my switching like yours not exactly. one thing you need to k now before I explain about my switching..

nobody is going to have the same way of dissociating. though everyone who has the disorder DID and fits the same diagnostic criteria, no one has the same way of dissociating.

this is because everyone has their own reactions to trauma, stress, fears, anxiety....and ... everyone has their own limits of what their own bodies can withstand..... and .... everyone has their own coping mechanisms...

and we all come from different family environments..

so no two people are going to have the same way dissociation fits into their life..

example one persons dissociation affects them by making them feel small, another dissociation makes them feel like they are falling backwards or forwards, up or down... this person sees like through a fog and that one sees as if the edges of things become sharper, this one goes blind and that one goes deaf..

the way dissociation affects you - seeing as if looking through a view master is not how it affects me.

my switching was nothing extraordinary. it was literally no awareness of time passing, one second I would be on my way to school and the next I was being tucked in bed at night by my mother. I would be doing my chores in the garden on a summer day and the next second sitting on a plastic bag sliding down the hill in the winter with my friends.

there was no awareness of anything in between for me because I had no co consciousness between me and my alters.

After years and years of therapy I learned to notice my feelings and was able to recognize some triggers that made me switch. but again there was very little awareness of actually dissociating. with me it happened so quick bada bing badaboom

then after some more years of therapy I was able to focus on the voices, when the voices started screaming I knew I was going to switch.

Then after some more time in therapy I was able to recognize feeling like I was moving sometimes shrinking sometimes floating backwards, sometimes moving forwards like I was falling forwards.

Sometimes smells would come through. but other than that there wasnt much. Sight wise it was like trying to see down the street on a very foggy day.

my switching out of alters the only affect I had was a headache. not like a migraine there was no auras nor spots not light sensitivity. more like a stress headache. vision wise everything looked it was supposed to look. there was no changing of consciousness or thoughts because I had very little to no co consciousness between me and my alters.

please try not to worry about how you may not be experiencing dissociation like any one else or even like anyone else. though everyone has to meet the same diagnostic criteria to be DID, the ways there are for people to dissociate is infinite and dissociation affects each person differently.