So just to start: I am seeing a therapist, trying to sort out potential subtle mental and emotional abuse throughout childhood, constant life-long struggle with self-harm, depression, fits of anger.

Okay, I'm a little confused and frustrated when it comes to dissociation. It's something I have commonly experienced throughout most of my life. When I'm experiencing less of it I have trouble remembering or recognizing instances where I am experiencing dissociation. Since I've learned practices of mindfulness to deal with self-harm, stress, and depression the dissociative moments seem significantly less intense. I've even learned how to deal with shifts in identity where I felt like 'not-me' but experienced everything feeling like I had no choice in anything.

I explored info on DID a long time ago, but have generally decided that it doesn't fit my case and I try to stray as much away from self-diagnosis as I can and just incorporate the information for coping. So I get a little frustrated when I try to look up dissociation and most of the topics are on DID. I've struggled with hearing voices and feeling like some 'other' was in control, but that largely has impacted me in moments of extreme stress, depression, anger, or when alone and every other stress catches up. Unless the voices are excessively intrusive, aggressive, loud, or it influences my behavior I really see them as positive guides and I tend to think cope well with the general benign experience.

Here's another confusing factor: A lot of the other resources relate to trauma when it comes to dissociation... I feel the only impacting trauma that might have catered to my dissociation was the domestic abuse and yelling between my parents that drove them to divorce when I was 3 yrs old. After that they would yell and argue on the phone or the every-other-weekend trade off which I think eventually conditioned me to have a hypersensitivity to loud noises, terse tones of voice, and conflict. I've gotten significantly better at dealing with the fright, dissociation, and freezing that occurs with loud noises, or upset-sounding people in the past 5 years.

What I really want is to just understand dissociation, how it manifests, and what levels are generally considered healthy for an individual or not. I don't feel like it has largely impaired my experiences, but it has been uncomfortable and added unnecessary stress. How would I potentially explore this area with a therapist, and how do I recognize when I'm in a dissociative state that's impairing me but not severe enough to notice?