Does anyone know what the "cure" is? How to come out of it? Any techniques you've discovered?
Also what do you experience when you disassociate?
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I can only speak from my limited experience. From what I know I am very mild on the dissociative spectrum. When I say that I dissociate, I mean that I go emotionally numb and my mind either goes blank or fuzzy or starts to wander to random, unrelated topics. I am still aware of where I am physically, but sometimes the outside world can feel just a bit unreal or irrelevant, as though I am blocking it out although I am still aware of its existence. I notice it most when T asks me a question about something emotionally charged and I find I can't answer the question or get to any feelings because my mind keeps wandering or going blank.
I find that when I dissociate, it's because I don't feel safe in some way, so the way to get out of it is to restore a feeling of safety. What has worked for me in session is to look around the room or out the window at something that feels comforting to me. In the rest of my life, sometimes I just need to take a break from a stressful situation or conversation.
I hope that is helpful in some way. I don't know how I would deal with severe dissociation.
I find that when I dissociate, it's because I don't feel safe in some way, so the way to get out of it is to restore a feeling of safety. What has worked for me in session is to look around the room or out the window at something that feels comforting to me. In the rest of my life, sometimes I just need to take a break from a stressful situation or conversation.
I hope that is helpful in some way. I don't know how I would deal with severe dissociation.
When I used to dissociate a lot (it happens very rarely these days) I would find myself feeling very fuzzy, like I would interact but then could not remember anything that happened when i tried to remember. I also used to feel like I was wrapped in cotton wool so that everything feel muffled along with a sense of wide gap between me and everything else. If I realize that I'm dropping the ball alot on my responsibilities or am extra forgetful, that's usually a sign to check in and see what's going on as it happens when I'm trying to dissociate to avoid some kind of pain.
The cure for me was therapy and learning to stay and tolerate the emotions. Because of the childhood abuse I became convinced that a lot of my feelings were simply too much for me (because at one time it was true, I had to go away during the abuse to survive) so when things would get intense, I would unconsciously just go away. It was a slow process of working on paying enough attention to notice when I would start to go away and then trying to focus on what was going on in my body to figure out how I was feeling. I would do this with my therapist so that they could help "contain" the really intense emotions so I didn't get overwhelmed. Each time I managed to do that, it became just that tiny bit easier to stay the next time because I was learning that staying wouldn't destroy me.
I wasn't really aware I was doing this as I was doing it. It was more of an implicit learning that took place by being with my therapist and having help regulating my feelings and gaining a sense of safety from being able to express the feelings and have them heard so I knew I wasn't alone with them. Knowing I wasn't alone, allowed me to stay.
AG
The cure for me was therapy and learning to stay and tolerate the emotions. Because of the childhood abuse I became convinced that a lot of my feelings were simply too much for me (because at one time it was true, I had to go away during the abuse to survive) so when things would get intense, I would unconsciously just go away. It was a slow process of working on paying enough attention to notice when I would start to go away and then trying to focus on what was going on in my body to figure out how I was feeling. I would do this with my therapist so that they could help "contain" the really intense emotions so I didn't get overwhelmed. Each time I managed to do that, it became just that tiny bit easier to stay the next time because I was learning that staying wouldn't destroy me.
I wasn't really aware I was doing this as I was doing it. It was more of an implicit learning that took place by being with my therapist and having help regulating my feelings and gaining a sense of safety from being able to express the feelings and have them heard so I knew I wasn't alone with them. Knowing I wasn't alone, allowed me to stay.
AG
Like Alpaca, I tend to numb out or my mind wanders. When I was younger I had fantasies created that I would put myself in, like a daydream state. I know where I am physically, but tune things out and may lose track of time. Sometimes I'll be staring at something with nothing in my mind. Those moments are quite odd because normally I have a million things racing through it at a time!
This used to happen to me a lot especially in the first few months of me seeing T. She would push me a little bit to talk about stuff from my childhood that I had buried and just the slightest push would send my mind away. I knew she was talking but the words didn't really make sense. I would be making eye contact with her, but I couldn't really "see" her. As a kid, whenever something bad would happen I would put on my headphones and let my music comfort me as I would close my eyes tightly and imagine myself at the singers' concert, front row center and away from all the bad things at my house. When T would bring up all the painful stuff, my mind would automatically take me back to the concert which was my safe place. I don't know how T could tell when I would dissociate, but when she was finally able to see that I wasn't all "there" she would snap me back into reality by simply asking very gently where I just went. My eyes would flutter a little bit, and I would be "back" in her office once again. I guess you can say my T was my "cure". I still dissociate from time to time but now I can catch myself doing it before T does. I don't like her to go to my safe place. She doesn't know exactly where it is, but when she pulls me back, I can see her there. She doesn't know this, but I do and thats enough for me to attempt to keep all of myself mentally there during my sessions now.
Mindfulness has helped me... such as orienting to the room around me and my body. As for the situations that make me dissociate.. I'm still working on those but when I can feel it happening there are ways I can get out of it, etc.
I do lose time sometimes... but I always know what happened (like I can know I got up, ate breakfast, went to work, came home, etc when sometimes I can't really remember much else). Anyway, the cure is learning to tolerate your emotions, and be present and those things come over time. My T suggested I day dream on purpose sometimes and I do that a lot where I let myself go completely inside when it's safe and that helps me regulate too it gives me a set time to 'go away' and that has helped too because I'd get less overwhelmed doing other things.
I do lose time sometimes... but I always know what happened (like I can know I got up, ate breakfast, went to work, came home, etc when sometimes I can't really remember much else). Anyway, the cure is learning to tolerate your emotions, and be present and those things come over time. My T suggested I day dream on purpose sometimes and I do that a lot where I let myself go completely inside when it's safe and that helps me regulate too it gives me a set time to 'go away' and that has helped too because I'd get less overwhelmed doing other things.
Laura K,
I'm no help with this...I wish I could. I did it automatically when I felt like T was"possibly" rejecting me so I clarified with her "two sessions" later and had been wrong. I must learn more...I wonder if you "lean in"...I remember a previous therapist telling me how to do this when I felt myself going to that zone. I just remembered that...IDK though...this is a really hard topic and frustrating to deal with. Good Luck.
Hopeful
I'm no help with this...I wish I could. I did it automatically when I felt like T was"possibly" rejecting me so I clarified with her "two sessions" later and had been wrong. I must learn more...I wonder if you "lean in"...I remember a previous therapist telling me how to do this when I felt myself going to that zone. I just remembered that...IDK though...this is a really hard topic and frustrating to deal with. Good Luck.
Hopeful
Like Cat says, mindfulness and distress tolerance helps - but it is a long process. I am supposed to indicate to T when I am zoning out - but I am rarely able to catch it. When I can she grounds me and talks me through some skills to make sure i stay present. We have done this a few times and it worked. I was able to eventually get back to the questions and actually answer it. My mind goes blank all the time with her and I forget how to speak and my thoughts just go blank. Like opening a door to a room where you knew you had put something and when you opened it, it was a bit black empty room.
I have had some worse episodes where I have been super distressed and feel like I am hovering above the ground, my body doesn't feel a part of me and I can lose time - it can also feel that I am moving through a tunnel. Other times I can be very vague about everything and feel not there at all, sometimes I am just in a daydream and everything feels far away.
I have bits of everything.
I often have times when I cannot feel my body. If I am concentrating and doing a body scan to get grounded - I can feel absolutely nothing. I get a sense of being suspended in mid air.
In a session - when I have the mind blanks - I try and keep talking. I try to talk my way back to the topic and talk around the issue and it tends to help me keep near the topic. I can't always answer - but I try and keep my words flowing - otherwise I can just go totally blank. The more I try and remember what I was supposed to be thinking about - the more the memories get pushed away from me.
it really helps me when others talk about this.
Somedays
I have had some worse episodes where I have been super distressed and feel like I am hovering above the ground, my body doesn't feel a part of me and I can lose time - it can also feel that I am moving through a tunnel. Other times I can be very vague about everything and feel not there at all, sometimes I am just in a daydream and everything feels far away.
I have bits of everything.
I often have times when I cannot feel my body. If I am concentrating and doing a body scan to get grounded - I can feel absolutely nothing. I get a sense of being suspended in mid air.
In a session - when I have the mind blanks - I try and keep talking. I try to talk my way back to the topic and talk around the issue and it tends to help me keep near the topic. I can't always answer - but I try and keep my words flowing - otherwise I can just go totally blank. The more I try and remember what I was supposed to be thinking about - the more the memories get pushed away from me.
it really helps me when others talk about this.
Somedays
I felt myself dissociating the other day during my sociology class. The professor was talking about the different factors, good and bad, that contribute to a persons choices in life. Everything was fine, until she started talking about the negative factors, such as substance abuse, emotional abuse, chaotic households, etc. I immediately flashed back to some of the things I went through as a child and before I knew it, I was at my safe place again. I was taking notes, but I didn't understand what I was writing. The prof was talking, but her voice sounded so far away. I knew I couldn't keep check out like that no matter how badly I wanted to, especially since we were going over material that's going to be on a test that we have next class period. I was able to slowly bring myself back by looking around the room and recognizing that I was in the present and that I was ok. I could practically hear Ts voice telling me that I was ok and that I already lived through the worst part. Its still a struggle to come back every time I feel myself "going away" but it gets easier when it's all over. Mindfulness and determination 
quote:Originally posted by BLT:
I can only speak from my limited experience. From what I know I am very mild on the dissociative spectrum. When I say that I dissociate, I mean that I go emotionally numb and my mind either goes blank or fuzzy or starts to wander to random, unrelated topics. I am still aware of where I am physically, but sometimes the outside world can feel just a bit unreal or irrelevant, as though I am blocking it out although I am still aware of its existence. I notice it most when T asks me a question about something emotionally charged and I find I can't answer the question or get to any feelings because my mind keeps wandering or going blank.
I find that when I dissociate, it's because I don't feel safe in some way, so the way to get out of it is to restore a feeling of safety. What has worked for me in session is to look around the room or out the window at something that feels comforting to me. In the rest of my life, sometimes I just need to take a break from a stressful situation or conversation.
I hope that is helpful in some way. I don't know how I would deal with severe dissociation.
Thank you soooo much for posting this!! I've had this happen three times now (mild for two, alittle scary the third time). I've been looking all over the web to see what the heck I went through, and this discribes it perfectly! I'm a little less scared now that I know what it is
Hi Laura,
I dissociated when I did emdr sometimes, especially when it was combined with headphones and relaxing sounds. Also when my emotion gets too intense or I get very scared. When it happens I lose sense of time and blank out. I'm nonresponsive both externally and internally. The last time it happened in session with the emdr the whole session went by and I thought is was 5 minutes. Part of me kept telling myself to snap out of it, but I couldn't. It is like being asleep and trying to wake yourself up from a dream. Other times when the emotions overwhelm me I get really calm all of a sudden and then fall asleep for 10-20 minutes.
What helps? Just going through it sometimes. It can be a weird kind of healing or protective event. Sometimes if I find myself spacing out, I am able to bring myself back or ground myself by focusing on my surroundings. I look from left to right finding everything that has green in it; then I look for blue; then red; etc. Or I could listen for sounds around and name what I hear.
I dissociated when I did emdr sometimes, especially when it was combined with headphones and relaxing sounds. Also when my emotion gets too intense or I get very scared. When it happens I lose sense of time and blank out. I'm nonresponsive both externally and internally. The last time it happened in session with the emdr the whole session went by and I thought is was 5 minutes. Part of me kept telling myself to snap out of it, but I couldn't. It is like being asleep and trying to wake yourself up from a dream. Other times when the emotions overwhelm me I get really calm all of a sudden and then fall asleep for 10-20 minutes.
What helps? Just going through it sometimes. It can be a weird kind of healing or protective event. Sometimes if I find myself spacing out, I am able to bring myself back or ground myself by focusing on my surroundings. I look from left to right finding everything that has green in it; then I look for blue; then red; etc. Or I could listen for sounds around and name what I hear.
I have recently been feeling relieved of my dissociation. I had unconsciously dissociated for roughly 4 years of my life, with much more severe symptoms in the past two years.
I had an Aha! moment when I was working in a bagel store over the summer. The job was minimum wage and not a job that many people would look at as rewarding in any way. However, this job saved my life.
My coworkers, without trying to, brought me out of a dissociation that I didn't even know I was experiencing. They were amazing people: ranging from age 22 to 50, all working the counter with me.
And every day, they would ask me what my plans were for the night.
What were my plans for the night!!!!!?
That question was so farfetched to me because I had not been living on a day to day basis in over 3 years of my life. And, suddenly, I was being asked what I had planned for the night.
These people, working a simple job at a bagel store, were leading such engaged lives, and they went out and had fun every night. They had boyfriends, girlfriends, they played video games, went to bars. They lived without questioning it.
And so, eventually, as an effect of seeing and hearing about my coworkers' day-to-day lifestyle, I realized that a day-to-day lifestyle was my right as well.
That nothing was stopping me. That the guilt I was feeling for not ....doing more, for not....accomplishing something, or making something of myself was completely contrived and self destructive.
Slowly but surely, I have begun to live my life on a day-to-day basis. And I have my bagel sore coworkers to thank for that.
We don't have to worry about the over all image of our lives. We don't have to worry about who we are becoming or how successful we are considered to be.
Success is happiness. And happiness is living in the moment.
I had an Aha! moment when I was working in a bagel store over the summer. The job was minimum wage and not a job that many people would look at as rewarding in any way. However, this job saved my life.
My coworkers, without trying to, brought me out of a dissociation that I didn't even know I was experiencing. They were amazing people: ranging from age 22 to 50, all working the counter with me.
And every day, they would ask me what my plans were for the night.
What were my plans for the night!!!!!?
That question was so farfetched to me because I had not been living on a day to day basis in over 3 years of my life. And, suddenly, I was being asked what I had planned for the night.
These people, working a simple job at a bagel store, were leading such engaged lives, and they went out and had fun every night. They had boyfriends, girlfriends, they played video games, went to bars. They lived without questioning it.
And so, eventually, as an effect of seeing and hearing about my coworkers' day-to-day lifestyle, I realized that a day-to-day lifestyle was my right as well.
That nothing was stopping me. That the guilt I was feeling for not ....doing more, for not....accomplishing something, or making something of myself was completely contrived and self destructive.
Slowly but surely, I have begun to live my life on a day-to-day basis. And I have my bagel sore coworkers to thank for that.
We don't have to worry about the over all image of our lives. We don't have to worry about who we are becoming or how successful we are considered to be.
Success is happiness. And happiness is living in the moment.
welcome to the forum, Hj1234 
i think what you wrote is pretty awesome and insightful.
if you don't mind me asking, what are some of the things you are doing in order to live your life on a day-to-day basis? what are you doing differently now than what you used to do?
i think what you wrote is pretty awesome and insightful.
quote:And so, eventually, as an effect of seeing and hearing about my coworkers' day-to-day lifestyle, I realized that a day-to-day lifestyle was my right as well.
if you don't mind me asking, what are some of the things you are doing in order to live your life on a day-to-day basis? what are you doing differently now than what you used to do?
Thanks!
To be honest, it was not the things I was doing, it was simply the way I perceived the world and my life.
Instead of going through the motions of eating breakfast, I actually really was there eating breakfast. I would take a bite of cereal and think, "Wow, this is delicious. I am just eating cereal right now and that's all I'm thinking about and it's so great...why didn't I realize how delicious this cereal is until just now!!"
I did not suddenly do crazy, exciting things...I simply was so engaged in the normal life I was living that it didn't seem to be normal anymore--it was all of a sudden the most fun life ever.
The idea that I could do anything I wanted without any pressure to do anything except for those things.
If I wanted to...sit on the porch and look around, I did just that.
If I woke up and was still tired, I went back to sleep.
If I wanted to watch a movie, I did.
And I was so engaged in the life I was living, that these things were suddenly so AMAZING!
These normal, ordinary things that anyone can do...I just engaged myself in them and realized how I had been checked out of those things before, and that with a little bit of effort to engage myself, I realized that these ordinary everyday things are so, so good enough.
For me, I am so very future oriented to the point that it has, in the past, prevented me from enjoying my present. By immersing myself in the present--no matter what that was--I was so invigorated and alive.
To be honest, it was not the things I was doing, it was simply the way I perceived the world and my life.
Instead of going through the motions of eating breakfast, I actually really was there eating breakfast. I would take a bite of cereal and think, "Wow, this is delicious. I am just eating cereal right now and that's all I'm thinking about and it's so great...why didn't I realize how delicious this cereal is until just now!!"
I did not suddenly do crazy, exciting things...I simply was so engaged in the normal life I was living that it didn't seem to be normal anymore--it was all of a sudden the most fun life ever.
The idea that I could do anything I wanted without any pressure to do anything except for those things.
If I wanted to...sit on the porch and look around, I did just that.
If I woke up and was still tired, I went back to sleep.
If I wanted to watch a movie, I did.
And I was so engaged in the life I was living, that these things were suddenly so AMAZING!
These normal, ordinary things that anyone can do...I just engaged myself in them and realized how I had been checked out of those things before, and that with a little bit of effort to engage myself, I realized that these ordinary everyday things are so, so good enough.
For me, I am so very future oriented to the point that it has, in the past, prevented me from enjoying my present. By immersing myself in the present--no matter what that was--I was so invigorated and alive.