Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group
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I never felt the dissociation part of PTSD affected me until I read one of the therapists' articles here on DS a couple weeks back.
She was talking about things I considered "forgetfulness": losing track of time while driving, forgetting to do certain things at work, being lost in thought and walking out into traffic, etc. Whoa! I had always thought dissociation was about hours-long missing time...
So, what's the difference between forgetfulness and dissociation? I have an idea I want to run by you. Let me know your thoughts on it --
It becomes dissociation when one of these things happens:
1) I've been asked to do something at work or home, and though I really intend to do it, there comes something like a dull white fog, for just an instant, and then I go on with my day, totally having forgotten what I was supposed to do.
2) I can be driving along, lost in thought, and when I suddenly "come to" I have a momentary panic as I try to figure out where I am in the present. It takes a few anxious moments to recognize landmarks, remember where I'm headed, and assure myself I'm on the right road. This can happen even on trips I make pretty regularly.
Doing some research, I came across Onno Van Der Hart's website. He seems to be a leading researcher into PTSD. I was surprised to learn that he feels all PTSD's major symptoms are forms of dissociation: flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, personality fragmentation, etc. If anyone's interested, his website is: www.onnovdhart.nl
Does anyone else experience this forgetfulness-type of dissociation? It can get one into trouble at work :-( . I've even tried carrying a pocket notebook, but then I forget I've written in it, or forget to look at it. Geesh!
Be well,
Wistala
She was talking about things I considered "forgetfulness": losing track of time while driving, forgetting to do certain things at work, being lost in thought and walking out into traffic, etc. Whoa! I had always thought dissociation was about hours-long missing time...
So, what's the difference between forgetfulness and dissociation? I have an idea I want to run by you. Let me know your thoughts on it --
It becomes dissociation when one of these things happens:
1) I've been asked to do something at work or home, and though I really intend to do it, there comes something like a dull white fog, for just an instant, and then I go on with my day, totally having forgotten what I was supposed to do.
2) I can be driving along, lost in thought, and when I suddenly "come to" I have a momentary panic as I try to figure out where I am in the present. It takes a few anxious moments to recognize landmarks, remember where I'm headed, and assure myself I'm on the right road. This can happen even on trips I make pretty regularly.
Doing some research, I came across Onno Van Der Hart's website. He seems to be a leading researcher into PTSD. I was surprised to learn that he feels all PTSD's major symptoms are forms of dissociation: flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, personality fragmentation, etc. If anyone's interested, his website is: www.onnovdhart.nl
Does anyone else experience this forgetfulness-type of dissociation? It can get one into trouble at work :-( . I've even tried carrying a pocket notebook, but then I forget I've written in it, or forget to look at it. Geesh!
Be well,
Wistala
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I gave my 2 week notice last Friday 13th. Now to join you fine people in a life of leisure and nothing else to do but to look out for myself....is it just me or does that sound pretty boring? My goal was to live to retire and I guess having to take early retirement because of health reasons wasn't exactly the way I had planned things. I just can't stay in that building that is reeking mildew...
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I'm trying to exercise daily. I was doing fairly well until I sprained my ankle 2 weeks ago but now I'm getting back on the horse. Today I walked over a mile with my arm weights that are about 22lbs total. I was out of shape and it was hard on my arms. I also did my 30 situps. I'm also going to drink a lot of water and try to eat healthy. I do tend to have a sweet tooth but I'm cutting...
Dissociation: An Insufficiently Recognized Major Feature of Complex PTSD.
I noticed that I dissociated when people were talking to me, and I couldn't hear what they were saying. I could hear sounds but couldn't pick out the words. When I started therapy I would drift in and out of consciousness.
I've tried to carry a notebook, but what happens is that sometimes the kindling loop where I get frazzled so the notes I write are largely jibberish and scattered. Also what happens to me is that I'll start doing something then forget what I was doing while I'm doing it.
Other times I get so frustrated because of the dissocation and wish I did not have the problem.
DiLynne
I isolate a lot, so I don't get much feedback about what I'm really doing v. what I remember doing. A therapist wanted me to work on dissociative identity disorder but I thought he was wacko.
Thanks for the reading references.
Thank goodness it doesn't happen as much now, and for shorter periods.
I used to be in and out of hospital with it. Now I have in home care a few hours everyday as I also have permanent back injury.
Stress and bring it on and other triggers some I don't know.
I am trying EMDR treatments to stop them.
FOR ME it is the WORSE thing in the world when it comes..* I want to die but I'm not going to commit suicide.
I know eventually it will go, but during it I am totally hopeless. I have no emotion so I can't cry or feel or think.
I stay in bed when awake the TV is one taking me more away from myself.
Yet during my 10 yr second marriage only had one episode. I am a widow now with lovely grown twins and a grandaughter.
I refuse to take drugs that I find too strong...I only take Wellbutrin and I have been taking it for years.
I really don't think anyone can understand it unless they have had it.
Thank you for sharing your research on this topic. I am going to read it as soon as I am finished here. I wanted to share that I have dissociated for as long as I can remember. i didn't know that is what I was doing until I was in therapy, and it was explained to me. In my younger days I called it "zoning out" or "spacing out." I didn't know why I did it sometimes, but I knew i was different than others.
I don't dissociate as much anymore. Most of the time it happens when a memory/fear/flashback happens or something that triggers them. I tend to get quiet and my mind seems to race all over without any rhyme or reason. It happens in session almost every time I feel a memory. The only way I really know that it is happening or the stages of it - is through my therapist who walks me out of it when it happens. I know that often times I hear her talking to me but I feel like I have lost feeling in my body. I can't move a muscle. She tries to ground me by reminding me where I am, who I am with, and that I am safe now. In time it helps me to "come back."
When I dissociate at home I usually lose time. I get so irritated, because I will have a plan for the day and the next thing you know a few hours are gone!
It makes me feel a little more "normal" - what ever that is - to know that others have the same experience.
Thank you!!!!
When I was beat up and drugged .. and beat some more its a horror.. but if you lose hours ... well thats different .. be careful .....
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First thing you must do is see if there is a psychiatric history of mental illness.. I went back to 6 generations in ITALY and what I found was no mental illness but ILLEGAL ACTIVITY all over the place... be careful there was a time in my sobriety my first sponser kept saying you need medication... and her niece tracy ..
I was in LOVE for Gods SAKE... and I found out they were the ones BIPOLAR and Schizophrenic but it opened my eyes to one thing not ALL AA's are normal...Dont listen to everything you hear!
IF you are losing time go to the doctor and tell them that is important! Please..
I did go back and do a generic hereditary thing and found out again generation after generation on my mothers side and my biological fathers side is or was into ILLEGAL things not little ILLEGAL things BIG illegal things.and . Alcoholism and OBESITY and CANCER>>>
NO Depression... Situational... with my mom but thats it... Again ...
I have read this in a book written by PTSD experts. The few we have out there.
Dissociation seems all about trying not to think bad thoughts.
I just had an AHA moment! So when we try to avoid the bad thoughts they have to come out somehow and they come out often in a form of acting out and self harm. If we refuse to feel those feeling we become them to vent the pressure cooker.
My brother compulsively yawns and forgets his phone. It's a mild form of dissociation. There are so many forms of it. I read that all nervous ticks are a way to bring us back from dissociation.
My dissociation used to be like a fod descending over my brain and I would recede into the back of my head. And I could not snap myself out of it ever.
When I finally found out what dissociation is about 5 months ago I have finally made progress with it. I no longer have these extreme episodes. Now I have mild fog for extended periods of time. And I can feel the resistance in me to feel and face the unpleasant feelings in me.
I am hopeful I can solve it.
another name that people often refer dissociation as is 'away with the fairies'..lol
and I'm all up for being with the fairies if I don't feel right within myself...usually friends tell me that I need to ground myself to click out of it, if only they understood that it is almost like it is on auto pilot...
anyway I do hope you find more information, and thanks for the thread..
Namaste everyone..
Z