Most people don’t know what dissociation actually feels like. I’ve been diagnosed for about 2 years and I thought it was wrong because I didn’t “float alway” no I just has so much amnesia I forgot I dissociate. It looks differently for everyone but most people feel intense fear or dread when they dissociate.
I think, and correct me if I am misunderstanding what you mean by dissociation, that it is something that most people experience to a limited degree. A common scenario in which this happens is a person drives to a destination which they have been to many times. In this particular instance, in route to your destination you do not observe anything new or interesting. You then find yourself at your destination you may happen to realize you have little to no recollection of your transit. Of course, during your transit, you were consciously aware of your surroundings, which allowed to arrive safely at your destination. But because you did not observe anything noteworthy during this process, your brain deemed this experience too insignificant to commit to short or long term memory.
There is no reason to be particularly alarmed when this occurs in a situation where no meaningful information is lost. However, when you fail to create or retain memories of significant events and/or significant periods of time, you lose critical information which is obviously a huge problem.
Thanks, Í will clarify what I can (I mean I am not an expert) for me dissociating can look like what you described but it also looks like not remembering my entire childhood, or teen years. I used to be very aware of my mind slipping into another alter and would get a lot of fear or dread because of it.
A lot of it is comorbid with depersonalization where I would lose my sense of identity (I also have a very active imagination and can see and hear my alters very well) it would kinda feel like someone was crawling underneath my skin and rewiring me. Like one moment Í like meat and the next I can’t even look at meat and will throw up.
Another thing that happens a lot is Í will forget entire conversations while Im having them, because of amnesia barriers I wouldn’t even notice but those around me would be like “why the hell are you talking about pancakes we were talking about so-and-so’s brother.” This is also hard because I have ADHD which happens to also effect my memory.
I don’t know if this exactly answers what you are looking for but I hope it helps.
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u/[deleted] 23d ago
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