No More Triggering - Is This Dissociation?

[shimmerz]

I spoke to T-doc about 2 months ago to update him and pick his brain about a few things. It was just before I left for California. We spoke about my leaving all behind - relationships, material goods, etc etc. I was just walking from it all. We discussed the significance of such a profound action. We spoke as well about when I was 2 years old and had been adopted - with doom and gloom being the projected outcome for me from the agency that adopted me out and had handled my case for all of my young life. They suggested that I would lose two years of school at least and be low functioning.

I read the report. I was as close to a feral child at the time as was possible. Six months later, says the report, I was 'normal and well adjusted'. How does that happen, I asked T-doc. His response, 'By completely dissociating'. Egads! So who the hell am I? The feral child or the 'normal and well adjusted child'? Identity crisis happens now.

Back to the point of the matter. I drove to California from the Toronto area. It was a great trip. I had a friend with me and we booted through life, states, towns, villages. We had a blast. Great experience. We both noticed something though. I wasn't triggering. At all. Nadda, Zilch. Before you decide you want to throw daggers at me - please hear me out. It isn't all roses and ice cream. Again, I am suffering from some sort of identity crisis during this time. I don't feel myself - at all.

Anyways, we both notice over and over again that things that would normally have me be very reactive are now no problem. Kids crying or screaming, I no longer have to worry about where I sit it restaurants, the sun setting no longer throws me into Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde mode, I can walk in crowds. WTF??? How can it be over? I mean, I am grateful - but where did it go?

So it left. The way I knew it to present itself was gone. In its place was an extreme feeling of being disoriented and 'lost'. I just had no idea where I was or who I was. It was the 'who I was' that was most disconcerting. No triggers but I am totally disconnected from me? Not sure which one is better or worse.

Anyways, if you read my other posting 'So Cal to No Cal' you will have seen that I am home now due to some crazy 'universal karma kak'. I don't feel disoriented anymore but I am so different. So quiet. So withdrawn. I won't speak to the majority of my friends and getting me to go out is a battle.

Who the hell am I and what have you done with my trigger driven part? Where is she hiding. Do I want her back so that I feel I am right in my skin or do I work with this new piece of me? Who the f*** am I?

 

[Hope4Now]

They're all you, Shimmerz. You're you even though all these parts are vying for their needs. They all need so much love and care. I am sending you strong and gentle energy as you sit with all this trouble.

 

[StellaBlue]

I am so sorry you are going through this @shimmerz.

In response to your question, I suspect you're feeling "different" and (relatively) symptom-free because you are in survival mode. When I was diagnosed and treated for cancer, my symptoms disappeared. I thought maybe the chemo had altered my brain in a way that I was cured from my PTSD. A friend who has pretty solid recovery from PTSD told me that she believes that when folks with PTSD (and maybe non-PTSD folks as well) are faced with life-threatening situations, everything switches over to survival and the bothersome PTSD stuff gets shoved into the background because the brain can't handle both. I am not a neuroscientist or a doctor (and neither is she), but it seemed to make sense to me. Maybe this is similar to Anthony's bucket analogy - I'm still wrapping my brain around that one.

Either way - I think right now, you need to take care of yourself in the most radical ways you can - physically, emotionally, spiritually. You are in my thoughts.

 

[Anarchy]

Why is it that there's never a blue pill on offer when we want wake up in our beds on a normal day with no memories of any weirdness?

In the few months that I've been trying to understand me, I've been finding the idea spectrums useful.

The normal people in the world (all three of them) have all of the abilities to a certain degree, it's when we have more or less than the normal range of some ability or other, that things start getting interesting for us.

I've been trying to understand some behaviours of a friend who is in the general "normal" sort of range even if she is at the high functioning edge of it, and she actually seems to have distinct "parts", including an annoying little miss clever shit of somewhere between about 9 and 11 years old, that pops up from time to time and seems to have zero social insights. I guess that "normal" people can have "parts" to some degree or other.

What you are describing Shimmerz, reads like "parts" that are slightly more defined than the bulk of the population have, but still at the very shallow end of the spectrum.

You're also at very difficult time, so it would hardly be surprising if the doors to the places where your trauma memories are stored, are firmly closed to you at the moment

Hugs

 

[shimmerz]

Why is it that there's never a blue pill on offer when we want wake up in our beds on a normal day with no memories of any weirdness?

I so wish this was Hollywood. I am not a blue pill kinda girl, so thank you for reminding me of that @Anarchy. I would rather know than not know what demons lie ahead of me. If I had gone back it would have been based on lies and I know what damage living in lies can do. But yes, just a day or two of peaceful oblivion would be a welcomed reprieve. I guess if I was optimistic enough (which I am not), I could see my stay at the local hospital here my 'vacation'.

so it would hardly be surprising if the doors to the places where your trauma memories are stored, are firmly closed to you at the moment

Great statement @Anarchy. I am trying to figure out in this scrambled head of mine, if I had to option to just walk away from the triggery part of me - whether I would miss it at all. Was that whole time just a big ball of bad with no saving graces? If I had the option of eradicating the last eight years (not remember a thing about it) would I? Could I let go of that part so easily?

@StellaBlue , I am one of those types who really needs answers to things so this whole disappearing act is freaking me out. I would agree and actually jump on board with your thought that it is because of the physical problem that I seem to have lost the 'myself' that I have gotten to know over the past eight years. It would wrap this whole thing up in a nice neat package. Logic once again prevails! Yippee! I have to be honest though. I lost my triggery self a full three weeks before I got physically ill. Poof. Gone. Just like that!

@Hope4Now, what is completely freaking me out is the quick onset of my PTSD and then it's sudden disappearance. How does one live life like that. Now, I am seriously afraid of my own shadow!

Where did I go? Will the real Shimmerz please stand up?

 

[Seasounds]

@shimmerz, what a change, what an inconvenience! Sorry, that you have this to deal with. I hope it turns out to be a positive turn. Sending healing your way.

 

[City Slicker]

Wow, what a huge bunch of stuff all at once.

It makes sense to me that you would be experiencing elements of shock trauma from the fracture of your relationship and then your significant illness.

The travelling and lack of triggers also makes sense from a dissociation perspective because your first early experiences were also of huge transition, being adopted and finding a way to survive, by dissociating and drawing on other 'parts of yourself to make sure you were ok. It makes sense that in a dissociative state as an adult, (while traveling to Cal) the triggers would also not be the same ones or might even be totally absent as it sounds like you experienced. It sounds very similar to what you shared about being a baby and being adopted and figuring out ways to survive.

I might be totally off base but I wanted to mention the above because I was struck with how extreme what you have been through recently really was and the similarities to how it could have been for you as a baby.

Sending you good mojo and good Canadian vibes.

 

[rightkindofme]

I find that travel either sets me off worse than usual or eliminates my symptoms. It is one or the other really strongly. A few years ago I went to Scotland for a month and I didn't sleep the first 8 days and there was lots of head banging on concrete and other insanity. That trip was god-awful. (I was there for a wedding immediately after a death in my family and me divorcing my biological family--it was a horrible time.)

Other times getting out of my normal environment makes me feel like a new woman. I can easily and cheerfully adapt to new situations. I don't mind people being triggering, I just feel like they are some example of a neat new-to-me-culture. Let's chat! (I'm kind of pathologically outgoing. I LOVE meeting people.)

I find that I go in cycles of having lots of symptoms then not having them for weeks or months then they come back. I just wait for the next turning of the wheel.

 

[shimmerz]

I just wait for the next turning of the wheel.

That is my concern. Due to my 'new circumstances' I have a ton of decisions to make. My concern is if I make them based on the new me and then the old me pops up again - then I am in deep sh**. I had this happen once about 6 years ago for three weeks. No idea why it happened but it did. It is truly difficult making decisions when one has no firm foundation.

 

[rightkindofme]

I hear you. I struggle with decisions for exactly that reason. :-\