Question About Dissociation

[EvenStrongerNow]

And in that moment, I some how made my husband feel like he wasn't good enough. He thought that I didn't want him anymore unless he was still in a rock band. It was horrible and I'm still trying to piece together what happened. I feel ashamed about it.

It was as if I were lost in another time and had the same thoughts and feelings that I had during that time and during that time, a parallel universe of thought was streaming, "Who am I? Why am I acting like this? Why am I saying these things?"

 

[silkleaves]

When my ex and I argued, I would get so wired up, I would start hyperventilating, stuttering and saying the darnest things, that in some corner of my mind I would be thinking "why am I saying this?!!" but I would keep going because the rest of my mind was like, this is what needs to be said and heard!! It would be extra frustrating / infuriating when he would tell me he can't talk to me when I'm being irrational.

One good thing he did, though I absolutely hated it at the time, was to tell me to stop, breathe and let's walk away from it for the moment. Sometimes, he would have to physically leave the house, because that was the only way. And then I would be both angry, and scared that he was just never going to come back, which didn't make sense...he had to come back eventually. But still...once an hour or two passed, I was sure of it he was already on a plane halfway across the world.

Mind you, it didn't even have to be a crazy loud vicious argument...it could be something so super simple, we're not yelling at each other or anything...I was just riled up and saying (what I realized later to be) ridiculous things in the heat of the moment. And I'd just keep going...and going...and going...

We dated around 10yrs ago, we didn't talk much for awhile, and just a few months ago after my diagnosis I started working for him again. I told him about my PTSD, and explained a bit what I was going through.. I realized he did a bit of research on his own when a few weeks ago, he told me that from what he's read and understands, it explains *a lot* of what happened during our relationship.

And here I was thinking...I was totally fine all that time! But he saw it and would say the same thing your husband is..that it was like talking to a completely different person. The way I would react and the things I would say, didn't seem like me at all. It's funny in a way, that I never really saw that for myself. And putting it out there now, realize I wasn't keeping it together all these years as well as I thought I was.

 

[Go Hungry]

Yeah, I have some similar experiences. It's like I fall into the role that isn't myself. It's like I'm somehow pretending to be someone else. I've had people say that I don't sound like myself, that I act strangely. For the longest time I thought it was just the bipolar, but it turns out that it was something else. I have a number of splits like that, some are little kids, some of them are older. It was kinda of reassuring reading these posts, cause I didn't know if anyone else dissociated like that.

It's like some of these splits are not very nice people, and I was afraid that meant I was a bad person too. Maybe it doesn't.

 

[zaniara]

I don't know what to answer, since I'm too confused to understand your question.. :D (too dissociated.) But I recognize what you described happend with your husband. I've reacted like that a lot too, especially with partners. But then I never realized it was me being strange, nor did I understand that what I was reliving wasn't real in the here and now. (It was before I got diagnozed and got into treatment.)

I think it's some kind of flashback. A flashback is a form of dissociation in one way. (A severe one.) Either way(whatever it's called) I recognize it. And exactly that happened in a session with my therapist two weeks ago. I 'saw' someone else, and acted like he was someone else. He tried hard to ground me, to connect, but it didn't work out too well. But in the end I could at least partly see that I was acting out and behaving strangely. (I sat in a way that expressed a great physical fear of him.) But it took another three days to get out of it for real and understand what triggered it.

Maybe you and your husband can talk about it now? And sort it out? And maybe you can decide what he should do if he see you get into this state again? You could have an agreement that if it happens he should tell you this, say stop, and do whatever is best for the both of you? What do you think would be the best thing for him to do in a situation like that?