Do you close your eyes during dissociative episodes?

[DharmaGirl]

what you are experiencing with the eyes closing could be an emergence of a “child alter” and/or a physical enanxent of the original trauma.

I'm confused as to why you quoted me. I don't have alters. I don't have closing eyes when I dissociate. I have severe dissociation, and have lived a great deal of my life in a dream world. I now know how to ground myself and be present. For me, dissociation has no unpleasantness associated with it, and it's how I got through my trauma as a child.

 

[Widow_of_one]

I'm confused as to why you quoted me. I don't have alters. I don't have closing eyes when I dissociate. I have severe dissociation, and have lived a great deal of my life in a dream world. I now know how to ground myself and be present. For me, dissociation has no unpleasantness associated with it, and it's how I got through my trauma as a child.

Opppss sorry! I don’t have a lot of tech savvy

 

[Starfire]

If I’m talking about serious shit, and not in bed with someone, yeah. My eyes are nearly always closed, and if not, looking away. The closed eye thing is protective... it keeps me from mixing this world & that world and responding in kind. If I’m going to bring the past INTO this world? No one wants me acting that shit out. Mixing things up is anathema. No. Nope. No f*cking way in hell. Better to be half in dream-time, than bring that world into this world physically as well as verbally.

Sex, skin to skin, is close enough/immediate enough/here enough to not require that. Mostly. Usually. (It’s not my only form of pillow talk by miles, it’s just that when these things tend to come up ーwith certain peopleー is between rounds).

Even with my eyes shut to seperate worlds, yes. My voice changes a lot. I was in speech therapy for 12 years on 3 continents as a kid. As a result? My accent shifts, depending on where I am & who I’m with. When I’m deep enough in trauma that I’m reliving it to talk about it? The accent that comes across isn’t the one I’m currently using, but the one(s) I was using back when. It’s severe enough I’ve be “diagnosed” by at least 1 idiot with DID. I’m not. I’ve got a fluid accent, is all. Which is common to military brats.

Zero childhood trauma, here. All of mine is in my adulthood.

When NOT in therapy, my flashbacks & zoning out / dissociative episodes look entirely different. My eyes are nearly always open, and my worlds are very much colliding.

Accent: Also a military brat and like your description of accent as *fluid*. That's perfect! I can recognize a change when I'm overly tired. Guess it happens as friends have comment at different times.

I do have csa as well. My T says he can tell where etc the abuse occurred as my accent changes. Not so extremely that others would notice. But he can now tell.

Closed eyes: agree with what Friday said. But also have times when notice the eyes are closed and I 'm still functioning. Used to think it signaled concentration. Like when just talking on phone, listening to lecture, or something repetitive. Then suddenly snapped that I was driving. One day let out a scream. Had walked into door jam and broken my toe. Walked out of bathroom, thru my rather large bedroom almost out of the room. Eyes were closed. Noticed that now with teleappointments with T, I'll find we are talking and my eyes are closed. Told him as I didn't know if he noticed and if he did, he thought I was dozing off or ignoring him. Now I'm making notes. T doesn't know why either. Noticed yesterday I usually close my eyes when I brush my teeth. Think I always have. Never gave it a second thought.
Please, I'd appreciate, you posting if you get further insight.

 

[sshernobyl]

When i am going through what I believe is dissociation or dissociative episodes in therapy session, I most often close my eyes and continue to speak with my eyes closed. In those moments sometimes I kind of “switch” my voice to a child like voice or child like mannerisms etc. this happens a lot lot of I try to talk about any traumatic events. Especially any mention of flashbacks of csa. I can only partially talk about them if my eyes are closed and I go to this different state almost.

I find this very curious. I have no idea why my eyes close. Does anyone else experience this? I was trying to look up any connection between closing eyes and dissociating but I couldn’t find anything. Wonder if it has something to do specifically with my “trauma” thanks

for me, I find that I am unable to close my eyes, out of fear of what I'll see when I do. I feel like keeping my eyes open really solidifies that I am in the present and not in the past when I have a triggering episode. I think that keeping our eyes open/closed might be a protective thing as if we don't see it happening, we might convince ourselves that it is in fact, not actually happening.

 

[Widow_of_one]

Accent: Also a military brat and like your description of accent as *fluid*. That's perfect! I can recognize a change when I'm overly tired. Guess it happens as friends have comment at different times.

I do have csa as well. My T says he can tell where etc the abuse occurred as my accent changes. Not so extremely that others would notice. But he can now tell.

Closed eyes: agree with what Friday said. But also have times when notice the eyes are closed and I 'm still functioning. Used to think it signaled concentration. Like when just talking on phone, listening to lecture, or something repetitive. Then suddenly snapped that I was driving. One day let out a scream. Had walked into door jam and broken my toe. Walked out of bathroom, thru my rather large bedroom almost out of the room. Eyes were closed. Noticed that now with teleappointments with T, I'll find we are talking and my eyes are closed. Told him as I didn't know if he noticed and if he did, he thought I was dozing off or ignoring him. Now I'm making notes. T doesn't know why either. Noticed yesterday I usually close my eyes when I brush my teeth. Think I always have. Never gave it a second thought.
Please, I'd appreciate, you posting if you get further insight.

Wow! To what you both said! Wow!