Disassociation

Ahhhh, is that what it's called. I always thought I was going through a fugue like state due to my ptsd.

Yep, I've also gone through a few red lights, thankfully not at any major intersections. Last week I was lucky to have a passenger in my car who started yelling "red light, red light". Otherwise I would have gone straight through.

Frightening really.

I also have a big problem with remembering things and I feel like I'm on auto pilot all the time. It's like my brain has shut down and won't let any more information in. It's a terrible feeling.

I'm going to have to learn some more about disassocation so I can start understanding more about it and hopefully do something about it.

Thank you so much for raising this topic.

I believe that the experience of moving into a disassociative state is our body's way of shutting down the terrible emotions we suffer at times, when looking after our loved ones. Our emotions go dead and we continue on, doing what we have to do without becoming so emotionally affected.

It's interesting to come back to this topic. I've been re-reading a lot of the posts and realise that my husband also suffers from disassociation. It's the driving thing that I notice, nothing else. He'll be driving along and cars ahead break, slow down, whatever and he's speeding up, in his own little world. I say "brake" and I'm answered with "I'm driving thank you. I don't need your input."

Having already been through one accident because his head was in another place (in the very early stages of the PTS symptoms showing through) I'm really concerned about the possibility of going through another.

Have been hesitant to share the more dramatic symptoms connected with disassociation but have decided to now, since some here appear to be recognising the state for the first time. So just in case some of you have experienced the more advanced stages and been worried that you may be going a little mad, have decided to share what this too can be like.I experienced the disassociative (or depersonalised) state for a long time, as the situation with my son worsened. Then the automatic robotic or dreamlike state turned into a state, on some occasions, where I failed to recognise the simplest things within my environment. One day, after my son had been missing for weeks, then attempted to take his life and ended up on a life support system in hospital, I was driving home from visiting him, not knowing if he would live or die, and found myself in a little street alongside Cremorne Harbour close to where I lived. Although I drove along this street every day, I had no idea where I was. I had stopped the car but didn't even know I was in a car. Nor did I know what I was doing holding on to a round thing in front of me (the steering wheel). Won't go into more detail, but it was very scary. I couldn't drive home because I didn't know where I was.I sat like this for ages until this extreme state of disassociation lifted and I realised I was just around the corner from my home. Afterwards, I thought I must have been going mad but discovered through research, that the experience of not recognising one's immediate environment or temporarily 'losing touch with reality', is a common symptom of the more advanced stages of disassociation.If anyone else has gone through this, it might be therapeutic to share here, in a safe place. I do think that we carers are inclined to experience our own little 'moments of madness' when everything gets too much but we keep these experiences to ourselves for fear of being judged by others. I think it's important for burnt-out carers to realise that this is more common than we think. We look after loved ones with disordered minds 24/7. Why wouldn't our own minds become a little dispordered occasionally?

I have been looking into this a bit more and came across a therapy called EMDR or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. The therapy addresses past experiences, current situations and future possibilities of what may happen. It focuses on events and stressors. The goal is to provide treatment in the shortest possible time. The aim is to either eliminate or greatly reduce the distress related to bad memories.

I'm going to book in a session once my local EMDR therapist is back to work after New Year break and will report back or start a new thread on the procedure after I've had a visit.

Yes, although I do not dissociate in terms of forgetting. But at times I am sure that I am a robot. I am sure that I am a biological-hardware robot fulfilling requests from a database of responses. I see it like this: a robot is not a computer, and I am not my hardware either, we are both robots. Except I am a very flawed robot due to my hardware. I don't think I am a person, I think I am a sort of processing tube that things pass through. I attempt to gather my personality but it is like attempting to hold water between my fingers and it seems frivolous to try, the distinction of having a personality seems irrelevant. And I don't feel connected to the world, I feel separated from it. I don't feel like a human being and I get annoyed by the human beings. I'm realising how silly this all is as I'm writing it, but a great proportion of the time it does not seems silly at all, it seems very reasonable.

There are a lot of cultural representations about these kinds of feelings ... sci fi ... movies .. even poetry

but the beauty of writing and a forum is that you put it out there ... you can see it and become self conscious in the moment ... it is a truth for you @querentxyz. it may not be the only truth ..

I'm sorry you are going through this, Bakunin. Please know that you are not alone.