Feeling Here....but Not Here...

[joeylittle]

Sounds like a form of depersonalization, which is a kind of dissociation. But don't let that take away from your success managing/eradicating your prior dissociative style. This is just a different symptom coming out.

I get that same kind of feeling that you are describing. I find it to be really uncomfortable - often, the best fix for me is something sensory or active, like picking up something with a texture or going for a brisk walk around the block.

 

[barefoot]

Thanks @joeylittle

I brought it up again with my therapist yesterday and she said she didn't think it was a form of dissociation but rather 'going unconscious' to something, which she says is different.

She also said that the glass screen was an important factor within the context of our work - my boundaries are in overdrive and are increasingly becoming the focus of our time together. I had two hours with her yesterday and, at the end of the session, realised that every topic I'd talked about was related to boundaries!

She thought the glass screen feeling was the key to the 'here but not here' experience as I can participate (unlike when I dissociated before and my head was just gone - no possibility of movement or conversation etc) - but feeling like I'm behind a screen creates a boundary, which helps me feel protected, keeps people at a distance and avoids intimacy. She said that the glass screen idea is something they actually learn in therapy courses to help people who have absolutely no boundaries at all and who need a tangible way of creating a container for themselves.

So...I'm not really sure what I think about the dissociation vs going unconscious to something distinction but the boundary stuff makes complete sense. So I think I'm going to try not to get fixated on the label and just try to think about the purpose it's serving at the moment and how that might change. I wonder if it might be possible for me next time I'm doing it to notice that I'm doing it and to see whether I really need to lay a boundary down and, if I do, whether I can consciously choose to stop the 'here but not here' experience and use another boundary instead. We'll see...