I know. When I am right in the piece of memory I don't either. Since its a piece of memory I can only act out (do) what is contained in that piece of memory. I found out there is no way of changing that but if I pay attention to my triggers I can calm myself down before I dissociate completely into my mental safe place called la la land.

For example

When I am doing my grocery shopping. Tthe crowdedness of all the other customers makes me feel trapped or boxed.

I start dissociating - floating (feeling far away and kind of like a medication hang over feeling of slow motion and slightly dizzy, floor tilting kind of thing)

If I dont ground myself I end up Switching" - floating off completely into la la land and then physically I act out what ever piece of memory has whatever the information is about my being closed in, cant get out type of situation.

So instead of "switching" I pay close attention to how I am feeling. When the dissociating starts right away I stop what I am doing. I Look around and see if I can see what is upsetting me or making me feel trapped and boxed it.

Then I take care of the triggering situation by using grounding techniques - telling myself that I am ok, that the person down the isle is not my abuse, that I am not trapped, I can leave anytime I want to, Sometimes that means I have to go into a different grocery isle, Make a trip to the bathroom so that I can go into a stall and have some quiet time to myself so that I can write down in my notebook what is going on and how I am feeling, Sometimes taking care of t he trigger means locating a friend that works in the store, and sometimes it means that I have to leave the store and do my shopping some other time when the store is not so crowded.

By doing these things I don't reach the point where I have "switched" into acting out a piece of memory.

It wasn't easy to retrain my thinking into taking care of myself BEFORE I reach that point. I was dissociating for years so it may take years for me to gain complete control of my dissociating. My therapist at that time - SKR - had to help me learn how to do it by enforcing grounding techniques during therapy time which is basic beginning therapy for DID and is one of the first things that therapists work with their dissociative clients on during therapy sessions.

Talk with your therapist. If your therapist knows you are DID or have dissociative features, that therapist will begin to teach you grounding techniques and will expect you to use them during therapy time that way it becomes habit so that outside of therapy sessions when you encounter a trigger you will automatically use them, which leads to a better funtioning life for you.