Some writing about dissociative(?) symptoms I've been having. If anyone has experience with this/advice/any idea of what it might be please let me know
I keep getting people telling me that I don't notice them when I walk around on campus, even if they like tap me on the shoulder or something and it's so weird. Like I generally tend to like zone out or have a conversation with myself when I'm waking between classes (generally like analyzing a previous conversation or planning what work I'm gonna turn to do between classes) and I use headphones, but they're not noise canceling and this is like a reoccurring comment from multiple different people over the span of like 2.5 years (since I started college).
I'm really wondering if this is a dissociation thing, or maybe just being lost in thought a lot, because I know I have dissociation due to anxiety but sometimes I get it randomly even if I'm not stressed, so I'm trying to figure out if it's like something else. And I also have had weird experiences where I'm having an anxiety attack/get emotionally triggered by something and feel very emotionally overwhelmed but also am able to carry on small talk and simple conversations with people in a way that almost feels like I'm separate from those emotions. And often the things I'm triggered about seems to come out of nowhere, like I know that it's like abandonment or really left out, and it's something that would have hurt me a lot as a kid but not now, but the feeling almost takes over and I act different than I usually do and it feels like I can't control it.
And I also don't have the clearest memory of previous years. Like I don't remember the majority of highschool - I remember my friends, but the actual memories are like maybe a 5-7 days per year? I know generally what activities I did and stuff just about 5 snippets of memories of doing them. But I can talk about it almost narratively, like everything was a story I was told once or a movie I watched and I'm just wondering if that's normal? I was very depressed back then so that might be part of it. But I've had reoccurring problems with this - where I didn't remember my Sophomore year of college really well last semester, and had difficulty remembering a lot of the summer internship I did like halfway through the semester unless something triggered a specific memory. And now I have difficulty remembering last semester, other than I was again feeling really depressed. I again remember a couple memories here and there and can remember the general stuff I did, but if I try to go deeper into it, it feels foggy. I can only really remember specific details if something either triggers it - and most other stuff I remember but it feels like someone else is giving me the answer to a homework problem. Like I'm looking something up, but maybe reading about it instead of it being something I experienced.
Time also doesn't feel real. I remember everything across a single day, but then suddenly it feels like 2 weeks have passed out of nowhere and I don't really know what I did last week vs 3 weeks ago. It's been like this since the pandemic started, but especially bad this last year and a half. Nothing feels real. Even though I know that I exist and I really care about the people in my life, I don't feel real and there's a part of me that doesn't really believe I'm a college student or an adult. Lately, things have felt more real then it the last year but I still have moments where I don't feel like the world exists or that I exist or that I have an impact on the world or recognize the consequences of my action/inactions because nothing feels real.
Back when I was in therapy, for a year and half until a couple weeks ago, I used to have a really hard time remembering the sessions afterwards. My therapist would ask me what we did last week and while I could occasionally remember some exercises, oftentimes I didn't remember what we did very well - especially if we talked about anything that made me very emotional/related in some way to past trauma. It again would feel like the emotion of my younger self would take over, and then I'd gradually calm down and I thought I remembered what happened, but would essentially lose most of the memory of it a couple hours later and not be able to remember anything by the next week. This has also happened with a lot of the vent posts on here, many of which I don't remember writing.
Nothing my therapist taught me for dissociation helped. The anxiety stuff helped, but it's hard to ground yourself when your entire existence doesn't feel real.I still don't know what is going on.
I keep on wondering if I have a dissociative disorder, I've taken the Dissociative Experiences Scale scored around 37.5 even though I put the lowest possible answer I could estimate. Which is technically between the average score of osdd and did, but I'm also wondering if it was skewed because it's an online test. Not super sure about if my results were accurate because I had a hard time remembering how often I experienced things long term. I've suspected I have depersonalization-derealization disorder for a while now, but I don't want to self-diagnose and have a tendency to be a hypochondriac when it comes to illnesses. I don't know if the memory thing is actually concerning or just how memory works for most people. I don't usually get symptoms as bad when I'm regularly talking to people or able to get into a flow with my work.
I really just want to figure out how to lessen the dissociation though, other than just ignoring it. Because it makes it really hard to remember things and to focus on school work, and I need to focus because I only have 3 semesters left.
If anyone has had similar experiences or advice please let me know!
