All I could think when I saw the title of this topic was ohmygod, is there someone out there like me? I am not too surprised to hear there are so many rockers, but it was good to read a few who who dissociate while they rock, too.
I wonder if there is anyone who does what I do, though, or if it is just me. I was hoping someone might refer to it in the posts so far, but since they haven't, I am just going to see if any one can relate to what I do.
I am (probably) unusual in that I have been rocking since I was an infant. As soon as I was old enough to lift my head, I banged my head against my crib so much that I actually wore a bald spot on my head (it obviously had one of those softeners on the crib so a baby cannot hurt themselves). As soon as I was old enough to climb out of my crib, about 18 months, I'd "climb the wall" in the middle of the night, and go rock in my child sized rocking chair, turning on my Mickey Mouse club record, and my parents would wake up in the middle of the night to "M-I-C, K-E-Y, M-O-U-S-E, Mickey Mouse!" I also loved the jolly jumper and it would put me right to sleep. The only way I fell asleep as a young child was by my dad patting me on the backside so I would bounce up and down gently on the bed, and it would put me right to sleep. I also had weird things as an infant like the only thing that would soothe me was a vacuum cleaner, and my mom learned to diaper me standing up because if anyone laid me down I would scream bloody murder and flail around and so eventually my mom just learned to do it with me standing up instead (I don't know how she achieved that before I had the ability to hold myself up).
I had a really bad seizure disorder for my entire childhood, so I don't know if the self soothing was a coping mechanism or a result of the neurological dysfunction, or a way of soothing what was going on in my brain in some way, or emotionally, or both. The doctors told my mom and dad not to worry about it, (there were far more serious issues to worry about anyway) and that I would probably grow out of it. I never did. I also used to do a different version of it in the car, as a child (not now) where I would throw myself back against the seat over and over again. I do kind of rock in the car now but it is kind of a small, my head moving back and forth movement, and a bit of my upper body.
I would say it is a compulsion, and I have to rock every day (unless something prevents me from doing so but that leaves me very stressed), though definitely any stress or emotional upset or any type of difficult to deal with feelings cause me immediately to need to rock. On a good day, I can rock for half an hour or 45 minutes and be good. On my worst (highly triggered, flashbacks, intense emotions) days it can be like 9 hours a day. Mid range is probably, if no one is home and I have time to myself 2 and a half to 4 hours a day. I can easily do 1 and a half to 2 hours without noticing, but above that is usually rocking, going and doing something else for a while, then needing a break, and rocking again. I always listen to music when I rock.
I can break out of it fairly easily, not the compulsion, which I have to do, but if there was a fire or someone was trying to get my attention I could bring myself back.
However, unlike the previous posters, I don't pick an external spot on the floor and dissociate (if I am understanding them correctly). I go INSIDE my head. My whole consciousness just leaves the outside world entirely and I am not aware of my surroundings, my emotions, my physical body, or the passage of time. As I said, 2 hours could pass in what feels like very little time at all.
Once inside my head, it is like dreaming when I am awake. I have no conscious ability to control what the content is. But I become a mental version of myself, inside my head (not me who I really am though, someone else, that changes dependent on what the scenario is), and there are other characters, some I interact with and some mostly just watch with a little interaction. And then scenarios play out in my head, much like a movie or a tv program, and 90% of the time the content is traumatic.
It is almost like I am trying to work through it in my head, and will often repeat versions of the same scenario over and over, and eventually it will be replaced by something else. It's hard to explain. There is most of the time someone who has hurt me, sometimes there is someone who is like a younger version of myself, but who isn't me, who went through a similar traumatic experience that I am trying to help, or someone young who is being abused, and I am trying to help, sometimes I am the victim (or co-victim) myself, sometimes there is a therapist that I talk to, a dead twin I talk to, a AI that has a name (also female) I usually talk to and use and can construct basically anything from fighting or killing someone who has abused me (isn't the person but an exact replica and never someone who actually abused me in real life) to going up into outer space, or exercising in a beautiful place.
There is usually a team, a support system, kind of like a family who I care about and trust, but doesn't know these things (and typically finds out), etc. This changes based on whatever the scenario is that is playing out. I often have abilities I don't in real life. It has elements of my traumas but is never what actually happened to me although it follows the same basic theme (ie, a relative hurting me, being sexually abused, and so on). There's been times, I've changed, ie. dissociated, from my personality in the scenario, to another, to another, inside the head of the character I am in (not my head where I am viewing all this, if that makes sense), being DID basically with names and separate personalities and abilities, these generally remain pretty consistent, the same names, personalities, and functions, both male and female, though my body and character is always female. Which I know is weird, it's like dissociation within dissociation within dissociation. I have dreams, flashbacks, and react to them in it. Or, as what is currently happening, one small portion of the current scenario, I will dissociate by psychically projecting myself outside of my body in the scenario, and I can either leave my body, or be both, and have a conversation with the split off part of myself (and the psychic projection usually has some ability to manipulate the environment). This is at the scene and with the person of the original trauma and it is a re-creation of it, and that leads to the splitting and then sometimes the split off part tries to talk me into basically integrating her. I can have that going on, and get back-up from the dead twin sister, who comes as a similar sort of projection, while I am interacting with the other characters in the scenario (abuser, another victim, support system etc.)
Writing this out, it sounds insane, and it is pretty hard to impart what actually goes on in my head.
LOL now that I have written this, I am kind of scared to post it, because it really does sound crazy.
And I expect that there probably isn't anybody out there like me... More like a shot into a black hole than a shot in the dark.
Oh well, I guess, if people are going to think I am crazy... Maybe that is 'cause I am? :eek:
I don't as a general rule, talk about my internal world... It's been like that since I was a kid, I just knew no one could know. (It was a different format then, though.)
