Welcome aboard.

This is for anyone that has disoociated at any point in their lives. And since every human being can experience dissociation on a normal level -

dissociation is just thinking about other things then what you are phyically doing. That can be driving down a street that you have traveled many times before and so instead of thinking while driving about the mechanics of driving the care by thinking "push the brake" "turn left here" "the sign says stop so I have to stop here" and so on, the person is thinking "I need milk at the store" "what a day I have to do this this and this at work" "boy so and so was cute and I had a great time last night" and so on and don't realize every turn, sign.. they get to their destination safely because while they were thinking about other things with their brain their brain had their body physically acting out the memories of how to drive the car using the physical triggers of the street, signs and so on to tap into the memories that have been stored unconsciously by the brain by the five senses and emotions - what the person saw, heard, smelled, tasted, and felt everyday while traveling that street.

Another example of dissociation is daydreaming while in a class. The class is boring the person so starts daydreaming (thinking and using their imagination) about other things.

mentally they are paying attention to their thoughts

Physically their brain keeps them funtioning during the class based using triggers - the teacher, the black board, other students comments basically everything that the five senses sight, sounds, smells, taste, touches and emotions of the situation of being in the class in the present to access the unconscious memories already stored about attending the class on other days.

The brain automatically stores what the person is experiencing by way of their 5 senses and emotions and the brain taps into these unconscious memories when ever the person is not fully mentally aand physically paying attention.

Some people daydream alot and others daydream alittle. Some of us who were abused used our daydreams to create a way to not mentally feel the abuse that was happening to us physically. Some did this a little and some did this alot. Some did this just to the point where we felt like we could mentally feel floaty and far away from the situation but still see what was going on. Some of us did this to the point where we felt niumb so we didn't have to physically feel the abuse that happened but still were aware enough to know what was going on and still others of us mentally daydreamed to the point where we daydreamed the abuse was happening to others and we were safely either far away or we were in a daydream place or world and the other person we created while daydreaming was the one getting hurt.

The degree we did this daydreaming of being numb, far away, or that the abuse was happening to someone else, is what kind of Dissociative disorder - depersonalization, Dissociative fugue, DID ... - is what we have.

Dissociation (daydreaming and using imagination) happens naturally and every human being can and has done it, be it on the normal levels or because of abuse and thier being no physical escape used their natural dissociation skills of daydreaming and inagination to escape mentally experiencing the abuse.

Since every human being can disoociate - daydream and use imagination and this message board area is about disociation and the problems associated with it, and ways to use dissociation to help ourselves, every human being can use this message board. It doesn't matter which or if any dissociative disorder the person has experience with. Theres something in this message board that every human being can identify with be it playing games of using their daydream and imagination abilities or be it feeling dissociatied or needing help with past or present dissocitation situaations.

Again welcome aboard. and join in where ever and when ever you are comfortable.