Quote:
Originally Posted by amandalouise
Suggestions...yes maybe learning more about your self will help ....
a persons Identity is made up of how they think of their self, what things they like and dont like, things they do, say....
example my identity is...
I am a woman (my gender)
I am a mother. (I have two children)
I am a lesbian (my sexual orientation)
I am a wife (I am married to a wonderful woman)
I am a college graduate (I completed college classes that once completed added up to college degrees)
I am a college student (my wife and I enjoy college classes for educational and social activities together)
I am a therapist (my career/job)
I am native american (my culture)
I am a painter (I do oil painting for leisure and stress relief)
I am a humorous person (enjoy a good joke, love telling jokes, and believe in laughter really helps a person handle the hard times)....
maybe if you sit down and write out things using the starting words ....I am...can give you a starting point in knowing yourself and what your identity is.
as for what you call dissociate... Im wondering if you mean the term disassociate...
here in NY we have two different terms....
disassociate is where a person purposely disengages their self, purposely does not participate, purposely keeps their self away from people and things that make them uncomfortable....
examples...
Yesterday I stayed home rather than go out to dinner with a friend after work. I just wasnt in the mood for socializing yesterday.
last summer my job had a company picnic. I disassociated myself from that by not attending the picnic.
Dissociation on the other hand is a normal reaction to something triggering.....in other words something happens and the body reacts by making a person feel numb, spaced out, foggy minded, not quite connected to reality.
examples this morning I heard a loud backfire from a truck, it reminded me of a traumatic event. the backfire noise caused my body to react by numbing, made me feel spaced out, like things around me were not real, that I was not in my body because I could not feel the sensation of my limbs.
the good news is that both of these situations are fixable...
if you are talking about disassociation ....(preventing yourself from doing things, preventing yourself from enter acting with life....) the fix is finding something you enjoy doing...maybe its a physical activity, maybe its reading a book, maybe its meeting up with friends.... what ever you like to do, then go out and do that one step at a time, take your time to learn and have hobbies.. look for other people who do the same hobby that you enjoy...I have found college is a great place to meet new people with a diverse range of interests and theres always someone around who enjoy doing the same things I do, even if that day its just sitting somewhere quietly together enjoying being out in nature.
If you are talking about dissociation (something triggering you into feeling numb spaced out, foggy minded...) again this is fixable. its called learning how to calm yourself, reground yourself. for me what works is getting out in nature, rowing my canoe around the lake, focusing on my environment...
the headaches...well headaches are the body's way of saying somethings not right.. it can happen if someone doesnt get enough sleep, or is eating incorrectly for their bodies, stress.......gosh there are so many different reasons why a person can get a headache, headaches are not something that is required for having dissociation problems. if you google the word headache you will see there are literally thousands and millions of normal, physical and mental reasons for a headache. which is why headaches are not considered in diagnosing dissociative disorders.
the same with memory problems there are literally millions and trillions of reasons why a person has memory problems. some are normal some are physical and some are mental. the type of memory problems that come with dissociative disorders are a very special kind that goes beyond the normal forms.
If you think you have a dissociative (feeling numb, spaced out, foggy minded, disconnected from your body, ...and other dissociative type symptoms) you will need to contact a psychiatrist in your location, they can help you get the correct testing procedures that can tell you what your dissociative disorder is, how severe and what the treatment is best for you. I know that you said you dont want to go back to therapy, Im sorry but thats the only way you will know for sure.
|
A few months ago or so, my boyfriend and I spoke about identity. I told him you have an identity whereas I don't. I told him 'an identity is someone who has a lot going on for them, great career (I love my new job wish it had more hours), lots of hobbies, good friends (made one friend), they have a great family (that will never be me), is very smart/highly intelligent, can do a lot for themselves (independence not even there yet for me), etc.'
I told him and ex-therapist 'The stuff I say about why I can't do this or that is because that is the only "identity" I have since nothing was ever developed as a kid growing up. So, I just use what I know and use it to my advantage which a lot of people became irate when I said that. A person has active, loving role models in their lives and it helps that person forms their identity.' My siblings and I grew up being put into a mini adult role when we were children (even though they are 18 and 14 yrs older than me) and for me, I never lived my life as a child since I was put into a situation of being a mini adult always have to fight back against my parents' rants of their rage and my speech was never of a child always a grown adult. My friends back then always said 'you sound like a grown adult never a kid like us' which is why I felt like an outcast to other children because I had a lot of "adult-like experience" that no average child ever has.
I have done stuff where I wanted to go somewhere and dissociate myself because of fear and can't seem to go somewhere without my parents asking a lot of FBI interrogation questions and then it turns out into a verbal fight then I either end up not going or going being pissed off the entire day. Being sheltered forces me to not go anywhere and end up being miserable. I am really the type of person who loves to go out and see the new things out there that was identity back then. I can't seem to do that now because I feel I gotta report what I am doing on my own times to my lousy parents because they say I don't need friends or a social life that's being a ***** according to my mom. My idiot mom said a woman needs to be home I said a woman can do what she wants, we are not living in the stone ages. She is still stuck in Jim Crow and is 67 years old, calling white people crackers yet loves everybody and talks crap about anybody and anyone!! My parents never allowed to be myself letting me explore different things and when I wanted to it was shot down saying it's for white people, it's stupid, that I couldn't stay focus on one task and I was always jumping to a billion other tasks I wanted to do and that's true I still do that. I also disassociated myself from getting jobs because of fear, told the wrong things about jobs and people, etc. I have a job now and my parents don't know and if they did, they would make nasty/negative remarks about it.
My mind does escape and people have told me how I am not all there and it's scary it happens when I am driving. Last Sunday, I ran through a stop sign in a neighborhood by accident and there was no police, one car was waiting for me to stop and I never did just went through the stop sign. It was by accident, but there were no other cars sitting there waiting. This is why teachers felt I had/have ADD/ADHD yet my lousy ex-therapist said I don't (never tested me) because what I was doing was daydreaming to tune my parents out of their rage towards me doesn't mean I have ADD/ADHD. Teachers have always said I disassociate myself from studying and I couldn't study when I was in school because it was so hostile at home, studying at a library didn't help I was always distracted by every sound (you think a library would be helpful), etc. I have always pattern myself of others because of no identity. My mom said I can't seem to be like my ex-friend Sheena and my brother because they had good grades in school whereas I am a failure and can't amount to anything. Us daughters were always treated as *****s and can't seem to keep up with our brother yet he had a lot of mistreatment too.
Headaches/unexplained pain comes from years of being emotionally abused and being under such high levels of stress which the idiot doctors didn't seem to understand! Which is why my memory is so spotty and can still the sever in the back of my head when trying to remember things. I am almost 30 and I wanna do the things that I never had the chance to do when I was in college the stuff that college kids did. I don't want kids, not interested in buying a home one day (looking to find a place once I get enough money), the whole American Dream bull crap isn't for me, not interested in settling down. Too many people in the 20s have kids and that isn't me!