Posted by Shar on June 29, 2001, at 20:43:49
In reply to What is This?? Anybody?, posted by tina on June 29, 2001, at 9:40:40
Hi, T:
My therapist would refer to what you're experiencing as dissociation. According to her, it can come in varying degrees and be as simple as not "remembering" someone's name after 6 weeks of group or as complex as something akin to blackouts. In the middle are all the experiences of us ending up in places we don't remember going, or talking to someone and hearing it as if from a distance, or experiencing an out-of-body sort of feeling (similar to your description).Dissociation, as I understand it from my therapist's perspective, occurs when being in the here and now is too anxiety provoking, or too painful, or REMINDS us of a situation that was overwhelming, anxiety provoking, painful.
When it happens in our group, she just asks us to "come into the room." Sit and put our feet on the floor, feel the floor, breathe, breathe, breathe, look at people there, look at surroundings, etc. So we sort of get back in our bodies.
Then deal with the anxiety or whatever provoked the experience if we know. Deal with it using a "here and now" perspective. Hard to do, I know. So easy to slip out of the present.
Hope this eases up for you.
Take care,
Shar> Morning all
> I'm going to try to explain this but it doesn't make much sense to me so I should imagine that it won't to you either but here goes:
> Every morning for the past 2 weeks, I've woken up with this weird sense that I'm still asleep and dreaming. I have been having disruptive daydreams when awake that terrorize me all the time. I can't think. These images just seem to come into my head and give me a sense of dread and impending doom and I get anxious and have a raging panic attack. This morning I almost fainted. i got so dizzy and scared. I feel like I'm really losing it. Talk about your unreality! It's very overwhelming to feel that you can't stop the thoughts and images from taking over. I see flashes like images under a strobe light. They aren't coherant but I know they terrify me. I don't know what this is?
> I have panic disorder but this isn't like any panic attack I've had before. These make me feel like I'm really going to go mad and be carted away. Does anyone have an explanation better than this? Do you know what this is?
> I'm really worried
> thanks
> tina
poster:Shar
thread:6912
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20010628/msgs/6931.html