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Hallucinations with dissociative symptoms

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Toren

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Anyone get auditory hallucinations and dissociative PTSD? I have been trying to figure out how to label what i have and found some research on this. I almost fell out of my chair as I've been diagnosed with things like mdd with psychotic symptoms and generalized anxiety disorder but knew that wasn't quite right until a psychologist suggested DID nos. I laughed at him until i realized what dissociative symptoms were which led me to the PTSD lit. Appreciate any input as I'm searching for answers
 
DDNOS- yeah, I was confused, but I thought the classification now was OSDD.....at any rate, they still use the old term. The poster would have clarified, but thanks....
Voices in your own head is a common symptom of some forms of dissociative disorders which usually come as a consequence of trauma so there's PTSD there too.

They are called Schneidarian symptoms and can also come from schizophrenia or other psychosis but in dissociative disorders there tends to be some differences (like with dissociative voices they are usually inside the head vs outside the head, they comment on what you're doing, less religious content, less likely to be converting an outside sound into a voice like thinking the air conditioner is talking to you). Link

I experience what is apparently the "tactile hallucination" version of this. I can't really find any good information about my own experience, unfortunately.

The Haunted Self (Onno van der Hart) is written for clinicians but has some good info about dissociation and how it's different from psychosis, if you like to read about this sort of thing.
Thank you for both the article link and your insight. I actually have a copy of The Haunted Self that I perused a bit last year but I was in a bad place then and was having a very hard time concentrating or staying grounded. I think I'll have better luck actually digesting it now and I am grateful for the reminder.
 
Hello and thanks for the welcome. Yes I know specific traumas that occurred but am starting to learn with the help of the psychologist, the how and why of the cascade of symptoms and the timing.
 
He wants to talk about the PTSD aspects more when i see him in two weeks and that is terrifying. In the past 2 yrs I had this cognitive issue where I couldn't find my words if I felt put on the spot or I guess triggered somehow and am finally seeing some improvement there.

Actually very few words had ever been spoken about sex or my past abuse during any of my therapies. I couldn’t talk either yet, my therapy was very helpful. Perhaps my T understood that I wouldn’t be able to talk openly about it and so, my therapist’s actions were more subliminal. So then, my T wasn’t openly talking about sex either. Still the slightest suggestion of sex made me feel like climbing the walls of his office to escape. This occurred with every session. But just because you aren’t speaking doesn’t mean the therapy it’s helping.

My first 4 years of therapy were extremely anxiety provoking! And no, I couldn’t openly talk about my CSA nor sexual feelings because at that time, I was totally unaware of having any sexual feelings. Actually I couldn’t feel much of anything emotionally during that time. I has been in therapy for two years before I ever broke down and cried and that was only because my dog had recently died.

So at age 24, this T told me that my underlying sexual problems had been resolved. While mdd and generalized anxiety disorder remain in my medical records along with ‘suspected victim of sexual abuse’ (by whom?) added in 2018. Dissociation episodes was added to my records in 2019. Removed in 2019 was PTSD. A few years ago schizophrenia and agoraphobia had been removed. I think my T are confused and don’t understand why I dissociate.
 
Anyone get auditory hallucinations and dissociative PTSD?
Wondering what *kind* of auditory hallucinations you're having? Is it just particular noises, or is it voices? And do they happen at a particular time or are they random?

I ask, because I have had them, but they were neurological and sleep-related. There are several causes that are not psychological, and many doctors have a hard time diagnosing them. It's really important, though, to get a proper diagnosis.
 
(Sorry, I messed-up when posting my reply to Toren in this thread)

I do dissociate yet, have never noticed myself having any hallucinations other than the time I once saw chickens floating across my ceiling about 50 years ago. As for auditory hallucinations, I’ve had none. The voices I hear are all my own and inside my own head.

On the other hand, if wind from a fan were to blow in my ear, I might hear what sounds like a chorale of high-pitched voices singing. Another distortion will occur when my noisy computer fan causes me to hear faint distorted bits of instrumental music. But then I sort of enjoy hearing it. When I cup my hands over my ears I’ll also hear some very weird sounds yet no voices.

During my 20s, I did occasionally have tactile hallucinations where I thought I felt a hand gently touching the back of my head. This would lead me to suspect that someone was quietly standing behind me which then, triggered my panic attacks.

No smell nor taste hallucinations either. As for visual hallucinations, my T have always thought these were hallucinations or imaginary while, I still think these were real -- just not explainable. I can recall having about 60 of these visulations since my late teens. I've since lost count. And because of their simplicity, they weren’t very imaginary either — not like the floating chickens on my ceiling.
 
Actually very few words had ever been spoken about sex or my past abuse during any of my therapies. I couldn’t talk either yet, my therapy was very helpful. Perhaps my T understood that I wouldn’t be able to talk openly about it and so, my therapist’s actions were more subliminal. So then, my T wasn’t openly talking about sex either. Still the slightest suggestion of sex made me feel like climbing the walls of his office to escape. This occurred with every session. But just because you aren’t speaking doesn’t mean the therapy it’s helping.

My first 4 years of therapy were extremely anxiety provoking! And no, I couldn’t openly talk about my CSA nor sexual feelings because at that time, I was totally unaware of having any sexual feelings. Actually I couldn’t feel much of anything emotionally during that time. I has been in therapy for two years before I ever broke down and cried and that was only because my dog had recently died.

So at age 24, this T told me that my underlying sexual problems had been resolved. While mdd and generalized anxiety disorder remain in my medical records along with ‘suspected victim of sexual abuse’ (by whom?) added in 2018. Dissociation episodes was added to my records in 2019. Removed in 2019 was PTSD. A few years ago schizophrenia and agoraphobia had been removed. I think my T are confused and don’t understand why I dissociate.
Appreciate your reply as I recently got the courage up to return to this therapist and just going takes hours of mind prep and volleying between how I can weasel out, stay home and distract vs the hope that it will get easier and I won't be rejected or dismissed.

The whole diagnosis thing really depends on who you see, doesn't it?. I have had all of these symptoms to varying extremes for years and wasn't asked about trauma other than on one intake form and I sure wasn't going to trust someone I had never met with it, hell I dont think I saw things as trauma but rather that I was just messed up and pretty faulty.

I think the dissociation stuff attached to PTSD is just beginning to be truly understood but I am learning as much as I can. I had one therapist I saw very briefly tell me he thought I had DID full blown because of the memory problems, derealization and other cognitive type things to the point where I would fly out of my head without warning. I knew i didn't have multiple separates and left him after he once asked " Who am I speaking with now?," even i was mid sentence though I am grateful because I thought I had dementia and that people were lying when they said we talked about something I couldn't remember and wouldn't have even considered dissociative symptoms which finally led to PTSD dx. Schizoaffective disorder depressive type has been added before by psychologist but finally, finally I think I am being seen. I used to tell people that what we call it isn't as important as treating it correctly but I no longer feel that way at all. I avoided therapy for a long time and took the medical route believing I needed whatever it was to stay hidden from the community I worked in and had the insight to deal. Talk about the depths of stigma, right? I used to see soldiers after I worked for the mil who would pay out of pocket so it wouldn't affect their jobs. I got it then and I get it now. As a civilian in the field I was totally rejected and bullied after the hospitalization by people associated with my practice and even dismissed from a schizophrenia board I had worked with for years under the excuse that I missed meetings when i was in the hospital.

I just noticed how I completed ignored mentioning anything related to the sex stuff. I guess that's telling. Do you feel that that issue has been cured? Having reread your post



The psychiatrist I've had since 2014 has basically left the inpt dx which never felt right.
 
Appreciate your reply as I recently got the courage up to return to this therapist and just going takes hours of mind prep and volleying between how I can weasel out, stay home and distract vs the hope that it will get easier and I won't be rejected or dismissed.
My first 4 years of therapy didn't get easier until I'd experienced one major and significant change at age 24. I'll try to explain. This shift in my thinking had occurred so suddenly and intensely that I'll never forgot it. Up to that point I had feared trusting this therapist. But during that moment, I was envisioning a dog sitting in front of me, looking at me while waging his tail and wanting to be petted. So within my mind, I envisioned myself as reaching out to pet this imaginary dog, only to then realize that I was (with my imagination) reaching out to my therapist. During that experience I was fearing that, I was losing control of my thoughts -- so much so that, I was actually biting my finger, hoping that the pain would divert my attention away from my T. From my therapist's perspective, he likely observed a major change in me that day. I was aware of this too. At that point, I also became aware of some of my earlier CSA, as well, as my faulty relationships with both my father and mother. So at that point, I also began more aware of my own sexuality. Yet this new awareness caused me to feel uneasy around my father, who continued to fondle his genitals when he'd sometimes speak to me. I was then age 24 and living in my father's house. I could only learn to tolerate his behavior. My T and I briefly discussed this while he knew that this was my ongoing situation at home. My T had then told me that my underlying sexual problems had been resolved and so my T encouraged me to date. I dated between age 24 and 28 but then stopped dating. My T then said, I was regressing and apparently attributed my lack of sexual desire to depression. I told my T that I was still suffering from too much anxiety. He said, no you are fine. Just give yourself more time to adjust. As for my ongoing anxiety and my strange visualizations, he said, this is your imagination -- learn to tolerate it. My therapy was then supportive while my T was hoping that the anti-depressant would help. It didn't.

So to answer your question Toren: No, I suspect that my underlying sexual difficulties haven't been resolved. Perhaps, this is why I continued to dissociate during physical intimacy. I tried to explain this to my first T. He then, suggested that I go though the physical actions stating that the feeling would eventually happen. No, he was wrong -- the feeling didn't happen -- and the men that I dated could sense my lack of feeling and desire. I can't blame them for not asking for a second date. I could only subdue my anxieties by blocking them out of my mind.

What is the inpt dx ?
The whole diagnosis thing really depends on who you see, doesn't it?. I have had all of these symptoms to varying extremes for years and wasn't asked about trauma other than on one intake form and I sure wasn't going to trust someone I had never met with it, hell I dont think I saw things as trauma but rather that I was just messed up and pretty faulty.

I think the dissociation stuff attached to PTSD is just beginning to be truly understood but I am learning as much as I can. I had one therapist I saw very briefly tell me he thought I had DID full blown because of the memory problems, derealization and other cognitive type things to the point where I would fly out of my head without warning. I knew i didn't have multiple separates and left him after he once asked " Who am I speaking with now?," even i was mid sentence though I am grateful because I thought I had dementia and that people were lying when they said we talked about something I couldn't remember and wouldn't have even considered dissociative symptoms which finally led to PTSD dx. Schizoaffective disorder depressive type has been added before by psychologist but finally, finally I think I am being seen. I used to tell people that what we call it isn't as important as treating it correctly but I no longer feel that way at all. I avoided therapy for a long time and took the medical route believing I needed whatever it was to stay hidden from the community I worked in and had the insight to deal. Talk about the depths of stigma, right? I used to see soldiers after I worked for the mil who would pay out of pocket so it wouldn't affect their jobs. I got it then and I get it now. As a civilian in the field I was totally rejected and bullied after the hospitalization by people associated with my practice and even dismissed from a schizophrenia board I had worked with for years under the excuse that I missed meetings when i was in the hospital.

I just noticed how I completed ignored mentioning anything related to the sex stuff. I guess that's telling. Do you feel that that issue has been cured? Having reread your post



The psychiatrist I've had since 2014 has basically left the inpt dx which never felt right.
 
Wow my heart aches for that young man who was again told, this time by the one person you are supposed to be able to rely on, that your feelings were not valid and your sense of reality was wrong. So T reinforced that you are pretty much hypersensitive and hypochondriacal and your intuition ABOUT YOURSELF should be disregarded/dismisseed. You were told to ignore all those warning systems and your true self's voice. I am feeling much anger toward this T.
Of course you were dissociating during sexual intimacy! You were again in the most dangerous and vulnerable of places and your body and mind reacted "wrong" from what you were told therefore again it is you who are not good enough or defective. I am so sorry for that jackass. Not only were you not "fine" you were forced into further trauma by having sexual relationships and "going through the motions" of being abused again setting off the only escape to survive option available. Are you seeing someone you trust now I hope? It is overwhelming how trauma begets trauma in so many ways despite our best intentions. I would imagine trust is more than a small issue. I am honored that you trusted me.
 
The whole diagnosis thing really depends on who you see, doesn't it?.
Yes it does and I've seem several T over the past 50 years. Therapists also change their tune over the years.. You know the old saying, If you're trained to use a hammer everything begins to look like a nail. Therapy sometimes feels this as well --like I'm being attacked for thinking the way that I do. But then, this can be taken a step further --- as if, I'm being attacked for having had these experiences which they can't explain. This has created a huge conflict within my therapies. Every T had their own way of going around this conflict, though this isn't really helping me. They can hope that it will simply go away with time, yet it doesn't. I still have amnesia, some was recovered in 1988. I can recall the exact moment which hit me like a ton of bricks, repeatedly sending cold chills down my spine! I told my T about this experience a few weeks later and he advised me never to talk about it, again. So, I didn't talk about for another ten years. But during my next session with this T, he suggested that I see another T for suspected sexual abuse. This was my 10th year of treatment with him and only during my 10th year did he suspect past sexual abuse. Interesting. So most of my T have suspected I'm a victim of past sexual abuse. Only my mid 2019 T (phd) said, she couldn't find my trauma source. Here again, I was in conflict with this T as well, She tried to continuely counter everything I was saying about my past experiences. I felt very offended that she would think I'd accept her illogical alternate explainations as being true.

I have had all of these symptoms to varying extremes for years and wasn't asked about trauma other than on one intake form and I sure wasn't going to trust someone I had never met with it, hell I dont think I saw things as trauma but rather that I was just messed up and pretty faulty.
My symptoms have changed greatly over the years yet my intimacy difficulites didn't change much. I had only minimized my anxieties enough to go though the motions while the feeling were absent. As for my supposed 'imaginary experiences or strange hallucinations' I still experience them though rarely. As for my brief panic attacks or flashbacks at my kitchen sink, I still get them, even after all of these years. I can recall trying to explain this frightening visualization to my first T, during my mid 20s. He told me that this was my imagination and that, I should learn to tolerate it. I doubt that it's possible to learn to tolerate an intense fear response. I might only be able to learn to divert my attention.
I think the dissociation stuff attached to PTSD is just beginning to be truly understood but I am learning as much as I can.
The amygdala apparently gets stuck and so the trauma doesn't get processed ...sometime like that. The brain's wiring might reveal it within a brain scan. I've had many MRI since 2013 due to my brain tumors.
I had one therapist I saw very briefly tell me he thought I had DID full blown because of the memory problems, derealization and other cognitive type things to the point where I would fly out of my head without warning. I knew i didn't have multiple separates and left him after he once asked " Who am I speaking with now?," even i was mid sentence though I am grateful because I thought I had dementia and that people were lying when they said we talked about something I couldn't remember and wouldn't have even considered dissociative symptoms which finally led to PTSD dx.
Wow, your T said, 'Who am I speaking with now? Well, you stated that you only saw this T briefly ...figures ...they make snap assumptions sometimes and shouldn't. My T never have suspected DID. My behavior, mood and way of thinking are too consistent for DID. I do have amnesia though but only resulting from my strange experiences where I can't recall all of the experience. I told my PCP about this and she thinking I was hallucinating. Yet I was out in my backyard at that time doing my routine chore. I was wide awake before I began to dissociate. And I'm certain that I was dissociating and I still can't recall all of it. But I've never lost days as a result of it -- possibly a hour or so. I've never found myself to be in an different location either. Facing ior turned n a different direction, yes.
Schizoaffective disorder depressive type has been added before by psychologist but finally, finally I think I am being seen. I used to tell people that what we call it isn't as important as treating it correctly but I no longer feel that way at all. I avoided therapy for a long time and took the medical route believing I needed whatever it was to stay hidden from the community I worked in and had the insight to deal. Talk about the depths of stigma, right? I used to see soldiers after I worked for the mil who would pay out of pocket so it wouldn't affect their jobs. I got it then and I get it now. As a civilian in the field I was totally rejected and bullied after the hospitalization by people associated with my practice and even dismissed from a schizophrenia board I had worked with for years under the excuse that I missed meetings when i was in the hospital.
I was surprised to seesSchizophrenia in my medical records a few years ago when I first began reading my records online. I think my third T might have given me this diagnosis, in 2001. I only saw him one time and he wanted me to take anti-pyschotic drugs. I first told him about my CSA, as he was reorganized his desk. So, I suspect he wasn't believing me. Then he abruptly interrupted me to say, "Now tell me what really happened to you!" So, I then began to tell him about my strange experiences. Then, he interrupted me again, to say that, I was funknowning abricating these experience to cover what really happened to me. He was so very disturbed by what I'd been saying. He said, that If I take the anti-pyschotic drugs this will all go away. For him maybe! But the seems to be a stigma against schizophrenia, even if, only by those who read my medical records. Why should they believe anything I say. I do think that some of my doctors believe me though none of my past therapists do.
I just noticed how I completed ignored mentioning anything related to the sex stuff. I guess that's telling. Do you feel that that issue has been cured? Having reread your post



The psychiatrist I've had since 2014 has basically left the inpt dx which never felt right.
Because I've been such a loner throughout my life, I can't easily relate to others sexual experiences. The more important areas addressed in my herapy were about trust, my awareness of and acceptance of my sexual feelings and with overcoming my feelings of shame. I suspect my father had projected his own guilt feelings onto me and that because I was so young I just accepted his perception of me as being true. In his eyes I was the faulty one who should feel ashamed of myself for accepting my father's behavior.
 
Wow my heart aches for that young man who was again told, this time by the one person you are supposed to be able to rely on, that your feelings were not valid and your sense of reality was wrong. So T reinforced that you are pretty much hypersensitive and hypochondriacal and your intuition ABOUT YOURSELF should be disregarded/dismisseed. You were told to ignore all those warning systems and your true self's voice. I am feeling much anger toward this T.
Of course you were dissociating during sexual intimacy! You were again in the most dangerous and vulnerable of places and your body and mind reacted "wrong" from what you were told therefore again it is you who are not good enough or defective. I am so sorry for that jackass. Not only were you not "fine" you were forced into further trauma by having sexual relationships and "going through the motions" of being abused again setting off the only escape to survive option available. Are you seeing someone you trust now I hope? It is overwhelming how trauma begets trauma in so many ways despite our best intentions. I would imagine trust is more than a small issue. I am honored that you trusted me.
I never thought of this 'going through the motions' advice by my T as being abusive or not until you just mentioned it. But yes, it was most definitely abusive! Sometimes I would cry afterwards. I shouldn't have been seeing this man. He didn't love me. There has been no joy in our relationship. And so, I left him after 6 months. A more sensative guy would have likely been turned off by my lack of desire. Yet he only wanted a willing body,

No I'm not seeing a T now. I had one interview with a T last Nomenber but then, he said, he might not be able a help me. My last T was in mid 2019. I saw her 6 times and again, we couldn't overcome this same conflict that always occurs. I could just not talk about it, never mention it and my therapy would likely go smoothly. But then, it becomes very difficilt for my T to understand who I am when they are only seeing bits and pieces. There are taboo subjects in therapy -- never mind that these had disrupted and frightened me. And this is likely due to the fact that no one truely understands them.
 
I never thought of this 'going through the motions' advice by my T as being abusive or not until you just mentioned it. But yes, it was most definitely abusive! Sometimes I would cry afterwards. I shouldn't have been seeing this man. He didn't love me. There has been no joy in our relationship. And so, I left him after 6 months. A more sensative guy would have likely been turned off by my lack of desire. Yet he only wanted a willing body,

No I'm not seeing a T now. I had one interview with a T last Nomenber but then, he said, he might not be able a help me. My last T was in mid 2019. I saw her 6 times and again, we couldn't overcome this same conflict that always occurs. I could just not talk about it, never mention it and my therapy would likely go smoothly. But then, it becomes very difficilt for my T to understand who I am when they are only seeing bits and pieces. There are taboo subjects in therapy -- never mind that these had disrupted and frightened me. And this is likely due to the fact that no one truely understands them.
There are different ways that a therapist can communicate with you and things to try. You are a good writer for instance.
 
There are different ways that a therapist can communicate with you and things to try. You are a good writer for instance.
I've written quite a bit about my experiences over the past 20 years. This have greatly helped me to understand myself, even though, my T were only interested in the very basic stuff or from what they could retrieve from a questionnaire,. I received an assessment from a psychiatrist in early 2019 and she said, I was very open. I'm very willing to talk, it's just that my previous T would prefer that I didn't. So my PCP wants me to seek therapy again while I fear my next T would only beat me up again.
 
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