Dissociation Explained

[bluehairedstevo]

Thanks for this thread.

So I guess I've been dissociating pretty much my whole life for various reasons. On that scale that Anthony provided, I never got to separate voices/identities, but definitely dissociative episodes and even up to out-of-body experiences in the worst traumas. I actually didn't feel fully 'integrated' into my body until I started testosterone treatment 3 years ago (was born with a hormonal imbalance)... I was like, wow, is this what 'normal' people feel like?

So although that's helped, I find I'm still pretty dissociative, especially right now as I'm working through my trauma(s) in therapy.

My therapist is trying to tell me that being grounded is important, but I honestly don't completely understand why it's so important at times... like why it's such a 'bad' coping mechanism for someone as old as I am. Can anybody help out?

 

[bluehairedstevo]

Nevermind, I've been reading around the forum & thinking about it more & I think I can see why it would be a negative coping mechanism...

 

[EvenStrongerNow]

Hi Anthony, thanks for posting this. I hope you don't mind if I use the last paragraph of your post as my signature. I would give you credit. I really needed to read this today. I feel like I'm human again after doing so...

 

[99Phoenix99]

Wow... I'm glad I found this. I really REALLY NEEDED to read something like this today. I've been pretty down lately and this puts me at ease to know/see this all out there.

Since then, you have been “living in your head, ” experiencing life intellectually, not emotionally.

This is what's really hit me the hardest.

At 15 no one could diagnose me, for a good few months I was told I was terminal, that was retracted, and ever since then my treatments for my illness involve IM injections or nerve blocks all administered to my face. I never received anesthetic. I've probably had more than 200 different injections into my face alone.

In any case... I've been having a really hard time with emotions. This past year people have noticed a huge change in me, I'm considering it the end of 8 years of complete dissociation. My memories are very minimal and what I do remember is horrid. I never really FELT anything in all those years. Certainly I could laugh and joke with people but aside from that it was very much me flying solo or as you've written "living in my head" and I guess I was completely unaware that's what it was. But now I'm actually breaking through my dissociation at times and it scares me. Such intense feelings of anger, sadness, love.... I've never experienced emotions so raw before. It's terrifying at times. I've never had the need to connect to others before.

Ugh. I'm getting too emotional right now I can't even think straight about what I wanted to say anymore. I have that problem now. Disrupted thought patterns is a new and frustrating occurrence for me.

I guess I just want to say thanks for posting this thread. I'll be back to read this multiple times.

 

[tree]

I thought my brain was getting better but after...I could barely finish my week at work. I feel as terrible as before. I cant believe this is happening to me. I don't understand what is happening to me. I feel so tired and weak.

 

[Philippa]

I hope you have never experienced anyone here negating your experiences Philippa.

I've never experienced anything like that during my time here. At least not on the non-anonymous threads. Thankyou for asking though.:)

 

[Abstract]

There is always this part of me that tries to talk myself down because I wasn't made to eat worms on the floor as a child or locked in closets or basements and tied up

Me too Philippa. I am sorry you feel that way and sorry someone negated your experience on the anonymous forum.

I never got back there but always wanted to go back and answer some of the things you said about your family on Gizmo's being made a scapegoat thread. Inside your family things very really not right.

 

[BlackbirdSinging]

I have a question. It seems to me like a "dumb" question as I feel like I should already have this answer somehow but I've never gotten a straight answer for it.

When going through a traumatic experience and you freeze are you dissociating? I've done that several times. And even recently in a session with my therapist I was going over a traumatic experience and all of a sudden I paused blinked and looked around. I told my therapist I felt like I didn't know where I was. I felt like I wasn't really in the room. I knew I was. I could see where I was. But when I had paused I had suddenly become aware that I wasn't in the present moment.

I asked her if I was dissociating and all she said was I was reliving the experience. It was such an odd and disconnected feeling. I've felt it before at different times and have always wondered what it was. But back to my original question. When a person freezes are they dissociated?

 

[Abstract]

When a person freezes are they dissociated?

Hi Blackbird,
Someone may correct me but from what I know it isn't. But what you describe when you say you paused and blinked I do a lot of that and I have been told that is dissociation. I think if its reliving or dissociating depends on what happens while you go "off".

This site had quite good information I found. I have not read it recently so you may need to look around to find what you need. [DLMURL]http://understandingdissociation.com/category/animal-defenses/tonic-immobility/[/DLMURL]

PS. Just read some of it again briefly and it seems it is a type of peritraumatic dissociation.:confused: I don't know how I didn't absorb that last time. Thought of it as separate so thanks for bringing it up. I read this all a way back and so probably was not in a place to understand it all..

 

[Philippa]

Oh, I'd completely forgotten about that scapegoat thread Abstract, so don't worry. Thanks for saying though.

Blackbird, your description makes me think more of de-realization rather than dissociation. I may be wrong though?

 

[BlackbirdSinging]

I hadn't heard of derealization before so I went and looked it up. it doesn't sound like what I've felt. I also looked up peritraumatic dissociation and it does sound more like this that.

It's something that I'd experience during trauma. I would freeze and not be "there" so to speak. And upon getting into therapy I can't always remember all of the details. It's kind of like it's just gone. They're not but when trying to remember them all its like I can't.

The experience in my therapist's office is what she called reliving or reexperiencing. That felt much more like a flashback in terms of it was like I was right there experiencing it again and when I paused I had looked around and was suddenly realizing I wasn't IN that past moment. I had gotten like consumed in the memory or something.

I'm going to see my therapist tomorrow so I will ask her to clarify this for me. Thank you for your input :).

 

[Abstract]

Derealisation is actually a form of dissociation.

So how I understand it many things technically fall under dissociation. Right from things that people do normally every day such as drive and not remember how they got there, to being outside their bodies and DID on the extreme outside end.

Derealisation is when the environment changes around us. Depersonalisation is when we are disconnected from ourselves in some way. Dissociated trance is almost like forms of trance or hypnosis and changes in levels of consciousness - all the way from slightly spacey to almost catatonic. Then there are flashbacks and re experiencing. Then personality dissociation is something different. And then ICD and many include loss of ability to move or motor control in a more specific way (conversion disorders and fits etc).

ask her to clarify this for me

Let us know if you want to. I would be interested. I too freeze a lot. And it is often when I am very set off by something that has connection to trauma for me. It can last for an hour or more at times. This does sound like a re experiencing thing for you. In that blog I think they discuss whether the freezing is a reaction to the re experiencing or if it is part of re experienced ecperience if one froze back in the past.