I've been told I have borderline personality traits and that dissociation is one of them. It's really, really bad right now. I feel like my sense of time is completely at odds with reality... if I stop looking at object A and turn my head to look at object B, it feels like that process has taken minutes rather than milliseconds... and I'm switching between feeling very unreal and feeling that my surroundings aren't real. While I experience dissociation regularly, especially lately, this is the worse it's gotten when I haven't been on drugs. The last couple of times I smoked marijuana, years ago, it felt very similar to this (but a lot worse), and the experiences totally messed with my head and made me terrified that maybe these feelings are justified... that I don't exist, reality is false. I'm experiencing the same fears: that I am unreal, life isn't what it appears to be, I've always felt like that and just never realised and that I'm going to feel this way forever. Most of the time, like right now, I'm not panicking over these thoughts, but the time thing and unreality and all that jazz is still very bad.
This probably makes no sense, I'm normally a lot more eloquent but disassociation kind of f**ks with that, I guess. I don't know what to do, really. My GP is useless because I'm pregnant and she feels she doesn't have the knowledge to treat me, my psychologist has openly admitted that she can't help me and I can't see anyone from the peri-natal CMHT until I've been assessed by their consultant psychiatrist in two weeks. I'm not on medication. So I guess I'll just have to ride it out, so -- if you've dissociated before, what do you do? I've heard of grounding techniques but don't really know what to do. I'm avoiding googling anything to do with dissociation because it makes me think about it and if I think about it, I fall apart and want to cut, and I'm trying not to do that.
(I apologise now if it takes me a long time to reply, I'm having SUCH a hard time communicating with people and expressing myself.)
If u want the Rainbow,u gotta put up with the Rain
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: London
I am currently:
The grounding techniques my psychologist taught me were:
- Describe your surroundings to yourself out loud i.e. There is 4 books on the shelf, the carpet is blue, its raining outside.
- Hold ice, not long enough to hurt yourself, but just for long enough that it a strong physical sensation, can be enough to bring you out of it sometimes. Or if you dont think you can trust yourself not to hold it too long (like me!) splashing your face with cold water, or putting a cold flanel on the back of your neck can help too.
- As weird as it sounds this one actually worked best for me... very strong scents, such as fresh mint leaves, freshly peeled orange, rosemary was one I used quite a lot. I dont know why it works, but it worked for me.
- Eat something with a strong clean taste, sometimes I used quarter of a lemon like you get in a drink in a bar, or something like raspberries or anything with a strong taste really.
I know some of them sound silly, but they are worth a try, sometimes they can help.
Not one that was recommended to me but something I sometimes did. You know those friends you call and all they do is chat about themselves or their partner troubles etc for ages? I reckon most of us have a friend like that. Id give them a call, and sometimes trying to focus on their chatter helped ground me.
Thinking of you, I know how horrible it is.
Fallen xXx
'Where did I go wrong
My life's a bargain basement, all the good shits gone
This particular episode started the same day I was seriously considering calling my father and telling him I'm pregnant. My father was emotionally and mentally abusive to me between the ages of 10 and 12 and I believe I probably witnessed him abusing my mother in all sorts of ways, but I don't remember any of my early childhood. I guess that could be a cause?
In case you have a propensity to dissociate and you try to do a relaxation technique you might be merely moving into dissociation instead of a relaxation state. Similarly, if you want to meditate all you may be doing is moving into dissociation.
