Learning not to "abandon" myself into dissociation

[Ecdysis]

One of the things that I've noticed recently is that I learned very early in childhood to "cut myself off from myself" in distressing situations, by dissociating, or by repressing my emotions and "functioning" amidst trauma...

This is a habit that I've kept ever since... Not even realising, that that's what I'm doing.

It feels like this may be the next big healing step to take... To stop automatically doing that... To refuse to "abandon" myself like that...

 

[Jade-]

It's hard to learn how to not abandon yourself.

When I was in trauma therapy I had to first learn how to tolerate feeling, how to sit with feelings and then how to not dissociate them away. It's worth all the hard work though.

 

[Movingforward10]

You've made a massive first step by being aware you do it!

Like @jade said working through tolerating feelings.....it is as awful as it sounds! I would be exhausted with emotions. Too much. When you're learning to tolerate you're in a difficult stage of not yet mastering it but needing to learn. It's really hard.

Working out what the feeling is. I use/used the feelings wheel. It helped to work out what the feelings might be. Being able to name them helped. Just that acknowledgement. And then being able to work out why there is that emotion.

And then working out how to let emotions just be in your body. Let them pass. I spent the longest time fighting and fighting to make the feelings stop/make them go away rather than just letting them be.

 

[arfie]

hmmmmm. . . i have always thought of my dissociation as going deeper into myself in order to abandon the outside world. reality is just that confusing time between naps.

by whatever descriptive, dissociation remains a destructive symptom and is worthy of healing. as has already been mentioned, awareness is an all-important first step. congratulations on having achieved that step. i hope healing happens here.

 

[deno]

I didn’t even realize I was dissociating because I was still doing everything right. I worked. I helped. I fixed. But inside, I was nowhere to be found. That version of dissociation isn’t sleepy or spaced out—it’s hyper-present on the outside and completely missing inside. I spent years organizing the wreckage without ever looking at the wounds. What changed everything was realizing that my ‘functioning’ wasn’t healing, it was camouflage. And the second I stopped performing for everyone else, the pain finally surfaced. That’s when I knew I hadn’t failed...I’d just never had permission to be whole.

 

[Friday]

hmmmmm. . . i have always thought of my dissociation as going deeper into myself in order to abandon the outside world. reality is just that confusing time between naps

The exact difference between depersonalizing (what the OP does) & derealizing (above).

Minus the psychobabble?

I’m not real.
The world isn’t real.

 

[deno]

Not numb. Not spaced out. Just missing the self.

 

[Susan Jane]

One of the things that I've noticed recently is that I learned very early in childhood to "cut myself off from myself" in distressing situations, by dissociating, or by repressing my emotions and "functioning" amidst trauma...

This is a habit that I've kept ever since... Not even realising, that that's what I'm doing.

It feels like this may be the next big healing step to take... To stop automatically doing that... To refuse to "abandon" myself like that...

I have had this for years, and I disassociate even in absolutely okay situations. I don't do it consciously, it happens and I panic. Sounds a bit silly, but I learned to hold onto something in the room, a chair/ table or when outside a tree/bench and hold tight and ground myself back to the present. I call it tree hugging, or when inside blankly smiling while freaking. This is harder, being around people when it happens, in meetings, or when I teach, as I am trapped there. Last resort, I excuse myself and head to the ladies, where I wait till I come back. It took some practice, but this has worked for me.