I’ve always disassociated and I never realized how abnormal it was until I found out other people don’t have entire separate worlds in their minds and don’t have periods where they feel like the world around them isn’t real. Sometimes, I have dreams that feel more vivid than the “real” world and I have to spend a few days trying to determine if I’m awake or asleep.

My mother doesn't remember my childhood. I can't talk to her about my father's abusive behavior because I'm pretty sure she disassociated through my entire childhood.

I have maladaptive daydreaming. It started in my childhood which was...um...stressful...and I still do it all the time.

I’ve been saying for the past three years that I pretty much live in a semi disassociative state 24/7. If something stressful happens, I’ll feel even further outside of my body, but generally I feel very numb most of the time. I haven’t felt like myself in a really long time, and I feel like I don’t even know who that is.

"Our brain's gonna pull the rip cord on reality." Great quote.

Sometimes when I try to bring up a situation where my mom was abusive, bringing it up tactfully without aggression or blame just talking, she’ll have no memory of it and usually says something to the effect of “I’d never do something like that!” Which is why I can’t really discuss things in my past with her. Not only was I hurt in the past, but brushed off and gaslit in the present. It hurts real bad. 😢

Inattentive ADHD is either a lot like, or is a kind of dissociating. I have that and ptsd, and sometimes it's hard to know which is causing me to check out mentally at any given time. I think one feeds into the other.

Psychedelics are just an exceptional mental health breakthrough. It's quite fascinating how effective they are against depression and anxiety. Saved my life.

If you can’t fight or flight, you’ll dissociate

I am a master at maladaptive daydreaming and I never realized how much it disrupted my real life until I saw your videos. Though I am mostly aware of my surroundings, guess I implement this into my daily life quite good.

Had a series of panic attacks and went to counseling. I started to realize, I'd been having "fainting" disassociation spells all my life. Listening to this video, I realized something that maybe other people need to know. I feel there are many times where I "spaced out" but left my listening behind. It was UNSAFE to just space out completely. It's apart.. like a dream.. what is REALLY happening. But I knew what was said. I played possum. I used to feel this meant I was "faking" the event. I see now... that it was such a defensive, self preserving act.

I do maladaptive daydreaming when I'm alone. I always did that when I was a child to not 'annoy' my parents.

Dissociation feels like a wild rollercoaster, in the beginning you are just confused because you don't understand what's happening, then you figure out that it's Dissociation and you hate Dissociation for all the things it took from you, and finally after you start to get better you understand that Dissociation is not the enemy and is just your brain shielding you and you understand that it saved your life. You go from confusion, to hate for the things it took, to appreciation for the life it gave you.

I have to rewind this video 20 times because I got so stuck in my thoughts while she was describing the problems.

I only remember small bits and pieces of my childhood. I protected myself from the severe emotional and extremely inappropriate behavior of my alcoholic father. I am one of 6 kids. 2 girls. 4 boys. My brothers are alcoholics. My sister has OCD and none of us are close in any way. My sister was also a victim of our father. My brothers attacked her verbally when she tried to tell them. Dissociation can happen at any time in your life. You are protecting yourself and don't need to know what you have forgotten. I am so happy I don't remember but also feel like I had no childhood at all. Years completely lost. ❤

I can’t remember huge chunks if my childhood. It’s as if it didn’t happen. I was in foster care, adopted to abusive parents and, thank God, put back into foster care. I didn’t get the help I needed for years and I’m 62 and finally for the last year been present in my own life. If you’ve gone through something PLEASE get the help you need. You are worth it!

I was diagnosed with DID over 40 years ago during a 2 month hospitalization. (BTW, I'm so glad they changed the name of the disorder to DID). I had lots of trauma as a child and I finally hit the wall at 25 years of age. It was explained to me that it was a coping and survival mechanism. I could have conversations let's say at work with managers and then walk away and know that I had a conversation but I didn't walk away with the conversation in my mind. It was like I went on auto-pilot. No one was the wiser except me. The worst time I had with it was when I was hospitalized and one afternoon I was thinking about stuff and I said to myself, "LIsa, you've never been afraid of anything in your life." The next thing that happened was it was like a movie reel went on in my head of everything I had ever been afraid of in my life. It was quite shocking and gave me pause. It was definitely discussed in therapy. Now I'm in my late 60's and I successfully retired and I am enjoying my life, but I do go on "auto-pilot" sometimes if I am stressed about something or overly tired. I also had an instance after my hospitalization where I was talking on the phone with my sister and my sister was talking about something that happened at my grandmother's house and I didn't remember. My sister was like, "What do you mean you don't remember? You were the one who called for an ambulance." I had forgotten all about that incident until she talked about it. It was again like a movie went off in my brain. When I called my therapist (I was out of therapy by this time) and told him what had happened, we talked about it and I asked him "what the hell else am I going to remember?" He just told me that it's important that I don't remember it all at once because that would not be good. But the hope is that I remember things slowly, some maybe never, and then I will eventually integrate myself. It's good that the brain has coping mechanisms, but it can be a bitch to untangle the ball of yarn.

I think it's important to emphasise that dissociation in itself is not dangerous, and that just because you've had a dissociative fugue it doesn't mean that you will develop dissociative identity disorder further down the line. It's unpleasant and can be frightening, but in itself isn't dangerous or a symptom of something worse. There are ways to manage it if you dissociate frequently, and it doesn't mean that you're weak or broken ❤

Mine went on so long after traumatic grief, loss of my partner, that I, how can I put it, "came to" in an apartment I had somehow rented on my own with no recollection of getting the lease. This happened while frying up breakfast food and voices in my head told me to wake up. They told me what was going on and I booked my therapist ASAP. Apparently I'd already been seeing her for 6 months. I've come such a long way in the past 5 years, the voices are gone and I'm a nursing student with a mortgage. It can get better. Still feel so sad for the woman I used to be and have no idea of the journey she went through til that point or exactly how long it went on for, but I'm forever grateful she held on and got through it. We are now one again ❤

See, I have “maladaptive daydreaming” constantly by the descriptions in your video… but I have never, ever felt like I was actually not in my body, or not in my environment. More like layering over it and ignoring inputs from other people. But I have always been solidly aware of the environment and what is happening around me at the same time as I am daydreaming. I can’t block it out, I am in my body, in this reality, just also having fantastical conversations happening in my head where I am envisioning other people who do care about me and will talk through the situation on the outside with me.

I remember experiencing something like this during the time when I was severely burnt out from work. It felt like my life wasn't real, that I was watching myself from the outside.

Thank you Kati! I am diagnosed with DID. I love these videos explaining what causes dissociation. I would love to watch a video that explores coping mechanics and how someone can function in society with this type of mental illness. It's possible- I've done it! But it's taken years of hard work to get there.

During my adolescence, sometimes I used to become physically unable to hear my environment. I would see people's lips moving, but I would not hear a thing. It happened so often, especially in school. I don't suffer from it anymore, but I still freeze out when I am faced with a confrontation. It is so frustrating because I want to defend myself but feel unable to.

I can't remember any traumatic even before I 'discovered' dissociation. There's [plenty of reason to think it's possible, but I can't believe there no clues or hints around such an event, give4n how profound it'd have to have been. As soon as I started learning arithmetic, I found that if I didn't pay any attention to my brain adding the numbers up, it got the right answer every time, even though I had no memory of anything except passively 'watching' the numbers add up in my head. All I had to do was stop thinking (making successive decisions about what each number added to the previous one came to. I couldn't get it to work with anything but adding columns of numbers,but it shaved 2/3 of the time I needed to do those sums. There were a couple of instances where I saw a "bird's eye view" of myself - once age 8 at the end of a near-drowning incident, and also several times while playing violent field sports at a macho boys-only private school. Then I noticed that if I got into a really risky situation while driving, I would have no memory of hearing anything until the risk was over. Although I'm no 8-ball genius, I had one magic night with just enough alcohol in me to 'let go' of concentrating on my shots, and let my body go through the motio9ns by itself. I won 13 successive games on a bar-room challenge table. i could remember making the shots, but not calculating the angles and forces. I could remember seeing myself on the sports field, but nothing about taking any control over what I did. Bottom Line: A decade ago, I heard a psychologist talking about how sporting and creative people sometimes report that kind of positive circumstance fugue state. Apparently, the hippocampus is involved in decision-making as well as managing memory storage and retrieval. My hypothesis is that when some people are in situations where maximum decision-making can help, their hippocampus shuts down some or all of the memory-recording function so it can focus on decision-making. In some traumatic situations, perhaps this is to focus on the fight/flee/freeze decision that must be made, at the expense of having no memory of making decisions, or even the entire traumatic episode. Obviously that's not an entire explanation of fugue and similar levels of dissociation, but it could be at least part of an explanation.

As well as daily life stresses or changes, I also see panic attacks as one place where a dissociation can happen. Thank you for showing a wider perspective of how and where symptoms can happen without being black and white about disorders vs experiences. I think it's important to normalise our mind and bodies reactions in life that dont necessarily lead to or mean a longterm condition is present ❤

The examples you gave for dissociating “besides from trauma” are absolutely traumatic, just to a lesser extent than fearing for your life

I really love her demeanour or delivery (?I'm not sure how to say that) She's the kind of therapist I could totally feel comfortable speaking with.

Kati- Thank you for breaking it down. My mother passed away a few years ago and for almost a year I "functioned" like normal, but I couldn't remember anything significant of that whole YEAR. After lots of trama therapy, I realized basically I'd been living on level 8-9 in stress and had basically shut down. I didn't realize there were so many levels, and that puts even more into perspective as to how I am able to manage my life day to day. Thank you! Extremely helpful!

Yes, a literal fog. People mention brain fog all the time (which I can also relate to) but I experience an actual fog/haze. My vision is normally excellent, but when I start to stress/dissociate I just can't see properly

Dissociation is been a big problem for me and apparently my entire life because I have a memory of being in middle school and I sat down next to the wall in the gym and the next thing I knew I was in some office with a bunch of adults and I had no idea what was going on. I also have big black holes in my memory especially a childhood but it has continued into my adult life too. And it's really weird because I have almost a photographic memory, so those gaps in my memory are really, really obvious to me. It's been something I've been trying to work through and have found it pretty difficult.

I have been realizing for the past 3 days that I have been in dissociation in probably 70-80% of my life. It's a very scary realization. I started noticing it when I was driving the other day with a friend next to me and once again, I started telling her about one of my trauma stories and when I was done, I realized for half a second that I had no idea where I was or who I was with. And since then, I started seeing the thousands of time this had happened and Oh my God, I am just mortified, I feel awful. I found out at 32 that I was HSP and a highly gifted adult, so I have been living under the assumption that my difficulties to interact with others was due to that. But ever since I found out that it was mostly my trauma, Jesus, I feel like ripping out my insides because I can't imagine what people on the receiving end of my one way interactions have felt or thought of me. And yesterday, I actually found out there is a unit that specializes in ptsd in a hospital just an hour away. I called and had a chat with the nurse who said I definitely qualify and just needed a letter from my gp or from a therapist I've seen. God, finally, some tangible hope 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

Today is a deeply dissociative day. And I find that putting on your videos on the subject helps a great deal in coming back to myself. Almost like a call into the wild, reminding me to come home. Watching this was soothing, and calming, and though I don't know that that was the purpose of it, know that your work on here helps this one girl to find her way back when the mind leaves the room. :) I've had decades of therapy off and on, have studied psychology and have to work every day on making sure I take care of my mental health. But bad days still happen. Tomorrow will be better. And your videos are often the catalyst for that. Thank you, for putting yourself out here, and for being that little light in what feels like insurmountable darkness.

It is so so important to understand that DID stems from childhood trauma only. Other types of dissociation can occur after a traumatic event in adulthood. The reason i stress this is because people faking this disorder has made mental Healthcare professionals disregard, ignore, or disbelieve those who truly need help. Thank you for listening.

OMG! I'm a Dissociatiator! How have I never known this before?! I've always chalked it up to "Early Onset Alzheimers". True, this EOA began when I was in elementary school, making it an unlikely diagnosis, but it's always been my go-to explanation for the life-long, persistent memory lapses.

Clients have mentioned dissociation happening while having anxiety.

we really do appreciate you putting dissociation into the context of a spectrum. hopefully it can help further destigmatize dissociation as a whole

Being in a conversation with my boss, him telling me "What's wrong, you look like a deer in the headlights?" and then in a moment of pause I realise I don't know who was supposed to make me respond but I knew that Kate needed to do it so guess we'll send a message to the body to coordinate motor function for responding. Or getting a text saying "session cancelled" sending back "Sure, see you next week", then getting dressed and leaving for the session but not knowing why or where I was going and being so AFK from my body that I couldn't emote or re-direct myself to do something different. Or looking at my hands and thinking "Who owns those?" Yeah, dissociating fkn sucks.

I realized deep in my 20’s that the “superpower” I had developed-retreating into my head-as a result of severe, severe adverse circumstances in childhood…it caused me to miss out on most of my own life. I can only recall slivers. I know I was there but the memories weren’t encoded where they otherwise would be. It’s a very jarring experience to find yourself in that position. This is doubly true when you are attempting to “come back”, so to speak; to be present from this point forward. I’ve heard this best described in John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, in which we read that the protagonist begins seeing the world “as through the bottom of a well”. We’re told that this distance “did not protect him from assault but it allowed him an immunity.” Once the dissociation becomes more than a retreat, but rather a comfort and a refuge, it can feel startling to actively reengage with the world around us.

My mum had a major stroke when I was 25 became disabled, lost most of her speech and had a change in her personality. The years that followed I forgot what she sounds like and was like before the stroke - like my brain almost didn’t want to remember because it was too hard. It’s only now that she passed (2 years ago) that I have started remembering how she was 15 years ago. I’m not sure if it counts a disassociating but I’m sure it’s related.

Kati, I had derealization after the birth of my 3rd baby. I have watched LOTS of videos over the years including yours in the past. But THIS one really helped me understand better why I had the DR. I thought it must be from trauma as that is what I primarily hear. It makes more sense that my body just couldn’t handle the stress (combined with a huge hormone dump after birth) that I went into DR. It lasted for months and can reoccur but with medication and lots of tools, today I am good. Thank you. I really appreciate you. ❤

This unlocks many vulnerabilities I'm too nervous to share, but I want to comment anyway to say, without specifics, I relate, and I'm so frustrated with this issue controlling my life.

This started happening to me when I turned 18. The first time lasted for months. Luckily it happens way less now and when it does happen it's usually a really short time. When it first happened I thought I was losing my mind. But I spent my entire childhood maladaptive daydreaming 😅

i experienced this a lot through my life. no childhood memories, a few about teen life. then i found better enviroment and got out of my trauma situation, but i needed to work too much for it, so, again - faced dissotiation, this time because of being overworked and having very little time to sleep/eat. after that got a stable home, found a good partner - but got so scared of good things in my life that got into a fog for a year - just to adapt. now i am quite okay. good life, good partner, friends, i even have a future - but i feel like a tree with no roots. i have very few memories compared to other people i know. and i've been through a lot. i know facts about my biography - and this is quite a story. but i will never feel it, and it is sad. i did it all by myself, i am proud, but it's just feel like it's not mine and i cant remember. i dont feel bad because of it. i am just a very "now" person, because i have no past. it is just sad sometimes

I really appreciate you making videos like this because it's been my experience that the more I learn the more I'm able to get help for myself. I can remember conversations I've had with people where I tried to explain to them how I felt like something was up with me but I couldn't explain it in a way that made any sense to somebody who doesn't experience it. But I found out there was a word for this experience, that changed everything for me.

it’s 6:45 am and i have yet to go to sleep but sure i’ll watch this video and inevitably go down a rabbit hole about this bc i suddenly need answers!

I have DID. Was diagnosed with it 2 years ago and I've had it since I was around 6 years old. Its not easy but I've heard it described as the highest level of CPTSD and survival mode. Great video.

Thank you for covering this 🙏 Glad to be reminded I'm not alone when it happens.

for me my dissociation started last year when my brother died. i don’t remember most of my junior year because of it. i look a lot of pictures at the time, so i remember small moments but that’s it :/. luckily i’ve gotten better but i had a really bad episode yesterday on his birthday, the worst it’s been since this summer, so it’s nice to know other people go through this too

I had this happen to me. My dad held a knife to my mums throat ,I threw a vase as him and my mum lashed out at me because it was a wedding present I broke, she slapped my face and scarred my check with her nails,accidently in a rage or fright, the next thing I know my nan's hugging me ,telling me it's OK and to just stay away and ignore them and lock my self in my room in the future. My whole bedroom was chucked around ,posters pulled from walls ans stuff thrown everywhere,my nan said I did it and to this day 40 years on I have no recollections of doing it

First grade for me is a black hole of memory. I remember nothing from that school year. I've always wondered if something traumatic happened to cause my mind to wipe it out.

I used to feel myself disassociate from happy times. They felt so abnormal that i couldn't cope.

Kati: Please add more extensive commentary for those on the more extreme end of the dissociative spectrum, those whose dissociation has moved past the point of maladaptive daydreaming. At what point does dissociation cross the line between so-called 'normal dissociation' and truly maladaptive dissociation indicative of a true psych disorder? Please juxtapose normal dissociative amnesia (e.g., due to spacing out while driving) against pathological dissociative amnesia (e.g., one who 'loses,' say, five days at a time, or even months/years at a time). Thank you.

Your videos have great clarity. I turn to them to get general review of the topics while I chill out! Thank you!

I have been dissociating more or less for as long as I can remember. In fact the first thing I remember thinking was "what would my life be like if..." at 6 yo. Thinking of it as a spectrum makes a lot of sense, thank you for yet another piece of the puzzle on my way to healing❤

I have had dissociation with trauma but also an issue caused by my vision in which my brain was overwhelmed by too much visual stimuli, as soon as I touched something cold I snapped back into by body. I just wanted to share that can also happen.

When I was about 9, i was in the living room watching TV. Then at commercial, i realized my mom was on the left side of the room. The only door into the room was on the right. I legitimately asked HOW and WHEN she got over there, because i never saw her walk in front of me. I was intently watching the show and didn't notice my physical surroundings. (Now, since then, I've seen other children not pay attention to people in the same room, even saying their name. But as a child who went through it and remembered it, i am still flabbergasted at my own dissociation from the real world that day. Over 40yrs who. I can still feel the shock and surprise of seeing my mom in a location that my own eyes should have seen.)

I find Kati's work interesting and often very helpful. When focused on specific issues like this she is positively illuminating. She conveys ideas so clearly and really establishes rapport with her audience through this medium. A natural communicator who maintains a focus on the practicalities of therapy and its importance. This video was especially hrlpful in giving me the words to describe a condition I had experienced a while back after a difficult bereavement, and a great deal to consider. Just one little caveat though. I really don't like the cutaways to models in these showroom-like surroundings, though. They tend to break my concentration on what is being said, and I really cannot identify with these perfect looking people. Is it just me? Maybe this is a visual grammar specific to US or KZfaq audiences? This style just makes it harder for me at least but I remain subscribed for Kati and thecwork she does best.

The noble mirage: Enlightenment... To end all suffering! I get to bypass all emotional pain and trauma… Until... My body or my mind remind me they are there! I then feel like a failure-I need to seek more, try harder or even: “I am already enlightened I just have to be it.” More trips around the transcendence mountain. The only way off the trail is inside out. I must face my pain, look at my repressed emotions, and rediscover my authentic self...

I think boredom makes me dissociate, if that's what it is. School was extremely boring, and I know I daydreamed and spaced out a lot, and didn't remember much of the day afterwards. Like somebody had stolen my day. Also, work might make it happen, also probably triggered by boredom and fatigue. Then I go on doing tasks without being "present", and when I "get back" I have to trace things back to the last task I remember doing, and redo the things I've done afterwards, because I tend to do them wrong when I'm "not there". When working from home I sometimes found myself having made tea or coffee without remembering it at all, or I'd brushed my teeth even though it was not the right time to do it. Also with no memory of doing it.

What about emotional dissociation? Not feeling emotions, or feeling emotion dull, muted, or not being able to connect the emotions to events that caused them? Without losing any memories: is that a dissociation or something else?

The one time I truly dissociated, was right after a doctor told me my son was probably going to die. I remember briefly I lost my hearing- everything sounded as if underwater- and I just sort of...floated out of my body. I watched myself go lie down on a hospital couch. And then I remember nothing, for days. The next memory I have is about 6 days later, shortly before he actually woke up out of the coma. He's fine now, thank God. But anyway, I did notice, that I seemed to drift in and out of reality for many months after that. It wasn't as pronounced as the first time, but I no longer felt like myself. It took me a couple of years, some therapy, and a lot of mental introspection to start to feel normal again. I do worry sometimes, that it could happen again. The brain is a very strange thing.

Thank you Katie for being here. I don't have enough resources to talk to a therapist but you being greatly helps for me to move little by little. I just got my certification as a Barista. I wouldn't be able to make it without your help.

I have recently had this diagnosis. I'm 48 and have felt this way my whole life. My long-term memories are none existent. I've never questioned it as I always felt this way. Now I feel damaged and beyond repair.

I hear a lot about DID and spacing out and daydreaming and these feel like the two very ends of the spectrum. DID is "interesting" and spacing out is relatable. I rarely hear about experiences of people with actual dpdr. When we say "I don't feel connected to my body" people take that rhetorically like oh you must feel uncomfortable or spaced out. No. It's literal. It's the most horrifying experience, when it feels like someone else is moving your body and you're not in control. Like your body could do something horrendous any second and you'd have no way to stop it. When the face in the mirror is a complete stranger's. When a stranger's voice speaks what you wanted to say. When people call you by a name that isn't yours. Like you've swapped lives with some stranger. When every moment feels exactly like a dream but you can't wake up. And then the intrusive thoughts... Not the ones from tiktok but the excruciating repeating thoughts. And all throughout you KNOW that it's in your head, so you're not psychotic. But that doesn't help and people won't take you seriously because they think you're being metaphorical. It's not the same thing as making coffee on autopilot on a groggy morning. It was the most horrifying period of my life.

My "root chakra" affirmations for dissociation: I accept what I sense as the reality in which I am a part. My body is physically real and I am alive within in it: I am my body; I am alive. I am resilient. I have a legitimate claim to the space my body occupies. I have agency over my body, over my life. I care for my body, for myself. I am not alone in the world. I value mutuality in relationships. I feel my connection to earth through: ... *Resistance exercises, animal friends, sand/clay, beets*

I really struggled with some serious spacing out. My therapist and I were getting no where with working on it. She finally asked if she could bring it to her peer group. I said, of course! Someone in her group asked her if I was having absence seizures. After a visit to a neurologist, some EEG’s and anti-seizure medication, bingo! A life long problem resolved. Moral of the story, don’t forget to check for actual medical problems as well.

Thank you, thank you. I struggle with dissociation due to childhood trauma. This video helped me discover something that I need to work on dealing with from my past. ❤

I saw someone in the comments say that their dreams are too real. So I felt like sharing my experience too. I remember all of my dreams since I was 4yrs old, I also remember many things and specific details about my childhood (like memories from when I was 2 and etc) but I can't recall about *things*. I always forget where I put my keys, I lost like a dozen rings on my work, I keep stumbling onto things, just in general I'm pretty goofy (don't trust me with glass cups or stuff like that). And the real thing is that, some days I don't know whether I'm dreaming, no not some days I don't know at all! Everything feels so pointless... This life only feels a little bit more real because I recall more stories from it and because my emotional connection with people feel deeper... Yet, I can't seem to forget the many lives I've experienced so far,; a few days ago I went on a crisis because of my son, and I'm a virgin 18 year old. At least I'm good at surviving...idk

I live with both BPD and migraine disorder. Both can cause disassociation. I have big chunks of childhood that I really can’t remember. I know I was severely bullied in school and not only by my fellow classmates but by several teachers as well. I do maladaptive daydream, as my inner world is much better than the life I actually live. But by developing migraine disorder my mind has gone back to some form of dissociation because the physical pain is overwhelming as is the depression and anxiety that I deal with because of said pain. Most times I can’t tell if it’s because of the pain and stress that migraine disorder causes or my BPD. I don’t lose time/ memory from it, I just feel spacey/numb/floating feelings.

I know Ive been dissociating at least since first grade. I dont remember most of my childhood or even young adult. Found drawing to be something that kept me on earth.

Ok so I have been having maladaptive dissociation since before it had a name. I’m pretty sure it started when my mom died when I was young. But it’s been my go to method for coping. I actually look forward to it. Also, happens more frequently when I’m in a bad depressive episode. It even helps me to fall asleep at night. Interestingly, I often wake up like I was yanked from a deep dream and I am incredibly foggy and slow to fully awaken. It has caused me to constantly be late for work. Great way to explain it, good job and thank you.

I have a ridiculous amount of trauma especially from childhood and my young adulthood There are literally years I don’t remember much from. It gets weird tho when I try to talk about movies from that time and I’ve watched them but don’t remember them. I’ve been recovering from escaping my mom’s abuse for a few years and honestly.. my brain just wants to be in a fog and use the internet as a means to escape reality. I’m finally beginning to come out of it.

It’s weird how the brain does this as a coping mechanism, but it only works to freak me out more

This happened to me after the birth of my first son. Suffering from post partum depression i can not clearly remember the first 6 months of his life. It truly scared me because i had no idea so thank you for this.

Imagine watching a winter blizzard through the window of a cabin with a perfectly cozy temperature inside, that's how I feel when I disassociate

School has been a problem for me I had social anxiety disorder, autism, where I pretend to pay attention in class, standing on the back of the classroom, looking at the floor, hiding face with hair, I had failing grades and certain people at school would avoid being near me and I had crush on boys that I was attracted to but they ignored me and avoided me cause I never talked to them. I got suspended for three days after I girl lied to the teacher that I hit her and she was kicking my legs from under the table. My parents want me to move out by the age of 18 but I have no friends or relationship to move out with. My mom resorted to foster care cause of my failing grades. I was dangerously abused by my abusive parents that would call police on me and stab my arm and use their fists to beat me up if I smash a vase, break a mirror in the bathroom or hear a scream from me.

I have autism and I daydream / dissociate a LOT and sometimes when I get overwhelmed I go silent because there are so many thoughts rushing through my head that I can't formulate any sort of sentences or understand what people are saying. 2020 especially changed my life... I used to be super social but after the pandemic it's like I just completely forgot how to socialize and be normal. And the reason why I dissociate is because I don't know how to handle situations or emotions or anything really.

Thank you for going into detail Kati! Sometimes can be very difficult to understand and explain how complex trauma can be, even our own!

I feel like the world isn't real all the time. I thought this was normal. I don't remember anything before I graduated high school... I had a traumatic childhood (mentally, not physically). I served in the military, and now I can't deal with basically ANY aggression. Working in customer service, I'd be fine after it happened for a while, until I got a break, and then came the mental breakdown. I had days where I couldn't even eat on my lunch break because I'd sob the entire time. Now, the VA has me on service-connected disability, because I just can't deal with life, and the human race outside my door. Know, in your heart, that it doesn't matter how good of a person you are. I'm terrified of ever meeting you.

I tend to under react to trauma. When I get bad news I show no emotion. Is this a form of dissociation? I was on vacation with friends when they found out their son died by suicide back home. I froze, mentally and physically. No emotion and could not move to go hug them for what seemed like 5 minutes…we were thousands of miles from home and I had to kick into survival mode to find us a flight home asap. That was part of the trauma.

I've been experiencing an unusual, (sub-clinical) form of disassociation that seems to have been caused by Jan. 6 and the covid pandemic--it often seems to me that we have all been transferred into a parallel universe!

I have mental health problems and I do a lot of research into psychology, and i thought I had heard of ever disorder or what have you out there, then my son had a dissociative episode, so now I have been learning more about it. He had to move out of his grandmother's home and into a new house that is practically unlivable. He was so shocked by the conditions there that he became overwhelmed and had to go to the ER. He was diagnosed with personalization and derealization. He was put on some kind medicine that helps but he still needs to get out of there. It's a long story. But now I realized that I saw him "space out" once when I went to visit him at school. He just couldn't handle school and sadly , even though he's considered gifted and talented, he dropped out of school around 7th grade. He is now 21 yrs old, he doesn't want to live with me due to my mental illness but he's now sick like me, very depressed and anxious. I want to help him but he has become hard to communicate with. will only talk via text, will only call once in a great while. I also wonder is dissociation is a precursor to something more serious like schizophrenia?

watching this video and getting really emotional 🥺. I am very much all better now but I was at the end of the spectrum my whole childhood, teenage years and that sort of thing effects a lot about a who you become and what you've acomplished. I just wanna hug my teenage self because she was struggling inside the fog. Really thankfull for my step father who pulled me out of the fog

omg, I WISH I could have had this adaptation. I'm so in my head and fully aware/ conscious of EVERY bad thing that happens to me it's awful. It's a big reason why I avoid everything now and just hide in my house 24/7. My brain barely shuts off enough for me to sleep, much less in traumatic situations. My mind just forces me to sit there in the totality of what is happening it feels like my whole being is about to snap. I always have to find a way to flee or attack whatever is causing it. A lot of the time I can't so I just attack myself instead... >n< Everything's always my fault and I'm always the bad one so.. I just stay away from _everything..._

I have a history of dissociation., but I have two scary things happen to me and Im not sure what it is. One time I went to the food store and when I got back to the car I had completely forgotten how to start my car. I just sat there and had to call my husband. The other time I was outside my house with the keys in my hand. I looked at them for a long time and my head said to me those are all wrong ones. Had to call my husband again... What is that? Is it dissociation?

Excellent explanation… appreciate the refresher… you really know and apply complex context to easy to understand real life situations. Thank you.

SO clear and helpful, thank you! I particularly love the ‘woop’ sound, it makes the whole thing a lot less dramatic, approachable and easier to relate to, with less judgement.

What if you just sorta shut down, but are totally aware of what you are doing, where you're at, etc, but just can't process anything becasue your brain is just "too full." Is that that a form of dissociation? As a person with a learning disability (and later major depression and PTSD), there have been so many times that I have gotten stressed out to where my brain just can't function, and I have to back off, knowing that I'm not taking anything in. Then, once that settles down, then I can refocus.

I had a traumatic birth 5 months ago. Since then my brain fog has been so bad, I’m always spacing out constantly almost everyday. It’s really affecting my relationship with my husband because I never remember anything and it makes him annoyed at me. I’m trying to work with a therapist but it’s really not helping.

I had a dissociative amnesia event. I flew from Sacramento to Boston with absolutely no memory or awareness. I have no idea how I changed planes on my layover. I was taken to the hospital from the airport in Boston. It took me a full day in the hospital to be able to tell the doctors where I was. I kept telling them I was in a city in California I had only been to once. It was frightening how easy my brain pulled the plug on reality. My mother had passed away from Brain Cancer 29 days after she was diagnosed. I took care of her so she could stay in her home. I had never seen someone die before. Brain cancer is absolutely devastating. I watched it take everything from my mom. It was just too much for me to cope with

I have DID diagnosed, among other things, so I was excited to see this reccomended.

Is there a way to retrieve memories of dissociative events? Not the childhood ones, I'd rather not. The adult ones. Like, how did I get to this place and why did I buy these things?

To me it feels like I am coming into myself like a turtle goes into it's shell. Or like a little mini me is living inside the greater me while the greater me is on autopilot.

Depression haunted my life from a very young age, and I was put on a bunch of SSRIs as a child in attempt to deal with it. None worked. Psychedelic mushrooms was brought to my attention. It was the first thing that actually had real effects. They should only be used with great care and respect.

Thank you very much! At the end of my MA program and the beginning of my promotion associated with my degree, coupled with training, and a mega acceleration of responsibilities and everyday life pressures pushed me into a bizarre blur with reality for about two months. I feel fortunate that I work adjacent to the mental health field. The director of the company I work for as well as my immediate supervisor (are MFT) assisted in turning down the volume. When I think back about that time it is fuzzy, definitely an acceleration in self awareness, I still don't comprehend what happened! My family have strong NPD traits... very uncomfortable to think the outcome could have been much different!

Can dissociation become a "go to" problem solver? I dissociate often.

Isn't a dissociative experience a trauma in itself? Can be very frightening!

Just had a blackout that last for a week. I can remember ist partly but I was shocked yesterday when I realised that not only 3 days passed but 10

I always thought of my memory as a sliding scale. In middle school I couldn't remember anything before mid-elementary, in high school nothing before middle school, now I barely remember schooling at all. It wasn't til recently I realizing what dissociating was and how much of my time was spent in that state. It became my main coping mechanism for some reason and now I struggle to keep a consistent timeline with my memories. They come back sometimes but rarely.

One day I was driving home and suddenly realized that I didn't know where I was. Nothing around me looked familiar and I had no idea how I got there. The only thing I could think to do was to keep driving in hopes that I would see something I recognized. Three blocks later I saw familiar landmarks. Instantly I knew where I was and how I ended up there. I had taken a different route home, briefly forgetting that fact I did so.