[misfit77]

Hi everyone,
I am really trying to understand disassociation but am struggling to. I have read up on it, but don't know if it is something I truly do or not. I think we all have moments of it-like when you've been driving and forgot part of your journey...but what makes it "not normal" and a symptom of BPD?

I am also wondering if this type of scenario would be considered disassociation:

A few months after a big fight with my boyfriend I had been crying and experience a lot of emotions. I ended up cutting myself I guess to self sooth or whatever and then I seemed to "calm down" and went into a trance- like completely zoned-out state like I was on a super strong sedative. I ended up ripping up little pieces of paper over and over again and staring off blankly while sitting against a wall in my dining room. I don't feel like I was in psychosis or anything (which I don't think disassociation is). I am sure if the building caught on fire I would have known to get up and get out and "snap out of it". I have found that this has happened many times when I have been upset. I thought it was just that I had gotten so emotionally upset that I just got tired and my brain and body did this to calm myself down or something. I never had had where time passed by and I didn’t realize it during one of these “episodes”.

I have also found that sometimes I feel like things are “not real” but that is more of a fleeting thought. Again, I feel that if I truly was thinking things weren’t real, that would be psychosis. I sometimes look at my boyfriend and the thought goes through my head that “this isn’t real, he’s not real…this isn’t happening” but it’s a brief thing. Just a strange passing thought.

So I don’t know. I find it a concept that is very confusing. Can anyone explain it to me?
Thanks
Misfit

[DemiDeveraux]

I will follow this, because I also can't place it. I'm often told that I'm dreaming. People have to snap me out of it several times a day. But I'm not sure that is dissociative behaviour though.

[technigal]

Sounds like disassociation to me.

I also have times where I "leave" my body and watch what is going on, it used to happen all the time during sex but that has ended. My T said this is also disassociation.

[beloiseau]

It sounds like it to me. I experience similar things to what you described. If I am really emotional I am able to just push it away and not deal with it. I also feel like i am not real or that the things and people around me are not real, i know it's not true, but there is a certain feeling of being separate. I described it to therapist as feeling like there is plastic wrap between you and the world.

I've had the out of body experiences, but only a couple of times. I usually feel like i am all up in my head, not in my body.

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[BPD Ghost]

A few examples if disassociating are not feeling real, spacing out, pretending, daydreaming, tuning out, turning off, blocking something out, becoming someone else, numbing. All of these are done without hallucinogens or alcohol'

[Aventurine]

Missfit, Im so glad you put this post up, cause I wasn't really sure what it entailed that was actually part of BPD, this thread has helped.

what you described in your initial post was what happens to me, usually after an 'episode' of "losing it", I calm down and stare, I mutter to myself and play with something small in my hands. I might sing a song softly, I don't know, I also see others around me as in another universe completely. When I stare at them its like I'm hallucinating.

Its happened many times. Sometimes I fall on the bathroom floor and lie there for ages.. it feels nice there.

I dissociated the other day, I was in the grocery store and my teenage son was giving me a bit of stick over when we are going to buy his computer. I had just moved interstate and was about to drop $500 on his return to school so the financial stress was taking its toll and here I was yet again at the grocery store about to spend more money on overpriced goods, anyway..to top it off there was a baby screaming its lungs out nearby...

I stopped, turned to my son and said, very calmly," you had better walk away now or I don't know what I will do". He did walk away and I froze, tranced, I dropped my basket on the floor and stood. staring. I didn't care, I just knew if I didn't stop and zone out, anything could of happened. I kept thinking, this is it, I am going to have a nervous breakdown in the middle of the store... but I froze. waited and then slowly took steps forward..

Again, thank you for sharing your experiences, it sure helps me feel like I am not alone..

[bpdtransformation]

Dissociation - which Bing dictionary defines as "the separation of a group of usually connected mental processes such as emotion and understanding from the rest of the mind as a defense mechanism" can be used in BPD; because it's a way of avoiding or not facing difficult feelings, which is obviously a common challenge in BPD. There are different degrees of it; a mild version might be someone who spaces out watching TV and eating junk food for hours. An extreme version would be if someone is being abused and imagines themselves as two people with one watching from above and the other experiencing the abuse. I have never experienced that, but have read about i.

[misfit77]

Thank you everyone for your replies.

I definitely zone out and also hyper focus. I have ADHD though so I thought that was all I was doing.

I always remember the first time I really felt sort of "out of my body". It was when I was about 16 after a social science class in high school. We had been talking about death and dying. I'm not good with death...and in high school as my depression got worse I became more and more afraid of it. I remember the class really upset me. I remember walking down the hall and having this strange feeling come over me...it was like I was out if my body in a way...it's so hard to really put it in words...I was so strange. It only last a few seconds are so where I felt "out of my body". I then just ended up kinda sedated and out of it the rest of the day. I never knew what that experience was. I thought maybe a form of a panic attack or something. But now it's makingore sense.

Thanks again for your replies,
Misfit

[Tristan H.]

If you consider dissociation on a spectrum or continuum, then we all can be said to dissociate once in a while. Just like everyone can be considered at least a little bit Borderline if you judge that disorder on a spectrum. The trick is to know when it's disrupting your life, but that's something you can probably figure out for yourself. I mean, if it's causing you distress and hurting your social or professional life then you probably need to confront the problem, but if it's harmless and you zone-out/daydream every now and then you needn't worry simply because you've applied the stigmatic label of 'dissociation' to it.

Of course, it can be helpful to know you're doing it if you're still trying to understand the diagnosis of a Borderline personality disorder.