Dissociate?

Yes. With big revelations or unexpected pain especially when she asks me difficult questions.

I feel as if I am "sucked" out of the session and become an observer usually from above although it doesn't affect my visual perspective. (I seldom try to explain this to anyone because so few people have the capacity to understand!!). It almost feels as if I'm floating.

I have a hard time answering questions...it's as if the words get bogged down/are paralyzed and I can't get them to form out of my mouth. My pdoc/T (one in same) says that is indicative of trauma during a nonverbal time of life.

Mostly, I don't/can't talk and I usually cry too. At best, all I can do is try to describe what I'm feeling at that moment. Most often, I open my mouth but very little comes out.

I hope it helps to hear of something similar.

I have the experience of "leaving" in therapy.

Sometimes I just totally "leave", other times I can kind of see what is going on in the room, but like you said, my mind is SO slow. I remember the first time it happened, T asking me "do you feel like you are in this room right now?" and me thinking "NO".

(((((((((((((((Amazonmom)))))))))))))))) Sounds like you are getting into some important and deep stuff.

It really helps to hear that others go through this too!

I keep telling my T that she is MEAN to me when she asks those hard questions. I actually asked her once "are you happy now, for making me cry?". She wasn't remotely comforting when she said no.... Of course that's only when I am dissociating.

LOL - I say the same thing to my T. And he'll say "you think I'm MEAN?" and I'm like "well, YES!". Of course, in my normal, grown-up, non-dissociated state I know he's not being mean. But it sure feels like it in those moments.

Yes, this happens to me occasionally when we are discussing something very painful for me. My t calls it dissociation. When it happens, I feel like a hurt traumatized little girl, and i am usually crying hard and in so much pain i can't stand it. When it happens, my t usually tries to bring that hurting part of me back into the present and then provide some kind of validating or comforting experience for me.

Yeh. It happens to me. I prefer the sessions when i don't because then i can leave feeling whole rather that a scambled mess! When i zone out, my eyes fixate on something, usually very faraway trees through the window and i feel as though i am out there with them, a long way away. At these times i'm not in the body sat in the chair. Usually my mind goes blank, i describe it as being white. It is like a movie is playing in my mind and i try and distract myself enough from it to answer questions but my thoughts are disconnected from my mouth and i find it hard to speak. One part of my mind is begging my therapist to bring me back down from flying away, but it is impossible for me to say this so as she continues to speak i try and grab onto something she says that will bring me back. I don't cry, i'm don't feel anything, i only watch from a distance....but it is still a very big screen that envelopes my mind and drowns everything else out. The irritating thing is that i can't stop this from happening, there isn't particular subjects that trigger it, one minute i'm here and the next i'm not.

Abby (and all),
In very early years I used to think I had a recurring dream - seeing things from so far away, then close up, then far away again etc - but I was aware that I wasn't sleeping yet, so it wasn't a dream, was it. No one was around, that I remember, just me. Happened from ages maybe 4-7.
What you describe here sounds so familiar - was it this? what could cause it I wonder? Can a person dissociate without something causing it?

Abby said: I relate to this. My body doesn't feel like mine and sometimes I'm aware that my arms and legs don't feel as if they are there. They feel like they are in weird places. (no wonder I never tell anyone this stuff!!)

The part about visually fixating on something...I do that too. I can use the muscles near my eyes to make all colors go away and turn everything I see into gray, black and smudgey white. Sort of like a negative image.

I learned to do this when my mother would beat me. It was a coping skill. Thanks God I don't have to resort to it like I did as a child!

The last time I dissociated in session was just a couple weeks ago and I was really in "the zone." I could hear T's voice but the words were disconnected from any sort of meaning. So, yeah as to the "mean T syndrome" he seemed so stern. Finally, I told him he was pushing me too hard. And like Tree's T he goes, "I'm pushing you too hard?"

It's disconcerting but is a way for us to show T the many parts of ourselves.

I don't dissociate much, but occasionally. It's happened a few times in session, and horror of horrors, I have dissociated at a couple of very intense legal meetings. That is not helpful at all when you are trying to make important financial or parenting decisions and advocate for oneself and then you find yourself "going away." One time it happened and was triggered by things our financial guy was saying. I could not comprehend and felt the world closing in on me from the sides, like you feel when you're fainting. I knew I was going away and was urging him rather insistently to please write down what he was saying because I couldn't get it all down, he was going too fast (my lawyer agreed), so he agreed, and when he did, I relaxed and quit fighting it, and whoooosh, I dissociated. The bad thing is financial guy never wrote this stuff down and that made me so mad at him. Like, he promised he would do this for me, and then he wouldn't even though I asked him several times after the meeting to please send me his notes. I feel like I was doing my best to manage the dissociation and not miss important stuff by coming up with this "write it down for me" solution, but no help at all from this guy. Probably doesn't even know I dissociated. LOL. (It seems funny now but was not at the time.)

lol Questions like that come across sort of like koans to me. (You know -- "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" etc.)

I don't dissociate much unintentionally, but for me that would be a time to do (my version of) dissociation intentionally: "Are you mean? No. Do I think you are? Yes!"

It's probally the only way I'm still here

I don't fully dissociate. I sometimes joke that I wish I could just step aside and let some of the inner aspects of myself out with the inhibitions imposed ultra-controlling adult ego state. But in reality the idea of fully dissociating scares the heck out of me. For those of you who have to deal with this, I really think you are brave for facing this challenge, letting your Ts in on what is happening, and letting them help you.

The physical and emotional partical dissociation I frequently do does not compare.

(((Many hugs to the DID individuals out there)))

I was an Ex Secretary, Mother, Wife, .... Daughter (expecting much of)

I had to be what everyone else wanted.

So I don't know how - but through the years I was able to get along with anyone of any social stance.

It was horrible - Smile when didn't want.

Floating above self as I inter mixed.

Telling myself I'm not going to do something then do it anyone.

My dissociative was functionally as I could see and know what I was doing but could not control it

I still have to fake - usually for my grown kids - who wants to talk to a bipolar, ptsd.....

I don't think you have to be DID to "fully dissociate", do you? I think I dissociate sometimes (T has told me I have a couple of times in session), but I am not DID. Don't a lot of people dissociate without being DID? I think I remember that from the DSM. There's a whole continuum. I have ego states (I think everyone does) but not alters that take control. Now I'm confused!

I will talk to you, starlite. Of course I dissociate when stressed, and am Bipolar with PTSD....

I have been dissociating since I was 12 years old. I had just entered junior high school and couldn't deal with the new teachers and kids. So I've been dissociating ever since. I sometimes dissociate during therapy sessions. I usually tell my T that I'm doing it. I kind of feel like I am there, but not there. A lot of times when I'm typing on my computer I'll get an attack. It usually feels like my fingers can't feel the keys. I don't feel attached to my body. Sometimes I pinch myself to make sure I'm really here.

You don't have to have DID to dissociate. There are all sorts of ways that people dissociate. There's always a continuum.