Mad World

I am going to describe something somewhat vulnerable to me, mostly because I feel it is rather embarrassing, but considering what I have already shared publically on GLP in the breadth of my tenure here, I don't really think this would push the envelope per se.

I'll describe what it's like to have an episode of high dissociation, or, at least this is one manifestation of what it could be like:

I raid in my MMORPG with a static team every M/T/W. So I was off doing that. This just happened. We're currently trying to clear the last fight in the raid tier, which we've been doing for weeks. So you better believe I know that fight. I know it really well. But today my brain was absolutely trolling me so hard.

It's like: instead of being able to focus your gaze, your gaze defaults to going blurry and you have to make a very active effort to keep it focused. then it feels like there is a veil, a screen, between your mind and whatever is happening externally. It feels like, reaching through a fog, to try and sync your actions and words with whatever is happening in the outside world. And thirdly, memory - I would see the boss casting a spell, the name of which you have to remember about 10 seconds later in order to know what to do in the fight.

I kept forgetting and having to ask the team every boss pull, and they noticed, and it was embarrassing. Anything that I have in my head, disappeared within a few seconds if I do not make a very concerted effort by repeating it over and over in my head or whatever.

I played really badly, I kept spacing out and doing something (I know how to do, have done probably 200+ times actually) completely wrong and then realizing I’d killed the whole party. compared to normal weeks, I made a huge amount of very stupid mistakes, like I just blanked. I have played with them sometimes when I was very fatigued or even disinterested, but it was not like this. It's quite different.

I felt pretty stupid, but none of them were mad or mean or anything about it. I got teased a bit. I tried very very hard to snap out of it, but it doesn't work like that. It isn't due to drugs, or food, or meds, or a lack of caffeine, or a lack of sleep. I guess another descriptor you could add to this would be. Brain lag.

Generally this happens when I get really triggered by something, maybe it was this conversation/thread about DID I posted, I'm not really sure. In this case, I didn't have any emotions to alert me to the fact that I might become dissociative or anything. I didn't have an anxiety response ... I didn't even notice until I opened the game and it was really hard to keep the arena in focus without spacing, even before we fought.

But that’s also typical of a dissociative experience: the emotions being replaced by the dissociation, so instead of feeling the emotion, you just have this reaction. Well, not always, everyone has different triggers for this, they’re generally specific or tangential to whatever caused the DID. so, talking about DID for many is actually a DID trigger, though triggers honestly are meant to be dealt with and not just avoided, so it's not going to prevent me from conversing and writing about it.

Thing is, I'm still dissociated but, I don't have to react quickly to anything like I did in the fight, or remember anything for a period of time - it was playing the game that really highlighted it for me, made me want to write about it because I don't think most people have much context for what it's like (seer, you might actually I have a feeling, I'm not sure)

It also feels kinesthetically, something is actually pushing on you or pulling you, but only your mind. And, like you are inside your mind, and not your body at all, like floaty.

Anyway....as I have been deep diving all these tiktok and youtube DID creators, they describe what I'm experiencing as a long switch, that the whole dissociative haze is what happens while the switch is occurring, and it ends when you switch. Which is interesting. Instant switches also exist, but I've heard a few of them describe this and I was able to relate.

It is also sometimes accompanied by: headaches to migraines, nausea, stomach pain, or other odd physical symptoms. I don't have any of that at the moment, but those tend to be pretty bad. I get the nausea and the migraines. People have been commenting for years on how many headache pills I down in a day no matter how much water I drink and regardless of whether I've eaten. This is actually a symptom that's almost unanimously reported during dissociative episodes, which I found super interesting, because I never had been able to figure out why I have this migraine issue.

dissociation is something people just don't understand. everyone experiences it now and then - highway hypnosis, or when you zone out for a minute and ask someone to repeat themselves - this happens to everyone. but this sort is on a different plane, and it's very hard to explain it in a way others can empathize with.