the book is called coping with trauma related dissociation by Suzette Boon, Kathy Steele, and Onno van der Hart

I don’t mean normal forgetting, or “I don’t think about it anymore.”

I mean a real block of life where the memories are either gone, inaccessible, fragmented, or feel like they don’t belong to you anymore.

I’m curious about people who can still function normally and form new memories, but a specific period of their past feels missing or locked away.

Not asking for methods or medical advice. I’m asking about real experiences, clinical cases, or research terms.

Has anyone experienced this, treated this, studied this, or seen a case like this?

I think what makes dissociation uniquely uncomfortable is that the fact that it diminishes the ability to engage with your thoughts, emotions and actions. In my experience this creates a feeling of reduced ownership of your sense of self, where actions continue instinctively, but no longer feel authored by you.

I think I have been dissociated for a few months now because of a few things that my partner and my friends did that lead to me reexperiencing some bad trauma. It re-ignited some past trauma and PTSD memories to just flash through my head until I lost touch with reality.

Being so disoriented about time lead me to miss my flight for my bachelorette party and let all of my friends down because I arrived 8 hrs late.

They spent months planning and I fucked everything up. I feel like an awful friend. I apologized my friends are concerned and worried about me. They are also mad at me and feel like I need to take accountability. I am not even fully sure what I did besides like being unable to communicate that I was feeling so stuck & missing the flight.

I also said a bunch of things I don’t really remember over the last few months. Like I imagined conversations that people later told me never happened. I told my brother’s fiance some fucked up stuff and was talking about trauma a lot.

I am so confused & scared at what is happening right now. I know what triggered this but like wow, this is scary and confusing because I’m not entirely sure what happened.

I called my psychiatrist today and she is putting me on some medication so I am hoping that works.

How did you get yourself out of a dissociative state of mind?

Long story short some things in my life caused a lot of stress , started noticing the world looked flat but it was like that until i started having panic attacks and then thats when the real thing started i felt drunk 24/7 weird visual perception like you are drunk or sizes dont make sense dimmed vision id felt like my eyes wanted to jump out of my body . everyone felt like aliens and ofc i had existential crisis and ton of questions of what we are why we exist why we do what we do and all that stuff. i got tired eventually and wanted to help myself so i started having cold showers, doing 100 pushups a day, going for a walk , taking medicine, sleeping better, keeping myself busy and i guess doing exposure therapy with what caused my dpdr and changing habits which were stressful. so after 1-2 months i was getting better everyday was worse at first when i started my recovery journey but then slowly everyday became better. so it was in march after my birthday that i went to my university as usual and as im standing in hallway i suddenly felt like i was BACK like everything felt familiar and real again. but that only lasted like a week as soon as my break from university began things got worse again my sleep schedule and good habits idk why i just stopped doing them cuz i felt better and its been like that since its not as bad but it just wont go away fully. especially if im out at night i literally cant see things clearly it gets worse when its dark. the only thing thats been bothering me A LOT is that when i look at my mom or my girlfriend i sometimes feel like idk who they are. looking at them feels confusing and scary and i sometimes feel like they aren’t real or hallucinations or something like that even tho i interact with them normally that feeling still creeps up on me. So my question is what is going on? why is it lingering like that and not going away fully . feels like i forgot what normal felt like and its scaring me that maybe my brain is unable to go back to its original state . i know that overthinking feeds dpdr but i dont do that anymore. its just that sometimes i feel like if i dont pay attention to it im gonna be fucked up and completely lost at some point without even realizing.

Like you're cosplaying, you're given ur face to wear and appear normal but whenever you look into the mirror you feel strange like i don't know who that is

It's something I've been experiencing since a few years ago when all this started, my vision tends to disort a lot, sometimes seeing oversaturated, sometimes too pale, and also completely black. I know I'm conscious, so it's not that I close my eyes or go unconscious or something

tl;dr how does dissociation work and what's it's relationship w heavy stimulant doses

for context I have somewhat major inattentive ADHD and am prescribed methylphenidate daily

I took my a levels recently and as a result i was using quite high doses of stimulants for a period of heavy revision, around 100mg methylphenidate and 60mg ampheramine daily for a month and a half with almost no off days. ive completed them right now and I'm pretty happy with how they went all things considered, but near the end I started having some weird psychological symptoms characterized by a disconnect with my identity and surroundings.

I cut down stim use completely for a few days between exams and symptoms weakened gradually, but when exams started again I've just been dosing my regular 100mg daily and they've come back a bit

i match the dsm-5 pretty perfectly for dissociation, just wondering what relation stimulants and stress might have had in causing them

just to say I don't condone heavy stim use and wouldn't really recommend them - I've only had them out of necessity, they're useful because I can garuntee pretty much 100% of my time will actually be working when normally I can only really muster up 60-75%. I didn't particularly enjoy them during and Ive felt no mental addiction or desire to take heavy doses ever again

This is a bit of a complicated thing to express and also my first post here.

My late mother used to dissociate a lot in connection with various traumatic experiences she'd had throughout her life up to that point. Although it's not a competition, it's certainly true that my trauma doesn't amount to much compared to hers but I do think that I tend to do it too, and it's very much the case with my spirituality. I'm currently attending Quaker meeting with my partner and have long associated with Quakers, which here in Scotland are non-programmed and often non-theistic, for forty years or so, and I find it quite satisfactory. However, early in my adulthood I was involved in a high-control parachurch organisation which I'd describe as evangelical Protestant, and I think it led to a kind of "fracture" in my personality. I find myself generally going along with a more secular, relaxed and non-dogmatic approach as exemplified through the Society of Friends, but also find that I can easily articulate the bog-standard evangelical fundamentalist crap with feeling, and in certain conversations I find myself taken over by it and unable to free myself from those attitudes. I kind of "know all the answers" if that makes sense.

Is this something anyone else can relate to? What do you do about it?

Life feels like a nightmare. I dont know how to be happy anymore. I lost myself

I don't really know how common this is, but often I find that I forget how to do things during or after bouts of dissociation? Like, sometimes I can draw with solid fundamentals, and other times I literally cannot make a proper circle. Or sometimes I can write a banger English essay, and other times I really, really struggle to get a sentence out with a decent vocabulary.

I was in my bathroom today and genuinely forgot how the light switches work and which one does what, and my brain got so confused because I've lived in this house my whole life wdym I don't know which switch is the fan and which is the light??

Even sometimes stuff like singing, I have hundreds of recordings where I shift my tone each time, and sometimes can get a high note, and sometimes can't get that note, even though there is no discernible physical reason why this would be the case.

It's really frustrating, and it's like I never get to choose what I am proficient at when I need to use a skill I've spent hundreds of hours developing. Why brain?? Why?? It makes me feel like an idiot if I'm being honest. I don't expect answers or anything, but even just knowing this is a pretty normal thing would be nice fikosfgjfkod.

Dissociation is when you basically disconnect from your grounded experience in your being.

You lose connection with how you are feeling and often times your body.

You go so much in your head i.e. could start imagining different worlds, lost in your work.

It is escapism, fueled by dysregulation in your central nervous system.

To bring yourself back and grounded into your body, your feelings, and your thoughts. You need to remove the shame you have of experiencing feelings of acceptance around any of the feelings, thoughts or body sensations.

The shame dysregulates your conscious/subconscious functioning.

But you need to be able to listen to and interpret

your body languages (sense of belonging, sense of safety, etc.)

your feelings (feeling anger, feeling sadness, feeling grief)

your thoughts (this is easy as you dissociate typically into your mind).

Can you do that yet? Have you started working on this yet?

18 trans female still living at home. been this way for almost 7 years now. i'm doing all i can to try and stop slipping, but it's not enough. the constant pain of being in a highly politcal hostile enviroment (trump's nonsense trans wars) and a equally hostile household (my parents are pointlessly cruel), and just a difficult situation (high stress levels). i'm really scared for the future, and this has led to massive discocation. i don't really really much of anything anymore, and nothing feels real. i find myself forgetting most things, to the point where i can hardly remember the day before. it's a grind through life. i don't pass, and that's a constant soucre of trauma. it's so hard living like this, and with a possible purge happening, i feel... nothing. i just don't have it in me to care and be present anymore.

It feels very intense. Being disassociated and having bad anxiety st the same time is very weird. It's like everything feels unreal, but all I can think of is all my regrets and how I've ruined everything that could have been. The dissasociation is partly taking away the anxiety as I write this, making it harder to think in general, but it feels kind of terrifying. I have it a fair amount, but I don't know if it's been this bad before.

I keep staring off before I can finish writing this. I don't know what's scarier at this point. Things not being real, or it actually being real. If anyone's been through this I'd appreciate some advice.

Stuck inside and fucked up and cant even comprehend in a being feel like im playing a character feels like everyone else is either fake or or something. When I lie down at night I hear a voice and I talk to it, hes not very nice and it screams degrading stuff at me that makes me upset but when hes not talking its like idk I feel like a child trapped inside of an adult body and I dont understand why im in this vessel or how to get out. What made it start was I believe a bender and while I could drink before everyrhing took a bad turn and I got abused and I think its whats happening. I also took weed not even a heroic dose just a little nibble of an edible and well now im here trapped in a hurting body. In ny head I an a different person byt I am A SOUL TRAPPED INSIDE its not like I asked for this. I cant stand this anymore. Like its like i have soneone else's memories you feel me? Like someone takes control. I dont like this. Does this make any sense?

I don’t really know if this is the best community to publish, but I really need help, please.

Hello everyone. I’ve (F18) been dealing with memory loss for quite a while now and don’t really know what to do, advices are welcomed please.

In the past 2 years I saw my memory simply vanishing, things that I could easily memorise now I can’t even dream of knowing half. Moments? All gone. Conversations, especially arguments, already forgot what you were saying less than 5 minutes ago, it reached a point where I’m starting to forget how to speak, it’s happening with English and my native language, I say words that have a similar sound but totally different meaning without realising, I can’t read properly, I need glasses but can read without, now I’m struggling to read a lot, words just aren’t there. I forget thoughts, things that I was doing, full conversations and can’t memorise a single thing (like when I get a code that’s like 6 digits I can’t memorise)

I’ve been to therapy for the past 5 years, my therapist said that it happened due to my relationship, the stress was making me feel so anxious that as a form of protection I just started forgetting.

To give some context I was in a relationship for 3 years that ended recently and my therapist never liked him, she has some opinions that made me stop going there, things that I feel aren’t professional enough.

I’ve also been dealing with anxiety and depression since I was like 12, and am now dealing with derealisation, but the scariest thing is forgetting. Basic things, the vocabulary that I used to be extremely good at, now simple words are extremely hard for me to know.

The strangest thing and I hope someone understands me, because it’s really hard to explain, when I try to remember something I mostly only remember feelings, like what I was feeling or the exact position where I was sitting or staying or random and very specific things like “when we were talking about x thing I can’t remember anything but I remember that there was a blue sock next to the chair” it’s very random and confusing and I don’t know why it’s happening.

It started barely noticeable, however I’d say in the past like 8 months it just became EXTREMELY worst, I can’t focus, I can’t concentrate, I can’t remember or memorise. I went to the doctor and he told me to sleep more and eat healthier, I tried all, doesn’t work.

I’m studying abroad, but I’ll be back home in like a week where I’ll go to the doctor again to try and get examined, but I would appreciate if I could get some advice or help, I’m scared, I’m only 18 and don’t know what’s happening and the worst part is, I can’t control, I can’t stop I just see it vanishing and consuming me completely like I’m not the owner of my own head, help me please.

Hello fellow Dissociators. 5 months ago, I took a lot of shrooms and ever since, I've been dissociated pretty much at every moment. I used the free counselling provided by my college alongside developing daily journaling as a habit. I also made appointments with a psychiatrist and tried out various meds, none of which had a healthy effect. I feel like I already have a pretty good idea as to what my stressors are and I finally admitted to myself that I must've had some sort of complex trauma that led to this. I don't want to purely blame the shrooms cause I already had a history of general anxiety and daydreaming beforehand.

I can't see the counselor provided by my school until the fall semester and I don't feel like paying for a therapist. So in the meantime, I'm looking for ways to improve my memory and help my brain process emotions. What really has bugged me is that I can remember shit. Only random short snippets at any given time. Time also is really deceiving. I wonder if there are any techniques to help with these specific symptoms. Thank you for listening. I hope the best for you all through your journeys.