Dissociation due to trauma (apparently)

I would often ask myself questions. What if I did not have childhood trauma? What if I’m making a big deal out of it. My mother is 56 years old. I do not blame her. Everyone thinks it’s menopause. When does menopause begin? Who knows. But I am sure that someone like her cannot be going through menopause when she is younger than 45 years old. How would I know? I’m not a doctor. People wonder, why would I leave college for such a small thing? My mother told her cousins that I left college cause I got bullied for not knowing the local language. False. I speak it, I read it, I write it. Okay, agreed, what if I really did get bullied? Jail. Nowadays, ragging leads to jail. There is no escape. No one can bully you. It is a punishable offence. And I would just report them to the authorities instead of bearing it. There are so many students. I can make new friends, I can set boundaries and simply ignore people, bullies hate to be ignored. As long as my personal mindset is cleared, it’s fine. Basically something that my mom or dad would teach me. I didn’t even tell my mother I made a new friend.
Then what really happened? Why did I get depressed? Why did I get panic attacks? Why drop out? Why be scared to write exams? Is it academic, is it social, why did I get depression?
My gym trainer said a young person like me getting depressed is surprising to him. Wow great. I am young and also am depressed. What are you gonna do about it. After many days, I realised, it was a flashback. A panic attack is like a flashback. Negative thoughts, gasping for breath, crying…
I realised this yesterday. Denial is a terrible opponent. Denial is like a scar that pretends it’s not there. What power it holds over us. “No I’m fine! I was never hurt when I was young. Oh, you’re saying that wailing for your mom only for it to fall on deaf ears is considered negligent? Yeah so what, it happens to everyone!”
I’m gonna go read about it. Bye.

I'm sorry for your suffering.

If you are still living in the abusive situation, can you find other better living arrangements?

Try making a list of things that make you happy.

And do those things.

You need to find ways to distract yourself from obsessive overthinking. You are clearly a highly intelligent person, but overthinking could be your Achilles heel.

And try grounding exercises ... concentrate on smelling a nice scent, close your eyes and identify a sound... look at an object and describe it with 3 qualities eg. a light on the ceiling (round, bright, has a warm glow).

I hope that helps you.

Do you have a psychologist you can talk to? It would be good if you do.

I am sorry you are having a hard time. my post may appear to be very long. its because I have added some links and because I have added spaces.

if this was me my therapist would be asking me how all these individual issues from your post have to do with my dissociative disorder, dissociative symptoms, dissociation problems -

mothers health issues of menopause,
questioning, denial, intrusive obsessive thoughts
depression,
anxiety
leaving school because of bullying

Intrusive obsessive thoughts can be completely normal, even normal people have intrusive obsessive thoughts. or the intrusive obsessive thoughts can come with just about every mental and physical health problem, condition and disorder.

so before my therapist can consider this a dissociative issue, she would ask me questions to find out details that only I can give her on how these obsessive intrusive thoughts are connected to my dissociative issues.

you know all the personal whens, wheres, whats, hows, triggers, how often, what does it feel like and more.

without all the information my therapist would have to either chalk this problem up to either normal or part of my other many mental and physical health problems.

For all she knows I could be in my mania phase of bipolar disorder or having depression issues or maybe my medications for my physical health condition (MS) needs some changing.

as my therapist its her job to help me discover which of my problems, symptoms and behaviors belongs with which of my disorders and health issues.

when my thinking patterns enter obsessive intrusive thoughts Im pretty good at using my reality testing remains intact for dissociative disorders criteria to discover all those hows, whats, whens, and so on that helps my therapist and I narrow down which of my mental and physical health issues they belong in. most times they are not dissociative related for me.

questioning and denial are no longer dissociative problems if fact it was never considered "strictly dissociative symptom/ problem". it's considered completely normal, even non disordered people at any time can question and deny all kinds of things, including their experiences, memories disorders.

so when I try to figure out whether my questioning and denial is part of my dissociative disorder or normal I again use my reality remains intact. I ask myself if even normal people can question their memories, their experiences and their disorders.

so..........for me ........ that denial and questioning gets wiped out as a part of my dissociative situation. I can relax thinking - great I'm ok, breath, I'm ok for I'm actually in reality experiencing something that's completely normal. human beings do naturally question and deny things.

Why do I do that? because with dissociative disorders reality remains intact. so I use that to break me free of my obsessive thoughts that come with other disorders I have.

using Reality testing I pick another topic my mind is fixated on.

depression, anxiety, flashback issues. they are no longer treated as dissociative issues. they rarely were before march 2022 and after march 2022 they are even more so separated from dissociative disorders.

they are treated individually -

depression is treated as depression,

Anxiety is now treated as anxiety,

flashbacks are now treated as either completely normal, depending on the content of the flashback because even normal people get flashes of memories emotions and such,

or PTSD (post Traumatic Stress Disorder)

dissociative disorders have a diagnostic criterion that the problems cannot be because of other mental and physical health situations.

so, in order for any of those to qualify as a dissociative issue instead of a depression disorder, or anxiety disorder, or PTSD, I would have to relate it only to my dissociative issues, you know all the deeper whats, wheres, whens, hows, triggers, how often, and so forth related to my dissociative disorders.

heres an example of what I mean -

One time I told my therapist I was feeling depressed, she asked me "depression kind of depressed or a dissociative kind of depression?"

I looked at her and said "What? theres a difference?". she smiled and said "yes there is a difference. medications and treatments for depression works for one, and grounding and other treatments for dissociative work for the other"

this was many years ago and when this happened my treatment provider pulled out her two diagnostic manuals (DSM and ICD in the versions that were the present ones then. today the world is on DSM 5 TR and ICD 11)

She showed me that for something to be a dissociative issue it ....cannot..... be because of other mental and physical health issues.

Back then I remember thinking - wow who knew right, theres different kinds of depression lol

its been a couple decades or so since then and .....still..... diagnostics require a treatment provider to differentiate between what is a dissociative disorder issue and what is other mental disorder issues.

Ive grown very used to doing the process of looking at things logically, realistically and discovering which of my problems belongs with which of my mental and physical health issues.

usually when I experience depression, anxiety and flashbacks its not related to my dissociative issues. my depression issues turns out to be associated with my depression disorders, my flashbacks turns out related to my trauma and stress related disorders (category name for many disorders like PTSD)

Leaving college or school because of school bullying thats considered a personal choice. here in america adults can choose which colleges they attend, when, where and so on and can choose to drop out at any point for any reason.

not saying school bullying doesnt affect a person because it sure does. just that in the eyes of mental health and other things too dropping out of school is a personal choice.

the affects. here where I am, the aftereffects, of bullying is called PTSD. bullying is traumatic and causes the same issues that are in the PTSD diagnostics.

I know its strange how the mental health system separates and distinguishes what problems belong with what disorder now, in other words is a system that works on individuality.

but when you take time to think about it and research you will discover mental health has always been one where they separate which disorders are which, which symptoms problems and behaviors are associated with which disorder and so on. its always been done this way, and todays term for this is individuality / idividualized.

your post also includes the topic of mothers and her menopause and can young people go through this too.

I cant speak about your mother but I can answer your menopause questions in general that may help -

is it possible for young people to go through menopause - yes

poor diet, being underweight or being overweight, all of which can cause a person of any age to no longer have periods, go through mood swings, hot flashes and other menopausal problems too.

Eating disorders sometimes come with a person prematurely entering into menopause.

medications can cause a person to enter menopause of having no periods, mood swings, hot flashes and so on.

genetics also can be a factor

medical procedures can also cause a young person to go through menopause.

A year and a half ago women's rights to abortion was taken away. the result of that happening, thousands and thousands of women of all ages took back their rights to their own bodies by going through hysterectomies, and other surgeries.

I even know some adult women who went the transgender route in order to fight back against the overturning of Roe vs Wade and have access to health care options and control of their own bodies back. the medications and surgeries that are used for women transitioning to male cause a woman to have menopause. there are a lot of women out there now identifying as trans in order to get the medications they need to treat their female issues and prevent unwanted pregnancies from their abusers.

only your mother can tell you about her menopausal issues including why she was young when it happened for her.

there is a forum board where health issues are discussed its called - heath support https://mysupportforums.org/health-support/

and a forum board where issues like menopause are discussed that one is called - women focused support https://mysupportforums.org/women-focused-support/

and there is the forum board called Senior Lounge where sometimes menopausal issues are discussed. https://mysupportforums.org/seniors-lounge/

depression issues - there is a depression forum board too where you may find others going through depression and anxiety too.

the depression forum board is called Depression https://mysupportforums.org/depression/

the anxiety forum board is called Anxiety panic and phobia https://mysupportforums.org/anxiety-panic-and-phobias/

there is also a mens only forum where guys can talk about all kinds of things too. its called mens focused support https://mysupportforums.org/men-focused-support/

like I said before the dissociative disorder's forum is not very active anymore, things are more individualized now.

what I mean by "individualized" is things like

members here are taking their depression issues to depression forum,

their PTSD issues (flashbacks, panic attacks, ...) to the PTSD board,

their anxiety panic and phobias to the anxiety panic phobia forum board,

most if not all forum style websites are set up in an individualized way where they naturally match the mental health systems individuality of separating each individual disorder, symptoms, problems by having individual forum boards.

it keeps the websites clean and organized. and when new people come along, they can find what they need right away by looking in the individualized mental health matching forums for those answers.

that is why I added those links to other forum boards here on this site for you to check out.

Wow @amandalouise... that was a very insightful and well-informed post you wrote. Very interesting read... thanks!