How do you ground without fallout?

[Kubash16]

Exactly as the title says.

When you go through bouts of dissociation, ultimately you have to ground at some point in spite of the heaven dissociation provides.

The options are to let something out of your control snap you back to reality or to ground on your own terms. I already know a lot of the good grounding techniques.

However, there is frequently fallout afterwards. As in feeling way too much and thinking about things too much. Like swinging to the opposite end of the pendulum.

How do you effectively ground and be in that middle space?

 

[Wendell_R]

Through EMDR there are "resourcing" exercises that can help. It's like learning to bring in safe people, go to safe places. It's grounding in the sense that it lessens the intrusions that are driving the dissociation. But it's also not going straight into cold hard reality. Kind of like going from dissociation fog/avoidance/intrusions to a self-guided, safe state.

Even without doing EMDR, some of the work can be done with visualization. Imagining safe people & safe places in a lot of detail, and learning how to bring these images in when you're stressed. I have a few key people & places that I often return to.

Not a cure all, but it all helps!

 

[Sideways]

Having mastered grounding as a skill to help you stop dissociating, it sounds like now is a good time to learn the skills that help you tolerate/manage/cope with the continual flow of thoughts and emotions that go along with being grounded.

So, instead of “how do I stop these thoughts/emotions”, how do I manage them?

There’s a number of different approaches you could look at. CBT has been around for a long time now because it’s often very helpful, but also DBT and ACT have a lot of strategies and skills you might find useful:)

 

[Friday]

As in feeling way too much and thinking about things too much. Like swinging to the opposite end of the pendulum.

AKA Dysregulation.

And that’s a whole new skill set to master
- Emotional monitoring & regulation (cbt & dbt are good places to start)
- Affect
- Stress Management (see stress cup for a start)
... and several others, but the above is already an elephant served up for dinner.

 

[TruthSeeker]

Exactly as the title says.

When you go through bouts of dissociation, ultimately you have to ground at some point in spite of the heaven dissociation provides.

The options are to let something out of your control snap you back to reality or to ground on your own terms. I already know a lot of the good grounding techniques.

However, there is frequently fallout afterwards. As in feeling way too much and thinking about things too much. Like swinging to the opposite end of the pendulum.

How do you effectively ground and be in that middle space?

I’m in the earlier stages of therapy, mental health DDNOS acknowledgement/acceptance. I have been dissociating all this time- DARN-it wasn’t my meds that caused the fog or made me totally unaware of my surroundings-trauma did. So dissociation has been a natural thing- my norm.
What colors and clarity in vision ( it was euphoric) When the fog lifted! But I still, when I do creative work- I still enter my dissociative world..... then I finish.... and done with that! Back to the real world and chores, bills, etc. I call it a break-
I look at this like chocolate- I love chocolate! I can choose to give it all up for Lent and get the sugar craves and the choc craves and be all jittery and pissy feeling or give it up a little at a time-and work on being grounded in public first.
I draw, do poetry, do clay, and read cool books and am in a good place-no a marvelous place- in my own world. . I’m no where ready to integrate parts, so w time, I am finding I’m grounded more in public- stress is lower, and I have more control. So I allow myself some dissociative time only during these personal creative times in private- not in public to close out the rest of the world, just at home so I can focus intently on creating. Like the chocolate- I’m finding I’m eating/ dissociating less over time-even when being creative because I feel safe. But like w chocolate- a little structured creative dissociation, I personally believe, is okay.

 

[susannahsays]

I go to sleep.

 

[EveHarrington]

in spite of the heaven dissociation provides.

It never occurred to me that dissociation was heaven to some people.

I personally find it to be just plain horrible. Traditional grounding ie getting in touch with senses doesn’t work. I have to make my inner child feel safe. It takes much time.

I guess I don’t have any advice since you go from good to bad and I go from bad to good.

Thanks for making me aware of the differences.

 

[Kubash16]

For me dissociation is this pervasive numbness to everything. Memories and emotions are completely pushed back to where I can’t really access them. That’s the part that’s heaven because I’m not being bombarded by those things. But I know it’s not healthy to be completely numbed out for too long (did you know it can actually cause seizures?) so I’ll ground when I’m in a safe place (both physically and mentally). The problem arises that all those memories and emotions that were just a little buzzing in the background are suddenly front and center in an imax theater. Which includes an emotional hurricane and drives me to SH. It’s a sick rollercoaster. I can very rarely find a middle ground between nothingness and overpowered.

 

[TruthSeeker]

I think st different times, dissociation is different things for me. When I’m imminently afraid of something, dissociation is a fog and things don’t feel real. I’m numb and scared.

When going to my own world to shut out the world and do something creative, I intensely focus on a project. Just me and creativity- or even gaming-this includes wildlife photography, writing, reading fiction, doing art projects, and playing an instrument. Many of these things I can do it for days at a time ( w sleep in between)-. Dissociation is highly pleasurable, safe, and rewarding when you are creating- for me anyway. It affords a kinda of creative focus which shuts out all noise, conversation, peripherial like having a clear soundproof dome over my head.

The survival dissociation, where I feel like hiding or threatened- a horrible numb scary place.