Zoning out/Therapy?

I've been trying to figure out if my zoning out/spacing out/lethargy is from dissociation or me being weird. Don't know if it's good or bad if it's either.
I generally can't stay focused on conversations very long, especially if I'm stressed. When my depression wasn't being treated, along with my anxiety, I zoned out a lot during classes and talking to friends, and hardly kept it from being noticeable. A few times one of my friends who had classes with me had to come over and ask if I was okay because I'd been staring at a table for 5+ minutes. Other issues from zoning out too but it's more noticeble with social situations.
It happens most with therapy though. With my previous therapist, I only remember one time she fussed at me at the beginning of a session. It was because I didn't remember going to therapy the previous week at all and we had apparently done some mindfulness thing where I laid on the floor with breathing or something. Never could remember it. She was obsessed with getting me to learn mindfulness stuff. My depression got worse and I was almost always zoning out. Joked about being half asleep some. Rough few months.
With my current therapist, for a while I knew generally what we did but when we started talking about trauma I was having breakdowns and not really remembering the sessions. Had another breakdown at home and refused to go to a session because of stress from it. We've not gone over much at once since then and I haven't had issues going either. Also able to remember what we did somewhat.
I know the blocking out with therapy happens when I get really tired suddenly and I'm just responding with "okay", "yeah", "not really". I think she notices it but she's never said anything. Kind of scared to ask her about it because it probably means talking about trauma and figuring out how I respond to it and yeah I'm not okay with it. It was only a few months ago I got to switch over to just talking about depression and anxiety instead of trauma stuff.
I just know for sure it makes me sleepy but I don't fall asleep from it. Is this considered dissociation or is it supposed to be called something else?

Im sorry but I cant help you figure out if this is dissociation in you or what you call "being weird"

what I can tell you is that this kind of thing happens to me due to many different problems...

in me sometimes its called medication side effects, MS (a physical health problem) symptom, my depression, my bipolar disorder, my Acute stress disorder, sleep deprivation....

gosh I could go on and on about all the stuff that causes me the same problems.

the spacing off during therapy i take with me a textured item that I made. I took a kids wooden block. on one side I glued some sandpaper, another a piece of furry fabric, another beads, another side I put a gel filled square and the other two sizes had raised alphabet letters that came on the blocks. when ever I start feeling spacey I feel the various sides of the block. this is a grounding technique my treatment provider and I came up with that works for me..

my suggestion talk with your treatment provider, maybe they can help you to develop a grounding tool that will work for you.

Yes, zoning out is most definitely a type of dissociation. I have experienced the same thing in similar situations as well.
Your t really should be mindful of these signs of dissociation and what is triggering it. It means that you are protecting yourself and not ready for the emotional content or memories that are being activated. It is also completely understandable that this happened during body/breathing work. We hold trauma memories in the body. It is best to go slowly in therapy--it's not very helpful at all if it destabilizes you or causes you anxiety and depression. Isn't therapy supposed to improve functionality and quality of life?
This is a lesson I learned from my current therapist. I am doing so much better than with the last one. My last t moved so fast and worked with some super traumatic material right away. The result was that I became unable to manage my life and my symptoms, I started drinking... It was bad. But I just went with it because I didn't know better.
I encourage you to find a way to communicate with your therapist about your dissociative symptoms and even inquire what training she has received in working with dissociative disorders. It looks like she is not recognizing what is happening to you and not responding.

I am glad that your t backed off from trauma work. That is a good thing for now.

zoning out for me is different than dissociation. it can be from being too tired, too warm, hungry, etc. but just affects my focus more than anything. i am still present but just feel kind of out of it. it's also where i'm thinking about other things, my mind drifts to thoughts of random things, etc. it is more like daydreaming or being bored, that type of lack of focus.

dissociation is way different than that. i have many variations of it, but it is just not at all the same. it doesn't involve daydreaming or thinking of other things in that kind of way. i am way more removed from my body/self and external reality/situations going on around me. it also gets hard to know what i feel or think and can be difficult to move and even to talk even if i want to. it is frustrating and scary for me when it happens no matter where/when it happens.

If you are experiencing amnesia and trance states in sessions when you discuss trauma I think there is a very high chance that it is due to dissociation. Can you talk about it with your therapist?

I don't really know how to bring it up because it was a few months ago since we switched to just discussing depression and anxiety, I don't know if I'll be able to bring it up at all because of the fear of having to do trauma work again. I don't think there's a way to do anything with it without discussing trauma is there?
My meds have a "rare" occurrence to cause depersonalization and derealisation respectively and not really concentration? I don't think they cause it because of how random it is, while I take the medicine at regimented times...
I don't think it's daydreaming because I think the one time I did was when I was processing all the ways a car crash could occur as my mom was driving into the interstate... and I don't feel anything when I zone out, rare if I think about anything
It just feels random to bring up the stuff from months ago now... plus if it is talking about trauma that causes it, therapy would go back to being an issue again :/

I have found that its not so hard to talk about dissociation and not talk about the trauma's, dissociation is one of those things that can happen in any number of normal, mental and physical health problems, knowing this allowed me to be able to address my dissociation problems with out having to rehash all the trauma's that my treatment providers and I were not working on at that moment.

how did I do it? here's an example using your post...

me... I am having a problem feeling like I have dissociation problems when I am stressed out, when my depression increases, during therapy and its more notice able during social situations, can you help me?

Therapist... sure there are many different grounding techniques I can teach you, first tell what you call dissociation and when does those feeling happen.

me... I feel this way and that way when I am stressed out I have tried this or that but it hasnt worked ...

see what I mean. since dissociation happens even to normal people in normal situations its pretty easy for me to not talk about actual traumatic events while at the same time getting my needs met on addressing my dissociation problems.

my treatment providers have a saying... "if it bothers you its worth bringing up, thats what I'm here for" I follow that by bringing up what bothers me even if at the moment our therapy work is on something else. sometimes it is worth it to veer off course of scheduled topics to address immediate concerns in me.

Commented on therapist's anger from the poster above,

As a person influenced by many therapist, this could mean lost of income, you might search legal options, it could mean lost of therapist, and plenty of argument. All of this mean she/he is thinking ahead from experience it pains her that all of the work is not working.

She might be okay with phone's recording device if it getting really distressing, only thing is she might not want her/him's voice recorded. In the literal sense not as alter/introject. Will you suggest to allow the therapist to throw you a few hints and booby-traps to ensure that you remember session week to week.

Wow....I was just about to write a theead about zoning or spacing out because I do it a lot, too.

This is something that I've always done since forever, so it rules out medication side effects and such. I would say so....I dissociate from the present...or withdrew....thinking is too difficult, life is difficult when I was younger (35 years off).

Today...we zone out because the Others "borrow" the conscious to think without taking body control which puts us in a daze.

I always thought it was intense concentration because of the fury in which I thought...but it's now actually some of us heavily inner communicating that we pull away from the senses.