[insertname]

So every time I get sick of the way I feel - kind of like I'm stuck in limbo - I end up Googling the way it feels and every time I come up on pages about dissociation.

I don't think I actually have a dissociative disorder, though, I just seem to have dissociative symptoms. The problem is, they just seem so complicated and so difficult to change, I'm giving up on hope that I'll ever be normal.

Here's how I feel:
- Internal Chaos Like there's constant chaos inside - not like barrelling emotions (although I've had that a couple of times before) - more of a 'searching' feeling, like my thoughts are everywhere
- Identity confusion Like my inner dialogue is constantly trying to create sense or structure or reaffirm who or what I am - a kind of obsessive sense of trying to figure out my own identity and come to some kind of satisfactory conclusion. But I don't have the identity diffusion I've read about BPDers experiencing where they don't have consistent goals/attitudes/values etc. - I've always known what I want to do with my life and that hasn't changed - I work towards goals, have always been driven that way - I know what my values and opinions are and can hold my own in a friendly debate (so I guess I feel sure of myself in that way). There are also quite a lot of personality/characteristics that are consistent. It's more like even if I think about all the characteristics I possess, I still feel like I haven't got to the bottom of who I am somehow. I get obsessed with psychological theories or theories of personality, trying to work out where I fit.
- Incoherent sense of history My life seems incoherent to me. It feels cut up into different blocks - eras/periods - which are marked by what diagnosis I had at the time, or something similar, and I often get the unsettling feeling that I was not the same person all the way through. When I look back on diary entries, however, I can read 'my voice' in it. I seem like the same person in the way that I write and the things I say/the things I care about. It's just like when I look back it doesn't seem like me, or I find it difficult to relate. It often feels like everything that has happened in my life has actually happened to another person, or that I keep on changing the person that I am - although there is no rational reason to believe this, as there is evidence of consistency. This makes me feel very groundless and like there's nothing to fall back on. I sort of feeling like I'm just freefalling through space all the time.
- Some 'true' dissociative experiences Apparently I don't remember things that have happened to me that might be described as mildly traumatic. People tell me they happened - and not at a young age, when I was a teenager - and I have no memory. Or sometimes I can remember the start of something significant but I can't remember what actually happened, I just know something significant happened and the memory has been completely erased and I can't seem to recover it. I just have no idea what happened. I used to have quite bad dissociative attacks as well - either suddenly feeling like both I and the world are not real and panicking - or suddenly falling down and going blank, and the world seeming unrelevant. When this happened, others used to think I was unconscious, but I wasn't. I could hear what was going on around me, I just had this feeling like none of it mattered and was so 'out of it' it didn't really occur to me to move or speak or show any signs of life. It was like what was happening around me was on TV or something.

What I could really do with is some hope. I want to know I can end this and feel differently. I don't feel really bad - there isn't a lot of pain or anything - I just feel hopeless and lost and disconnected.

Does anyone relate and can you provide some hope please that I can get to grips with this and change it?

[amandalouise]

Originally Posted by insertname

So every time I get sick of the way I feel - kind of like I'm stuck in limbo - I end up Googling the way it feels and every time I come up on pages about dissociation.

I don't think I actually have a dissociative disorder, though, I just seem to have dissociative symptoms. The problem is, they just seem so complicated and so difficult to change, I'm giving up on hope that I'll ever be normal.

Here's how I feel:
- Internal Chaos Like there's constant chaos inside - not like barrelling emotions (although I've had that a couple of times before) - more of a 'searching' feeling, like my thoughts are everywhere
- Identity confusion Like my inner dialogue is constantly trying to create sense or structure or reaffirm who or what I am - a kind of obsessive sense of trying to figure out my own identity and come to some kind of satisfactory conclusion. But I don't have the identity diffusion I've read about BPDers experiencing where they don't have consistent goals/attitudes/values etc. - I've always known what I want to do with my life and that hasn't changed - I work towards goals, have always been driven that way - I know what my values and opinions are and can hold my own in a friendly debate (so I guess I feel sure of myself in that way). There are also quite a lot of personality/characteristics that are consistent. It's more like even if I think about all the characteristics I possess, I still feel like I haven't got to the bottom of who I am somehow. I get obsessed with psychological theories or theories of personality, trying to work out where I fit.
- Incoherent sense of history My life seems incoherent to me. It feels cut up into different blocks - eras/periods - which are marked by what diagnosis I had at the time, or something similar, and I often get the unsettling feeling that I was not the same person all the way through. When I look back on diary entries, however, I can read 'my voice' in it. I seem like the same person in the way that I write and the things I say/the things I care about. It's just like when I look back it doesn't seem like me, or I find it difficult to relate. It often feels like everything that has happened in my life has actually happened to another person, or that I keep on changing the person that I am - although there is no rational reason to believe this, as there is evidence of consistency. This makes me feel very groundless and like there's nothing to fall back on. I sort of feeling like I'm just freefalling through space all the time.
- Some 'true' dissociative experiences Apparently I don't remember things that have happened to me that might be described as mildly traumatic. People tell me they happened - and not at a young age, when I was a teenager - and I have no memory. Or sometimes I can remember the start of something significant but I can't remember what actually happened, I just know something significant happened and the memory has been completely erased and I can't seem to recover it. I just have no idea what happened. I used to have quite bad dissociative attacks as well - either suddenly feeling like both I and the world are not real and panicking - or suddenly falling down and going blank, and the world seeming unrelevant. When this happened, others used to think I was unconscious, but I wasn't. I could hear what was going on around me, I just had this feeling like none of it mattered and was so 'out of it' it didn't really occur to me to move or speak or show any signs of life. It was like what was happening around me was on TV or something.

What I could really do with is some hope. I want to know I can end this and feel differently. I don't feel really bad - there isn't a lot of pain or anything - I just feel hopeless and lost and disconnected.

Does anyone relate and can you provide some hope please that I can get to grips with this and change it?

maybe this will help....

in general dissociation is things like shutting down, not feeling, feeling numb, feeling spacy.

in general with DID internal chaos means the alternate personalities are talking/arguing/trying to go their separate ways.

in general with dissociative disorders there is very little identity confusion for the alters because dissociative alters have their own identity (what their job, purpose , reason for being is, they know the difference between each other and interact with the world according to what their job, purpose reason for being is)

the identity confusion that the host (in this case by host I mean the body person/person born to the physical body, not those that live with in the body) are things like knowing they are not their alters, looking in a mirror and for a fleeting second being surprised by how they look, not sure of who they are,

what you call incoherent sense of history is different then what you posted for dissociative disorders. people with DID for example have massive /structured memory loss (dissociative amnesia) surrounding triggering events, events in their daily and long term life that they have dissociated. the memories are not gone they are just blocked/shut off until they are healed enough to deal with those memories.

as for true dissociative events....here where I live every dissociative event is a true one (unles someone is faking having dissociative symptoms, in which case they are diagnosed not with a dissociative disorder but a ficticious disorder according to a culmination of all their symptoms,

In general every human being has times when they dissociate, its just how the human brain works. whether your dissociative events goes beyond the normal levels of dissociation, only a treatment provider can say that with diagnostic evaluations.

my suggestion is contact a mental health treatment provider, they will be able to diagnose and treat your problems so that you can as you say end this , get a grip on it, change it. they are the only ones that can help you do that.

[insertname]

Hi - I was diagnosed with dissociative tendencies. I definitely don't have DID, sorry if it looked like I was saying I had DID, I meant that my coping strategy is dissociation and I appear to just keep doing it without meaning to. It's a little like my history disappears behind me, like all of my memories are blurred and I have dreamed my life. Essentially, I am held at a slight distance all the time.

I was diagnosed with depersonalisation/derealisation and my therapist suggested dissociation is my main coping strategy. Unfortunately, there have been times when it has led to significant disruption to my life, but nowadays it just leaves me feeling a constant sense of confusion because it feels like nothing that has happened has actually happened and nothing is ever quite real.

I'm seeing a person-centred counsellor and a CBT specialist but I guess I was getting frustrated. It's ok, I'll just take it my therapists.

[amandalouise]

Originally Posted by insertname

Hi - I was diagnosed with dissociative tendencies. I definitely don't have DID, sorry if it looked like I was saying I had DID, I meant that my coping strategy is dissociation and I appear to just keep doing it without meaning to. It's a little like my history disappears behind me, like all of my memories are blurred and I have dreamed my life. Essentially, I am held at a slight distance all the time.

I was diagnosed with depersonalisation/derealisation and my therapist suggested dissociation is my main coping strategy. Unfortunately, there have been times when it has led to significant disruption to my life, but nowadays it just leaves me feeling a constant sense of confusion because it feels like nothing that has happened has actually happened and nothing is ever quite real.

I'm seeing a person-centred counsellor and a CBT specialist but I guess I was getting frustrated. It's ok, I'll just take it my therapists.

Yes I understand you were not saying you had DID I was using DID as an example to explain what the terms meant here in my location. yes your treatment provider is the best person to go to. all we do here is tell each other our stories and sometimes problems, then those that may have the same problems reply back what its like their their self and sometimes make suggestions that have helped them that may help others. online we dont get to do all the things a treatment provider can do for you. what helps me when i have my depersonalization\derealization problems is take my canoe out on the lake, or other physical get in touch with myself and nature things...