What does dissociating feel like to you?

I call it weaving, but 2 of my personalities are very fluid. The current mood and emotions are triggers. We'll be talking as L one moment and then in the very next sentence we'll be Z. I go in and out multiple times a day and I always know which one I am. We have different thoughts and emotions. We smile differently, etc... but we share the same life and most memories, but we associate with our life and memories incredibly different. My T cant determine what I have because I have symptoms of XID and BP.

Does anyone have a physical symptom that comes on before switching? When things start going south in therapy the upper portion of my right side of my face feels heavy pressure almost as if my right eye is going to implode, I get light sensitivity and the side of my head feels pressure. Im not in any pain though. This is when a child part comes in and shuts the system down and will not participate any longer in therapy or answer questions. I am very dumb, can barely talk, I feel like I could drop and go to sleep. I remember some things of session later on but not all as it is all just flashes of images.

It depends...sometimes we switch seamlessly mid sentence, or a quick eye twinge, a tick in the head, or parts putting on the body like a glove as you would a latex glove... fingers and toes working into the arms and legs to enveloped, or surge in blood pressure or heavy heartbeat, a drowning feeling, body spasms, a chill, a sick stomach feeling, a choking feeling, pressure behind the eyeballs, instant sweats, a floating feeling, sexual urges, headache, sucking in on a deep breath, going into a daze, instant emotional out of control outburst, or nothing at all.

I sometimes feel sleepy.

I have also vomited immediately when I switched into myself.

Ok what about feelings or emotions? Does a certain emotion wash over you? Do you go from feeling like a wounded child needing attention into being a confidant person getting things done? Do you go from being scared and anxious to light and airy dancing around?

Today, at the body’s 50 age...we just switch to function through our daily tasks. All the emotions are deeply buried, and we stay busy or numb to avoid them. The bipolar meds help in sedating and we stay adultish because we don’t want to be noticed (fat chance, everyone looks at me funny already), but little Bobby fronts unexpectedly when we talk about Cleo and always says he’s hungry.

Every system is different. This is just description a of ourselves.

Our gatekeeper keeps us pretty well regulated, but there are times when he’s caught napping.

I highlighted the ones I feel.

How to tell when a person with Dissociative Identity Disorder is about to switch personalities.

Training Instructor Bethesda PsycHealth Institute 1990
headache
pressure inside the head
stiff neck - (usually not as intense as with memory retrieval)
pressure at the base of the head - (less intense than with memory retrieval)
pupil dilation
pressure behind the eyes
blurry vision - (clears, then becomes blurry)
eyes become - (watery or glassy, glazed in appearance), (eyes can also appear reddened without memory retrieval. Reddened eyes without memory symptoms means that a part is functioning that has repressed materials attached to it.)
eyes more sensitive to light
lightheadedness or dizziness
chills
ears ring
emotionally feeling more child-like
mood swing - a change in mood
thought pattern change - thoughts change about same subject and your response changes with it
feelings and emotions change - change about same situation
objects and people look different - dimensions are off, colors can look brighter or dimmer
body looks and feels detached
face looks and feels detached
face looks different in the mirror
laughter changes - different laughs, subtle different to flagrant
light in a room changes to suddenly brighter or dimmer
fainting feelings - physically like you might lose consciousness
inability to concentrate and think clearly
urgency to "do something"
thoughts become louder
orchestra of thoughts or "conversations," all with opposing views

Brief answer:

I sometimes feel fuzzy or detached as if watching myself from above. Sometimes the buzz seems to hover above me. I get several different signs from the list MoxieDoxie shared, not always the same.
Sometimes I just hear the thought, "I'm going away now."

I hate the changing light thing...it always freaks me out. A bright and sunny day goes dim, like putting on sunglasses, always looking for a cloud and seeing none.

I have experienced everyone of them daily. Alas though, it leads me to the understanding of how hopelessly messed up we really are. Sigh.

Thank-you for this list- really.

I didnt have any of these problems before I was integrated to point to my switching....for me there was no physical sensations to switching. maybe it was because for me dissociation was not feeling, going numb emotionally. since I wasnt feeling anything emotionally there was no feelings of physical things.

my system also followed the abusers code of ....do not tell... if I had complained as a child of having a head ache, migranes, stiff neck, looking different in mirrors my family and my friends family would have gotten me to a doctor for treatment of the problems simply because these things point to more serious physical problems like epilepsy, cancers and other major problems.

especially the vision problems schools do evaluations as children enter kindergarten, and other key moments in school. example if I had a vision problem under a triggering moment in school my parents would have been notified to take me to an eye doctor, I would have been sent to the school nurse to look at the eye chart and a quick check over to make sure nothing at school caused me to scratch my eyes or other eye problems...

my point for me DID isnt something that suddenly came on me one day. I became DID before the age of 5 due to extreme trauma/abuse. the problems listed above would have been there my whole life so there would have been many documentations with school, baby sitters, teachers, church others in the town I was raised in, medical doctors, past psychiatrists, past therapists ....since none of my reports document things like what is listed if I suddenly had it going on my treatment providers wouldnt be looking at dissociative, they would be looking at the physical.

in me there was no signs of my switching alters that others outside my body would notice like headaches migraines, complaints of perceptions....

what confuses me sometimes is the mirror thing. I know others have problems with looking in mirrors but i never did. I guess there just was too many reflective surfaces in my life to be able to avoid them. ...eating untensils, reflections on bodies of water (even a cup of milk will reflect my image back to me) right now I am looking at a big reflective surface my computer monitor. if mirrors bothered me I would not be able to use my computer, cell phone watch tv, get something from my fridge, cook my meals....theres just too many reflective surfaces in my life for me to be afraid of and avoid looking at. but I do understand that others may have a problem with mirrored surfaces.