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Lost in the Stars
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08 Dec 2017, 6:10 pm

Hi

I'm not sure how others relate to this or if this is in the correct location.

I struggle with dissociation and find it very confusing and my concept of time is very off, everything feels like a dream and I can walk around as if watching a film through my eyes.
I can find myself sitting in the middle of my mind watching someone else controlling the outside.
It's been a coping mechanism of mine for a long time and it makes it very difficult to function when concentration and memory are needed.
I do have a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, which this could be related to.

But I was wondering if others have had similar experiences and how you have coped and have a better understanding of it.

Thank you

:D



magz
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08 Dec 2017, 6:58 pm

Oh yes, I had.
I'm now ok but the way out of it was turbulent.
The psychiatrist with strong confirmation bias believed it was schizophrenia and took me on medication that made a still-suffering vegetable of me. Whatever I told him was only a confirmation of his idea :(
Found another one, who took me out of it. Now I'm on SSRI and quetiapine, and talk therapy, functioning very well.

Are you a typical aspie girl, playing your role all the time, to the point you don't know who you are inside? A full masquerade of masks and strategies? A tight corset of appropriate behaviors no matter how you feel under this? Because that's what I was.


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Lost in the Stars
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09 Dec 2017, 1:21 pm

Hi

Thank you for your reply.

Yes. This is the point I'm at.
Everything I feel I ever was seems like it never existed. What I did was fueled by genuine interests. but now I can't do them at all and it's actually painful to think about the fact I can't.
I've been struggling the majority of my life to understand and keep myself stable, not knowing how, with a whole host of people around me telling me all kinds of things and a lot of it conflicting or very judgmental and nasty.
I now have no person.
Yes, like you said, I feel like I have never been myself or haven't allowed to be and the person I relied on to help me be "appropriate" now I barely have a proper relationship with.
I'm now realising that this is me but the muddle of masks that have formed outside are now telling me that no it's not. They have split into personas or different aspects of who I am or was. Most of them screaming at me for every thought in my head and making me question every thought, action, feeling, emotion etc.
But people passed me off as being attention seeking.
Been on a variety of medications that can work but I'm so sensitive to drugs and have a severe phobia of vomiting and so cannot stay on any.
Only sertraline for OCD. Which I must say, has helped.
I just don't want my emotions.
I have so many, what feels like different people in my body I just want to escape my head constantly.
I get terrified but all I can do is ride it out.
But I could do with people not judging me and the way I behave when I can't do much about it. I've been controlling my whole life, I can't keep it all in line anymore.

Sorry that turned into a bit of a rant lol

:D



magz
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10 Dec 2017, 5:10 am

Sorry for delay in response, I'm a bit busy and it's hard to focus now.
Are you in some kind of talk therapy? That might help, it helped me a lot. We set the goal of my therapy for me to be able to name what I'm feeling at any given time. It's a lot of work, sometimes really triggering, after some sessions all I wanted was to end myself... but in the long run it really helped.
So if you can find a therapist and tell them (or give it in a written form if telling it would be too difficult) that you need to dig through your mask and find contact with your true emotions. A therapist should never dismiss you as attention-seeking or inappropriate, it's their job to deal with all the feelings you don't show to other people.
It helped me a lot (though after 8 months there are still issues to work on), made me able to enjoy my job again and able to deal with the daily struggle as myself, not a set of masks and armors.


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bunnyb
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08 Jan 2018, 2:12 am

I actually really like dissociating :oops: I like how it feels like being stoned. Does that make me a weirdo? I watch the world and it can't touch me. I'm safe. My psychologist doesn't like that I like it but I don't care. I think having emotions is over rated. I'm probably wrong but I like being comfortably numb.


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Tibergrace
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14 Jan 2018, 10:25 pm

I know how you feel, OP. My periods of dissociation are associated with my PTSD though, rather than BPD or other disorders. I really sympathize with the perception-of-time-being-distorted stuff. 5 minutes feeling like an hour... the worst was a period of 2-3 weeks where I was extremely dissociated, and going through a lot worse than just dissociation. It felt like eternity, an eternity of torment. Luckily a lot of that has become a gap in my memory.

I've had a lot of dissociation happen. Every single time my adrenaline rises above a certain level, I enter a dissociated state, and it feels extremely unsettling. I can feel it happening, and just enter breathing exercises and try to hold myself together, but usually I wind up freaking out, which I suppose my brain has been trained to do in order to escape danger. I do try to consciously control myself and just run away, but it's not easy. I also freak out worrying about whether it will ever end, or if I'll ever have my adrenaline drop, and many other nonsensical thoughts. I get outright paranoid, too, in a not-so-logical way.

During the period where I was being traumatized for years, I would walk around in a state of dissociation very often, not even thinking about it or realizing it - it just felt normal. Dissociation is sort of a "survival mechanism" in such situations. It helps make you feel numb to traumas so that you can endure them. That whole period of my life feels like a dream, or rather, a nightmare. I didn't feel like I was present, it was as if all those things were being done to someone else.

I'll just end with this note: dissociation sucks and is really trippy, but just know you're not alone in having to endure it from time to time. Medications might help you not enter it so easily, have you looked into trying them at all? (sorry if you mentioned it later in the thread)



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14 Jan 2018, 10:54 pm

Yes I often experience this.
The worst (most embarrassing) recent time was during separation agreement process I kept dissociating,

Esp after XH said a (believable sounding) lie that he had warned me about beforehand he would say.

At one point I thought my lawyer was my dad because he was wearing the same tortoise-shell frame my dad does.

I said a few things to that effect eg ‘it was my dad’s ideA!’ And they turned to me like ‘no it was the lawyer’s idea’

I completely zone out oftentimes and it’s extremely distressing but I cannot control it
Have tried a lot of techniques it is impossible - i think time is the only answer


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19 Jan 2018, 6:20 am

The only times dissociating has upset me is when I find myself somewhere I didn't mean to be. Like the time I was driving to Uni for a 2 o'clock lecture and suddenly realised it was dark and I had no idea where I was. I had to look for street signs then find the street names on a map and I was miles and miles away from where I should have been. The whole trip was just a blank. I've also cooked whole meals and had no memory of doing it.
So long as I don't blank out, it's all good for me. It just feels like being underwater. I don't feel anxious. I don't feel anything really.


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Tibergrace
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19 Jan 2018, 3:02 pm

bunnyb wrote:
The only times dissociating has upset me is when I find myself somewhere I didn't mean to be. Like the time I was driving to Uni for a 2 o'clock lecture and suddenly realised it was dark and I had no idea where I was. I had to look for street signs then find the street names on a map and I was miles and miles away from where I should have been. The whole trip was just a blank. I've also cooked whole meals and had no memory of doing it.
So long as I don't blank out, it's all good for me. It just feels like being underwater. I don't feel anxious. I don't feel anything really.


I sympathize with this a lot. I drive past my destinations a lot - or especially during long drives, I will have large stretches of the drives that I have no recollection of.

I've also had the cooking thing happen, even eating. Just yesterday I cut an apple into slices and was eating them out of a bowl. I started eating the slices, then next thing I know I look down and the bowl is empty, but I had no recollection past eating the first slice.



AntisocialButterfly
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21 Jan 2018, 11:46 am

I dissociate a lot, mines mainly to do with PTSD, but I don't think ASD helps with it. I have been discussing it with my therapist and I think ASD makes me more likely to dissociate than other people, as I have am easily overwhelmed so when things get too much I return to a kinda film reel view of life.

I have got to agree with bunnyb that often I don't really mind it that much, its kinda like taking a break from reality where its harder for things to get to me. However other times its very frustrating when you want to communicate with someone and you can't get out of your head.

Tips to help if you wanna get out of it I have found are finding a sense that you can focus on. So for me I will have handcream on me that smells of something I like but strong, and smelling that will help bring me back into the present. Also holding an ice cube, wrapping yourself up in something soft you enjoy, a hot drink (I am british so a cup of tea please ahah). Focusing on a very specific thing happening right here and now is very useful in getting you out of it. However if that doesn't work it is worth just relaxing and accepting it, putting yourself somewhere safe and letting life pass you by for a bit.



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21 Jan 2018, 11:58 am

I do experience dissociation, both depersonalization and derealization, and have for the past 3 years. It first appeared when I fell into depression for the first time due to prolonged stress and anxiety. It's something that I haven't found a cure for, unfortunately, though it definitely seems to worsen when I'm sleep deprived, feeling depressed or under other types of emotional stress. I know other people have found grounding techniques effective, though the only effective coping mechanism I've found is to force myself to be 'in the real world' by talking to someone. Just one person though, because group conversations tend to make it worse for me, since it's hard to focus on everything going on.



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21 Jan 2018, 2:44 pm

AntisocialButterfly wrote:
So for me I will have handcream on me that smells of something I like but strong, and smelling that will help bring me back into the present.


I do the same thing for my PTSD issues. I use this eucalyptus and spearmint lotion. I also have this lavender essential oil that I will put on my wrists and neck, and the overpowering strength of the smell pulls my focus strongly to it. Helps prevent dissociation, too. I use it to distract myself when I'm starting to feel stressed/anxious so that it doesn't roll into full on wigging-out mode.



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21 Jan 2018, 3:57 pm

I have experienced dissociation ever since I was 4. Generally the cause is sensory or emotional overload but sometimes it happens randomly too.



AntisocialButterfly
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22 Jan 2018, 6:45 am

komamanga wrote:
I have experienced dissociation ever since I was 4. Generally the cause is sensory or emotional overload but sometimes it happens randomly too.


Someone else who first dissociated really young!! ! One of my first memories is of everything being really loud and blurry, but feeling slowed down and confusing, and I thought to myself 'it's okay it gets like this sometimes, just wait it out.' <-- I was like 5 so not that articulate, but something like that. I think being overloaded in either sense has caused me to dissociate from a very young age.



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22 Jan 2018, 9:37 am

AntisocialButterfly wrote:
komamanga wrote:
I have experienced dissociation ever since I was 4. Generally the cause is sensory or emotional overload but sometimes it happens randomly too.


Someone else who first dissociated really young!! ! One of my first memories is of everything being really loud and blurry, but feeling slowed down and confusing, and I thought to myself 'it's okay it gets like this sometimes, just wait it out.' <-- I was like 5 so not that articulate, but something like that. I think being overloaded in either sense has caused me to dissociate from a very young age.


My earliest memories of dissociation date back to my first year in kindergarten when I was 4. In the classroom I was a loner and I lived in my bubble. There were many kids and constant noise which I couldn't handle well. I guess it was an unintended coping mechanism. I was also mute during the classes. I talked only to the teacher. So it bothered me that everybody had friends but I was left alone, which caused me to have imaginary friends. I didn't need to vocalize myself to talk to them.



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24 Jan 2018, 11:15 pm

Now I have proof of my dissociation for my own self (in case I try to deny it to myself).

I took 11 pics in a row (burst) of holding down camera app accidentally n accidentally holdingtje button while looking STRAIGHT at the camera yet completely and utterly zoned out

I barely remember it all I remember is
Or to explain it is
Perhaps i was trying to take pics with my kids or smthing n opened the app
n i suddenly had a flashback and zoned out.


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