Dissociation

[16sundayz]

Does anyone mind if I ask this question? When you have dissociated can you hear people if they are talking to you? I’m asking because my psychologist said he was talking to me while I was dissociated and when I came back he asked me
if I heard him and I said no. So I've suggested to him that when he's notices I've dissociated that he keeps talking to me as it might bring me back quicker even though I can't hear him.

Does anyone have any other ideas I can ask him to do?

[romantic_thi3f]

Hi 16sundayz,

Thank you for your post - and of course you can ask questions here 🙂

Everyone is a little different when they dissociate as to how much sensory output they might 'block out'.

For me personally, it depends on how bad the dissociation is - sometimes I'll be able to hear things and other times I feel like it's not there - once I didn't hear a car coming past for example.

Do you or your psychologist know when you are about to dissociate or do you know when that dissociating feeling starts to happen? Often that can be key to kind of grounding yourself or managing that feeling so it doesn't get so intense.

One thing that might be helpful is having a think about what you might need as you dissociate. For me, it helps to be told that I'm safe, but for others it might be being reassured of something else, or letting you know details about the present moment, like 'your feet is on the carpet', 'it's 2019', 'it's Friday', 'I'm here with you'. Even if there's times when you feel like you can't hear anything, your brain is still processing that underneath which can help anyway.

Hope this gives you a few ideas. Perhaps your psychologist might have some more.

[16sundayz]

@romantic_thi3f Sometimes I can tell him when I can feel it happening and sometimes it happens to fast to tell him and that's when it's really intense.

I've made a list of a few things for him to say to me and what you said about being told that I'm safe and that I'm with him.

[hope4joy]

Hi 16sundayz,

I just wanted to add that somebody saying my name is a powerful way for me to get grounded again - I'm not sure if this might help you too.

I also think it is important to try to keep therapy sessions within a heathy tolerance range - continual disassociation is a very exhausting thing from my experience and not always helpful. It helped me a lot to become more aware of my body and to be able to describe my level of anxiety and to have tools to help my re-ground - for me this includes squeezing my thumb and index finger together firmly, or having my hand firmly on my thigh as i'm sitting or wiggling and focussing on my toes. Its a process- but over time I disassociate less often and less severely than i used to.