Aware During Dissociating?

[Dootsbec]

I feel like after some of my therapy sessions I am putting pieces of a puzzle together trying to figure out what me and my therapist were discussing that sent me into dissociating in the first place. Well my last session was different and I'm not even sure if I was dissociating or not. I shared a (relatively mild) story of abuse and my T Mentioned how sad it was and then suddenly I felt it; The sadness and hurt I was numbing myself from connected in my mind but just for a millisecond but I was too embarrassed and scared to cry so I pushed it away. My signs of dissociating are very subtle I think for the most part but I started staring at objects and found myself frozen and not able to speak (these are things that have happened before in session but I'm usually very unpresent, this time I knew what was happening in the moment-if that makes sense) so my T asked me if I had shut down and all I could muster was a quiet, "yeah.." I was trying to breathe deeply on my own and ground myself but of course as always my T had to sort of step in and help me get 'grounded.' It seems my awareness was on some other spectrum--going into a panic attack perhaps? I'm not sure. But I've never been so aware of my dissociation in the moment and knowing and feeling so helpless as it was occurring. Which of course embarrasses the hell out of me.

 

[ghotiff]

This is what happens to me with my T. She acknowledges that the event I described was horrible in some way and then my vision goes blury as the first noticeable step into dissociation. I then fight to keep myself under control. Then we move on, and I spend the next week being interrupted by what happened during therapy.

It's intersting your theory of shame regarding the emotions. I had not thought of it that way. I need to think more.

 

[Deleted member 28986]

I think this could be progress! Painful progress.

Not only did you identify a trigger for dissociation (intense feelings of sadness and hurt). Perhaps more importantly, you became aware of your dissociation as it was happening! I think that means the dissociation was less extreme. Maybe as you continue to learn some grounding techniques that work for you, you can use them to try and escape from future dissociation.

Ask your therapist what he or she thinks. :)

 

[Jobriel]

This is how I almost always experience dissociation. As far as I am aware, I never go away completely, but my vision gets blurry and my responses are very slow. Sometimes I know what is going on and can speak, and other times I feel like I am hanging out in the back of my head and listening to someone else speak.