Surviving without an alternate reality?

I feel pain at the thought I might not have it anymore.

CalmingOcean, I sent you a PM.

Thanks Bluekoi, I will check it out. I almost forgot I wrote this yesterday. I had to search a few forum possibilities of where I could of wrote it... Bad day yesterday. Funny, it should of been such a happy day- everyone was telling me 'oh nothing but good news!' I was really frustrated I couldn't feel that on the inside.

Calming Ocean, if I were you I wouldn't worry too much...at least in my experience the alternate reality doesn't go away easily at all. I've never stopped being dissociative, even after many years of therapy and meds...and I've never known anyone who is dissociative completely lose that place. I've come to believe that once someone has experienced dissociation s/he can never return to "normal".

Can you clarify that a bit?

calmingocean I waited to replyy because Im not sure what you mean by alternate reality....here where I live an alternate reality is when someone is hallucinating something that isnt real...

example when my meds are off track I have hallucinations/delusions about living in an alien world vs the real world. one second I am eating breakfast with my wife and the next Im taking a walk on my alien planet, everything I see around me is alien to me. then Im back and my wife is staring at me saying Amanda why are you putting peanut butter on your arm. I explain to her I thought it was a jar of Smudgel (alien soap?) She laughs and says welcome back to earth how about scheduling with the psychiatrist for meds adjustment.

for me this is not a dissociative symptom, its part of my psychosis with bipolar disorder.

Am I right in guessing this may not be what you mean? could you please clarify what you mean by alternate reality?

Oh goodness! Tho a funny story my alternate reality is nothing like yours and nothing to do with psychosis, it's all in my head. Nuts the place I go when I guess I don't want to be 'here'. It's not a meeting place for all my 'parts' (I read that somewhere that DID peeps sometimes have this where they converse with there other parts- that's not what I mean) just a different world, my world, where sometimes even if ****** things happen (maybe mirroring the trauma who the heck knows) I still conquer and come out victorious. Ummmm I guess taking daydreaming to the extreme perhaps. Then others are where people know me, and I can talk to them and I don't know, it just feels good going there. Or sometimes, it's just darkness, and I am just floating... In the water, in the dark haha. It's peaceful. Anyways, T doesn't want me to have these places because as it turns out I tend to spend more time there than in the 'real world' (tho I think since having my son it's less the alternate world and more mindless dissociation I think). Anyways, I have to learn to live in the moment or whatever.

I see so you mean like a therapy approach here in NY where therapists teach their clients how to visualize a place in their mind, where they can feel safe, calm, relax, my place of relaxation is a cabin in the woods next to a lake. my therapist and I put it together and then I expanded on it to include my alters if they chose to use this place in my mind. Im integrated (all my alters have merged/joined with me so that Im now one whole person) but I still use this mental place for relaxation, stress control, Anxiety control....

my point is just because you are healing doesnt mean you have to give this favorite place of your up. you can continue to use it just for a different reason then for dissociating.

Well, I mean that many times we fear going into therapy and losing our ability to dissociate. But in my experience (with myself and others I've been in groups with), when you have the tendency to dissociate it becomes a part of who you are, a part of your very being, and you don't lose it.

I can't quite picture ever not doing it... I really didn't even know it was a 'thing' until my first meeting with my trauma T... I would like to not do it so much and maybe be able to face reality a little more haha. But yeah, don't want to loose it completely.

Yes. I feel as you do.

Do what? Wait... Huh, I'm confused.

life is change , and its ok really....things don't have to be black and white, I used to have a lot of trouble stopping myself from tuning out , then I cold turkeyed myself....believing through force of will I could fix what was
*wrong ** with me... and well ........... it just made me rather sad all in all...but I know now theres a mid way point at least for me..i can reason that yes its good to be there and do that....but my list of things to do has to be attended to....and once I have I can go....and I discovered ....when ive done my list of things I often don't want to slip off anymore......that its a less seductive option..... its not gone....just different

Wow... Thank you, that does make sense. I guess it is the living in the moment I am having a hard time with, and then I get frustrated which makes it worse for me to go off :/ kinda a stupid cycle really.

But yeah I like what you say. Basically once you work on accomplishing goals it will be reward enough to want to stay... Just hard to believe something could be that easy... I thoughts son would be the thing to make me want to 'stay'. Turns out he is just the thing making me not want to check out completely..