Sometimes, I Don't Remember...Disassociation

[sigh]

Sometimes I come back here and I don't recognize what I've written. I do have to apologize if it's something totally off the mark. I dissociate a lot.

Does anyone else do this?

 

[heather q]

Sigh,

One problem I have is an instant forget, it happens most often when someone has a certain look on their face, hostility, anger or frustration or they are verbally abusive. I have it going with my T most of the time, I have no clue as to what he's just said, I don't think he realizes what a problem it is for me. I told him today, again, I don't think he really gets it. I feel as if I'm brain damaged.

Another similiar issue is having hand written something, I recognize my writing and I know it's mine but I can't connect it, at this time I'm not too worried about it because I just see it as part of the whole PTSD thing. I think that it is dissociating which really scared me originally but that made it worse, so now how I handle it is to allow it to come and know that it will time itself out if I accept it for what it is. I think what I'm trying to say is accept it as part of the programme because acceptance takes the sting out of it and then it naturally calms down.

It's working for me, I'm trying to accept all these odd things as part of myself and because it is a small part of me then it is ok. I'm in the process of integrating my lost feelings, sometime ago I had made a decision not to feel anymore and then just two days I realized that I'd done that, so since then I've decided to let go of that decision, now I can feel sensations other than pain, it feels good even though it feels unusual. In a way it feels like being a child, a little like feeling things for the first time, I see it as a good sign, this all started because I was able to challenge the fear about the forgeting, I don't know the answer I'm working it as it comes up.

Heather

 

[sigh]

I had hope I had integrated a lot of that, but I'm finding the feeling coming back. I feel as if it comes from talking to my father after 7 yrs of no communication. Everything feels a little threatening or overwhelming. I know there was "time loss" in my life, but I thought it was filled in.

That sounds wise what you say about a childs perspective.

 

[Pixie]

Hi Sigh

This happens to me ALL the time. Virtually anything I've written, I don't recognise when I see it right there in front of me. As Heather pointed out, it is almost an "instant" forget for me. That happens in my life stuff too. I can instantly forget what I've done and struggle to remember what I have actually done in my day.

Time loss? Yep. It wasn't until a little while ago that I realised exactly how wide spread this was in my life. I know "facts" about my life. Enough to get by and avoid suspicion but apart from that, I don't have many actual "memories" apart from flashbacks etc... but even then. I am totally disconnected to them unless I am reliving them at the time...

I understand...

Rell

 

[jo74]

sign

That's the main reason I don't journal, also because it's like someone else wrote it. I hate it.

jo

 

[heather q]

Hi guys, I don't like journaling either, I end up with a whole bunch of nonsense that I can't relate to, what is helping me right now is just writing what bugs me, stuff I need to get off my mind. I write it by hand on the computer screen, so it is in my own writing and hopefully nobody else gets to read it, it's usually about stuff that happened at work, I used to write it on slips of paper but always worried about somebody finding it.

What amazes me when I see it later on, is that what I must have been feeling at the time was so devastating, the thoughts that I had, whatever happened, so there are times when I really do feel bad, and I have to say wow, and wonder where that come from, there is so much unknown about me that it isn't so much just recovery anymore but more of an interest in the possibilities of what lies ahead, what's it all about, I seem to have come through a stage of why bother at all, to more of an interest in my life, hopefully I won't have to revisit that 'why bother' stage much more, I wish, at least.

What I find interesting about reading things I've written, if I do recall having written them, is that it puts me right back to the 'traumatic situation' that caused me to write it down in the first place. So then I retraumatize myself, not as bad as the original situation but enough to make me realize that it is something that is still very much alive and it doesn't take much to trigger again. There is a lot to all this, just scratching the surface I guess,
Heather