What happened to me last night? Was it dissociation?

[saturnine]

I was in an argument with my partner over the phone. It started when I asked him a question and he took it as me being snide when really I just wanted clarification. He threw an insult at me and I felt this warm surge roll through my body. We continued to argue over it and it escalated until we just got off the phone. I was curled up on the couch crying for 1 1/2-2 hours until I got a text that to me seemed like a reconciliation bid (my place, wine and relax). Something in my gut was roiling, telling me I shouldn't, but I thought it was a better alternative than continuing to be alone and sad so I said yes.

Well, shame on me for not trusting my gut, because 5 minutes after he got there he picked a fight about it again. The roiling feeling intensified and I asked him to leave three times (he didn't). When he didn't leave, my emotions and literally everything went into shut down. I couldn't dislodge my eyes from the ceiling or some other faraway point. I couldn't engage in conversation save for short utterances. I couldn't be bothered to follow any social cues...I felt like a shell.

And it stayed that way for a few hours.  I was sitting on the couch with my feet up, my gaze fixed onto my big toe. It was the weirdest thing - it would feel like my toe for a second, but then it would shift to not-my-toe. Hard to describe....like not feeling it physically as part of my body AND not mentally identifying it as body. I couldn't feel anything unless I put 100% of my concentration towards feeling, and even then it was dull, and only for stretches of a few seconds at a time. Eventually I used ice and a rubber band which helped me feel something again, but I was so numb and just mentally gone that it scared me once I came to my senses.

And this may be a silly question, but any ideas on how to stop it from happening again? Do I need to listen to my instincts better, or maybe be firmer in my boundaries?

[Rainagain]

Hi,
My grasp of this stuff is that it is the fight flight reaction taking over. My version varies, usually I get a separation feeling inside, my emotions go dead and I need to get away or fight if I can't get away. It feels like I'm on autopilot, I'm going or I'm fighting, I'm not interested in anything else, can't talk, can't listen, can't focus on anything else.

Yours might have been the same thing but with the freeze response taking over. I'd guess you got so upset you couldn't regulate the emotion any more so the amygdala fired up and took control, like my autopilot feeling.

If my response is flight then fight yours might have been flight (asking him to leave 3 times) then freeze.

The way to avoid the freeze is to do the flight as soon as you need to.

I ensure I get away when I need to, I just withdraw as soon as I feel threatened to avoid fighting.

As you were in your own home you may have felt unable to use flight, that is a bad situation, unable to withdraw. That is when things get really bad for me, I try never to get trapped like that.

Let me know if it sounds correct, I'm not sure I'm right about anything anymore.

[Rainagain]

Another thought, you mentioned wine.

I think alcohol suppresses the conscious ability to react as you need to, you ignore your need to withdraw so the amygdala has to go to defcon 1 out of desperation.

I am less likely to flee and more likely to fight with alcohol. It might make your freeze response more likely too.

[Rowan]

 

You need one of these.



Now, a few apologies if this makes you feel  or even  but hopefully it will make sense. Sadly there are no ways to put ribbons and bows on what happened - you are in an abusive relationship. Your partner continues to abuse you, and when you exercise your boundaries or rights, they find a way to circumvent your defences (wine and relax), to be able to completely hammer home their opinion, until the world around them reflects their beliefs. This process is known as hoovering, the systematic sucking back in of victims into the abusive cycle.

Now the sensations that you've felt tie in to derealisation - those are not toes, and depersonalisation- they are not mine. So yes, they sound like dissociation to my untrained ear - especially that the effect took time to pass. For me - I am an alien (depersonalisation) as a long term sensation - an extreme but common form of depersonalisation. I also get visual distortion so boxes change size, regular objects are distorted (stretched or compressed) in one dimension, and it may be one object in a scene - derealisation.

The most important and positive thing to take from your experience is that it can come to an end. I would love to say that it won't happen again, but grounding exercises can help, as can mindfulness techniques, to bring you back to 'present', in your body and as a complete and whole you.

Now after all that  and maybe 



Rowan

[ah]

I agree with everything said above.

This happens to me too, often it's when I feel trapped. When I can't flee or fight.
It's a mechanism I've developed as a child. I would be present but at the same time I would not be present, so I wouldn't be that hurt by what was going on which I couldn't control or stop. It also gets stronger when I'm especially worn out. Sounds like you had very good reasons to feel that way 

You deserve to be treated kindly, with respect and love.

[saturnine]

Thanks everyone for your replies...I took a little bit from what each of you had to say. The more I'm reading Pete Walker's book, the more I'm realizing it as a dissociative emotional flashback because I wasn't able to lessen or escape the fighting. As a kid, I would sit there and let it all wash over me and that's very much what it reminded me of.

Rainagain - my T actually recommended to decide on a firm way to communicate my needing him to leave, to avoid being thrown into freeze.