Some effects of dissociation
- gaps in your memory
- finding yourself in a strange place without knowing how you got there
- out-of-body experiences
- loss of feeling in parts of your body
- distorted views of your body
- forgetting important personal information
- being unable to recognise your image in a mirror
- a sense of detachment from your emotions
- the impression of watching a movie of yourself
- feelings of being unreal
- internal voices and dialogue
- feeling detached from the world
- forgetting appointments
- feeling that a customary environment is unfamiliar
- a sense that what is happening is unreal
- forgetting a talent or learned skill
- a sense that people you know are strangers
- a perception of objects changing shape, colour or size
- feeling you don’t know who you are acting like different people, including child-like behaviour
-being unsure of the boundaries between yourself and others
- feeling like a stranger to yourself
- being confused about your sexuality or gender
- feeling like there are different people inside you
- referring to yourself as ‘we’
- being told by others that you have behaved out of character
- finding items in your possession that you don’t remember buying or receiving
- writing in different handwriting
Just a reminder that dissociation spans across a spectrum. Some people may experience some of these, others may experience all of them. I personally, think there’s power in knowing how we dissociate (if at all). Knowledge is one of the first steps towards recovery.
