Dissociation

Started doing it when very young – maybe 8. Definitely dissociating regularly from age 10
I have no control over when it begins or ends
Can last minutes or hours
It happens when I feel physically threatened or significant emotional pain (esp. fear)
Once I’ve dissociated the sight of any patterned material will make me dissociate more
I’m not sure how I present to anyone when I’ve dissociated – no idea if/how my behaviour changes. It’s probably unlikely that anyone realises that I’ve dissociated

Dissociation has meant that I feel a bit removed from a lot of my memories so I can just state a lot of them factually with little emotion (dissociation coupled with the fact that I had to smile and laugh a lot growing up and hated that so my emotional reactions and facial expressions are often not congruent with what I actually feel)

Anyone touching:
- any sexual part of me
- my wrist(s)
- my neck
Feeling that my life is threatened – that I might die
Being physically held down
The threat of physical harm
Actual physical harm
Feeling physically trapped in a room/building/space
Sudden, loud noises
People crowded around me – esp. if I’m lying down
Someone moving quickly toward me
Significant physical pain esp. if it happens suddenly
Emotional shock: Someone saying something to me which is distressing and/or causes me significant fear

Feels like some part of me drifts up out of the top of my head in a stream that moves up like steam (it’s a physical feeling)
Everything feels fuzzy and far away
Everything is in slow motion
I feel removed from everything
Physical pain often recedes
Emotions become numbed
Feel like I’m floating, spaced out
Noise starts blurring together – I occasionally miss parts of conversations because everything is in slow motion and I can’t keep up with what people are saying
I feel that I don’t care at all about what happens to me and I don’t care if I die

I am so spaced out that I can’t process the environment around me – I bump into people, forget to look for cars, lose things, forget my address
I feel things at a distance – I can barely feel touch
I feel passive. No fight left in me (if I fight it happens before I dissociate)
Sometimes when things are too distressing it feels like I travel to some place inside my head where I can hide – that creates black holes in my memory
I feel like a robot
It’s an effort to speak or move
As soon as I can I wander away – I start walking and keep going in any direction

Someone talking to me - quiet, slow, calm voice. Move slowly. Stay with me but at a physical distance (esp. if there are multiple people around) unless I ask for closeness. Ask me to describe what I’m experiencing. Warmth. Count aloud in random patterns. Let me get out of the area if I need to. Explain either what has happened and/or what is going to happen next. Debriefing.
The worst thing anyone can do is try to hold me down

I feel tired
Sometimes (not always) there are black holes in my memory – patches of time I can’t remember. Or in those holes I’ll remember noise or physical touch but nothing visual & vice versa
I’ll get flash-backs of what happened to cause the dissociation
I often feel tremendous emotional pain – that’s when I used to self-harm – for comfort

Originally written Feb, 2019