Makes alot of sense - the way SKR explained it to me -

children purposely use dissociation (daydreaming other wise known as imagry and relaxation otherwise known as self hypnosis) to escape when they are being abused because they cannot get up and run away or walk away from their abusers.

They just keep doing it until it becomes a habit of daydreaming whenever anything the least bit happens to upset the person.

By the time the person is an adult the does not realize they are daydreaming away from whatever is upsetting them.

Because it was such a habit kind of like someone asking me what 2 plus 2 was and I automatically answer with 4. Now I automatically daydream Im floating and my music and my clouds and so on of La La Land. Sometimes I don't realize I am doing it until I stop doing it and notice something is different.

So I had to start paying attention to what was making me upset and when I was feeling floaty use my grounding techniques and instead of float in la la land take care of the problem that is making me feel like I want toget away.

At first I had absolutely no control I floated off and could not - not dissociate. Ino matter what I did it happened I was off floating most of the time.

I couldnt stop it no matter how afraid of the voices and so on were.

It was only after SKR taught me how to use grounding tools by asking me to pay attention to her voice, focus on trying to see her, and what she was wearing, what the chair I was sitting on felt like, what my hand felt like, the sun on my face and so on, and that took months for me to be able to do.

Then after months of this I was finally able to actually feel the chair under me and hear her voice and so on without floating off to la la land.

I also had to learn and practice relaxation techniques but yet still remain aware of what the blanket felt like the chair and my body.

and then finally I was able to start staying in that area of co consciousness to learn what the memories were, then I was able to start stopping my dissociating into the separated pieces of memories.

Only after I was able to do all that was I able to start pulling myself back out of that floaty tunnel preventing my dissocaiting into the memory pieces.

Im not always 100% successful et but I keep practicing every day by on purpose paying attention to what all my senses are telling me and journal writing when things start to upset me.

From time to time I take breaks in doing my therapy projects, but since DID is in every part of my life whether or not I am working on therapy projects I never get a break from focusing on it.

Kind of can't help it like waking up and go to make coffee and find I dumped the brand new can of coffee into the litter pan, or wake up and instead of my bed being in one bed room its now across the house in a different bedroom, or get on my bike headed for the library and suddenly find that I am standing at the amtrack watching the trains go by. Start cooking scrambled eggs and bacon one second and the next Im standing there making a pan of spagetti a week later.
In order to figure out what is going on when I become aware I have to pay attention to my surroundings, my senses and how I am feeling.

For example I can't get back from watching the trains at the amtrack if I am not paying attention to road signs, sounds smells and so on that tell me where I am and what streets I am traveling on.

So for me since theres no break from DID for me there is no break for me in doing therapy work.

You already know how to prevent your dissociating so you are already way ahead of this because you already know how to use grounding techniques.

So now you can use that to your advantage. You already know you are going to dissociate sometimes whether you like it or not right?

When I taught my son how to ride his bike I told him - he already knew he was going to fall so why not make it the best fall he possibly could - we cut up an old piece of foam rubber and wrapped the pieces in material and wrapped up his knees and elbows. and then on the bike he got and I gave him a push and off he went and fell got back up and fell got back up and pettaled a foot realised he was biking and fell, got back up and petaled and went around the whole block.

You already know you are going to dissociate and you already know that whatever the pieces of memories are, are not good and how to use your grounding tools to prevent some of your dissociating.

use that to your advantage -
Use the grounding tools not to force yourself to remain COMPLETELY aware. Just barely aware enough so that you can hear and see your therapist.

now First step safety protocals - using your imagination what is the worst thing you can think of that will happen when you use your grounding techniques that you have been using to prevent your dissociating to keep you in that area where you can hear and see your therapist but yet floaty of dissociating?

Once you have the worst case scenerio put your foam rummer knee pads and elbow pads around that.. maybe you feel you need to have a friend present in your therapy session, maybe having a second therapist in the room while you and your therapist work together, maybe you might want to make sure your therapist is available for after hours and emergency sessions... Whatever you feel you need to keep you safe.

Once you have the knee pads and elbow pads and helmet all thats left is getting on the bike.

I can tell you so far my being in that co consciousness area of seeing and hearing my therapist while the memory is replaying has never reached my worst case scenerio and I have been doing this for 3 years with SKR and now have started doing this with my present therapist LL.

I still have many questions of myself. but I see it this way I was able to use my imagination and relaxation abilities to separate my memories so I can keep coming up with question after question and the answers may never come.

I can also tell you that its more scarey thinking about having to pay attention then the actual paying attention is. Once you start paying attention it will become habit for you to listen.

Before I met SKR I would block out the voices like anything to thepoint where I have running static in my head all the time and in order to listen to the voices first I have to listen beyond the static by relaxing or triggering so much that the voices get louder then the static. I started out paying attention to what I was hearing as I woke up and matching what I was hearing to what my eyes were seeing, ears hearing and so on and soon I realized that those voices did match things like I was hungry the voice stopped once I ate something. it suddenly wasnt so scarey. I ccould actually control the voices not by shutting them out by taking care of what the voices were about. life is so much easier all my energy I was using to shut the voices out can now be used for the things I like to.

Hang in there Jenifer. it does get better.