here in america dissociation in general is feelings of numbness, feelings of disconnection from ones body or emotions, feelings of spaciness, foggy minded.

the new diagnostics that america is going by now does not include those same symptoms caused by drugs/alcohol/ psychogenic's/prescriptions or other mental and physical health problems that share these same symptoms. before a symptom can be called dissociation here in america those things must be ruled out as the cause now due to the new diagnostic criteria put into affect as of the printing of the DSM 5.

Some locations do use the terms dissociation and disassociation (pronounced dis association) interchangeably but here in america they are two different things....

here Disassociation means to purposely prevent yourself from participating/interacting/feeling ....where as dissociation is an automatic response to a trigger be it a positive or negative trigger...

examples

dis association.....I disassociated myself from playing softball (meaning I purposely quit the team and sport) I disassociated myself from a family get together (meaning I purposely shut down my anger and left a family get together)

Dissociation....when I get stressed at work I start feeling dissociated (meaning I start feeling numb and spacy/foggy minded when I get stressed out at work.) when I was afraid because my abuser was being released from prison I felt dissociated (meaning I felt numb and disconnected, as if my world had slowed down/became unreal even though reality wise I knew everything around me was going on as it normally does.

visual distortions can be a part of PTSD/dissociation or any other reason such as mental /physical problems, medications, normal, sleep deprivation, not eating correctly, poor eye sight in need of glasses,....too many reasons to write them all...

with in me visual distortions are part of my bipolar disorder and my multiple sclerosis. I also get this when I have not gotten enough sleep or have not eaten correctly/skipped meals.

to find out if this is dissociation in you, you will need to contact your treatment providers.