Website re Dissociation

wingnut · January 02, 2015, 03:02:29 PM

One of my biggest hurdles in healing is dissociation. I numb out when it comes to feeling anything past mad, sad or glad. I believe that I cannot progress until I learn how to deal with this. Found an interesting website if anyone else is interested in learning a bit more about it.

http://www.isst-d.org/default.asp?contentID=1

wingnut · January 04, 2015, 11:59:54 AM

You're quite welcome!

One fact that surprised me was the mention that a feeling can come on out of nowhere for no apparent reason, such as sadness, and then go away as randomly. This has happened to me for years and I had no idea it is dissociation. The sadness can be overwhelming and pops out of nowhere for as briefly as a few minutes. I guess it makes sense that if you shut down at one place it will resurface in another like squeezing a bag of jello..

flookadelic · January 05, 2015, 12:05:36 PM

An excellent share wingnut - I too found the FAQ's around dissociation interesting. There are days when I just find myself in my kitchen with no idea how long I have been standing there and no idea why. Better than it used to be, once I would have the same experience in town, no idea how I got there, or why, or how long I had been standing, staring at a shop window, blankly. That was proper scary. The fact that it has decreased in intensity so much has to be a sign of slow healing, although outside of close up hyper vigilance and my political activism the world, for me, barely exists. It's all so foggy.

wingnut · January 05, 2015, 09:02:32 PM

It's good to hear that the intensity is decreasing, flookadelic.

One thing I have found to be frustrating is the comfort in the fog. In the morning silence when I'm drinking my coffee pre-work, it's almost a welcome escape to sit and zone out for a bit.

I don't lose time; for me, it's more of a numbing of emotions that I want to get past. Feeling nothing, shutting down, checking out whenever the heavy hitting questions come at me during therapy is a real hurdle for me.

wingnut · January 06, 2015, 01:00:00 AM

...and on a lighter note I just realized I've been walking around all day with my sweatpants on backwards. Some days I crack myself up.

flookadelic · January 06, 2015, 01:56:06 AM

It's strange, but I find researching this condition of CPTSD tricky as I tend to dissociate as I read. It can be so hard at times to get through a paragraph. Sometimes the background knowledge that I have this condition through perpetrators seeps through and I get triggered. But mostly I tend to unwillingly zone out. Am doing my best though. I like to try and give back and one needs to be well informed to give of ones best.

Kizzie · January 06, 2015, 06:01:10 AM

OMG Wingnut, that is so funny! I burst out laughing and scared my dog

Anamiame · March 03, 2015, 02:31:20 AM

LOL Wingnut!

bee · April 05, 2015, 05:43:03 AM

Thanks for the link. Finally felt ready to look at this. Read the FAQs.
I also numb out a lot, but I can't figure out where this fits in the listed types on dissociation.

I do have dissociative amnesia. I have time I can't remeber from childhood, some recovered. I also often lose small amounts of time, like the website said, I have to scramble to catch up on a conversation, or realize that I don't know what was said in the previous minute of a tv show.

Widdiful Falling · April 17, 2015, 11:29:57 AM

Thanks for the website. My friend said she lives her life on autopilot a lot, and I think that she might be dissociating. I'm going to link her to this website.

I certainly have a problem with dissociating, but I've been aware of that since I was a teenager. It's a leftover from being physically abused. Being mindful about it is a much larger step.