Psycho-Babble Psychology Thread 714598

Shown: posts 1 to 25 of 26. This is the beginning of the thread.

 

dissociation, how to stop?

Posted by muffled on December 17, 2006, at 15:03:41

I dissociate alot more than I realized. My T has said this too.
It makes everything so confusing.
Its VERY frustrating.
I starting to learn at least to notice it more...sort of.
I dunno how NOT to dissociate.
And sometimes it IS useful.
But I split up too.
And I SICK of it.
Sick of the confusion, the fighting, the noise, the fear, the anger, the nastiness, all mixed up, all over, not making sense.
And I am but a piece. A small flat piece.
I would like to tape my parts mouths shut, glue us all together, make us just have one set of emotions at any given time. Just be ONE.
F*CK i am tired of this.
Its always worse when there's stress,
Sigh.
Any ideas would be appreciated.
Muffled

 

Re: dissociation, how to stop? » muffled

Posted by toojane on December 17, 2006, at 16:13:54

In reply to dissociation, how to stop?, posted by muffled on December 17, 2006, at 15:03:41

> I dissociate alot more than I realized. My T has said this too.
> It makes everything so confusing.

Isn't it amazing how you can dissociate that you dissociate? Never heard the word and did not know I was doing it until therapy. Needed someone else noticing and asking the right kind of questions to realize it, otherwise you keep forgetting that you forget.


> I starting to learn at least to notice it more...sort of.

I kind it HUGELY upsetting to have it brought to my attention. Sometimes I get so distressed that I forget that I'd been reminded that I forgot so it's a double or triple forgetting, which is very convoluted and confusing.


> I dunno how NOT to dissociate.

Me neither. How do you stop doing something you are barely able to acknowledge that you do and that you only know about in retrospect?


> Any ideas would be appreciated.

I don't have any. Sorry. But if it helps at all, please know I'm similarly frustrated and troubled so you're not alone

 

Re: dissociation, how to stop? » muffled

Posted by sunnydays on December 17, 2006, at 18:48:40

In reply to dissociation, how to stop?, posted by muffled on December 17, 2006, at 15:03:41

Your experience sounds different from mine, but sometimes it helps me to pay attention to my breathing if I've dissociated. Notice I'm breathing in and breathing out, and notice what I am touching and how it feels - (smooth, rough, etc.). But the first thing is to know you are dissociating. Good luck muffled. It's hard.

sunnydays

 

Re: dissociation, how to stop?

Posted by Phillipa on December 17, 2006, at 21:45:16

In reply to Re: dissociation, how to stop? » muffled, posted by sunnydays on December 17, 2006, at 18:48:40

Being able to acknowlege it is the first step I would think. Love Phillipa

 

Re: dissociation, how to stop? mega long » muffled

Posted by littleone on December 17, 2006, at 23:30:58

In reply to dissociation, how to stop?, posted by muffled on December 17, 2006, at 15:03:41

Hi muffled, warning – this is going to be mega long.

I think this is really hard to answer because my experience of dissociation is different to yours. There are lots of ways you can dissociate – either from yourself or the world. You can dissociate memories, emotions, your identity and other things too that I forget right now. There are different reasons or gains for dissociating. Obviously there is an escape from pain or fear. It can allow you to maintain an attachment to an abuser. It can allow you to maintain conflicting thoughts/feelings. It keeps the unacceptable out of sight.

So all of this makes it very hard for me to guess what would help you. All I can give you is what helped me.

I think my work on this started with my foggy sessions. My T would talk about something that was scary or threatening for me and I would get lost in the fog. I couldn’t move and everything would look white and foggy and I just couldn’t think at all. My brain just kind of shut down. I literally couldn’t put a sentence together. It’s like I could think of one word at a time, but literally couldn’t put words together. I hadn’t realised until then that it actually takes quite a bit of work to put a thought together to make a sentence.

So at first I was flat out even remembering or recognising what had happened. Then I started to be able to recognise after the fact that it had happened. Then I started to be able to recognise it during the episode. Then I would start to recognise the warning signs just as I got foggy. And then finally I was able to recognise the signs before I got foggy. It was at this stage that I could finally start to do stuff about it. Like I would try to really focus on what my T was saying. I would try to move. Moving seemed to help me stay grounded. I would try to blink. I would try to let my T know that it was getting hard for me. I think a big help too was that after while my T could recognise when it happened, so he would move to a safe and soothing topic (he would talk about my walks or birds). He would ask real simple questions about safe things to try and bring me back.

It kind of because something to be real proud of – being able to stick around for my sessions. So it was something that I worked really hard at. It still hits me now at times, but I’m much more able to recognise it coming on and stopping it before it gets started. Or if I do get foggy, I can get out of it much quicker now. I think a lot of that change must have come from the fact that at the start I preferred getting foggy because of the safety in that. It was only later when I preferred to stay un-foggy that I was able to really work on it. And when I say I preferred to stay foggy, that wasn’t something I would admit to or even be aware of. It was an unconscious preference.

I think the next dissociative thing I worked on was my feelings and the nothingness. I used to rarely feel things. The only feelings I had were extreme ones from being triggered by something. I’ve always thought I was broken inside because I don’t feel caring for people like most people seem to. Very shameful for me. Also, I was really good at cutting things off. It’s like I would lock things up in boxes in a pitch black room. I was so good at it, I couldn’t even tell that some boxes were there.

A couple of years ago I was on antidepressants and I really noticed on them that all feelings went totally away then. Plus I had total nothingness. When I came off the pills, the nothingness stuck around. I think too that at first I preferred the nothingness. It’s safe. You can get lots of work done. People compliment you because you don’t get stressed out over work things like they do. Things are easier to bring up in T if you feel nothingness. Lots of other good reasons to like the nothingness.

I get a bit confused here, but I suspect that I started to feel some things with my T and that started to make the nothingness a bad thing. I started to feel really unwell. I realised how pointless and meaningless life is. Lots of bad things here. But even then, I couldn’t see that the nothingness was making things bad.

Then I started learning to comfort and soothe myself. Did lots of work on this. I still found feelings very scary and would fall back into the nothingness. But after practicing this over and over it became a bit easier to not cut off inside.

It was only once I went through small patches of feeling things that I started to realise that I didn’t like the nothingness anymore. I liked feeling things. It got to the stage where even bad feelings were good. I liked being able to soothe myself. I didn’t like that I had no control over the nothingness. If I fell into it, I would become lost in it. I would get stuck in the nothingness for 3 or 4 months at a time. I would be desperate to get out of it, but not be able to do so.

Each of these times I’d be lost in the nothingness, my T and I would try to figure out what threw me in there, which was hard – often it was because multiple bad things would hit me at once. Then we would work on safety. Have done a lot of work on making things safer for me. I’m not sure, but I think that each time we increased the safety, I was able to gradually come back to feeling things.

It’s now at the stage where I am terrified of the nothingness. Just the thought of being lost there again distresses me a lot. I work very very hard at not falling in to it. I work very very hard at trying to connect with my feelings and express them. I’ve found it is a lot easier and better to work through a bad feeling, than to cut it off and have to fight my way out of the nothingness. I think it was only once I got to the stage where I preferred to stay away from the nothingness that I was able to really work on staying with the feelings.

So I think a real simplified answer to your question is that you need to create safety, you need to learn to self-soothe, you need to learn to express your feelings, you need to take lots of baby steps from recognising what’s happening, through to understanding it, through to breaking the pattern and creating a new way of coping.

But I would have said a year ago that I was doing all this and it still wasn’t working. The thing is, because I’d been so cut off, I didn’t really understand exactly what all this meant and exactly what it entailed and exactly what it felt like. So even though I thought I was doing it, I was really only scratching the surface and had a long long way to go.

Even now, I am light years ahead of where I was, but I still feel like I’m only half way there. Still have a lot of work to do around all this.

I think another thing that I’ve been trying to work on that has helped me is to accept all my parts. To respect them and build liking up for them. I try not to be annoyed or exasperated or angry or irritated or hateful towards them. I still fail badly at times, but I’m really trying and I think this helps a lot with being able to express your feelings. If a part thinks it’s going to be beaten up for feeling something, it’s not likely that it’s going to be open and sharing with you. I think I had to learn about acceptance from my T before I was able to even start to accept my parts.

This feels like a really long winded way of saying those basic point of safety, soothing, expressing, accepting and baby steps. But they really aren’t basic points. They are actually very involved and require a great deal of work. Plus it takes time to build safety and to build the soothing skills and to learn how to do these things. Plus it took a lot of time to come round to preferring the non-dissociative strategies.

If you’d find it helpful for me to expand on anything, just let me know. But I figured this book I’ve written is probably too much as it is.

Oh, and the other thing I was going to mention is that through all this I’ve learnt a lot more about my parts. I can recognise them a lot better now. And they come out in therapy a lot more now because the safety has been built up. But this has worsened my memory problems. I used to remember hardly nothing about things, but as I did some of the above work, I started to have better recall of my sessions. Except now that the parts are there more, I remember a lot less of my sessions again. I think I’m absorbing my T’s words, but I simply can’t recall them at all. It takes a lot of thought for me to even remember the general topics covered. I haven’t yet worked my way out of this problem.

But I think I will in time.

 

Re: dissociation, how to stop? mega long » littleone

Posted by LlurpsieBlossom on December 17, 2006, at 23:47:24

In reply to Re: dissociation, how to stop? mega long » muffled, posted by littleone on December 17, 2006, at 23:30:58

wow. thank you littleone-

I find that so many of your experiences resonate with me.

I had my first sensation of dissociation (during the actual dissociation) about 3 mos ago. It was very strange. dreamy. my body and mouth were saying things, and my mind was off... not comprehending, only observing... noncommitally observing.

Sometimes I get dissociated when I'm typing on babble. I would like to get really foul mouthed and let forth all the crap. Spew. but I can't I censor myself, and so I feel that spacy feeling like I'm on autopilot.

Llurps the autopilot support robot.

anyways, when I'm really brought face to face with it, I have a hard time understanding the way that my "identity" can justify operating on very different spheres of experience, simultaneously.

Thank goodness our brains are built for parallel processing...

Lurpsie, and Ll, and whomever else is affected by dis-association...

 

Re: dissociation, how to stop? » toojane

Posted by muffled on December 17, 2006, at 23:47:59

In reply to Re: dissociation, how to stop? » muffled, posted by toojane on December 17, 2006, at 16:13:54


> Isn't it amazing how you can dissociate that you dissociate? Never heard the word and did not know I was doing it until therapy. Needed someone else noticing and asking the right kind of questions to realize it, otherwise you keep forgetting that you forget.

**LOL! Now THATS confusing. Nuts isn't it?

> I kind it HUGELY upsetting to have it brought to my attention. Sometimes I get so distressed that I forget that I'd been reminded that I forgot so it's a double or triple forgetting, which is very convoluted and confusing.
>
**That sounds very hard :(
I dunno if I double dissociate or just single. I am not terribly distressed by my dissociating, it just makes things so hard is all.

> > I dunno how NOT to dissociate.
>
> Me neither. How do you stop doing something you are barely able to acknowledge that you do and that you only know about in retrospect?

**exactly.

> I don't have any. Sorry. But if it helps at all, please know I'm similarly frustrated and troubled so you're not alone

**Thanks so much for your reply. mebbe there will be helpful stuff posted for you too.
It DOES help to know i not alone, though I sorry that you have to struggle too.
But at least we a big step ahead, cuz now we know.....
Take care,
muffled

 

Re: dissociation, how to stop? » sunnydays

Posted by muffled on December 17, 2006, at 23:51:42

In reply to Re: dissociation, how to stop? » muffled, posted by sunnydays on December 17, 2006, at 18:48:40

> Your experience sounds different from mine, but sometimes it helps me to pay attention to my breathing if I've dissociated. Notice I'm breathing in and breathing out, and notice what I am touching and how it feels - (smooth, rough, etc.). But the first thing is to know you are dissociating. Good luck muffled. It's hard.
>
**Thanks Sunnydays.
I don't like thinking bout breathing, bad asthma as a kid.
But the touching thing might be good.
Mebbe bring a rock...ooops, mebbe not a rock in case I throw it at T!, mebbe a feather, feathers are SO cool how they are made, to T, so I can focus on it. I will try that.
Thanks SD,
Muffled

 

Your right :) Thanks (nm) » Phillipa

Posted by muffled on December 17, 2006, at 23:52:18

In reply to Re: dissociation, how to stop?, posted by Phillipa on December 17, 2006, at 21:45:16

 

Great! Getting LONGER....... » littleone

Posted by muffled on December 18, 2006, at 0:56:22

In reply to Re: dissociation, how to stop? mega long » muffled, posted by littleone on December 17, 2006, at 23:30:58

> I think this is really hard to answer because my experience of dissociation is different to yours. There are lots of ways you can dissociate – either from yourself or the world. You can dissociate memories, emotions, your identity and other things too that I forget right now. There are different reasons or gains for dissociating. Obviously there is an escape from pain or fear. It can allow you to maintain an attachment to an abuser. It can allow you to maintain conflicting thoughts/feelings. It keeps the unacceptable out of sight.

**Hmmm. A few of those makes sense to me....
I don't have a very good sense of myself or who I am...
>
> So all of this makes it very hard for me to guess what would help you. All I can give you is what helped me.

**Thank-you for sharing.
>
> I think my work on this started with my foggy sessions. My T would talk about something that was scary or threatening for me and I would get lost in the fog. I couldn’t move and everything would look white and foggy and I just couldn’t think at all. My brain just kind of shut down. I literally couldn’t put a sentence together. It’s like I could think of one word at a time, but literally couldn’t put words together. I hadn’t realised until then that it actually takes quite a bit of work to put a thought together to make a sentence.

**Ahhhh. Exactly. My first almost year of T seemed such a waste cuz I remembered next to NOTHING bout my sessions. In fact I just journalled today that I goto tell T, that we need more time of silence, so I can think. Cuz when AI even a bit dissociated, its very hard to form htots, and then even harder to form sentences and speak them...
>
> So at first I was flat out even remembering or recognising what had happened. Then I started to be able to recognise after the fact that it had happened. Then I started to be able to recognise it during the episode. Then I would start to recognise the warning signs just as I got foggy. And then finally I was able to recognise the signs before I got foggy. It was at this stage that I could finally start to do stuff about it. Like I would try to really focus on what my T was saying. I would try to move. Moving seemed to help me stay grounded. I would try to blink. I would try to let my T know that it was getting hard for me. I think a big help too was that after while my T could recognise when it happened, so he would move to a safe and soothing topic (he would talk about my walks or birds). He would ask real simple questions about safe things to try and bring me back.

**I knew pretty quick what was happening, didn't have a name for it, I called it blanking. Cuz i'd get home and not remember almost ANYthing at all bout T.
I can sometimes know when I going into a blank. Everything gets more muted, all things, color, sound. If it keeps going, then I find words very hard to understand. If I keep going then I can just barely see my T, and her lips are moving but I can't hear her. What I can hear doesn't make any sense. I open and close my mouth, but I can make sound come out.
I don't usu. go right out now. I recently figgered, when I find myself being very still, and working VERY hard at trying to listen and understand my T's words, that I am actually dissociating at that time.
So moving helps get out of blank? Like do you stand up? I jiggle alot all the time. I tend to get very still when I blank. I try to shift position in my chair early on, but that doesn't seem to help as far as I know....

>
> It kind of because something to be real proud of – being able to stick around for my sessions. So it was something that I worked really hard at. It still hits me now at times, but I’m much more able to recognise it coming on and stopping it before it gets started. Or if I do get foggy, I can get out of it much quicker now. I think a lot of that change must have come from the fact that at the start I preferred getting foggy because of the safety in that. It was only later when I preferred to stay un-foggy that I was able to really work on it. And when I say I preferred to stay foggy, that wasn’t something I would admit to or even be aware of. It was an unconscious preference.

**YES! It feels SO good to go home and actually remember most of sessions!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How do you stop it before it goes too far? I try and look around and focus hard, but I still seem to go part way out despite myself....
I think I am at the brink of that. I don't wanto be foggy, but I guess part of me does.
>
> I think the next dissociative thing I worked on was my feelings and the nothingness. I used to rarely feel things. The only feelings I had were extreme ones from being triggered by something. I’ve always thought I was broken inside because I don’t feel caring for people like most people seem to. Very shameful for me. Also, I was really good at cutting things off. It’s like I would lock things up in boxes in a pitch black room. I was so good at it, I couldn’t even tell that some boxes were there.

**What you call your nothingness, I call my sphere. Its like I go into a clear sphere. I thot I had no feelings. I didn't know that other feelings existed cept the intense ones. Now I do. Don't feel them much. Start to, but its cut off real quick. I can't stop it.
>
> A couple of years ago I was on antidepressants and I really noticed on them that all feelings went totally away then. Plus I had total nothingness. When I came off the pills, the nothingness stuck around. I think too that at first I preferred the nothingness. It’s safe. You can get lots of work done. People compliment you because you don’t get stressed out over work things like they do. Things are easier to bring up in T if you feel nothingness. Lots of other good reasons to like the nothingness.

**Ya, being in my sphere is OK at times, but when I realize I been in it awhile ( I often don't realize I been in it), then I realize I been only a bit alive, andf want to come out. I don't like AD's either. Make me nothing too. LOL, ya my hubby liked me on AD, cuz I was SO calm, never got mad..never got nothing at all I don't think. My sphere is safe, but I don't like it after awhile. If you could read my journal you would laugh and SO recognize some stuff yourself...!
>
> I get a bit confused here, but I suspect that I started to feel some things with my T and that started to make the nothingness a bad thing. I started to feel really unwell. I realised how pointless and meaningless life is. Lots of bad things here. But even then, I couldn’t see that the nothingness was making things bad.

**I just wanto live a better life, be a better mom, be more consistant. I kinda go up and down. If I could just be more aware of myself, then I would know so much more, but I just don't.
>
> Then I started learning to comfort and soothe myself. Did lots of work on this. I still found feelings very scary and would fall back into the nothingness. But after practicing this over and over it became a bit easier to not cut off inside.

**My patient T is trying to teach me this stuff, but its hard. Some of my parts are not easily soothed...
I guess this is what I need to do. Mebbe I will tell my T that. Mebbe I should make an effort to express and actually feel some of these feelings. If I can..... Hmmm. I will tell my T this, this is good!
After a big blank, it does take me awhile to come back. sometimes months.
What things work for you to comfort and soothe?
>
> It was only once I went through small patches of feeling things that I started to realise that I didn’t like the nothingness anymore. I liked feeling things. It got to the stage where even bad feelings were good. I liked being able to soothe myself. I didn’t like that I had no control over the nothingness. If I fell into it, I would become lost in it. I would get stuck in the nothingness for 3 or 4 months at a time. I would be desperate to get out of it, but not be able to do so.

**I am TERRIFIED of feelings. My T says I have feeling phobia (with a smile, she smiles alot). I just gonna have to feel, thats all there is to it. And find out they OK.
>
> Each of these times I’d be lost in the nothingness, my T and I would try to figure out what threw me in there, which was hard – often it was because multiple bad things would hit me at once. Then we would work on safety. Have done a lot of work on making things safer for me. I’m not sure, but I think that each time we increased the safety, I was able to gradually come back to feeling things.

**This is where I struggle SO. Cuz I dunno how things come about. My mind is so mixed up alot of the time. I barely talk to my T. She mostly teaches me stuff. I think we fall into this, cuz everytime she tries to bring stuff up, I freaking dissociate.....
Its SO DAM FRUSTRATING. How did you get past this?
>
> It’s now at the stage where I am terrified of the nothingness. Just the thought of being lost there again distresses me a lot. I work very very hard at not falling in to it. I work very very hard at trying to connect with my feelings and express them. I’ve found it is a lot easier and better to work through a bad feeling, than to cut it off and have to fight my way out of the nothingness. I think it was only once I got to the stage where I preferred to stay away from the nothingness that I was able to really work on staying with the feelings.
>
**I not terrified of nothingness no more. Last time I was there, and I realized I was there, I knew I'd come back eventually, cuz I always seem to. Mostly I notice I in the nothingness now, by noticing my 'people' have gone away. Its dead in my head.

> So I think a real simplified answer to your question is that you need to create safety, you need to learn to self-soothe, you need to learn to express your feelings, you need to take lots of baby steps from recognising what’s happening, through to understanding it, through to breaking the pattern and creating a new way of coping.

**Safety. Can you explain more about safety? I don't think I ever have felt safe. I was an 8 yr old kid who packed a knife....
How can I stop the 'cut off' when I start to feel feelings? Its automatic. I don't know how to self soothe my parts. Little ones don't trust me, and for good reason. Other ones are just trouble..
>
> But I would have said a year ago that I was doing all this and it still wasn’t working. The thing is, because I’d been so cut off, I didn’t really understand exactly what all this meant and exactly what it entailed and exactly what it felt like. So even though I thought I was doing it, I was really only scratching the surface and had a long long way to go.

**I think I still scratching.....but this has been hugely useful for me. Would it be OK if I show this to my T?
>
> Even now, I am light years ahead of where I was, but I still feel like I’m only half way there. Still have a lot of work to do around all this.
>
> I think another thing that I’ve been trying to work on that has helped me is to accept all my parts. To respect them and build liking up for them. I try not to be annoyed or exasperated or angry or irritated or hateful towards them. I still fail badly at times, but I’m really trying and I think this helps a lot with being able to express your feelings. If a part thinks it’s going to be beaten up for feeling something, it’s not likely that it’s going to be open and sharing with you. I think I had to learn about acceptance from my T before I was able to even start to accept my parts.

**I'm OK with most of my parts, and they awful good about me. But there is alot of arguing and conflict that goes on, esp when I stressed. Ya........I been real bad to some parts.....its no wonder they hide :(

>
> This feels like a really long winded way of saying those basic point of safety, soothing, expressing, accepting and baby steps. But they really aren’t basic points. They are actually very involved and require a great deal of work. Plus it takes time to build safety and to build the soothing skills and to learn how to do these things. Plus it took a lot of time to come round to preferring the non-dissociative strategies.

**WOW. Littleone, you have done amazing work. And by sharing this, it will help me in my work :)
Thank you SO much.
>
> If you’d find it helpful for me to expand on anything, just let me know. But I figured this book I’ve written is probably too much as it is.

**Not even slightly too much!!!!Its WONDERFUL!!!!!!
>
> Oh, and the other thing I was going to mention is that through all this I’ve learnt a lot more about my parts. I can recognise them a lot better now. And they come out in therapy a lot more now because the safety has been built up. But this has worsened my memory problems. I used to remember hardly nothing about things, but as I did some of the above work, I started to have better recall of my sessions. Except now that the parts are there more, I remember a lot less of my sessions again. I think I’m absorbing my T’s words, but I simply can’t recall them at all. It takes a lot of thought for me to even remember the general topics covered. I haven’t yet worked my way out of this problem.

**Hmmmm.Damn. I like remembering my sessions. Dissociation sucks :(
>
> But I think I will in time.

**I think you will too! :)
And so will I.
Thank you, thank-you, thank you.
There's a few questions salted in there.....
I'll take any help you have, cuz I am finding all this stuff so hard and confusing....
I surely appreciate this.
Take care,
Muffled
>

 

Re: dissociation, how to stop? mega long » littleone

Posted by toojane on December 18, 2006, at 7:40:13

In reply to Re: dissociation, how to stop? mega long » muffled, posted by littleone on December 17, 2006, at 23:30:58

Wow Littleone, that was an amazing post. Thank you so much for taking the time to write it. That kind of detail and description of your process is SO helpful.

May I ask how long you have been in therapy and what kind of therapy you are doing? How often do you go, what kind of therapist do you have, did you do any other kinds of therapy before what you are doing currently that you did or didn't find helpful?

I'm not sure of the etiquette, but could I ask what your diagnosis is, if you have one?

 

Re: dissociation, how to stop? mega long » littleone

Posted by sunnydays on December 18, 2006, at 9:37:20

In reply to Re: dissociation, how to stop? mega long » muffled, posted by littleone on December 17, 2006, at 23:30:58

Wow! That was so helpful littleone. That's kind of what I've been going through, and it is really important to recognize that it's hard work and takes a long time. I really didn't know what feeling meant when I started this, and I definitely prefer to feel now than to cut myself off. It doesn't last as long for me as for you, maybe only a couple weeks at most, or a month, but it is still distressing. I also don't have parts that are quite as separate as you do, but I can identify with some of the feelings. My T refers to parts, but I think it's more of a metaphor, as they all feel more like different aspects of my personality. But there's definitely a little girl part that's holding all the sadness for me.

Anyway, I don't have the time to respond as adequately as I would like, but I wanted to say your post is much appreciated.

sunnydays

 

Re: dissociation, how to stop? » muffled

Posted by Dinah on December 18, 2006, at 17:45:54

In reply to dissociation, how to stop?, posted by muffled on December 17, 2006, at 15:03:41

Depending on the type and extent of dissociation, is it always necessary to stop? If it interferes with your life and goals, or places you or others in danger, then of course. But it can also be a protection, and I'm frankly loath to give it up. I'm more interesting in learning to control it, and that to me means learning more about it, and breaking it into its smallest pieces so that I can understand.

But I'm not at my best thinking right now, so maybe I'm totally missing the boat here.

 

Re: dissociation, how to stop?

Posted by Phillipa on December 18, 2006, at 18:22:41

In reply to Re: dissociation, how to stop? » muffled, posted by Dinah on December 18, 2006, at 17:45:54

I'm trying to understand. Sounds kind of like a dream world? Or you drift away when you are uncomfortable with what is being said. And please tell me is I'm totally not understanding. So no stress? Love Phillipa

 

Re: dissociation, how to stop? » toojane

Posted by littleone on December 18, 2006, at 19:37:25

In reply to Re: dissociation, how to stop? mega long » littleone, posted by toojane on December 18, 2006, at 7:40:13

> Wow Littleone, that was an amazing post. Thank you so much for taking the time to write it. That kind of detail and description of your process is SO helpful.

Hi toojane. Thanks for that. Your kind words really mean a lot to me.

> May I ask how long you have been in therapy

I’ve been with my current T for 2 years and 9 months. Plus I had some very bad therapy with other T’s prior to that.

> and what kind of therapy you are doing?

I hadn’t realised until you asked this, but apparently this is still a very loaded question for me. If you were to ask my T, he would say we’re doing CBT. He believes that just about every kind of therapy is CBT, ie they are all aimed at altering your thoughts, beliefs and behaviours. It’s just that the different theories use different underpinnings and ideas and techniques to make these alterations.

However, having said we’re doing CBT, it’s not anything like what I normally think of CBT as being. We don’t sit down and identify my thoughts and then substitute new thoughts in there. We don’t sit down and identify my behaviours then create stepping stones towards implementing new behaviours. That style of CBT just doesn’t work for me.

So even though he calls himself a CBT, he uses ideas and styles and techniques from all sorts of different orientations. He’ll pretty much use any method that he thinks will assist the change he’s working on, eg we’ve played cards before, he sits on the floor with me, he looks through photos with me, etc.

> How often do you go

Twice a week. I bump it up to three times a week just before and after his holidays and also whenever I’m having a really rough time. I will also put in an extra session now if I feel the nothingness coming on. Sometimes the extra session helps to stop the nothingness before it gets started.

> what kind of therapist do you have

A wonderful one :)

> did you do any other kinds of therapy before what you are doing currently that you did or didn’t find helpful?

Yes. I saw one who was a real blank slate type. It went very very badly and I ended up in a very bad place. That type doesn’t work for me because I have so much trouble talking and trusting. I also saw a very sleazy slimy one who didn’t really listen to the little I had to say and just changed what I said to fit into his picture of me.

> I’m not sure of the etiquette, but could I ask what your diagnosis is, if you have one?

Another very loaded question for me. This has actually just blown up in T for me. In a nutshell, my T won’t give me a diagnosis because each one holds too much meaning for me (eg being this one would make me a very special client, being this one would mean I am an awful bother and need to pull back more, being this one means I am just one of the multitude and makes me worthless). Plus to me, different diagnoses indicate different levels of abuse/neglect/trauma which makes it all even more loaded for me.

I say that I need a diagnosis to know where I belong. To fit in somewhere. He argues that I need to learn that I belong and fit in as I am. That I don’t need a label to do that for me.

I tend to toy with the idea that I’m DSM-NOS :)

 

Re: Great! Getting LONGER....... » muffled

Posted by littleone on December 18, 2006, at 19:39:31

In reply to Great! Getting LONGER....... » littleone, posted by muffled on December 18, 2006, at 0:56:22

> I don’t usu. go right out now. I recently figgered, when I find myself being very still, and working VERY hard at trying to listen and understand my T’s words, that I am actually dissociating at that time.

You are doing very well muffled. They are very good things to recognise. It sounds like you are recognising it just at the stage where you start to dissociate. Keep working at this. After a while you will learn to recognise it coming on sooner. I think that as you work on this more and more, you become more adept at learning to see what’s happening.

And if you have strategies to try out as soon as you feel it starting like this, then it should become easier to pull out of it. Perhaps it would help to write your list of strategies and give a copy to your T. So if you have trouble you can send her a signal of some sort and she can help remind you of your strategies to try.

> So moving helps get out of blank? Like do you stand up? I jiggle a lot all the time. I tend to get very still when I blank. I try to shift position in my chair early on, but that doesn’t seem to help as far as I know….

Well, I have a bit of a hangup over trying to be invisible, so I never moved at all during a session. So the moving I mention here was just shifting my foot or turning my head a bit or blinking or scratching or something small like that. Because any movement is so loaded for me, I found that that was all I needed.

I’m not sure if you have a hangup over moving, so if not, you may need to move more than I did. Like I imagine that standing up would work very well, but then I’m not sure if that’s too scary for you (or just too hard when you’re zoned out). Perhaps it’s more about finding something that you can focus on and that helps you feel your body. I’ve heard that textures work really well. So perhaps you could take something rough or smooth or furry or whatever to your session. Then your strategy might be something like: reach into bag and pull out pebble/sandpaper/stuffed toy/fabric swatch/etc. Look at item and feel it. Stand up when able.

I know that I would never remember all that once I got foggy, but if I just memorised that I have to reach into my bag, then I think it becomes a little easier to do that when you need it.

I think your strategy will need to be very personal. Only you know how much movement/focus/etc you are capable of when you blank. And you may find afterwards that you need to refine it. Like say you picked something smooth, you may find it doesn’t bring you back – that it actually encourages you to dissociate further. You need to find a strategy that works for you.

> I think I am at the brink of that. I don’t wantto be foggy, but I guess part of me does.

You’re probably right. I guess it comes down to recognising that foggy/blank provides safety. It’s only once you start staying un-foggy/blank sometimes that you start to learn that your T is safe. That talking about bad things can be safe. That there are ways to stay safe without retreating to the blank. It’s hard to let go of a safety net without knowing there is another one in place. I think this just built up gradually for me.

> What things work for you to comfort and sooth?

There’s the things I put in sunnydays’ thread. I found that I love hiking and birds and photography, so if I’m finding things hard, I make sure I go hiking with my camera. I’ve started to learn that I can do what’s best for me, rather than what other people expect me to do, eg this is the third year in a row that I haven’t done Christmas. I still find it very hard to say no, but I find that it has been much better for my mental health to say no to certain things. I’m sure there is other stuff, but I just can’t think of it right now.

> I am TERRIFIED of feelings. I just gonna have to feel, that’s all there is to it. And find out they OK.

It helped me to learn that no feeling lasts forever. Even the very worst and scary ones. I had to be mindful of this, so every time I realised a feeling had passed, I would use that to remind me that no feelings last forever and to build up proof of that. I had to learn to believe that to make it safer to feel.

> Safety. Can you explain more about safety?

I find safety really hard to think about and build up. There’s not a lot written about it. And what is out there pretty much just says that you have to find ways to feel safer. But it rarely gives suggestions on how to do this. I’ve read that you could try:

- sitting facing the door in your T’s office
- asking your T to remove triggering books from his/her bookcase
- adjusting the lighting in your T’s office
- altering seating arrangements

But none of these were things I could ask for or do.

I think my T very quietly tried to make things safer for me. But it wasn’t until he made the idea of building safety really explicit that I was able to even think about this. I think that I have never felt safe, so I couldn’t even realise that I felt un-safe. I think the best I could do was realise when I felt petrified.

So I think my T has done a lot to build safety for me, but I’m not aware of the things he has done. I think most of it was about making me feel safer about him. But some things I am aware of are:

- we played cards for a while to try and help me feel more comfortable.
- I’ve always felt exposed and on display in my chair, so we worked up to me sitting on the floor. Then he sat on the floor with me, but started to get a sore back from that. So he now sits on a low box in front of me on the floor.
- I have notes from him that help me feel safer.
- he allows me to come to sessions hours early if I want so I can relax and feel safer in the waiting room.
- I know that I feel safer with routine, so there are aspects of our sessions that are the same every time.
- I know he is constantly doing a very tricky balancing act between allowing me to feel safe and challenging me. I think he is very good at this balance.
- He gives me time to think and time to work up to saying stuff. This makes it safer for me to try to work up courage to say stuff.
- I think that him making his acceptance of me very explicit has helped with safety a lot. Made it a lot safer for parts to talk to him.
- he has never ever gotten mad at me. That has been vitally important for me.
- I take my little stuffed bird and hanky and comfort book to every session.
- I read my little fur story book before sessions in the waiting room.
- In the waiting room I flick through a book I have of very beautiful landscape and nature photos. And it has really healing quotes throughout it.

I’m sure there’s other stuff, but I can’t think of them right now.

> How can I stop the ‘cut off’ when I start to feel feelings? Its automatic.

Yeah, mine is really automatic too. Have found this very hard. Still do. I think I try to recognise that I’ve cut off and then force myself to look at what the issue is or what the feeling is. Except even that is very very hard. It’s like forcing someone to turn their head around to look at something, but they still keep their eyes tightly shut.

I think the forcing isn’t helping me.

I think this is where caring for parts helps. Being patient with them. Helping them feel safer. Using other methods like painting, drawing, etc.

I think also that I would work on *thinking* about understanding why I cut off. Identify which issue upset me and then think about why it is threatening. It’s like the thinking still keeps me separate from my feelings, but at least I am doing some work on the issue. Just gradually build up to being able to feel. Not sure if I’m making sense now.

> Would it be OK if I show this to my T?

Go right ahead.

 

Re: dissociation, how to stop?

Posted by sunnydays on December 18, 2006, at 21:10:53

In reply to Re: dissociation, how to stop?, posted by Phillipa on December 18, 2006, at 18:22:41

It's sort of like that for me, but I describe it more as getting lost in a fog, or going into a dark cave only I can be in. It can be scary or frustrating, though, so for me there can be stress. And it's also more of a dead feeling. There's no happiness, because once I cut off sad or scared feelings, I have to cut them all off. Emotions are all tied up, so it's impossible (at least for me) to have some without the other.

Hope that helps! That's the best I can describe it when I'm really tired.

sunnydays

 

Re: dissociation, how to stop? » Dinah

Posted by muffled on December 18, 2006, at 21:55:07

In reply to Re: dissociation, how to stop? » muffled, posted by Dinah on December 18, 2006, at 17:45:54

> Depending on the type and extent of dissociation, is it always necessary to stop? If it interferes with your life and goals, or places you or others in danger, then of course. But it can also be a protection, and I'm frankly loath to give it up. I'm more interesting in learning to control it, and that to me means learning more about it, and breaking it into its smallest pieces so that I can understand.
>
> But I'm not at my best thinking right now, so maybe I'm totally missing the boat here.

**I dunno Dinah. I think littleone made an excellent point in that after a time dissociating is no longer pleasant.
I have said that dissociating is a blessing and a curse. I cannot imagine NOT being able to dissociate(eg. sex), but oftentimes I dissociate when I don't want to(just about ANY time I feel the slightest threat).
And for me there's diff dissociations. Blanking, sphere, being more in another ego state etc.
So I see your point about control.
Its a good point.
I have no control :(
Zero :(
Hope you doing OK ((Dinah))
Take care,
Muffled

 

Re: dissociation, how to stop?

Posted by muffled on December 18, 2006, at 22:01:10

In reply to Re: dissociation, how to stop?, posted by Phillipa on December 18, 2006, at 18:22:41

> I'm trying to understand. Sounds kind of like a dream world? Or you drift away when you are uncomfortable with what is being said. And please tell me is I'm totally not understanding. So no stress? Love Phillipa

*Hi Phillipa,
Everybody dissociates. Its more a matter of degree I would think.
If you zone out in a daydream, that is dissociation. Your mind is not connected correctly.
For me there can be stress dissociated or not. But I suppose it is less that what I might consider (perhaps wrongly)the stress might be if I didn't dissociate.
I blank even when I don't need to. Something triggers the alarms, often wrongly I think.
It messes with concentration and memeory too.
Dunno if that helps Phillipa.
You found a T yet?
Muffled

 

Re: dissociation, how to stop? » muffled

Posted by Phillipa on December 18, 2006, at 22:41:39

In reply to Re: dissociation, how to stop?, posted by muffled on December 18, 2006, at 22:01:10

Muffled no want to be my therapist? Thanks for the explanation. Love Phillipa

 

Re: Great! Getting LONGER....... » littleone

Posted by muffled on December 18, 2006, at 23:07:34

In reply to Re: Great! Getting LONGER....... » muffled, posted by littleone on December 18, 2006, at 19:39:31

> You are doing very well muffled. They are very good things to recognise. It sounds like you are recognising it just at the stage where you start to dissociate. Keep working at this. After a while you will learn to recognise it coming on sooner. I think that as you work on this more and more, you become more adept at learning to see what’s happening.

**Thanks for the compliment! Its good to hear from someone who's ahead of me. You have NO idea,.....or mebbe you do? But this is SO useful to me. And my T too I expect. I am SO bad at describing and explaining stuff.
>
> And if you have strategies to try out as soon as you feel it starting like this, then it should become easier to pull out of it. Perhaps it would help to write your list of strategies and give a copy to your T. So if you have trouble you can send her a signal of some sort and she can help remind you of your strategies to try.

**Thats what I gonna do for sure. I think? that mebbe one time we did talk bout a signal or something? Not sure. But I proly couldn't have anyhow, cuz I totally couldn't have recognized to say anything until too late...

>I’m not sure if you have a hangup over moving, so if not, you may need to move more than I did. Like I imagine that standing up would work very well, but then I’m not sure if that’s too scary for you (or just too hard when you’re zoned out). Perhaps it’s more about finding something that you can focus on and that helps you feel your body. I’ve heard that textures work really well. So perhaps you could take something rough or smooth or furry or whatever to your session. Then your strategy might be something like: reach into bag and pull out pebble/sandpaper/stuffed toy/fabric swatch/etc. Look at item and feel it. Stand up when able.

**Yeah, i try hard not to be noticed, but I not totally freaked by it though. I rarely look at my T, and I don't talk much, so I think its hard for her to know if I've blanked. I'd be kinda feeling silly bout my rock, like it would make me noticable or something. But I reckon if it was in my pocket it would be OK. I have this THING about appearing weak...
>
> I know that I would never remember all that once I got foggy, but if I just memorised that I have to reach into my bag, then I think it becomes a little easier to do that when you need it.

**yeah, once I get too far, its hard to do anything. Sometimes I kinda gone, but I can still hear and even answer sort of, and I am just aching for my t to help me come back, but I can't seem to say anything bout it, I just keep drifting, and she keeps talking, and I get farther and farther away, and I just wish I could say something, cuz I KNOW it happening, but I can't stop it...
Hey, I know, sometimes I close my eyes, to shut out the strangeness and try to come back. Its hard for my T to see my face, but if she sees my eyes closed. THAT can be a signal, cuz I KNOW I've closed my eyes B4, I know I can do THAT. Hey cool.
>
> I think your strategy will need to be very personal. Only you know how much movement/focus/etc you are capable of when you blank. And you may find afterwards that you need to refine it. Like say you picked something smooth, you may find it doesn’t bring you back – that it actually encourages you to dissociate further. You need to find a strategy that works for you.

**Yeah, guess there's no magic answer :(
Gonna have to figger it out.

> You’re probably right. I guess it comes down to recognising that foggy/blank provides safety. It’s only once you start staying un-foggy/blank sometimes that you start to learn that your T is safe. That talking about bad things can be safe. That there are ways to stay safe without retreating to the blank. It’s hard to let go of a safety net without knowing there is another one in place. I think this just built up gradually for me.

**Yeah, I start to trust my T, but then I get freaked and don't anymore...
I think my little ones don't feel safe.
And not of just T, but of other parts of me :(
Guess i don't feel safe either really.
SH*T.

> There’s the things I put in sunnydays’ thread.

**Yup, it was good, I read it thanks.

> It helped me to learn that no feeling lasts forever. Even the very worst and scary ones. I had to be mindful of this, so every time I realised a feeling had passed, I would use that to remind me that no feelings last forever and to build up proof of that. I had to learn to believe that to make it safer to feel.

**Yeah, I just starting to beleive that. I HAVE noticed it a few times now. Consciously noticed it. My T reminds me regularly, when I having a freak, that they pass.

> I find safety really hard to think about and build up.

**Sorry. I hope none of this is triggering to you? I'm very sorry if so. You have already given me much, so you don't have to answer nothing. I just so greedy for info I guess, cuz its not like I can talk to alot of people bout this y'know?

> - sitting facing the door in your T’s office

*Definately. I sit closest to the door. In fact, first thing I do is drag my chair closer to the door.

> - adjusting the lighting in your T’s office

*Wish we could do something bout that :( Its horrible flourescent lighting. YUK.

> - altering seating arrangements

*yeah, the chairs got arms, which I sorta like, but at the same time they are restrictive to a fast getaway....
>
> But none of these were things I could ask for or do.

*:( How come? Is it the noticing thing?
>
> I think my T very quietly tried to make things safer for me. But it wasn’t until he made the idea of building safety really explicit that I was able to even think about this.

*Awww, nice T :)
Now thats interesting...the explicitness of it was important. Hmmmm.

> - we played cards for a while to try and help me feel more comfortable.

*Yeah, we do readings first thing and that helps most times

> - I’ve always felt exposed and on display in my chair, so we worked up to me sitting on the floor. Then he sat on the floor with me, but started to get a sore back from that. So he now sits on a low box in front of me on the floor.

* That sounds a little scarey to me. Cuz he'd be higher than me, over me, on that box. Is he a distance away? But that floor idea sounds cool. Dunno if I could stay on floor long either, but what an appealing thot.

> - I have notes from him that help me feel safer.

*Actual handwritten notes? Nuther good idea. I save voicemails. But for some reason they have to be reasonably 'fresh', or they don't work! Dunno why?

> - he allows me to come to sessions hours early if I want so I can relax and feel safer in the waiting room.

**Yeah, I hang out in the parking lot, then go into the blg. hallway, then make my way to the waiting area...in stages.
Sometimes I just wait outside and T comes to find me.

> - I know that I feel safer with routine, so there are aspects of our sessions that are the same every time.

*yeah, I think mine trys to do that too.

> - I know he is constantly doing a very tricky balancing act between allowing me to feel safe and challenging me. I think he is very good at this balance.

**I think my T is a little lost there....She was always afraid to challenge me, even when I told her to. But she does do it more now. And I love it when she does, cuz then its like mebbe she more trusts me not to freak out. And if I do, that i'll get thru it relatively unscathed. Its more like she gives a sh*t too when she challenges me. I had a very apathetic mother who rarely challenged me, if ever really. I don't think either of them did, they were stunningly ignorant of my behaviors...
But I guess there IS a risk too :( and mebbe thats what hold her back :(
But I don't want to live like this no more, so I guess i gtot get down to business.

> - He gives me time to think and time to work up to saying stuff. This makes it safer for me to try to work up courage to say stuff.

**Yeah, thats good, like you said, sometimes it takes awhile to come up w/th thots, then to make the words, then to actually speak the words...it can be quite a process....
I think my T tries to save me by talking away. I seem to have that effect on the few T's I can remmeber. I dunno who I even am in T? I wonder if its a younger state that shows thru, hence the T's wanting to make it easier for me?

> - I think that him making his acceptance of me very explicit has helped with safety a lot. Made it a lot safer for parts to talk to him.

*Yeah, my T is pretty good at that. But more jaded parts of me are inclined to think she is unconditionally accepting cuz its her JOB to be....that noone could actually truly know me....and still accept me...this does not compute...

> - he has never ever gotten mad at me. That has been vitally important for me.

*Sigh. I made my T mad a time or two. I understand why, but it really did affect the kids of that I have no doubt. Made them feel they were bad, that she thot they were bad :(
I don't think she actually admitted to mad, but I could tell, one time for sure.

> - I take my little stuffed bird and hanky and comfort book to every session.

*I take my knife and my cell phone(has T messages on it), and wear big boots usu.

> - I read my little fur story book before sessions in the waiting room.

*I listen to songs, mebbe I should try a book...

> - In the waiting room I flick through a book I have of very beautiful landscape and nature photos. And it has really healing quotes throughout it.

* :)

> Yeah, mine is really automatic too. Have found this very hard. Still do. I think I try to recognise that I’ve cut off and then force myself to look at what the issue is or what the feeling is. Except even that is very very hard. It’s like forcing someone to turn their head around to look at something, but they still keep their eyes tightly shut.

**EXACTLY
>
> I think the forcing isn’t helping me.

*Hmmmm.
>
> I think this is where caring for parts helps. Being patient with them. Helping them feel safer. Using other methods like painting, drawing, etc.

**I have parts that are resistant to my helping the younger ones. I don't know why. VERY resistant. I really wish I knew why? They get really mad when the younger ones try to actaully say something.
>
> I think also that I would work on *thinking* about understanding why I cut off. Identify which issue upset me and then think about why it is threatening. It’s like the thinking still keeps me separate from my feelings, but at least I am doing some work on the issue. Just gradually build up to being able to feel. Not sure if I’m making sense now.

**I think I know what you mean. I call it going into 'scientist mode'.
>
> > Would it be OK if I show this to my T?
>
> Go right ahead.
>
**Thanks so much littleone, this is great. You've given me a heads up. I been feeling really stuck. I think this will help.
Take care,
I'm so glad for you that you have been able to make this amazing progress.
Sometimes I a little competative, so if you can do it, I can do it!
Oooops, my competativeness is showing <blush> :)
Muffled

 

definitions for Phillipa

Posted by toojane on December 19, 2006, at 8:26:25

In reply to Re: dissociation, how to stop?, posted by Phillipa on December 18, 2006, at 18:22:41

> I'm trying to understand. Sounds kind of like a dream world? Or you drift away when you are uncomfortable with what is being said. And please tell me is I'm totally not understanding. So no stress? Love Phillipa


Hi Phillipa, There are many ways to dissociate and varying degrees of dissociation. Here are some descriptions that may help you understand. For instance, if someone is in a dream world, that would be derealization and if they feel like they are watching themselves, that's depersonalization. The following are all types of dissociation...


AMNESIA
for chunks of childhood
for recent blocks of time
loss of personal information
"spacing out"
time disorientation
some forms of self-mutilation


FUGUE
sudden unexpected travel from home
unable to recall past
confusion of personal identity
assumption of new identity


DEPERSONALISATION
feeling of detachment from body
seeing body from distance
unreality of self
loss of affective responses (anhedonia)
sense of physical fragmentation
proprioceptive (as if floating)
affective (as if numb / dead)


DEREALISATION
surroundings seem unreal / foreign
perceptual disturbances


IDENTITY CONFUSION
subjective feeling of confusion, turmoil
uncertainty regarding self (as if another person inside)
sexual orientation / identity confusion
sense of puzzlement, uncertainty, conflict


IDENTITY ALTERATION
inner dialogue
different age appropriate behaviours / levels of functioning
objective behaviour suggesting assumption of different identities
different names, ages, identities associated with parts of self
inability to recall personal information incompatible with normal forgetting


SOMATISATION
fainting spells, collapses, epileptic-like seizures, headaches, chronic pain symptoms
hysterical anaesthesia's or paralyses

 

Re: definitions for Phillipa » toojane

Posted by Phillipa on December 19, 2006, at 18:56:24

In reply to definitions for Phillipa, posted by toojane on December 19, 2006, at 8:26:25

Thank-you so much kind of like the old definition of multiples? I hope that doesn't hurt anyone by saying that? And I once had a patient with pseudo seizures. So that would be a form of dissassociation? Love Phillipa ps I thought self mutilation was BPD?

 

Re: definitions for Phillipa » Phillipa

Posted by toojane on December 19, 2006, at 19:18:49

In reply to Re: definitions for Phillipa » toojane, posted by Phillipa on December 19, 2006, at 18:56:24

> Thank-you so much kind of like the old definition of multiples?


Well, if you experienced the identity alteration type of dissociation, yes you may be diagnosed as a multiple (now known as dissociative identity disorder). People with DID experience the most severe manifestations of dissociation. But you can have difficulties with dissociation and not be a multiple. You may have trouble with depersonalization or derealization only.

It's complicated to explain because it can be so different for different people. Have you ever spaced out while driving and missed your turnoff or arrived home and not remembered driving the last few miles? That's a very common form of dissociation. Imagine doing that all the time, every day, not only while driving and you can get a feel for how difficult it can be to manage your life.

>And I once had a patient with pseudo seizures. So that would be a form of dissassociation?

Yes, somatization is a form of dissociation. Some people experience their feelings and emotions as physical sensations, pains or illnesses


>Love Phillipa ps I thought self mutilation was BPD?

It can be a symptom of BPD but it is also present in many other mental illnesses.

 

Re: definitions for Phillipa

Posted by sunnydays on December 19, 2006, at 19:42:48

In reply to Re: definitions for Phillipa » Phillipa, posted by toojane on December 19, 2006, at 19:18:49

> It's complicated to explain because it can be so different for different people. Have you ever spaced out while driving and missed your turnoff or arrived home and not remembered driving the last few miles? That's a very common form of dissociation. Imagine doing that all the time, every day, not only while driving and you can get a feel for how difficult it can be to manage your life.


***** I never thought about it that way, but that's a good way to describe it for me. I kind of tend to space out and it just feels like I'm kind of removed from the world. I definitely don't have DID - I wouldn't fit those criteria hardly at all. Dissociation is a continuum, so different people experience it differently.

sunnydays


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