Have you ever felt like a robot or as if you were in a video game?
Did you know that PTSD is not the only effect of trauma?
Intense and ongoing trauma can cause your mind to activate a temporary superpower — escape!
Tell me more…
It’s like your mind creates a wall or bubble around you to protect you from things that were out of your control. Your brain decided, in an automatic way, that this was the best way to get you through an intolerable situation. Now, everyone has a little dissociation, daydreaming or forgetting to listening when someone else is talking, but for people with dissociation there are more extreme or noticeable reactions. You might feel unreal — like a robot (Derealization) or feel almost as if the world is unreal — like being a character in a video game (Depersonalization).
DID/OSDD
In some cases people can develop an alternate identity, or alter (Dissociative Identity Disorder, or, as is more common, Other Specified Dissociative Disorder) that your current self does not know about. There will likely be clues for a long time before you might come to be aware of the altars. Family might tell you that at times you call yourself by a different name, or you find clear evidence (written journals, purchased items) that you did things you were not aware of.
Or you might feel like there are a lot of internal comments being made on the things you do, almost as if you one or more people heckling you or warning you.
You might suddenly find yourself somewhere and not feel sure of how you got there (Dissociative Amnesia).
Any of this can be frightening. but the good news is you can be met, and more fully meet yourself, in some beautiful ways. You can embrace your full self AND your multiplicity.
“…any person with a dissociative experience will tell you it has been our lifeline. It still serves us in a lot of ways, even in a state of recovery.”
Dr. Jamie Marich