What does dissociating feel like to you?

Losing my mind

you may not be able to tell the difference between "dissociating" and depersonalization for the same reason I used to not be able to tell the difference - I thought "dissociating" and "depersonalization" were different things. my treatment providers explained to be there really isnt a difference in the two words except for Dissociating is a broader term meaning all dissociative symptoms, where as "depersonalization" is a group of only a few dissociative symptoms.

she used her wind chimes as an example. the word "wind chimes" represents the whole where as each tube represents its own musical note.

another example she used was a deck of cards. the name deck of cards represents the whole pack. the word "Diamonds" represents only one grouping in that deck of card.

The word dissociation represents all dissociative symptoms and depersonalization represents only one grouping of symptoms.

so when I am having depersonalization issues I am dissociating.

hope this helps you as much as it did me when my treatment provider explained it this way.

worse with no sleep. one tries to get us on our own and hurt the ones around us. she stays out primaryly when this happens. there's a main one who really keeps things going for us all. names are hard to come by. not all like or will talk cause they get mad. when we try to talk to any T about it we get to the part of bringing the topic up, but no further. i usuallly hide and others scare me. but right now she took xanax it was to make us sleep. but we still here and im not so scared. once before she took it too and she gladly let me out and buy stuff. i bought a pretty journal! she added pens, lots. because i like colors and she knew it. and we didn't have any at home. that was the last time i came but she promised to stay there ahead. she didn't leave and stayed till i was done then i was the first one to write in it! (:
but we good at hidning. tho quite a few of us wished the T would of did more thinking instead of just letting us pass up the question. it was safe before. but it isn't no more. one thought of moving back to grand parents. if they EVER found out..., we would never be happy again. now is not the right time or place. we were close to telling before here. but something went wrong and we chickened out!

sometimes when we space out, we are told or rehear just what was asked. usually it was my friend who would come out but no one knew how. when we explained it,, no one could even understand how that could happen. then it just take time for her to answer she got good at hiding it under adhd symptoms which is what the psydocs thought and we went with it. until we got away and found out adhd meds really do help... only we more seperated then on the med. that sounds weird but its true. i used to lie to walk and pick the pretty flowers in my 2nd grade, i love colors! lots of them! but we got in trouble and teacher got mad and pulled out paddles. then my grandma got mad cause someoneelse sold my fundraiser stuff and the people didn't buy it and i didnt do it but i cried and that's when i dint have to be the one to pick up all the trouble for what our words and mind caused. most of my past i remeber just cause i was always visiting and keeping her company. when mary went and hurt and got us in trouble, and left us alone with no explainations. but mary had help. but we all want to fix the problem. mary sometimes shares with me. things that she took on for us. things no one else knows... but i cant say what and i cant tell others. i think im the youngest. though (: me and abbi used to fight over my age.
spacey is the best way i can describe it. then forgetting, and then having to fix what everyone else screwed up is tough. some is even unfixable.
then i remeber stuff, that i have no reasoning or thoughts or feelings or anything as to why i did it just that it happened. even on the meds. but the only safe place is our room. throughout the day we are diffrent. there rarely any communication when we lack sleep. its just all for themselves. coming and going as they please... but "alone" in the room no one but us can question it.

Does it ever feel for you guys as if the world has suddenly shifted to the right a few feet? And you're viewing and listening from a slight distance? And someone else is talking with your voice? I don't like THAT dissociation. I prefer my "super power" version where it's still me, but I just don't feel emotions.

Ick yes... I hate that. Mine moreso feels like I'm hovering above myself and I'm hearing this person freak out and I can't control them, I can't reason with them.

My old therapist works a lot with inner child therapy. I was diagnosed DID prior to him though. Although he didn't know about it. It was back when the system was really protective and didn't allow anyone to know. We went as far as covering up medical records/ not signing for release of information from certain places that diagnosed me. As soon as I realized what he was doing I told him to stop. I never actually responded to it anyway. My little ones are too protected by my system to be around pretty much anybody. Even those who encourage them to come out. My system isn't stupid. Fortunately. Not the the original poster has a stupid system. But she might not have a system at all. In which case it can't possibly be stupid if it doesn't exist.

This happens to me too. It's so scary. I just never know when things are going to go over the edge. if I told some of the people "I" know that I was in four points they would be like . I think just the feeling itself of not knowing when things are going to go over the edge throws me worse into it.

YES! thankfully i don't have that happen all too often, but its a very creepy feeling to me. its almost like what the call "out of body" experiences but while ur awake. that's what i thought it was when i was younger. the first time this happened i was in 5th grade. i know it happened prior to that but i don't recall when or what or why.
thankfully when it happens to me, im not the only one within us that gets weirded out by it so the other usually takes it slower i guess i add my panic and fear to her when it happens so she inturn reacts like but this is one i am not in contact with. so i cant really say why she slows down once it gets weird for me. due to her not telling me. a lot of times the more i notice it and the longer it goes on and th panic i go into the brighter grey/white or hazy fog my vision gets.
does anyone else remeber things only when triggered by something and u knew u knew it all along, or felt like u did atleast, but only still remeber when an outside source triggers it? i don't know if that's part of DID or just part of faulty memory or something. but that's how im able to keep confidential stuff so well and "forgive" others because i really do forget.... unless i read something in a journal with a diffrent handwritting or i just am reminded about it. tho we have tries hard to study our handwritting and keep it all the same. but it all takes too much effort at times. just like the sleep deprivation was mentioned earlier for some of our causes. we care less when that is going on. and we also have less frightful and fearful ones inside. just like the youngest she strives to be like the oldest, and i think those two have really bonded. i rarely if ever hear any of them in it. but that would contradict our first post. which its both true. most in our life will call us liers due to it. and simliar things we all experience things diffrently, or remeber this diffrently due to others showing only what they want. something so simliar in all of our cases though is it seems we all fear telling people, and it in our system is due to quite a few reasons. there's many frightful ones. and on that's ashamed cause he is "punished" as he says to be in the hardest body of all... a girls. and some of us want to not be known even when many try to see them out. they have grown to let their presence known only to. one other. and that one other has the least communication with all of us.
the thought of intregation is horrible. one main reason we refuse to talk to a T. being a one could be nice... but it would put us as one, and be alone. Ang hates being alone. that's why she and the youngest get along so greatly. as one, we wouldn't be here! i like being here!! i will not join just so the people around us can be happy!! when many of us would misseravleble. Making Abbi and Ang sad. i.... don't mean to hurt anyone! after this last time... it still hurts them all, all the ones i know. and there's no way we could tell their best friend. i want to but they as always, say no and its not fair that they always have to take the blame for me! i just get mad.... jelous... and i get to hating how they get good friends when im stuck protecting them as they leace me alone while the bad shows up. i don't want to intergrate! and i don't want it to stay this way!!! im prone to bad choices and mistakes.
but..., E which i haven't heard fron in a long while understands. but why do i have to cause them all problems? i don't want to. NOT WHILE THEY ALL HATE ME!!

i think it would be great to be who we really are and open to everyone without fear...,

we are on mobile so we don't have color choices in letters.
but on the topic of hearing voices, has anyone ever found drawings or letters from one of your people within, left just for you to find?

I'm having a hard time figuring out what i am honestly. I can be sitting here and its like the movie click...I go through the motions but I have no clue what i'm doin and when I realize whats going on I'm in a different place. This happens alot when I"m driving down the road...it scares me because i"m afriad i'm going to wreck or something after I've done it because its like someone else is driving. For example, I can be going through town and pass a gas station then suddenly have no idea how I got the end of the street by the rail road tracks..I have no memory of what I saw, what I past, nothing...its like I'm blank

YES!!!!!

kbeller, what you describe is the kind of dissociation common to most people. I'm not dismissing what happens to you, just saying it's common.

What a great thread! Thank you to everyone who's posted.

I have different ways I feel when I dissociate.

In the past I would lose time. I'd suddenly find myself some place other than where I'd been doing something different. That didn't happen too often.

The most common feeling was that I'd :just" go away. I went some place deep inside my head and didn't interact with the outside world. Oddly, there must have been some part of me keeping track of what was going on outside because when the threat was gone I'd come back.

There were also times I felt like I was sitting in the backseat while someone else drove the body. I was aware of what was happening I just didn't have anything to do with it.

There's something that happens to me I haven't seen anyone else mention. There are times I feel a shifting to the side in my head. I know that we don't have nerves to sense movement etc in our brains, but I swaer I feel a shifting inside. Does anyone else experience this?

sleepy , never awake, eyes hard to keep open.

~

Do you feel the shift before, after, or during a dissociation? I have, on a few occasions, had the sensation that something in my brain just splits, for lack of a better description. I mean, there's no pain, just the odd sensation that something in my head just sort of snaps. And then I immediately plunge into a dissociation. It doesn't happen every time I dissociate, only if something emotionally jarring happens.

It's all such an odd phenomenon, I'm still struggling to understand it sometimes.

I feel it just before and as I start to dissociate. It feels like my brain slides sideways. Some times it feels like part of my brain splits off from the rest.

That sounds like what happens to me too to some extent.

I can disassociate at will, although I have no memory of any childhood trauma, so I have no idea why.
The only time it is not at will is if I am talking to someone, usually someone older than me or in a position of respect, I'll zone out and not be able to zone back in. I'll just keep nodding and smiling but my vision won't focus and I get freaked out that the other person is going to notice I've zoned out.

Now for the most part, it is at will. When I am really depressed, it is always at the edge of my consciousness, like a threat that I could slip out of it at any time. And slipping out of it feels like I am not me. For me it's always when I'm alone, and almost always when I'm in bed at night, thinking. I will start thinking about the world and my life and, suddenly, I am not myself. I cannot be (Firstname Lastname) because that would be..crazy. It feels like my normal day-to-day life was a fun little peek into the world and now I should go back to being my real self, which is ??? not sure, some type of otherworldly, floating spirit maybe? In my head, I just cannot fathom the idea that this is all there is, that when I return to my body I will be myself for the rest of my life. I think "am I really worried about X, Y, and Z? that's what my worries are? am I really going to do A B C tomorrow?" Nothing about me feels like mine.

It's hard to describe the experience.
I have never had loss of memory and 'awakened' somewhere else than when i entered the dissociative state. I believe that it is some kind of defense mechanism developed by my younger self, so that whenever i find myself in situations that are emotionally stressful (which can be anything from small to bigger issues, e.g. fighting with your partner or even talking about how dissociation feels like), I will automatically enter this state in order to shut out any harmful emotion.
- it feels like my forehead gets cold. The back of my head and fingers get tingly, and while I would describe it as not being able to feel a thing, it is as though my body is in a state of panic.
It's contradictive, I know...

Sadly, it also renders me unable to feel any positive emotion as well. When I enter this state, I tend to feel frustrated by the lack of understanding of my own mind and body. Overall I do not see it as a big problem, since dissociating can help me too. In certain situations I prefer being separated from my emotions, allowing me to act out of pure logic and reasoning. It's extremely situational how i percieve it.

My dissociation can happen anytime, mid conversation, driving, focusing on task, the middle of working....anytime.

Sometimes “airhead” fits me just fine.

My mind goes airy and the eyes go out of focus as they relax, I go into a trance like daze and my mind trails off like the head voice is walking up and away. I lose any worldly sensory connection....a mindless zombie. I’ll snap back to when I finally realize what is happening, or an Other will step up and take over.

I know this is very dangerous, but I can’t give up driving or working, but I do drive the slowest letting other cars pull ahead away from me.

I listen to music to focus on while working to stay present.

I try to not get caught up in the dazed feeling because it’s so relaxing, warm and comfy like a nest.

Other times though, like when triggered with say confrontation ....it’s an instant freeze, stare, daze, all the voices in the head chattering “what do we do or say?” Then it’s like we have to talk it out on who is going to present and the repercussions of choice made....this takes a few moments too long and then we’ll snap out of it as an Other steps up and takes over changing the course of our day.

During all these times, I lose track of time and sometimes come too someplace else other then where it began. I often am left bewildered because it’s just a total blank to be getting coffee out of bed and then to be almost to work to only discover that hours have disappeared, the bills paid, kids are sent to school, fully dressed and feeling full...

I've had derealization the last 40 years. It came out of nowhere and I can't feel myself and emotions and feel unreal. My mouth feels separated from my mind and can't get sentences out. And I've felt outside of my body watching myself. All this due to depression.

A lot of what you described above sounds really familiar. Especially the loss of memory! To me, a lot of the time when I dissociate, I feel extremely numb. I don't always realize it's happening until it's over. I sometimes have memory loss during the time, but sometimes I remember perfectly too.

I've read a lot of people feel out of body, but I've never experienced that myself. I think the emptiness in your eyes you described is really common too. I think that's a huge sign that it's happening.

I hear voices in my head from the kids and i have the feeling i am flying and i can’t feel my body

Yes, this. I love this kind of dissociation. It's like a warm blanket and
Nothing else matters.

I had this in a work meeting a few days ago (though that might be weeks or months ago by now, I don't really know) and it was my turn to report back, I was aware of that much, but I was like "Hmm, my mind is blank at the moment" (aka leave me alone, I'm quite happy up here floating away from the rest of you thank you very much!)
Hmm, my favorite kind of dissociation.
The other kinds, not so much.

Don't know. Don't remember most of time.

The OP describes a lot of what it is like for us. We thought that ou - the host's brother was lying when he said that we weren't paying attention or were somewhere else. The host's brother does lie about some things.
When the host was 13 he was in an auto accident that jarred him out of a day dream and made him feel like he had crossed over into a parralel dimension. During the unfolding of the accident it was (for him) as though time itself had slowed down and he was assaulted by confusion and distress.
Since that day the host sometimes wonders if this is a different Earth in a different Universe from the one he was born into.
Yesterday he had a moment of extreme forgetfulness or lack of memory over a previous post even when rereading it.
He had to search his memory stores to locate the memories of having typed that post. It was kind of scary as though someone else had typed it up.
G didn't type it and neither did V or DH or PR. Nor was it MD or WR.
Who then? Strange...