Dissociation Without Trauma?

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I might be the closest thing I know.

I can't relate to many trauma related topics.
I never been to extreme circumstances in life.

And whatever traumas I have are those usual kinds of traumas that every living creatures get at worst.
My worst was born out of every day ignorance, not the active kinds of act out of ignorance.

If anything, the latter gets more prominent since I started work.
It's just that *I* am not managing 'it' -- unsure if it's because of autism, or something else.

There's just something off about me.
Even autistics can learn those... "Moral lessons"; therefore, it's likely not the autism.
I can't seem to 'learn' those 'lessons'. More often, I get them wrong. Very twisted and wrong.

I have suffered from implosive meltdowns since I was a teenager. They are characterised by self harm and suicidal ideation. My self harm was never about trying to off myself, even though I had almost involuntarily thoughts about it. When I was in those states I would often feel a level of disassociation. But I also get a higher level of disassociation where is just feel like I’m sitting at the back of the bus, so to speak. I’m there in my head, but I’m a passenger looking out the windows, and in no way in control of what is going on. People have told me I’m very robotic when that happens. I’m still trying to work out what triggers those, as I only found out that my lifelong self harm/suicidal ideation was actually a meltdown 6 months ago.

Hi WofM . Yes, dissociation can occur even when there has been no past trauma, though it’s mostly seen in those of us who have experienced traumatic events.

It can occur when the mind experiences too much stress. You aren't born with DID, but you can have a genetic predisposition to dissociate.

Dissociation is one way the mind copes with too much stress, such as during a traumatic event.

There are also common, everyday experiences of dissociation that you may have. Examples of this are when you become so absorbed in a book or film that you lose awareness of your surroundings. Or when you drive a familiar route and arrive at your destination without any memory of how you got there.

Experiences of dissociation can last for a short time (hours or days) or for much longer (weeks or months).

Dissociation may be something that you experience for a short time while something traumatic is happening. But you also may have learned to dissociate as a way of coping with stressful experiences. This may be something that you’ve done since you were young.

Source:
https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/dissociation-and-dissociative-disorders/about-dissociation/#:~:text=For%20many%20people%2C%20dissociation%20is,cope%20with%20very%20stressful%20experiences.

How is that not insomnia?

Dissociation due to trauma would presumably be linked to the trauma, not something completely different.

If you have trauma in the form of a car accident it's not going to cause dissociation during sex, and sexual abuse isn't going to trigger dissociation while riding in an automobile. (Obviously barring crossover triggers, like having been raped in a car.)

Most times I sleep is not voluntary.

This includes not wanting to sleep but 'I have to'.
I have no trouble falling asleep, maintaining to be asleep...
Heck, even sleeping anywhere as long as my 'body wants it' or 'my head wants it'. Even in the middle of urgent work.

If I have a choice, I'd go for no sleep at all.

The only times I have 'insomnia' is whenever I'm ovulating -- when my body and head actually want sleep, but couldn't -- and had to choose to sleep because of that, yet still couldn't.


I could add more reasons why I hate sleep.

Last edited by Edna3362 on 08 Nov 2023, 11:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Used to regularly feel like a robot.. or perhaps that everything was just simulated. Felt especially robotic when working at a smelter with my many layers of protective equipment. Sound so loud you could scream and not even hear your own scream (like the voice we hear of ourselves from our bones vibrating).

I dissociate under stress. I'm sometimes surprisingly functional for someone who's completely not there. Other times I'm completely catatonic and non-responsive.

So you have narcolepsy?

I find your descriptions confusing.

I don't think so.

Even if particular type of sudden sleepiness at day is currently been very specific for these past few months; between 2pm to 4pm.
And it resolves by napping for at least 3 minutes.

That part is likely my body clock.
Unsure when it will end -- it's annoying enough that everyone thinks I'm being rude.
My body clock may change anytime as soon as 2 days and never stayed longer than 6 months long.

At least that's what of most of my attempts at tracking myself for the past 5 years or so.


As for sleeping itself?
The usual times are like my head can still fall asleep.

Yet still feel the passage of time pass, and still feel the weight of the body against the gravity... And not necessarily being a light sleeper.
It is still as if my eyes are closed and just lying down. Yet without the real option to consciously wake up...

And waking up would meant everything was turned up. It can be ranged from dredging to painful, depending how bad my breathing is without realizing it and what sleep phase I ended up waking up, and whatever my hormones are playing at.

I'm not sure how much noise would play, I barely able to figure what food influences it beyond caffeine and sugar...


So far the only thing that helped me is counting my sleep hours by 90 minutes cycle plus how long before I actually fall asleep -- which is not very predictable by itself because sometimes I just don't want to sleep.

And whatever dehumidifies the room.

I'd rather have nightmares at least every now and then.
The only thing that kept my heartbeat up during any phases of sleep is the lack of oxygen... Literally.

I can feel creeped out -- that's what nightmares usually do to me.
And I rarely feel creeped out IRL to a point that I cannot relate to others 'normal amount of fear', much less excess.



The point is still this;

I hate sleep. For many, many reasons.
But nightmares are never one of them.


And I still cannot relate to many trauma related topics.
Because whatever my case is, is much more confusing than whatever I'm even saying of how I describe why I hate sleep.

If people are shouting/arguing/being aggressive near me then I mentally wander off into another universe! I think it's a coping mechanism I learned in childhood that continued as I got older. I couldn't deal with the fear/stress when I was a kid and also couldn't physically escape the situation most of the time. So I learned to 'switch off'. Not neccessarily 'trauma', but I was too sensitive to my environment as a child and picked up other people's energy too easily. I've had to re-learn how to respond to the same situations as an adult, which is difficult and takes constant practice. My initial response is still to wander off when someone starts acting aggressive, as my brain forgets I'm no longer a kid and can fight back. But I can usually mentally drag myself back to reality and verbally/physically defend myself.

yes, see shutdown/associated with meltdown and sensory overwhelm and also "freeze" as a response to anxiety and overwhelm (based on trauma) You don't have to be experiencing trauma at the moment to "freeze" in response to overload or overwhelm either emotional or physical/sensory.