I've been dissociating in stressful situations since I was a little kid. Back then, it involved hiding in closets or small spaces while the rest of the household screamed at each other. As I got older, it sort of developed into an inability to face a situation. I learned recently that these "episodes" actually have a name (one of many things I'm learning about my diagnosis). It's nice to have a name and the comfort of knowing it's not just me, but that doesn't take away the problems related to it.
I live mostly with my boyfriend, his mother, and her boyfriend in her house. His mother has some issues related to PTSD, so she's understanding about a lot of these things but I still feel like they don't comprehend the feelings I'm having well enough. For example, the other night my boyfriend and I (let's call him Scott) needed to move his mother's boyfriend's truck to get Scott's car out of the driveway. It had recently snowed, and that truck is a beast, but I've driven it before in similar situations so it seemed alright. While backing it into the driveway, I clipped a snowbank and apparently made a lot of noise. When I got out of the car, both Scott and his mother were standing with their arms folded looking very displeased. She looked straight at me and said "No more of that". As soon as she said that, I felt myself hit that wall that marks the point of no return. I asked Scott what had specifically gone wrong and he barked back, "You were slamming the car into everything and making a ton of noise!" I didn't really have a response. After refusing to leave the car, he realized that I was having a harder time with it than he thought. His word for situations like this is "sploof", meaning I interpret something differently because of my PTSD. They both insisted that it was obviously an overreaction to the situation. I refused to go into the house any other route than the garage (where I wouldn't have to face his mother or her boyfriend). At the time, I was entirely convinced that upon entering the house, I would be shunned, and further humiliated because of my mistake. I can't communicate these sorts of things when I'm dissociated like that, so he left and I sat in the car for a good 20 minutes before his mom came out to try to talk me down. I refused to talk to her about it because at the time I was sobbing and speaking would've made that much worse. Once she left, I sat there sobbing for another ten or fifteen minutes. Rationally, I was able to explain the situation to myself. It triggered all the same feelings that I remembered from childhood fights with my mother. But I couldn't explain that to any of them. I spent the rest of the night sobbing and trying as hard as I could to not find a corner in which to hide or a time to slip out of the house and run as far away as I could.
Scott has a particularly hard time with my dissociation because I stop responding to him. It makes it really difficult for both of us, on top of the other issues we have related to my PTSD. We both know that he doesn't fully understand how I feel, and he won't ever be able to, but he wants to understand more. What sorts of things can I do to communicate these feelings to him? I don't have words for a lot of them (especially the desire to get as far away as possible), but someone else might.
I live mostly with my boyfriend, his mother, and her boyfriend in her house. His mother has some issues related to PTSD, so she's understanding about a lot of these things but I still feel like they don't comprehend the feelings I'm having well enough. For example, the other night my boyfriend and I (let's call him Scott) needed to move his mother's boyfriend's truck to get Scott's car out of the driveway. It had recently snowed, and that truck is a beast, but I've driven it before in similar situations so it seemed alright. While backing it into the driveway, I clipped a snowbank and apparently made a lot of noise. When I got out of the car, both Scott and his mother were standing with their arms folded looking very displeased. She looked straight at me and said "No more of that". As soon as she said that, I felt myself hit that wall that marks the point of no return. I asked Scott what had specifically gone wrong and he barked back, "You were slamming the car into everything and making a ton of noise!" I didn't really have a response. After refusing to leave the car, he realized that I was having a harder time with it than he thought. His word for situations like this is "sploof", meaning I interpret something differently because of my PTSD. They both insisted that it was obviously an overreaction to the situation. I refused to go into the house any other route than the garage (where I wouldn't have to face his mother or her boyfriend). At the time, I was entirely convinced that upon entering the house, I would be shunned, and further humiliated because of my mistake. I can't communicate these sorts of things when I'm dissociated like that, so he left and I sat in the car for a good 20 minutes before his mom came out to try to talk me down. I refused to talk to her about it because at the time I was sobbing and speaking would've made that much worse. Once she left, I sat there sobbing for another ten or fifteen minutes. Rationally, I was able to explain the situation to myself. It triggered all the same feelings that I remembered from childhood fights with my mother. But I couldn't explain that to any of them. I spent the rest of the night sobbing and trying as hard as I could to not find a corner in which to hide or a time to slip out of the house and run as far away as I could.
Scott has a particularly hard time with my dissociation because I stop responding to him. It makes it really difficult for both of us, on top of the other issues we have related to my PTSD. We both know that he doesn't fully understand how I feel, and he won't ever be able to, but he wants to understand more. What sorts of things can I do to communicate these feelings to him? I don't have words for a lot of them (especially the desire to get as far away as possible), but someone else might.
