I don't know where to start but does anyone else experience dissociative flashbacks or dissociation itself (I think that's what I'm having)? I can go 'out' for a good hour and end up somewhere else and forget everything and have sometimes done something to myself and its really scary. I don't know how to explain it properly or to my CPN, I've had this once before when I had a police investigation going on but I don't right now and it's come back, it's scary and frightening my loved ones.
That sounds really scary and I'm not surprised it's distressing. I experience dissociation but not in the same way. I imagine that some of the grounding techniques I've been advised to use might also be relevant for you, but I definitely think it's all something to talk to your care coordinator about to get some proper advice.
The trick is probably to use grounding techniques when your first start to feel dissociated/feel a flashback coming on. I don't know if you're able to recognise signs that you're beginning to dissociate, or whether loved ones can and can help you? If so, you might find over time that you can start to 'anchor' yourself in the present by naming things around the room. You might be able to focus on your breathing. Different things help different people to feel grounded.
I'm not sure if any of this really helps except that I understand how distressing dissociative stuff can feel and hear how scary this must be.
I have dissociative flashbacks, but I don't forget/lose time, instead I'm hyper conscious. I just lose myself instead. It happens slightly less so now, but can be very frightening when it does happen.
I know I should bring it up with my CMHT but I'm pretty new there whereas my last CPN I had for 10 years and she had seen when the dissociation last happened. So it would have been easier to talk to her as she would kinda already know what I'm on about cause I can't explain it very well. Plus they don't really talk about my PTSD they are always more concerned about my moods... so its a bit touchy for me, I don't feel able to open up to it as they didn't 'go through it with me' last time - does that make sense?
I'm seeing my support worker today so maybe I'll try to start a dialogue then.
It makes sense. Honestly for me, it was really scary but also really nice to bring stuff like that up to people who hadn't been through it before. They were able to bring a new perspective with new ideas of how to handle things and what to try!
Please do not give me virtual hugs unless you are only using the hug function on threads. Thanks.
You can't always keep it separate.
This is happening, this is part of you.
My support worker didn't show up... But on a better note, I have self-referred to a charity that deals with PTSD so I'm hoping they will understand me better.
Feeling pretty anxious about it all as in the form you had to put 'everything' really, and they said on the phone that there is an urgent waiting list so depending on what you put on the form is dependant on what list you go on. So I just poured it all out and now I'm scared it'll get leaked or something will happen to it and all the bad things will be found out, some things I've never told anyone before.
I can imagine how scary that must feel. Is there any way to contact them to get some reassurance about their privacy policy? It will be something they take extremely seriously and your information is likely to be particularly safe with them.
Often certain types of trauma leave us with shame and the feeling like that bad things that have been done to us somehow make us bad. If you're feeling like that, I just want to say that YOU are not bad and you have every right to talk to a trusted person about what has happened to you.
Sorry to bump this, but I managed to talk to my CPN about it today :) Just thought I'd let you know the good news. I have a pysch appt to talk it all through soon now. Couldn't have done it without your cheerleading, so thank you all.
Good job!! Dissociation can be so hard and difficult to deal with, and you absolutely deserve support and help coping with it, and perhaps even improving your symptoms.
I hope you will find a way to manage going forward. I know its hard, I struggle with it too. Medication only does so much when you find yourself in the throws of Dissociation (far away from reality), meditation is sometimes the only thing that brings me back into reality until it passes.