Can someone please explain to me the difference between zoning out and dissociating?
I was talking to my psychologist the other day about dissociating and she game me an example of pulling up to your house without knowing how you got there. I have done this and could not remember driving at all, so I was left wondering if I had stopped at red lights and stop signs or not, which could be rather dangerous if I didn’t.
Also sometimes I have sat in my room for hours on several occasions, and have no thoughts at all that I’m aware of. The only way I can think to explain it is like sleeping, but being awake. Like you don’t know when you are sleeping, but when you wake up you know you have and that time has passed. Either I eventually snap out of it over time, or something brings me back, like my mom calling my name or something and when I snap out of it, I noticed that there is a time gap in my memory. So I’m not sure what that is…
Every time you get up and get back in the race,
One more small piece of you starts
To fall into place
Everyone dissociates to a certain extent e.g. driving on 'auto pilot'. But sometimes it becomes a problem if it's used as a protective mechanism and you lose large chunks of time or do dangerous things or things you wouldn't do otherwise. So yeah as katie says they are the same it's just that it's a problem for some people.
Life breaks most of us in the end, but afterwards some of us are strong in the broken places
~ Ernest Hemingway
I do the same thing. It's funny that you described as sleeping while being awake because that's how I explain it to people. It's like I disconnect from life for awhile. And they are right it is just a form of dissociating. I did some research on it a few weeks ago. There are some pretty good books out there about it and some good websites I found on google.
-Mandy
Then she closed her eyes and found relief in a knife
the blood flows as she cries
The deeper you cut the deeper I hurt
The deeper you cut it only gets worse
Then she opened her eyes and found relief through His lifeand put down her knives
Then she opened her life and found reliefthrough His eyes
zoning out is just a milder form of disassociation.
But it can get quite serious, so if you think its getting worse, i would suggest that you might talk a bit more about it to you councllor??
Hope your ok
Tears
xXx
am i weird for liking these things? not all the time,often its embarrassing or worrying, but other times i long to be wide away and sleeping, seeming to be functioning but not really there.
i dont think i have a major problem with it after looking it up on the mind website, but i guess as someone with mental health difficulties its probably best to keep an eye on it. thankyou for posting so people like me can understand these sort of things! x
i get it allthe time, but i dont drive so that parts not a dangerm i notice it more when im out shopping stop and think what was the last thing i looked out because id just completely blanked out, scary.
So I talked this over with my psych and she basically said zoning out is the same thing as dissociating as long as you feel like you 'lost time' and that are doing it to 'escape' from your emotions. I dont see it as being a problem except when it happens too much and I end up not getting things done because of it... which is quite annoying. She said we are going to start working on things that will help me stop dissociating so much, but I really dont see how thats going to happen since it starts without warning. I noticed that it has been happening more frequently, it even happened when I was with my psych once but I guess it was very brief because she didnt seem to notice... or maybe she did because it seemed like she kept asking something over and over until I realized she was talking and finally responded.
Every time you get up and get back in the race,
One more small piece of you starts
To fall into place
What I find really helpful about therapy is tracking what's happening in my mind just before I dissociate, and this helps to slow down my thinking and be more aware and conscious through an episode, and so it impacts on me slightly less painfully, and is less disruptive.
hi i suffer whith both flash backs but theese days mine has reached the dainger point im to comlex and i am alone as no help i only see my dr once a month well i have one m8 ho stops me at the brink of disaster but no one else knows i hate me right naw im in dinaile i do not remember at all wat i done others tell me so i feel crap right naw do you get like this wen you drink or you do eny way coz people blame drink ah i have diffrent personalatys but in denile as i said but hope you got dr saico freinds all people of profeshion that i dont talke to them sopranout makes sense , hey ive distance my self from people as i dont want them to tell me what ive bean like so i hide in my place of living i know this eint the answer but my space and no freinds you dont haveto say sory for stuff you dont remember thats how i suvive for naw ,
