Thanks all for sharing. This has been a really interesting discussion. In looking at how it turned out, the title should have been about variations of dissociation because I think that's what I was really asking about. The experience of dissociation is so subjective. It's been helpful to reflect the various ways that can be experienced.
Ghotiff, thanks for your thoughts! I think you're right. That bubble of normalcy lasted a moment before it burst, but I think it's more likely that it's extra hidden, which you talk about as well in describing your experience here:
For me this is definitely not the case. I've lost access to the emotions but I believe they are there, just too buried to access. Sometimes they come back, but then they will leave again just as abruptly with no conscious input from me. I tend to live without access, and only occasionally it comes, but then it disappears again (I think my longest was 10min of access).
That's pretty scary to me because I thought that at the very least, I thought I knew when I was dissociating. That's the sign of progress as tontoe mentions, right? But it looks like my feeling unloveable has been driven way, way down into a place I can't access right now. It actually makes a lot of sense. When I think about my traumatic experiences, I think about my childhood, but since then I've had failed romantic experiences that were very painful, but that I've never addressed because it didn't seem as crucial to my development as my childhood. But this has been revealing. I've decided to spend more time reflecting on my failed romantic experiences, which stems from my childhood, but also speaks to something fundamental to all human beings. I live in this world as someone who doesn't think she deserves something that is a deep drive for us as a species. Even without my childhood trauma, this is such a painful way to be in the world. I think that may be why I can't even look at it - because it's happening now and because it's no longer about what my parents did to me, and because the prospect of being without love forever is as least as tragic as having endured a childhood without love. In fact, it seems from the look of it , that this prospect is even scarier than the past.
Another thing that might be relevant, and why I don't see it as disassociation, is that when the emotions go it's only "those for that incident". If someone told me a fantastic joke 10min after my emotions stopped I would laugh and feel happy, there's an emptiness when they go, but not all my emotions go. I hope that makes sense, these are difficult topics to articulate.
Can you say more about "not all my emotions go"? When I get dissociated, I lose access, but still feel the angst to some extent or so I thought. I can't believe that I could have emotions that have zero traces.
I have in the past talked about my trauma as if it happened to someone else, and at times I have felt like I have left my body, or the overwhelming emotion I had a second ago disappears, and I can't get it back.
Shell, I can relate to the out of body experience in terms of how I used to be in my depersonalized state, but not so much what happened to me recently. When you say that the overwhelming emotion you had disappears, that does sound like what I experienced.
My experience of dissociation is one of being in the world, but not of it; of being completely overwhelmed yet completely underwhelmed at the same time, like being inside some huge invisible bell jar, full of "sound and fury" mind racing with all senses turned up to 11 yet dull and numbed to connection with the outside world, feelings and emotions at the same time
That's how I usually experience dissociation too, or so I thought. The emotions are there, but I can't put them into words and they take over my mind. But this recent experience I had was as disturbing to me as it was because it didn't have any trace of emotions at all. The only reason I even noted it was because of my feelings just before it happened. Otherwise, it would have been a total non-event.
