Remembering even recent memories-in third person.

[Sienna]

I was just thinking about something that happened the other day.
i was feeling fearful. was very drunk, and was sobbing.
when i remembered it just now, i was imagining how to explain it to my T, the fear i had, and what happened.
I was thinking, what was so fearful about the trigger, that made me fearful, which ended up in me sobbing?
i realized that when i remembered myself crying, the picture i can visually see in my own head of that memory, isn't of me inside my body-
but i see the back of myself. i didn't feel out of my body when i was crying, but i was talking about myself as *we*.
i must have this about the past- watching myself- not *being me* in the memory.
its like it happened to some one else.
I don't fully remember properly how i felt when i was crying only a day or two ago.
I must be so removed from myself right now, and that is a weird realization to have for me.

[mourningdove]

Yes, it can be very weird when this happens. Earlier today, I was talking with my T and relating something that had happened a few hours before. I started saying "we" without even thinking about it, and it was jarring. Sometimes I am actually thinking "we," but translate it into "I" for conversation, but this time it somehow bypassed the filter entirely, which is unusual. The visual memory of what I was talking about was partly in the third person, too, which I wouldn't have even realized if your post hadn't reminded me. In other words, you're not alone.

[Dutch Uncle]

I can relate. I've 'done' this a lot, but only recently have become aware it probably is related to dissociation in my case.
Mind you, dissociation is quite common for all humans. Daydreaming for example is also a form of dissociation.
( I write that 'disclaimer' in order not to trigger an "OMG now I'm dissociating as well! Everything must be wrong" kind of 'Catastrophizing' cPTSD reaction. )


I made a post where I describe this experience in the Group Work/Book Club section.
In case you're interested how this played out recently in my case, here's the relevant post. (You need to scroll down a bit to "Homeworksheet 4.3")

[Sienna]

MourningDove,
thank you very much for sharing your experience.
It is good to know that i am not alone.

Some major things have been hitting home for me, and I am realizing just how disassociated I am from myself, and from what happened to me.
Flashbacks happening lately- of course send me back into the past...so perhaps thats why, when i remember the flashbacks, i am just watching myself.
I do wonder if at the time, during the traumatic thing / things,
or during the current flashbacks-
We are disassociated?
I know that when you flashback- you go back to the past, therefore you are disassociated from the *preasent*-
but i am wondering-
if when you flashback- just like when the trauma happened-
are you out of your body - but you just don't know that you are?
even if you don't actually *know or feel* that you have come out of your body,
maybe there is a part of yourself (dissociative part), that watches you in so much pain?

Does that make sense?
I have the dissociative thing, where i have lots of parts (Not DID)

Oh, and yes, I did that in session too yesterday. I think it took her aback a little.
It wasn't an accident, but i didn't do it on purpose either, i said to myself under my breath- we can do this, and it came out way louder than i expected or wanted it to.
I just don't want to lie to her, I want to be honest about my experience, i want her to see the whole truth, because i want her to help me and at the moment, its too overwhelming to say I, and if i do, i feel myself going numb.
So then i told her that i have been speaking to myself as you and we lately, which she knew i had always but i have noticed it a lot lately because it has been difficult at my end and she understood.
I don't see why we should have to hide the fact that we speak in *we* in therapy, as therapists get this stuff....so do we really have to hide it and translate it to I like we do in everyday life?
To me, it feels more natural to just speak to her the same as i speak to myself in my head.

I hope it was helpful for you to realize that the memory you talked about, you were seeing in their person.   

[Sienna]

Hey Dutch Uncle,

I understand. I am also a freeze type and have been reading the Susette Boom? book on dissociation that you guys were discussing on here.

Thanks for trying to not freak me out.
Its ok...im not freaked out, cos im aware that I have always disassociated, and T told me ages ago that i seem to see my memories in their person- watching myself.
I just wanted to tell someone the realization i had that sometimes, it also happens like that in the present, as i didn't know that, and on here, people get that. I just felt shocked at the realization, as i am shocked at most things lately!

Thanks a lot for the link to your post and the homework sheet.
I will check it out.

[Sienna]

Thought id write down my realization.
Speaking to T helps me to see things more clearly.
She said X does and says things, to get a reaction out of me, to purposefully hurt me.
He has narc traits- his T and my T said to each of individually in our seasons.
Since the break up i have been looking at things in a different light, just like the the other narc lady left.

Looking back on this memory-
what upset me most-
was him saying, *maybe this is how E started*
(The lady with undiagnosed NPD, that i was friends with)
He meant, that maybe this is how she ended up on her own.
I was drunk crying -
(and shouldn't have talked to him about any of this as he is untrustrothey and T helped e to see that wen my Nmother was abusive,
i would go to my dad sometimes, - until i stopped that-
because he was the best that i had.
He was not a good parent and never stood up for me.)

But i was crying and said to partner I'm so scared ill be alone.
Then he said maybe its how E started out to be that way.

That sounds very blaming to me. He walsyws said it is purely MY lack of trust that i don't trust him-
when in fact that is true, but i didn't trust him because he broke my trust many times. -
AND im finding out ow, he is very untrustworthy.
And maybe he was saying in that moment- that it was my fault the relationship didn't work.
Dutch said he was blaming me- and i realize now from our other conversations after the split, that he DOES blame me!
Im out of his place now but still not settled.

And it just made me cry and freak out and feel tonnes of fear.
Maybe thats what he wanted.

Come to think of it, he was always more supportive when was in a bad place, and he used to invade my boundaries tom are me tell him stuff when i didn't want to.

Its not all about him.
I do accept my own responsibility for being with a partner like that.
Although i have to sort myself out in this regard, i really put the blame on my parents for programming me this way, and T says that the blame does belong wit them.
However, i take my own responsibility for my own stuff that they gave me.

Maybe this stuff belongs on Out of the Fog forum.
I just wanted to put it here so that i can look back and make sense of this puzzle.