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Yep. This. Literally this.
There are SO many things that I didn't realize I actually experienced because the descriptions of those symptoms sound like they're saying something else.
About 85-95% percent of our memories are in third person but I totally thought most people had that to a good extent until I talked to several people who not only thought it was super weird, but also didn't even know what I was saying because the very idea of it is so foreign.
This is why discussions of dissociation in CDD spaces REALLY should be only for 'traumagenic' systems. Whether you believe you can be a system without trauma, if you don't believe you have the trauma or the disorder caused by it, you shouldn't be in spaces for those trying to figure out how to manage disorder.
Also the mental health medical system sucks ass. We need more professionals who can actually bridge the gap between text book definitions and what it actually fucking looks like. We went to an evaluation and downplayed our symptoms so fucking much because we didn't think they fit the written descriptions (and growing up being gaslit into believing we're overreacting about everything). We got a very noncommittal place holder diagnosis from that appointment, that we waited six months and drove 2 hours for, probably because we told the doctor we didn't have amnesia because we had no fucking idea what emotional or grey out amnesia was, AND we didn't know that you can have black outs and not realize anything. is missing. We figured the lack of 'waking up' and not remembering how we got where we were, meant that we had zero amnesia. But holy shit is that wrong.
Anyways. All that to say, OP, you are not the only one who experiences this.
-Apollo (maybe?)
Sometimes I genuinely hate that I have a disorder where I take things literally.
Especially when that's intersectioned by CDD spaces where a lot of the descriptions of dissociation are hard to relate to, despite having several periods of time where strong dissociation is the only explanation.
And it's not even necessarily because I can't relate to them, it's just that my brain gets caught on the literal wording of that experience and immediately thinks that I can't experience that because I don't feel that specific way.
Does anyone else reading this feel the same?
Because I hear descriptions like feeling like you're outside of your body or over the shoulder, and I never feel like I experience that in real time. It only happens with memories, where a ton of those are in third person.
There are periods of time where I want a certain drink, but my brain fights to find the right word because several different parts of me want a different drink, even though I know that I want the specific drink that my brain suddenly can't recall the word for.
Honestly, I feel like 90% of my dissociation happens without me being able to cognitively recognize when it's actively happening, and I only realize after looking back that I remember maybe the bare fucking minimum.
And I dunno, maybe I've just been dissociated for so much of my life that it's so normal to me that I don't even know it's dissociation. It's really hard to parse what is and isn't normal when you 1) are neurodivergent and 2) see your normal as normal.
If any of you out there have any other descriptions of what dissociation can look like I would love to hear them, because that's the only way my brain will get over the mental block / confused phase of trying to understand.
I'm watching Good Omens and they happened to make a GREAT analogy for amnesia. Or at least how I often experience it. I've adjusted it to better explain, but this is the outline.
I've moved into empty house that someone used to live in. I don't know who lived here before or what they did, but I can see the evidence that something did. The paint is discolored where the furniture used to be against the walls, there's outlines in the dust where things sat on the shelf, scratches on the floor and doors from over the years.
I don't know what happened, but I can piece together some things by the evidence left behind. My unexplainable triggers and reactions to things give me hints as to what my trauma may be.
I don't know what happened. I'm just looking at where the furniture used to be.