Ranting?

So just to start: I am seeing a therapist, trying to sort out potential subtle mental and emotional abuse throughout childhood, constant life-long struggle with self-harm, depression, fits of anger.

Okay, I'm a little confused and frustrated when it comes to dissociation. It's something I have commonly experienced throughout most of my life. When I'm experiencing less of it I have trouble remembering or recognizing instances where I am experiencing dissociation. Since I've learned practices of mindfulness to deal with self-harm, stress, and depression the dissociative moments seem significantly less intense. I've even learned how to deal with shifts in identity where I felt like 'not-me' but experienced everything feeling like I had no choice in anything.

I explored info on DID a long time ago, but have generally decided that it doesn't fit my case and I try to stray as much away from self-diagnosis as I can and just incorporate the information for coping. So I get a little frustrated when I try to look up dissociation and most of the topics are on DID. I've struggled with hearing voices and feeling like some 'other' was in control, but that largely has impacted me in moments of extreme stress, depression, anger, or when alone and every other stress catches up. Unless the voices are excessively intrusive, aggressive, loud, or it influences my behavior I really see them as positive guides and I tend to think cope well with the general benign experience.

Here's another confusing factor: A lot of the other resources relate to trauma when it comes to dissociation... I feel the only impacting trauma that might have catered to my dissociation was the domestic abuse and yelling between my parents that drove them to divorce when I was 3 yrs old. After that they would yell and argue on the phone or the every-other-weekend trade off which I think eventually conditioned me to have a hypersensitivity to loud noises, terse tones of voice, and conflict. I've gotten significantly better at dealing with the fright, dissociation, and freezing that occurs with loud noises, or upset-sounding people in the past 5 years.

What I really want is to just understand dissociation, how it manifests, and what levels are generally considered healthy for an individual or not. I don't feel like it has largely impaired my experiences, but it has been uncomfortable and added unnecessary stress. How would I potentially explore this area with a therapist, and how do I recognize when I'm in a dissociative state that's impairing me but not severe enough to notice?

these are hard questions...mainly because dissociation isnt something that is one way for everyone....

how it "manifests" in each person is different. example one person many feel spacey, and another may feel numb, another may feel detached, another may feel other ways....

what levels are considered to be healthy for an individual or not...again its not one way for everyone..example....it may be normal for one person to feel spacey or numb and not normal for another...what makes dissociation healthy in one person and not in another is the persons own body, life, health issues, medications, how much sleep they get, whether they are eating the way they should for their own body and many more individual factors go into it. it other factors are taken into consideration too like whether the dissociation adversely affects the person and how/why...

how would you potentially explore this area with your therapist...people explore their mental isseus by scheduling an appointment and talking with their therapist about things that bother them just like you would for example if your finger hurts or you have a cold..you tell them your problem and how it is affecting you, then they ask you questions that help narrow down things like how often you have this problem, what happens when you have this problems, what triggers the problem then they help you find ways to feel better.

how do you recognize when you're in a dissociative state that's impairing you but not severe enough to notice? you work with your therapist on discovering how you dissociate and why, once you know that then you work on how to solve those problems so that you dont dissociate so much any more....

example you said you have worked on mindfulness and that has made your dissociation less intense...well think about it for a moment....how do you know your dissociation is less intense....by knowing what your dissociation symptoms are and you notice the intensity of having those symptoms have lessened.

you have already answered your own question...if you didnt know how to recognize when you are dissociated then you would not have noticed the intensity has lessened...

as for the dissociative states part of the question...well hate to tell you this but some people never have the ability to know when they are in a dissociative state...others do have this ability...kind of like some people can recognize when they are in a manic state of mind with their bipolar disorder and others cant, some people end up with rash decision making, massively in debt before they have realized they are manic...another example some people dont realize when they are depressed, some people end up attempting suicide before realizing they are suicidal...another example some people dont realize they need corrective lenses until they have gone to a doctor and had a physical and the doctor tells them they need glasses....

..its all about how well you know and understand your own body and how your mental disorder affects you. some people know enough to know when they are having subtle dissociative issues, including being in dissociative states of mind and others dont.

since you already use mindfulness and already know some of the ways dissociation has affected your life then you are well on your way to healing and working out this problem too.

just continue working with your treatment providers and you will continue to fell better and be able to know and understand your body to the point where you will be able to see better how dissociation is affecting you and your life when you are in a dissociative state of mind.

as for you being able to find dissociation that does not pertain to DID, my suggestion is look for non DID issues where dissociation is a part of that...example depression ...people with depression have dissociative issues that do not pertain to DID, or are not as severe as DID, so does depersonalization, derealization, PTSD, and any other mental issues that you may have.

in general dissociation is a cover all term for things like feeling numb, spacey, unconnected in some way..there are many levels and what those levels are varies from person to person..

there is a way to find out what your level of dissociation is and whether its normal for you or not...you can get diagnostic evaluations...this includes things like an exam with your medical doctor, getting any tests your doctor may feel may be causing your problems, a psychiatric evaluation which is talking with a psychiatrist and doing tests with them. then after everything is done the treatment providers will tell you what your dissociation level is and whether thats a normal level for you, based on your life, medical and mental health history and the results of the tests you were given.

Thank you so much for taking the time to write such a detailed message, it really was helpful for me. Especially in realizing that I do have a lot of the answers for myself already. I realized that it might also be important not to stress over my dissociative states from the past. It's going to be hard to get answers for those, and maybe it's more important to focus on the improvements I've already made and continue working on those.

I guess sometimes I'm just a little scared that I'll slip back into really dangerous dissociative states even though it's been a while, especially if I don't understand what caused them or why.

Thank you