THIS.

Well and if you already tend to overthink, or even just tend to think more deeply, forcing yourself into a state where you’re trying to think EVEN MORE DEEPLY is like, as my therapist put it, “taking a Brillo pad to your soul.” That’s too much, you may well experience a reaction! Perhaps taking a gentle look at your soul would be the preferred method: be gentle, your brain is just squishy stuff with electricity running through it

ok but facing origins of hardship is still better. counterproductive? god no. if you protect yourself and stay in that way then any stress day to day does NOT get easier. everything becomes extra. so with care and experience this thinking is just destructive. mindfulness is often bs never mind that but addressing trauma is going to be hard. therapy is uncomfortable af. growing is not a cosy couch.

This is just so flipping out there. My husband grew up in trauma and tunes out. I feel good solving problems. I grew up where problems were solved with loving kindness and support and were even fun to work thru and learn and address. How does a person get so messed up? It’s so incredibly sad. Life doesn’t get better by avoiding issues.

lila wrote, _"...can be counter-productive"_ I would refine this a bit and say that they can be _uncomfortable._ Discomfort often accompanies change, particular _positive_ change in the face of _negative_ conditioning. Granted, a blanket-approach to anything risks oversimplification and/or over-generalization, but... even small, incremental steps toward the positive are better than avoiding discomfort altogether. As someone else in this thread as rightly observed, "Life doesn't get better by avoiding issues."

That’s also me currently

Nothing lasts forever 🙏 Goodluck

I hope you have safe resting places and caring support people to help you re-orient 🫂

I feel like i also go through long periods of dissociation. Sometimes i wonder if i have been dissociating for years myself. For years ive just felt completely out of control and helpless and ill have these moments of being "awake" but then i just go back to feeling out of control. Its like for a moment everything is bright and vivid! I feel super present and its almost overwhelming. But also kinda beautiful. But then i slip back into gray. It feels like that is my default anymore. I went through about a month where it was so bad i felt like my "spirit", for lack of a better word, was shifted about 3-4 inches to my right side. It was really distressing. Im sorry you had to go through that and i just wanted to share because i can understand to a certain extent. Youre not alone. And we will get better! I just got a kick in the pants today and i feel alive for the time being. I feel some control. And im taking advantage of it by getting out of the job i hate so damn much. Maybe this will help me keep the momentum 😁 work stresses me out like not other. I think quitting may help me not dissociate so bad or so much

Yep

Good luck on your journey!

❤❤❤

💚 yt has been a blessing in my life too 💝

Sounds a lot like me before I was diagnosed with autism

Keep healing ❤

Always nice to have a ''safety shelf".

Dissociation

Not strange at all, dissociation can help us survive difficult times until we’re safe enough to actually face what we’re going through

not strange at all. dissociation is a surviving mecanism. In the instant, the brain has no choice to survive. BUT.. in long term, this protection is very counter productive and very dangerous because, when we are dissociated, we don't live our life, we just survive...

@@elouan5092maybe that’s all we want now.

Exactly! Me too 🥺

I feel like I've been struck in the head with a shovel, and the shovel's stuck inside my head. Or a frying pan. Like I'm recovering from a major physical trauma, getting my bearings, always. On ADHD diagnosis/meds now for a year and a half but am not sure whether or not it's correct/good. Before was monopolar bipolar (yes), before that - clinical depression. Eaten a few different meds in 2-3 year bouts, no lasting positive effects. All in all, tiring. :)

After years of being in a dissociative state it starts to get to the point where you wonder, did I imagine all of this, is this just normal? But maybe once a year I also have rare moments of clarity where everything feels just a bit closer, my eyes see just a bit sharper and I think: this is how it should be. Sending love to all of you and hope that one day it will fade.

it’s gonna be okay stop relating to the bad start relating to the good 😊

This hit home ❤

Same! He guided me through my worst fear, aka being stuck on the oakland san Francisco bay bridge in traffic for hours. I haven't been able to cross bridges since 2010. Son of a b*tch that psychologist was. I tried a 10 day silent meditation retreat at age 20 and felt disconnected in a bad way, I ended up just suffering through. Too much mental alone time can be harmful to people.

My therapist tried hypnotism with me. It worked the first time, but the second time my body physically rebelled at being put into that state. My right leg began to shake, keeping me aware and the harder he pushed the more violently my leg shook until it shook me right out of the chair. I still have no idea why my mind felt so unsafe in that state that my body simply refused to let it happen again. I was 13 and grew up in a...difficult...family where I was abused in every way (except sexual) on a daily basis. [This is not to say that sexual abuse didn't happen, only that it was not daily]

@@SaravonThe harm done to you was the abuse. The situation you experienced was unhealed trauma. I am assuming you went on a Vipassana retreat. I have never gone but there are other people there so you're not completely isolated . It's just silent. Intentional solitude is NOT harmful! They ask you if you have psychological problems. If you didn't disclose them, that's on you. It makes sense that a person repressing trauma would not be a good fit for that sort of intense retreat but it's not the meditation's fault!

Breath ..best thing is lay on bed comphy spread hands and legs relax breath..let ur mind direct you where to go or what to make..

​@@jupiterchickYeah, no. Vispassana is the problem.

YES. I definitely dissociate when in sensory overload

Yes I get this, and when I went through some really hard traumatic events I felt that way constantly until I got through it, almost like when I tried to be present I just felt overwhelmed

@@Unity116 im sorry you went through trauma. I truly believe our brain dissociating is a way to protect ourselves. I hope you find love, peace and harmony 💜💜

@@Kelli5555 it's okay I've found resolution and peace through Jesus, but I agree that it is helpful so we can take the time we need to heal from what has happened to us I thought your description of sensory overload was a very accurate one

Agreed - I am ok with meditation sometimes, but mostly, not really. I often start feeling squirmy and like I want to run away, but last time I had a bad reaction to it, it was an anxiety attack.

There's a misnomer that the purpose of meditation is relaxation. It's not always roses and butterflies, it can be intense. You're forcing yourself to sit with things we habitually run away from. This is why guidance from a Guru and the wisdom and philosophy backing these practices are crucial. It ultimately leads to a loosening of the grip our trauma has on us, at least in my experience. But serious trauma probably needs additional assistance, e.g. from therapy, or a personalised meditation practice that works for you, typically from a Guru

I use meditation to go to another place haha. So that help me

@@potternutmaniaspiritualizing mental health and brain health is questionable at best. The rewiring of the brain due to trauma is not solved by gurus.

@@KarmasAbutch I didn't say spiritualise mental health, I just said get the context and background for practices of meditation and yoga

I'm happy for your ongoing recovery. ❤

really? you got better? I'm 40 and had decades of every symptom you listed. I'm ready to end it all. and now you're telling me there's hope?? I'm lost as to know what to do.

@@thunderpooch took my whole life. Therapy. Year after year. Magic mushroom. Hero dose. Under supervision. And the Doctor knew. Very carefully thought through. Lots of supportive peers. Studied about therapy too.

@randymulder9105 awesome! glad you made it to the other side and had some breakthroughs 🙂 i guess I'll keep at it

@@thunderpooch keep in touch. Study as form of meditation and finding yourself in the labels of CPTSD and all these other labels. Slowly finding what nuances describe you, your behaviour, your interactions with others, yourself, sleep habits, eating habits....and start to try and change some of those things: When I mean change things. Look carefully at your labels. How you have been labeled. Then look for what symptoms describe you and what you should tackle. Begin researching solutions people have already used to try and tackle the symptoms. Eventually you may be able to change some things that would affect the symptoms positively. Maybe a symptom or symptoms can be slowly diminished, or maybe they will become less intense or long lasting. . Tackling symptoms would be to look for "coping mechanisms and strategies" that can help alleviate any symptoms that are scary, tough, emotionally heavy, and so on. Begin looking at the labels used to describe you, look at the symptoms that describe you, and then research for "solutions". Finding solutions may be through research in books, research papers online, and healthy internet information. Also, depend on peers, family of possible, doctors, and therapists to assist you in your "journey". The journey may be long but there is a silver lining, many silver linings. Sliver linings may be small or inconsistent in the beginning. But with each step, change in your bahvlaviour and outlook etc. the silver lining becomes more apparent and you start to find it easier to see things differently....because some results are positive and you feel good for a moment. Relish in that good moment. Record the thoughts, how you came to be happy for a moment to have future reference to bahviour you can repeat to bring you back to joy. This can be a coping strategy or mechanism that you utilize to regain joy. It's okay to relish in joy. Hold onto that joy keep it in memory to access the next day. Begin creating a positive feedback loop even if it means writing to a list on paper that you keep in your pocket to read to remind yourself that yes....some moments are nice. Peace. Workshops with mediation techniques are good. Health food stores are good. Taking a course in health or therapy works. And all this is too meet other with similar issues that have climbed out of their slumber or at least have a goal to make it out of this funk.

I can’t imagine something so dysfunctional, that is awful.

I had never heard of dissociation until the last year or so. I’m 47 and the closest I can get to understanding is getting kind of caught up in a novel while I read, someone says my name and I’m pulled out of my imagination and back into reality. Otherwise I’m always here, right here and very present. I asked my brothers (56 and 60) and they said they also don’t experience that. My husband who was abused as a child has severe dissociation and describes it like you, he also suffers amnesia of up to 80% of his daily life, bad self thoughts and thinks his feelings are reality, has no inner voice, fractured self, etc. I didn’t understand any of that and it still sounds so strange. Sincerely, thank you mom and dad for being awesome!

@@jenilynneful I could have types the majority of your comment myself!

😅whoosh there i go too bru😊

Maybe because you're trying to suppress it instead of just letting it come and go. The more you push it down, the more pressure builds up. Then you try to do some form of meditation and it all just comes rushing at you at once as soon as you try to let your guard down. There's so many ways to practice meditation that aren't just sit down and be quiet. It's sad to see it used so flippantly as some sort of "cure all" when there's so much nuance to it all. There's a healthy level of discomfort to it, but you also don't want to go outside your window of tolerance. I will say one thing tho, meditation is uncomfortable and so is healing so you might just want to except that it will be uncomfortable until it suddenly becomes a little less uncomfortable lol

???? WHAT !

I started dissociated and tuned in a minute or so in. Does that count? 😂

Hahaha. Yup!😊

Constantly rewinding lol

I sure did

I feel the same way. It happened after an overly intense trip that put me in hospital with chest pain that didnt go for months. Ever since then I'm like a shell of myself and i feel like im clinging onto my body but I just cant ever get inside it again truly.

So sorry I see you and you matter, abandoned or not doesn’t matter you are loved ❤❤ I hope you get the peace you deserve

Hey, I’m 13 years old I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for everything that you’ve been through I’m glad that you’re finally getting help through the internet (just like me!) Anyway have a nice day Ps: English is my second language how did I do?

Stop using the internet. It might help

@@jessewhite5930 I can always count on a rude person who did not read. But, hey at 67 what do I need? I will tell you what I need, I owe you nothing! I did not use the Internet to save me, I saved myself! You should do the same! BTW, my Internet will be off tomorrow. The USA is truly a sickening nation.

@@Productions_WolfYou’re English is great!

I agree -- years with paid therapists never explained this, but he just did!

It doesn't help when you are being asked what you did to someone to make them abuse you.

So glad I found this. My therapist has suggested "mindfulness" so many times for my dissociation. Every time I'd try, it'd worsen my fugue state, I'd get so panicked I was aware that I was dissociating and feeling my body... which felt foreign to me. I stopped using mindfulness and started allowing it to just run its course... and with that the experience has shortened.

@@sr2291a therapist asked that? whoa ok. they are in the wrong field. that is not mindfulness

@@chinmeysway It is part of the Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) training.

exactly ! mindfulness helped me a lot. i used to be a lot dissociated ( and it was not only amnesia, etc.. it could be depersonalisation and anesthezia (no emotions at all) also... Mindfullness e helped me to not overthink, first and to learn to connect with my emotions without be afraid of them... i couldn't do this this work whitout mindfulness... yes, it is not always easy (it's a bit like if you stop to take drugs against pain... it hurts ), but now, i can be more comprehensive and compassionate too with me ( and the others ! )

The other skills, makes me think of Affect Regulation / inner-subjective. Naming the emotions to identify and put them into perspective so as not to be overwhelmed by them? That "re-framing?" I think it's very useful.

He actually did mention depersonalisation and derealisation. Emotions is one thing but trauma is stored in the body, in physiological reactions too, and when your mind is doign a good job being dissociated and protecting you from painful experiences that haven't been integrated yet, getting in touch with your body through mindfulness can make things worse, flood and overwhelm the system and in some cases induce psychosis.

It's funny that "depersonalization" and "derealization" are considered pathological by psychologists, while they have been considered the pinnacle of wisdom by philosophers for thousands of years.

@@MrCmon113 are you referring to the ability to look at life without emotion? Because it’s not desirable to have no emotion at all, our intuition relies upon us having values and preferences for what is good for us, avoiding what is bad for us. These action systems are fragmented or disrupted with dissociation. It is well known that dissociative disorders are traumagenic and therefore grooming is likely to have occurred. If so you have cohorts of people who can’t tell what they need, they become vulnerable to unscrupulous people and have no internal ‘alarms’ that they are in danger. It has just become ‘normal’. Of course it is a spectrum, but those who live with chronic depersonalisation can present this way. Lastly it is only ‘pathologised’ when it starts to interfere with daily life functioning as most of the population will dissociate at some point.

i spent the better part of the last 20 years in severe dissociation. to be able to feel myself alive in the world at this point is the weirdest thing you can imagine after so long cutoff from feeling my body. conscious breathing is what brought my mind out of this insanity.

@@christopherpederson1021 I think what did it, for me, was when I found myself so financially well-off that I could afford nice things for fun without having to worry. For the first time in my life, I didn't feel even a little depressed. I didn't know I could be so happy. I assume that's when my DPDR cleared, since I was finally safe.

Exactly me

Me too​@@7178dw

There's people, who spend their entire lives meditating and fasting in isolation to get to a state that you consider pathological. There is no self. Biologically, neurologically, physically, philosophically, logically or phenomenologically the self is nonsense. And you have climpsed the luminous nature of mind free from separateness and confinement.

May I ask if you are a system? I hope you’ve been able to find answers and appropriate support 🪴

@@lilmissjoodypoody I believe they are human

@@TheOfficialOriginalChad systems are human. It’s what I believe some people with DID prefers to be referred to as opposed to an “individual”.

Just as mindfulness isn't a blanket for every situation, it's also the case that blanket-dismissing mindfulness is equally unhelpful. Let's consider an analogy: If you cut your arm on a machine at work, it may be more comfortable in the moment to look away from the cut, with all it's associated physical gore. However, if you never return to give it the attention it needs, that cut likely will become infected and later cause much more harm and suffering than if it had been tended to in the moment. As a coping mechanism, dissociation has an understandable role. However, it's important to realize that humans aren't best served when coping mechanisms become the bulk of our life. So, while it's likely true that barging in on a life that's perpetually in a state of 'survival mode', where most (or even all) discomfort is 'coped with' by dissociating, over time this also creates more problems than it solves. I believe that the correct understanding, and course of action, is to take small steps towards living life less dissociatively and more mindfully. It's a process, not a steady-state. If the process is slow because it's comprised of many small steps, that's ok. Any progress is likely to be better than no progress.

Sure if you want to build a rocket to send to proxima centauri, you need something more. But as for all of those mental afflictions that you guys imagine, you just keep piling on problems that this imaginary character, the self, has. It's as if you treated someone with nightmares and all of your concern is how to fight and confine the monsters in the dream, rather than waking up.

Dissociation Identity Disorder is very rare, I’m hoping if you do that you can find someone who can treat you well. Have you any evidence of alters? Good luck!

Good luck on your journey!!

@@basicallyno1722it's honestly not that rare. If you look up a couple of studies on it, i think the prevalence rate is between 0.5% and 2%? About the same as redheads.

It's better to practice mindfulness before something mortifying happens. Otherwise it's kind of like trying to learn to stitch a parachute in freefall.

@@MrCmon113Mindfulness can be triggering for people who have experienced what the OP has, as in it genuinely won't help. What do you mean by something mortifying exactly?

Thank you Paula, I really appreciate it.

This happens to me a lot, it felt like I was a visitor in my own body

that’s called aging and not looking very often? or that’s me at least i don’t care to look much

@@chinmeysway that's not what OP is describing. I don't have OP's issue so don't see my 'ageing' face as a stranger looking back at me - even though I actually rarely look in the mirror (by 'ageing' I mean I'm nearly 41, still look relatively young but my looks have definitely changed as I've got older - not a boast about how young I look, just that my looks haven't changed so dramatically I no longer recognise myself).

Yes. Been there. I felt like an alien in my body.

This is how my friend felt before they learned they have DID

Mindfulness is alternative to what exactly? Imagine you're going to a doctor to help you with your nightmares and he suggests all kinds of complicated ways of containing and fighting the monsters in the nightmare. Mindfulness is simply the practice of waking up. It's not an alternative to anything, it undermines the entire logic upon which your apparent problems are built.

@@MrCmon113 Pontification.

Very relatable.

Hey, maybe NEI (Neuro-Emotionnal-Intégration) might help... or maybe EFT? (this one I know less). But NEI basically is a alternative therapy where you heal effects of traume stocked in your body, so without actually going back to the events, but just cleaning up cell-memory. It kind of takes away the triggers stocked in your body.

Hi Michelle, Forrest’s videos are usually longer and goes into more depth than this one, which I guess is more of an explainer. If you haven’t yet, I’d highly recommend checking out his other videos and interviews (I sort them by popularity and start there). I have cPTSD and a high dissociative tendency (though it’s not visually obvious coz I also have Aphantasia) but what helps me may not help you since healing is such an individual journey. Eg I tried EMDR which helps a lot of people and don’t require you to regurgitate details of the trauma (though helps if you can picture it or connect to it emotionally), but it didn’t work for me coz of the Aphantasia (I can’t picture stuff in my head). If you find an EMDR practitioner who specialises in dissociation (it’s a specialty within EMDR and need to be approached with care) then it has helped a lot of people and has been scientifically proven to be very effective (I think more so than medication for trauma). I am trying Internal Family Systems with some success (seeing progress/improvements) and it’s worked for people with DID too. Somatic practices based on gaining awareness of my body sensations has also been eye opening. But nothing’s been a panacea or “oh this is what’s going to cure me if I stick with it” so far. At first that’s very frustrating for me, because I’ve seen how some people get huge transformations from one modality, but the more I learn the more I realise that I can take what resonated and helped from different modalities and although a bit hodgepodge, I am seeing real healing and growth for the first time in almost 40 years. Included in that is learning self compassion, improving basic daily self care practices (sleep, diet, movement, social connection, need for mastery/accomplishment, getting diagnosed and making environmental and mental adjustments to accommodate for my ASD and ADHD, learning about burnout (esp as a woman in a cis-hetero relationship) and how to set healthy boundaries for myself, reintegrating the young and protective parts of myself I’ve rejected due to perceived weakness for so long (through IFS), learning about dialectic/duality from Dialectic Behavioural Therapy - DBT), challenging validity and helpfulness of thoughts instead of accepting them as fact/me through cognitive reframing techniques from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), increasing my curiosity and becoming more aware/conscious of my thoughts and default behaviours… and allowing myself time each day to ‘tap out’ (which can look like dissociation or even having a sensory escape for me - noise cancelling headphones on while I garden and not get disturbed especially when I’m really dysregulated)… sorry it’s a long reply to your comment but I’m hoping maybe something in this list might spark an idea that you can look into. I also find YT channels “Patrick Teahan - LFsomething-a-bunch-of-letters” and “Healthy Gamer GG” to have been quite helpful for understanding and getting practical advice for different aspects of my experience and struggle. And as with everything - I’ve learned to be hungry for knowledge but don’t automatically accept it as wisdom - I allow myself to evaluate everything with curiosity and trust that my inner wisdom will know if it’s something for me or not in that moment (there are approaches that only started helping me years after I tried it the first time - sometimes we just aren’t ready or in the right time/space for something to work, so it’s ok if it’s doesn’t work now but can also be good to revisit at a different point in our journey), and to practice self compassion if something doesn’t work (it’s just not for me, right now, and that’s ok, it’s not for everyone). I really hope you’re able to find something that helps, soon. I understand how frustrating it can be to want help but not know who or what will help. 🪴

I'm glad you found this for you to reconnect! It's a great tool for me, too. Look out for further more that feels not threatening to you.

For me, I was able to create persist safe, healthy and grounding conditions that over time made my brain learn to use dissociation less and less. Conditions means - safe friends/partner/hobbies and using grounding techniques when dissociation and fear seemed to raise

‘Not living but passively existing’ is such a powerful way to say it. One of my main issues is finding words to convey internal experiences/thoughts/feelings