Do you think dissociation encourages “rainbows and butterfly” thinking?

Another curious question.

I’m realizing that I’ve never really felt like a grown up. I’m actually 53 and in a way, I hope I never feel like a grown up.

Facts and hard line truth are hard for me to resign myself to. They are extremely hard for me to stand behind and back up. Boundaries are such a foreign concept to me.

I think, in a way, that has helped me hold myself together.

Ya know, believing for the good.

It’s gotten me in some not so good places, believing that everyone is good and thinking the best of them from the beginning.

Then.

Reality comes falling down on me.

There’s a little one that eventually finds me and brings their idea of our world back to me.

I’m good until it replays and I have to deal with life in a way that I don’t want to see it.

Growing up I wanted to have the picture book family. That was completely not the case.

Got married and I decided that I would make it happen. Again, that was not the case as hard as I tried to make it so.

I can look back and see that I was ignoring facts and hard line truth and choosing to not see it.

I just kept pushing myself and trying to create what I saw in my mind. In my heart.

I do know that I was not “me” in those places, choosing to ignore facts and truth.

I’ve shared some of the hard stuff recently here on PC and I know that if it was someone else they would have jumped this boat a long time ago.

I guess I just wonder if the dissociation of escaping bad places and also putting myself in better places plays into this.

I was curious if anyone else has ever considered this.

Thank you for hearing me.

Trail.

The short answer - yes.
It is so easy to not see the whole picture. It's so easy to only see the part of the picture that fits with what I want to see. My dissociation has kept me in a place for many years where I really should not be.

Thank you for your honest truth.

The real world scares me but I want to grow a part of me into it.

A part that can relate to to it and still keep “me” safe.

I have the "child-like" way of thinking too sometimes like assuming that people are of the belief that God is real or that they love God because they say his name in a nice or respectable way or call out to him in times of stress then, find out later that that isn't the case at all and then, it hurts and makes me feel hopeless. I have felt similar feelings over other behaviors, mannerisms and words used by others only to find later that I was way off. I had arrived at the conclusion since then that I was just ignorant and had never had things explained to me properly as I grew up which is true in part because I was just treated by my family like I was supposed to know things automatically without being told which brought me to the conclusion that I have no common sense. This too is true in a way. Stuff that everyone else just 'gets' immediately has to be explained to me in great detail sometimes in order for me to understand. Sometimes I tell people to explain what something means as though they were talking to a dummy or a child so, that I will 'get' it.
I never considered that this may be part of a mental problem though.
Interesting. Learn something every day I guess.

I'd encourage it, if you were're fat it would be an ideal escape folks won't complain about that much.

No, because I tend toward realism or pessimism. I tend to be rather literal in my thinking, as well. So no rainbows or butterflies for me. Most often ambivalence, and occasionally despair.

Not sure how to respond. I'm kinda torn on this one. I have an autism spectrum disorder so it's not uncommon for me to miss subtleties that other people would see with ease. Well, I miss huge things as well, but yeah... I can be oblivious to a lot of things. Then there is the whole learned helplessness thing I have going on which has me playing the part of an avoidant or oh enabler type. I know over the years I have put myself in crappy situations because I didn't know I deserved better, I expected no better, and I settled for things because 'it could be worse'. I totally distract when I do things like that. But it's not so much dissociation related for me, abuse related, oh yeah, with a mix of autie based naivety for sure (it's common for some people on the spectrum to seem childlike/immature). That said, I also tend to wear my pessimist hat but I like to pawn it off as a realistic one. I'm always bracing for the worst and trying to not dare to hope for better.

There was a book the SO guy I have was reading... about children who went through trauma and I remember one boy in that book, he ended up in foster care and even though he was like five or seven or something, he behaved like a two or three year old. The foster mom was a champ about him and treated him like the baby because she said he was wanting that so he had to need it. The guy psych guy who wrote the book went on to talk about how children who have early abuse don't get needs met at specific stages in development so they regress or get stuck until those needs at those stages get met. I'm no child psych person for sure, but from what I have noticed over the years from people who have rotten childhoods is that the bulk of them are either hyper mature and controlled, or almost like children/teens trying to live in an adult world. Not that they run around playing with legos all day, but they just miss the subtleties that other adults seem to see and know how to navigate.

I said a lot... sorry... short of it is yeah, I know dissociation plays a part in me acting/living like I'm some weird child/teenage thing instead of a 40yr old, but it also goes a lot deeper than that for me.

-Avery

Thank you for this!

It’s got me thinking.

The oldest part of me that I feel is 12 (a mature 12) and some younger parts. It feels like I slide between them. Those are the parts that are hurt by people when I trust or expect good from them.

It feels like those are the parts that have emotions and feel the hurt or disappointment.

I have some other parts that do life but they don’t have a lot of emotions.

So I’m wondering if my emotions are on a child’s level. If that’s the case, it would make sense why I am so wounded and hurt by things that other people would just let go and forget.

Words of anger “physically” hurt me. I can feel the hurt of them in my core. I don’t have the words to describe it.

fille folle, you and one we have in here that I'll call "MD" would get along great.

L.P., you sound a lot like Dan when he's being all logical and stuff. He has the immature, child-like qualities which in a way make him easy to talk to and be friendly to others but, he is also oblivious to subtleties. He does however have a mature, logical side or it's quite possible that the friendly one is really child Dan and the logical one adult Dan. Everyone in here hasn't been named or categorized yet so, sometimes we aren't sure who we are at all unless we take a step back and stop to consider it by monitoring our thought processes and feelings. I just want to say "thank you" to my nameless protector. I'm back and feeling confident again. At least to a degree. I'll have to name him sometime to show my gratitude and to help keep everything remembered properly and in order. I feel alright. What the protector said about me and child Dan. "Yes" we are all logical and child Dan is very trusting when he isn't afraid of something or someone. I have struggled to keep him in the middle of the mind, behind walls or barriers where he is safe. We all have. I still don't know what all happened to him but, it must've been pretty bad. Sometimes it's as if we can almost get a glimpse of something but, it's too repulsive to want to remember so, it must've been pretty sick whatever it was.
But, to stay on topic, we do have that childlike thing going on that sometimes leads us in to situations that aren't always comfortable. It's kind of like a child, wandering through a department store and getting lost and then, not knowing what to do about it.