till I get back.

NH

 

[AzureMind]

Sometimes I get an out of body experience where I am looking down on the room I'm in - as if I'm remotely viewing whats going on.

Sometimes my brain plays a trick whereby it looks round the room for objects to concentrate on in a sequence. So I may look at all of the legs of a chair in sequence followed by the surround of a fireplace. This viewing sequence
repeats, until the distraction overtakes my feelings of danger. Odd I know .. !

Grim, I undergo different manifestations of Dissociation also.....I tend to do the "object" trick, where I can focus on an object, and my brain will "warp/play" with the dimensions, and characteristics of the object making it appear "funny looking" but generally it changes my perception of the object of focus to take my focus of the situation.....otherwise my dissociative abilities are COMPLETELY under my total control.....I usually do the "Out of body thing" and I can dissociate when I want. I usually leave a "person" in my place when I'm undergoing a situation that I have not interest in participating in.....when I'm feeling scared, weak, or angry, "He" comes out and laughs about the pain, and wants more of it.....often time, I look like I'm a child, (about 4 or so) and I stand behind "him" and I feel SOOOOO safe knowing he'll cover me.....I never thought of this as strange either.....it's what I do....it makes me feel safe, and as far as I can tell, the world hasn't gotten ANY safer, so even at the risk of sounding a bit cowardly, I'm not likely to give my "gift" up entirely.....It's here for a reason, and I can make use of it! :)

 

[intothelight]

..otherwise my dissociative abilities are COMPLETELY under my total control.....I usually do the "Out of body thing" and I can dissociate when I want. I usually leave a "person" in my place when I'm undergoing a situation that I have not interest in participating in.....when I'm feeling scared, weak, or angry, ...It's here for a reason, and I can make use of it! :)

At this moment it is my best friend.

 

[Gamereign555]

My cat died recently and when me and Amanda were at the vet putting down my cat everybody was crying but I was just staring off in the distance not really grasping anything. I was dissociating.