This happens to me sometimes. If i am in the middle of a discussion at my thrapists office and I start to feel overwhelmed...(and it happened the other day when i was in a restaurant) with a friend. A song will start to play in my mind like "breathe"' "just breathe" by Faith Hill. I have other songs of words but i am too tired to remember.

I know it makes me feel and sound like I am crazy? Does anyone else experience this?

No...you're not crazy...it sounds like dissociation...it happened to me during sessions...except I can't recall where I went...Still happens sometimes when I get triggered.

Same here. It's a tough one to describe.
I get overwhelmed, and I feel lost. I can't focus. Feel floaty, sometimes dizzy. My therapist appears blurry. I lose concentration & can't think straight or find words.
Sometimes I'm completely go, and my therapist will be calling my name to bring me back. No idea where I go either - maybe we meet up with each other in some dissassociation land lol!
Sometimes my therapist will say 'you are starting to dissassociate' and then I can usually come back into the 'present'.
Pandora, have you spoken to your therapist about this? Usually it's best to rewind to a few minutes before you started as that will show you a trigger, then you can explore it (if you feel safe & want to). But if nothing else you spot a trigger.

Pandora,

It seems familiar to me; like the scene in a movie where the character is in a room with noisy conversations and it fades to silence... yup, I recognize that. It's a coping technique we've developed and it worked then, but as I'm being reminded, maybe not so good anymore, which is why I'm in counseling. Good luck to you. . . but you are NOT alone in this, if that helps.

I dissociate All the time. Particularly in therapy, but in life in general too. For me it feels like a pulling away, until I feel very far away from what's happened. I have tunnel vision, and often stare at the floor, I feel dizzy and light headed. I often cannot speak at all, or can barely speak. I don't hear any songs though, it's usually like I have no thoughts at all - until I start fighting to come back.


When I 'come back' the lights are brighter, sounds are louder..

I dissociate similarly to Auburngirl. I completely "zone out". I could be standing anywhere - in a store, at home in the middle of the room, when someone is talking to me - my mind goes completely blank and I focus in on one image in the room and I'm left frozen there. It freaks me out and I think it freaked out my husband a few days ago, too. He brought it up to me like "what the hell are you doing".

I see nothing, feel nothing, hear nothing.

Scary.

Linasmom - that's what it's like for me too- I focus on one thing - a button, a paperclip, the corner of a wall, etc and that's all I can see.

I did that when I had my 9lb 1/2 oz.son...afer 30 hours...I stared on the clock like focused right on it...natural birth (as the epidural didn't take) Anyway it was quite a traumatic delivery he was stuck and in an emergency vacuum extracted him....I guess this was traumatic enough...when I think of my delivery....I remember that damn clock......I didn't notice that I had done this but I remember shoes...when I had the rape kit done...

when I was robbed I only remember what the knife looked like, not the person, not any idea of what was going on around me, just the knife. I guess it's the same thing. only now I keep doing it, and I'm not really in danger just spooked by something.

I not only dissociate, my therapist has talked to other "parts" of me in my sessions. I am nowhere near ready to talk about the traumas yet. If she attempts to go anywhere near them - past or near present ones - I drift off - or she starts seeing "someone different" come out. Either way I don't remember that part of the sessions. I also have time that I can not account for but I am not aware of what transpired during that time. My counsellor has me trying to keep track of my time on paper but there are still large blocks of time that go unaccounted for. She says that it is normal but until I can become totally aware i can not start the trauma work. it all makes sense to me. i am still numbimg out - a lot. There are triggers - words, smells, things I see etc. that cause me to dissociate to varying degrees to "protect" myself - old survival skills that are not so safe now but my mind automatically does it anyway. I have used themsince I was a child being abused. The abuse was too much so I went away in my head. Sometimes my brain made a different part of me experience the abuse so I could go on living. I have been experiencing PTSD since body memories began four years ago and I have been accosted by others - not sexually but very severely - and gone through a divorce and many other stressors since that time. I am in the healing proccess. It is slow and arduous and I spend a lot of time alone but I'm very okay with that right now. people appear very stupid to me right now. I try to remember that it is me. I have a difficult time with that 99% of the time but that's okay - that's where I am at - right now.

So I can relate with how you dissociate. It's normal but it's not the greatest survival technique. It just means that you are not yet ready to deal with the trauma - according to what my therapist tells me. Makes sense to me.

Take care.