I'm trying to figure something out.

When a person dissociates, I have heard it is simmilar to a daydream and since I have identified this I dissociate less.

Yesterday, without conciously going there, I just went away.

NO DAYDREAM...No flight plan...NO DESTINATION...!!!

Not really a doorway to somewhere else, but if there was a door it led to a void? I was just GONE...!!!

Stuck in the hallway? I'm really at a loss for words, all I can say it is simmilar to blacking out (minus the alcohol-***Thank You***).

I am confused and troubled by what happened.

If someone has similar experience of this unconcious realm, and would like to help me out, I'd sure appreciate your insight.


Just dropped in (Kenny Rodgers)

island

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Island,

I've been there many times myself. Its a trip to nowhere land and for some reason I'm partial to it. I've had some very interesting dissociative "episodes" in chat several times. Unfortunately, I've freaked some people out and mods have been called in to assist. At least one time I was quite mean to people in chat. I had no memory of it afterward. I had to make apologies to several people I was rude to. I only know what occurred because when I came back a few hours later the chat window was still open. I was in a near panic because I felt something bad had happened but I didn't know what. I saved the chat log and read what I could of it later. I was shocked at my viciousness. I could not read it all. It was too painful.

If you haven't done so, I suggest doing some further research on dissociation. There is a continuum of dissociative stages ranging from "day dreaming" which almost everyone experiences to the other end of the spectrum, Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID or multiple personalities). In my experience, I have ran the gambit of the dissociative spectrum except for DID but I think I've been on the doorstep. It is quite unnerving.

My T has helped me to recognize when I start dissociating when I'm with him by raising my hand. It's funny, I do this automatically now when it happens. At least when I am with him. I haven't noticed if I raise my hand when I dissociate in other places.

I wish you well in working through this. Thanks for sharing this with us.

Mike

I do have dissasotiation disorder...sometimes i feel am not here or am not the same person...many times i just fly to another planet or place or time...I think it is a scape valve when we receive too much pressure from our abuse.

Island and Barkabus,

Having been abused at 4 and onward, I became an excellent dissociater. I can remember being in elementary school when my body was sitting at my little desk but my mind was a thousand miles away. This became so habitual that I would do it many years later. The pattern gradually melted away as the pain went away.

I also was a "stinker" in chat some. I have the remnants of DID now which my T says should be called DIDNOS. I don't know, because it involves more than my nose . No, DIDNOS is apparently the fragmented DID after a lot of healing takes place. No longer amnesia but I stll act like a 12-yr-old under stress. The "NOS" stands for "not otherwise specified", in other words it's a substandard DID that they don't know what to call it. I no longer have any amnesia about episodes. It does yield to T.

Yes, I do this. But I am about 70% to 80% me all the time but like my "flavoring" is different on different days. Under social stress I am the 7th grader. Then, nearly every day of the week has a different "flavor". I am slowly finding out who is the real me and becoming him.

When I was in college, my handwriting was different on nearly every day. This is a sign of having very, very different "flavors." I couldn't remember the content of classes I had attended on other days of the week. Of course I was still there (in class) so there was a central me in operation to make me functional at least in that sense.

The football hero Herschell Walker has written a book about this in his own life. I have read about 1/3 of his book. He never had dissassociative amnesia but he had (to use my word flavor for it) different flavors for different occasions. One of these was the tough football hero flavor.

I like the "different flavors" simile...:)...sounds less threatening...

they call when I have flashbacks a dissociation, it's no daydream with me, there's a bad destination of where I get taken. It's not something that I can control and it's had folks send me to the hospital quite a few times. It's not quite as bad as when I'm unconcious but it still is really scary, especially if someone I don't know is the first person I see when I come back.

Thanks for the responses, if nothing else it brings me comfort with the fact that, "I am not alone".

I have figured out this is a spectrum sort of thing and believe I have been on the doorstep of DID. (killer verbage...!!!)

I believe I need to keep researching and learning about this subject, figure out what I can and then I need to come to terms and cope with this, to the best of my ability.

Hopefully SERIOUS research will make me feel more comfortable and allieviate confusion and fear.

The really weird part of what happened yesterday was that I wasn't feeling anything out of the ordinary...no stress and I can't recall even having a concious thought at the time it happened.

physically I was behind the wheel, +++ good news is +++ I was in neutral.


island

p.s. Saw Herschell Walker last night on U-tube while doing research last night.

Many Doctors or Therapists will use driving as a good de>