@Blue_Bird You'd be amazed what you can manage to do dissociated. I have driven, cooked, eaten, taken care of a baby and pretty much done everything I needed to do while dissociated, but like I said, I push the panic about it away and put all my thought into focusing on what I am doing in the moment. Though like I said, I've been dissociating since I was a kid, so IDK in that respect, maybe I grew up thinking that was the way I was supposed to feel sometimes and that everyone went through it. It was only once I grew up and started learning more about psychology (in fact, maybe it was my psych course in college) that I realized what was going on. A lot of the time I feel disconnected from myself and my life (as a wife, a mother, the fact I one did give birth to my daughter), often even my own name. It's a crazy thing to have happen to a person. The one time that really got me though, I had completely lost my grip on reality, like I knew what reality was but I still didn't feel in it at all but I wasn't exactly psychotic either. Thankfully, I haven't had that happen again.

I suggest putting your focus into a task at hand when dissociated to see just what you can accomplish while dissociated. Don't do anything dangerous but do something like measure out ingredients for a recipe you can cook in the microwave (if you can't eat while dissociated, you can't, but a lot of eating is automatic, and sometimes for me smelling/tasting food actually helps ground me some). I wouldn't suggest driving or taking care of a baby while dissociated if it can be avoided as yeah, those situations can provoke panic all on their own but working up to cooking and eating may be do-able.

I still dissociate a lot. I don't always write about it in the forum. Yesterday, I had a lot of issues with it off and on except curiously when I was reading. So I pretty much read the whole day.