At What Age Did Dissociation Start?

[ReneeBaz]

I remember when things were so bad, I always tried to escape to a fantasy world. I can't remember how long ago it started but I know the more stressful the situation the more time I seemed to lose. And I don't really remember my fantasies but they had to be better than reality.

 

[Notsowild]

I remember dissociating around 5 when the sexual abuse started. I would leave my body and go elsewhere. It helped me survive my severe abuse. I still dissociate without even realizing it somedays.

 

[ellienad]

@Notsowild Wow, I could have written this post myself.... ((hugs))

 

[Whirlwind]

I didn't realize until therapy that this "thing" I can do is dissociation. I have come to realize I have a few different ways I can do it, and its been with me for as long as I can remember, so I assume its been with me since early on. It didn't bother me after I left my abusers behind, I realize now I used the "party trick" automatically sometimes, it works well during stress/pain...endurance sports, LOL.

However when my PTSD started .... I have/do lose time when severely triggered or stressed which is unfortunate. I didn't remember this "trick" but when it started again after so long I was shook up but oddly, it also felt like an old friend. It was/is a strange thing like some other childhood symptoms that reemerged after decades.

Unfortunate but fascinating in a way.

 

[Notsowild]

@Notsowild Wow, I could have written this post myself.... ((hugs))

Hugs back at you @ellienad :hug:

 

[shell]

I wasn't even aware I dissociated at all until I had a few out of body experiences as an adult when I first started therapy. After that it went rapidly down hill and as all the memories started to come back, I discovered I had large chunks of memories missing, but had never noticed how odd my recollection was because I refused to think about what happened to me, and when I would become uncomfortable because things would remind me, I would numb myself with alcohol or dissociate.

As an adult I can look back and recall incidents of people accusing me as a teenager of pretending to be someone else, and not recognizing them, even though they were talking to me and of feeling pain in my body after being raped, but not knowing why I was hurting for days after. I thought they were mistaking me for someone else, and I just puzzled over the pain, and dismissed it because nothing made sense.

It turns out I am very dissociative but I must have come to rely on it from such an early age that I wasn't aware that everyone didn't function like that, or that I was even doing it, I wasn't self aware at all. I guess I must have dissociated that I dissociated, I was aware that things felt wrong in my body, that things didn't seem logical, but then I would just shut that thought out too. In hindsight I can see it, but at the time I was oblivious to it.

I have numbed myself for years at a time, and I wasn't even aware I was numb and shut down.

 

[xena21]

I was aware that things felt wrong in my body, that things didn't seem logical, but then I would just shut that thought out too

Yes, I understand that. I have done that for so long it has become automatic almost. It's hard for me to stop myself now. I go into this zone of disconnection so easily now...at the littlest trigger. It almost doesn't even require a trigger that I can put a finger on...just life activities.

My therapist just told me that it used to be a very good tool for me. That it was very useful when I really needed it. SHe told me that it wasn't helpful anymore. It has now become a detriment. I know what she is saying, but it seems so odd to hear someone tell you that you need to change something that seems so automatic in your life...like a part of your personality. It almost seems a part of you, and now you have to get rid of it. I know she doesn't mean in one day, but the thought in itself was overwhelming to me.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

I dissociated at a very young age and lost time. I have huge gaps in some memories. I was on the outside a good little girl but I was not present in my body. I did not realize this until recently. I still tend to space out occasionally. But I no longer dissociate.

It was my way to escape the abuse and go on with my life. I was losing important things and would get in trouble for it. I am amazed the teachers passed me to the higher grades. I do not remember going to school or having any interest in what I was learning, but I did get good grades. So I was just going through the motions.

I do remember thinking that I was a very bad little girl.

 

[Gloww33]

The age of dissociating started from the first time of experiencing the trauma. I never went to a "happy" place, I went to a place in which I could cope, it felt like cement prison walls, an empty lonely place where I forced myself to think about nothing else. There were no rules on how to cope, so it was survival and I didn't fully understand what coping was, so I adopted traits I needed to survive. However, I was a kid and so dissociating was a combination of kid like coping. I didn't at that time know what a happy place was or a place of peace because there was no safe zone.....as an adult, I went to therapy after my ptsd symptoms became unbearable and this has helped a lot, being aware is a huge part of healing for me. As an adult I realized my coping mechanisms weren't healthy and my family often mentioned at times that I would just "check out" of conversations when our past was brought up, or things I know now were triggers. Therapy helped a great deal, I go on and off as I need in my life and my growth in healing. For me, it has gotten better as I have learned new skills to cope, but it still plagues me when stressful symptoms are triggered.

 

[Lucycat]

Sometimes I would leave my body ("fly")

I could fly until I started therapy. When I discussed it with my T he said that he had 'grounded' me :rolleyes:

 

[passerine]

Dissociation for me began when I was very young, but, like others, I didn't know what it was until I was an adult. The experience of it also has changed with age. Though there are very large chunks of time that are missing in my memory of childhood because I had "gone away", I do remember certain out of body type experiences, like watching the abuse happening to me as I was floating above.

I can remember this "trick" being extremely useful throughout my childhood. The fact that I could "escape" the abuses I endured while they were happening is pretty remarkable, and I am very grateful for having learned this important coping mechanism so early on.

Now, as an adult, I can still "leave" distressing situations. At times it is automatic and the switch for it can be turned on pretty easily with the PTSD as bad as it is. But I know that it is no longer serving me in the way that it did when I was younger, so I am working hard to manage it through relentless grounding and learning to tolerate distress while staying present in my body.

 

[racheldiane]

I had disassociate episodes starting around 6th grade. I didn't develop PTSD until much later (the trauma that caused it happened late into my sophomore in high school) but I was molested as a young kid (6 or 7 years old) and developed depersonalization disorder later on. My disassociative episodes were very much related to self harming as an adolescent-- I would self harm because I knew it would bring on the depersonalization and I wouldn't have to feel the feelings I was having. When I went into high school I developed anorexia/bulimia, and that was also very much related to the disassociation. Restricting food and being hungry all the time put me in a trance. It was my coping mechanism for a long time to try and disassociate. When I was raped in my sophomore year I quit self harming alltogether (and I was in a recovery program for my ED so I was on a path to normal eating already) because I don't want to take something bad that they did and internalize it by hurting myself. Since I quit (It's been a year and a half now!) I rarely get disassociative episodes. Which is probably a good thing, but sometimes I miss being able to force myself out of my body like that and not feel anything.

Edit: Actually now that I think about it I probably started disassociating way earlier than I remember. There are huge chunks of my childhood that are missing from my memory, I don't remember much of my childhood until about 3rd grade or so.
I'm also missing a lot of memory from when I was active in my eating disorder, which makes sense because I was basically disassociating all day and all night. A lot of times my friends will mention something from those years and I absolutely don't remember it. There are a few moments I remember, but I kept a blog at that time (weight loss blog . . . ugh) and sometimes when I go back and look at the posts it's so surreal because the things I believed were fxing nuts (I used to actually think that drinking water would make me fat) AND I didn't remember posting any of it.