What is dissociation?

[lostforgottensoul]

I've had flashbacks before, but I'm not even sure I understand the term dissociate? I've heard it used in this forum like a common placed word and I don't even know what it means

To go somewhere else mentally then reality at that moment for a time period. So whether that's day dreaming, driving on auto piliot, thinking deeply and not remembering the drive, or to go look outside your bedroom window while being raped and seeing a swing set and go to that swing set in your mind and swing, or to move places without memory of it, or an entire different personality taking control of your mind and body for a timeframe while you (normal personality as it's all you) are in another place in your mind for that timeframe. It can be a blink of a moment where someone says "hello" when you are lost in your thoughts or day dreaming or days at a time...or I've heard of longer.

 

[Sideways]

How do you eat? sleep? drink water? hygiene? have sex? work? talk on the phone? interact with other people? go to therapy? plan for anything besides the moment? get dressed?

A lot of this stuff you can do on auto pilot. And when that’s happening for someone with ptsd, dissociation is one of the ways that the mind is coping with being overwhelmed. There’s different ways the mind copes - dissociation is just one of then.

At the grocery store the other day, I didn’t have my dog with me (big mistake), and did most of my shop on auto-pilot. Don’t remember any of it. Until I was at the checkout, and one of the staff came running after me because I was wheeling a trolley load of stuff out the door without having paid. Oops. Auto-pilot: can kind of function in a whole heap of ways, especially with routine activities, but it’s not entirely reliable!!

Note to self: don’t do the groceries without your dog!

 

[Gs172003]

I had an episode while on a hike yesterday. There's times even in nature my brain won't shut up and for some reason I thought it would be a great idea to say my ex's name out loud to myself. Stupid.

 

[Rugby02]

@Florian7051, I dissociate a lot for days on end. My cell phone reminds me of what day it is sometimes. I simply cannot remember what is going on and often I am watching myself outside my body like I'm watching a television program about me.

I prepay as many of my bills a year in advance if possible and have EVERYTHING else on automatic payments such as the credit card minimums to ensure my bases are covered. I buy in bulk so that I never run out of something really dumb like cat food. I drink protein shakes and one meal a day from something in the freezer that my vegan teenager created for me. And yes, I'd eat it even if it was half-filled with salt because it was made with love. I don't pick her up from school so in case something happens to me she's not stranded.

I created a Wa Room (Japanese for peace) where no harm can happen. I don't use the oven but only microwaves and appliances with things that automatically turn off so I don't burn the house down. My teenager calls me every evening anyway so that's a resource and anchor to compartmentalize and become a parent for a moment. I never, ever drink alcohol alone. I rarely drink. I live in the upstairs with a locking door so that the other inhabitants/renters cannot gain access to me. Nobody from the road can tell if my lights are on/off. I listen only to positive music on Spotify. I took up knitting (I suck) but it helps me to calm the mind. I play colorku (colors in lieu of numbers) and sudoku alone to yoga the mind back into reality.

I don't have many friends but I will make appointments to see them periodically. It's never spontaneous. Most friends don't realize that when I'm interrupting their day/evening or go to Starbucks that it's a prevention when I'm close to the abyss. My service dog never leaves me. I always dress very nicely when out with my service dog as my shield. (weird twist but it works for me) I don't own a weapon but I'm cognizant of my chemistry/medical background and try to eventually make it out to garden. Yard service is automatic as is the soaker system for the garden. I have a Cabela's hunting camera set up in the front yard to ensure that I'm safe (long story-bad neighbors all around) and/or able to call the local police for help. I have a specific POC there.

I volunteer to assist other vulnerable veterans three days/month in the veterans treatment courts because it forces me to be momentarily strong for someone else in need.

Does this help?

 

[katz]

I've had flashbacks before, but I'm not even sure I understand the term dissociate? I've heard it...

I don't know if this will help you any, but my dissociation was easier for me to understand when I was told how much it helped me when I was a child.
The "child's mind" can't handle what is going on and has no chance of "excaping" the situation. That's when my dissociation kicked in. I have very vivid memories of being in a panic and not knowing what to do, so I just focused on the very top corner of what ever room I was in. I was able to just "go" there and not be "down here, doing this terrible thing."

For a child, it is a coping reaction. It is something that the child's mind has to do, in order to survive. It is not something that I "chose" to do - it just happened. As I got older, I used it a lot. Most of my memories are viewed from "up there in the corner by the ceiling." I know it seems kind of weird, but remember it is a natural thing to do. Some people do it to survive in an extreme situation, others do not.

 

[Journeyman]

I've had flashbacks before, but I'm not even sure I understand the term dissociate? I've heard it...

Here is an example of a more extreme. I know a lady that had been molested by her father at least once, and as her father was abusive, most likely her older brother was abused too, as he started coming into the room and molesting the lady too.
She says, "I remember him coming into the room, the sheets being pulled back, and then I would be feeling that I was hovering above the bed looking down at two people, and then I would be riding horses, feeling the wind, and the spray of water on my skin, and thinking when are these people going to be finished; oh, they are ,and then float back down and be laying in my bed when he was gone". Of course, this is an example of a more extreme of "derealization, and "depersonalization".

@Friday

I have gotten the "zoning out" while I've been driving (I've always vi...

I watched two documentaries on YouTube about survivors from the holocaust/concentration camps. One particular story was one of the ladies sitting at her dining room table, and "a young girl comes into the room and sits across from her" I think this happened several times, and then stopped. I'm not sure if the girl was like an ego state of herself, or something else. I also wouldn't think of it like a "psychosis", but more of some time of dissociative state...kind of like your seeing dead people in the crowd?

 

[Deleted member 8714]

I had many "out of body experiences" (OOBE) when I was a very young child. They occurred when my father was skinning people alive and then slicing them up with a sword. It was the only way I could survive being in the room with him, and seeing what he was doing to those people. Many times I "hung around the ceiling" and pretended I was an angel with silvery wings hovering over the room. Afterward I was able to tell my mother exactly what happened with words only a three year old child would use to describe the carnage I saw. Detaching myself from the gory scene was how I survived those times.

I developed dissociative identity disorder (DID) and PTSD. A couple of times I had psychotic episodes when what I was forced to do was beyond my coping mechanisms of OOBE and DID and PTSD. During those times, I was "gone" for hours at a time, and then my father elongated those times with hashish oil and other drugs because I flipped out on him and those drugs were the only way he could calm me down.

As an adult I remember one time driving and not seeing a fire truck and ambulance coming straight at me until it was almost too late. Their horns and sirens were blaring, and I never heard or saw a thing until the last minute when I slammed on my brakes. My radio wasn't on. I was simply zoned out. It was before I knew I had DID and PTSD.

 

[Innordinate]

Could it be more synonymous with childhood trauma

My opinion is probably because as younger kids we don't have the same coping skills most adults have. It's an automatic mechanism our brains use to deal with the trauma, which then becomes a habit, and a go-to mechanism for later negative experiences. So yeah, it's probably more but not only associated with it.
Not every sufferer dissociates, and not everyone who dissociates is a sufferer.
I term I used all the time before I knew what dissociation was: zoned or zoned out.
When you stare off into space in a restaurant and then all of a sudden notice someone glaring at you like you're a freak (because they think you were staring at them, when you were really just staring past them).... you were dissociating.

I would tell my kids to stop daydreaming, I would never say stop dissociating to them, even though that's what it is. Dissociating, for me, sounds more severe.

 

[Sweetleaf]

Not being in executive control of my thoughts or words.

That is the freakiest shit to experience.
When I am derealized strongly enough, it doesn't feel like I am in control of my words, it doesn't feel like I am the one doing any of my actions, it doesn't feel like I'm doing any of the controlling of my body, it's just doing whatever it is I'm (or it's?) doing. Sometimes I freeze up though - and that's just a really panic inducing state. Really freaky feeling. It just freaks me out to feel that strongly derealized. It freaks me out to feel any level of derealized, but I have gotten much better with handling it, grounding myself, trying to pull myself out of it.

It's just freaky to have those surreal feelings at all, to feel like nothing is really happening, like you're in a little bubble just kind of watching a movie of yourself experiencing whatever it is you are, and shit is just kind of happening, but you don't feel like you are part of it.

Another way to look at it is, if you were being raped or assaulted most likely you might disassociate and you almost "aren't there" you are physically there and can see, but you go deep within your mind.

For me, derealization was a major feature of how I'd react to trauma while it was happening - basically any time I was in extreme fear, imminent danger, being actively hurt, violated, so on and so forth. I feel like it happening a bunch, kind of widened how easily it happens for me. It began to happen while I was just walking around, like in the store or in public or wherever, not actively in danger or being hurt, but just going around, during the worse parts of the abuse, between horrible things, feeling derealized.

I still have a lot of problems with it. I go into derealization when I start to get to stressed, tired, anxious, etc.

This last weekend I had a lot of problems with it. I tried going into public in hopes that would help me clear it, and feel present, and in control of myself, and like everything was real and I am here in reality - but instead it cranked it up to like 11/10, I hated it, it was so freaky. It reminds me of going around derealized in public during the abuse :(

my biggest thing was being completely numb- to the point where I literally couldn't cry, or even feel angry. It becomes frustrating because, I felt so disconnected

That's a problem for me right now - I have a lot of issues going into autopilot mode, and feeling really detached from the world around me. Not like derealization, but more like the autopilot driving stuff, except during interaction with people in normal social situations, going about life.

A lot of the time I am also off in my own world, stuck in my thoughts, tuning out the outside world, and I don't even realize it until I snap out of it. Sometimes it passes and I don't even notice it, I think - because it's been pointed out to me by my counselor/pdoc, while I'm doing it. She will say "what are you thinking about?"

Usually it's something I'm not comfortable enough to share with her. Something too hard to talk about with her yet.

My trauma yoga group has been talking about these sorts of problems, feeling numb and detached and going off into autopilot mode - it made me realize that it's more of a problem for myself than I realized, and I haven't really been addressing it as well as I could, or improving, if anything it's getting worse - or maybe I am just noticing it more.

 

[katz]

Again I've experienced flashbacks. During high stress situations in rapidly deteriorating environm...

I can understand your confusion. For the longest time, I didn't even know the word. When it was explained to me, it helped me understand why all my memories - that I can remember - are from the 3rd person. I was not able to handle what was happening, so I just "left".

I would focus on a point in the room and just not feel or notice what is really happening to me. I don't do it much anymore, that I know of. I'm learning other ways to cope with the memories when they show their ugly faces.

 

[TruthSeeker]

@Florian7051, I dissociate a lot for days on end. My cell phone reminds me of what d...

Excellent safety and strategy post to deal with dissociation! :tup:

 

[tin-man]

Some really informative replies here. I know what disassociation, and derealization are, but it's also useful to see some real life examples of it. To be able to examine my own experiences in relation to that of others.

I have quite a few dissociative events day to day. A lot of the time it doesn't bother me too much. It's just part of life. Though the times I'm experiencing high stress/burn out and still have to drive to work worry me. I might not remember the journey, or suddenly wonder where I am when on the road.

I think the worst episodes happened when I was in my mid to late twenties. There are a lot of gaps to my memory at that time. I got to such a state of numbness, and depersonalization that I would have done just about anything. It felt like I wasn't really living my life. That this was all a false reality.

That level of detachment eventually reduced when I began to make connections again, engage with people, do some night classes. Over time I found a new purpose, new motivation. Dragging myself out from that place was the hardest thing I've ever done.