questions: dissociative disorders version #2

The most useful thing that I'm in the process of learning, is how to recognize when I am about to be hijacked, and how to stop it, or at least stay co conscious with it.

I'm not very good at it, on my own right now, but hopefully I will get better!

Can you feel yourself slipping away and make a decision to stay co conscious with another part of you?

My therapist is good at notcing when I start to disappear and sometimes she can help me stay grounded. On my own I am not very good yet. Sometimes I get stuck in that limbo place... I am all fuzzy and numb and go into trance and can't move and I know i am there but can't pull myself out.
Sometimes that place feels better than what is happening around me anyway.

I want to ask the same question again.

no not really.

I just can't do that.

it's why so much time is lost and so often

(it really sucks!)

do you know anyone else in real life (not on forums or websites) with DID?

I think my father has DID but he hasn't been diagnosed.

Do you lose time a lot? How do you know? (I think I lose more time than I know about)

sometimes more than others

sometimes I find out because of the consequences of doing things I don't remember later, or people I've never met claiming they know me, or all the sudden it's a different day or week or month. posting on here seems to help with the time continuity. I seem to be able to post here no matter what. if I'm losing time I can sometimes read what I wrote here and figure out what happened.

other times I find out because I've learned through T that when I am feeling a lot of physical pain, I'm usually dissociating or in a certain alter. so if I am having a lot of unexplained pain, I can figure out what's up and then I don't "lose the time" per se.

still other times I'm losing time but still co-conscious. this is a weird one. I can feel myself stuck and frozen, and I know I will forget later, and I keep telling myself not to forget, to remember this feeling and this frozenness... and later on I remember not really what happened, but I do remember being frozen in time for hours and hours.

before the diagnosis I just thought I was spacey and had a terrible memory.

what is your favorite thing to think about? like if you had a moment right now to let your mind wander to something nice, what is the thing that comes up?

Urrrrgh! My therapist!!
That was surprising but also not surprising. I have a lot on my plate to take care of right now and don't feel like I get enough time to process the therapy things so it makes sense I suppose. I wouldn't say its my favorite thing to think about but i am driven to think abut it.
What is one thing you are grateful for?

A family before all of this mental illness started! I'm grateful for that.


What is the best coping method when home alone?

I practice the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding method a lot. It helps me get by day to day.

Have you worked with anyone that specializes in dissociative disorders or trauma? Was the experience any different than working with other mental health professionals?

My therapist is trained in trauma but not did. I am changing therapists soon because my current one is pregnant and my t told me the next one has training in did but she isn't a specialist.
I will ask the same question again.

My therapist is trained in trauma and DID. She totally gets it, respects everyone in this brain equally, and understands the importance of stabilization as the first goal in therapy. She is helping us learn how to communicate and develop skills to keep us from falling down the memory rabbit hole.
Previous therapists either gave me a lot of useless pep-talks, or made us process memories when we were not ready and too fast, destabilizing us.
Same question.

I am fortunate to have found a therapist who deals with PTSD abuse and DID. It's been two months now and we're starting to get into it. She is my 4th therapist but the first to actually get it.
I stopped taking others opinions and found the one that's right for me.

new question:

did you do anything for the 4th of july?. do you even celebrate it

No we don't celebrate it in my country. When do you next see your therapist?

meant to be friday, but she's not going to be able to do the session.

so probably the following week.

has a therapist ever been rude to you?

Not all-out rude, no-- there have been misunderstandings or inconsiderate statements, and then physical "rudeness," one of them burps and farts a lot but I think he can't help it...

What is your favorite thing to drink?

doctor pepper that has just been in the fridge.

yum!. (so cooling!)

question:
if you could live 1 day on the wild side, knowing that the next morning you'll wake up and it never affected you (so like the guy in groundhog day), what would you do?

I would confront my family about all the abuse to see how that all turned out.
If you could go anywhere in the world where would you go?

disney land.

I'd like to go to the florida one and the california one, so I could meet mickey mouse and do well.. disney related type stuff.

is their a part of your life that you wish you could remember, but you don't?

Yes. I have some lost years in adulthood I am trying to fill in. Flashes of memory have been coming back in the last few weeks. Not traumatic memories, just every day things. Those years have been a complete blank.
Do you have contact with your abusers still?

sadly, yes.

even though we don't live in the same area, we do still have some contact



question: how open are you when it comes to talking about your abuse?

I am open to talking about it with my counselor. Now so, more than when I first started meeting with him. This past Monday, I brought out some very hard things that I've never spoken to with anyone. I trust him.

As far as anyone else, I have shared a few things with a friend who I've been friends with for a very long time. I wished after I told her, that I hadn't. She has no empathy and her reaction to what I shared with her (to me) was almost as bad as the abuse I told her about.

My counselor is the only person I feel completely safe with as far as being open about the abuse I've experienced.

Question:
Is there a "warning sign" for you, before you shift/dissociate?

I get a feeling like I am falling back inside myself, in my physical body. But by then its usually too late anyway!
Trailrunner I once told a long time friend and her response made me feel the same way as you. I don't tell people anymore.

Do you have a child or children? If not, would you ever want to have children?

That's kind of what it feels like to me too. Sometimes. It's a sliding scale of how intense it is and how it happens.

Thank you for acknowledging my experience with my friend. It gives me comfort to know I'm not being over sensitive.

Question:
If you do feel the warning sign, do you have success in stopping the hijacking?

Haha! I've never had much success in stopping a hijacking. It's like falling asleep at the wheel--your brain turns off before your eyes actually close. Usually it's so smooth I don't even notice. I keep seeing (usually) but I don't have my own mind. At best I'll be telling myself not to do such-and-such. If I have warning signs it's a sudden splitting headache and get dizzy, and an upset stomach. I've felt like I'm sinking back into my head, too. But usually if I feel these things I have too much of a grip on the front for a solid hijacking, and there will be a struggle or some kind of communication if I'm lucky. Someone is laughing. Apparently I have too much confidence in my ability to stay forward. Here's the headache.
Anyway...
Question: same one.