Hey BethRags, I know what you meant when talking about dissociation as your "safe place", but then I also read other posts, and I understood their feelings too...

I always felt before that my head was my "safe place", and I think that being inside my head meant being in my own inner world, but I think it also meant being dissociated for most of the time. I was always dissociated, my whole life, but I wasn't aware that there is anything different about it compared to other people. There were moments that people would tell me about me "being spacey", or "staring into distance", or not hearing them calling me, but they would always describe me as a nerd, or a bit of an eccentric, completely immersed into whatever I was doing.

However, that was before I had some sort of Depersonalization and Derealization Disorder breakdown, combined with depression, anxiety, panic, and then it turned into some other things, with Dissociative amnesia and identity confusion and identity alteration that followed...That was more than four years ago, and it all happened when I was already 40 yo. I was soooo disappointed by my inner world, or my inner life, to present as a safe place at first (for 40 years!lol), and then to betray me in such a way. I started learning about the hidden things, about events that happened to me, but I was not allowed to see them before, or had just partial information about them...It completely changed my relation to dissociation and to my inner life, or inner world, as I did not know what to expect any more. I didn't know who will come out next from what appeared as an endless dark ocean spreading in all direction, or what horrible memory will strike me...

That could be the difference, actually, between dissociation that is closer to some kind of daydreaming or a nice place to escape to (that I knew for most of my life), and dissociation that is within a mind that holds walls between memories and experiences and emotions. In this second case, once those walls start coming down, it can feel so unsafe and unknown and every time completely surprising, that the sense of familiarity with our own inner world seems almost lost.

I still dread dissociation a bit, even though when I felt badly triggered, I longed for it, as it can take the pain away, as a form of distraction; but it also steals my time, and does not let me plan the things that I need to do, par example when I have a deadline. I sit down to do something that I need to finish today, only to find myself hours later, with no work done, while I was doing something completely different. Or even stranger situation, when I remember that I have to do something, only to find I have already done it...like the whole paper written on my laptop, without any recollection on my part that I have been doing that.

This lack of panoramic view of my activities is something that I now find a bit disturbing, even though that is not new to me, that aspect was always there. That is why I learned to make lists very early on, in an attempt to organize myself better...I constantly make lists of things to be done, and I keep rewriting them until the things on the list are done. It is one way of keeping my mind on track, by introducing some sort of prioritization among the things that I do.

Best,
A.