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caffeinekid
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17 Nov 2017, 7:10 am

Does anyone else feel like they are sitting above themselves, watching the things you do and judging them?

It's really hard to explain, but sometimes it feels like I'm taking a back seat to my physical body and responses, and asking myself "Why are you doing that?" and such as if I'm a different person to my body.

It probably doesn't make any sense and I'm sorry.

I remember crying once, and it was just my body crying but I was judging myself as if it it was someone else crying and annoying me.


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Diagnosed with Autism on 1st August 2018, at the age of 47 (almost 48).


sunshinescj
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17 Nov 2017, 7:20 am

Yep. I know the feeling, happens especially when I have meltdowns.



Kiriae
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17 Nov 2017, 5:59 pm

If anything I would rather say I am in front of my body, not behind - my mental images often make me blind to whats happening around. My thoughts, memories and imaginations are like a partially transparent layer between me and the outside world. If my body was a car I would probably be sitting right at the front window and the driver and backseat driver would be constantly telling me to focus and stop obstructing their view. :D



Trogluddite
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17 Nov 2017, 6:50 pm

I think what we're speaking about here is a form of what psychologists call "dissociation". It can seem pretty spooky sometimes when it's happening, but it's a lot more common than most people think, and not necessarily anything to worry about. Even NT people with no history of mental illness are likely to experience it at some point, especially after a very stressful or traumatic event. It's only a serious problem if it takes you so far that you can't tell any more that there is a "you" that things in the real world are happening to, or if it is so persistent that you nearly always feel that way - but I don't think anything described in the thread so far is anywhere near that level.

Quite a few AS people I've spoken to seem to experience it regularly. When it happens to me, I always liken it to watching a 3D movie of everything that's happening, except that I can't quite place where the camera is (yes, as the OP said, it is very hard to describe!) It can happen to me pretty much any time in a subtle kind of way, particularly if I'm doing something monotonous, but I feel it much more strongly during and after meltdowns. The 'auras' of migraine and epilepsy quite often feature it too.


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