Dissociative state as a defense mechanism vs. shutdown

Post Reply New Topic

I was wondering if anyone knows the difference between a dissociative state as a defense mechanism (not multiple personality disorder) and a shutdown.

I can only say how it is from my personal perspective, so don't take this as an expert opinion.
For me, a big difference between dissociation and shutdown is that in a shutdown I lose skills.
So, dissociation= feeling detached from my surroundings and as though things are unreal, but I can still process everything properly and move my body when I want to, and speak.
In shutdown, there is the same detachment, but my motor skills and visual processing deteriorate, and I can't speak.

I hope that helps.

A screening test for dissociation:

http://counsellingresource.com/lib/quizzes/misc-tests/des/

My problem is like I get stalled out and cannot make decisions. I will check out the test suggested by Ettina.

As per Who_Am_I, my experience is that I slow down motorically. I can speak but just to get people to stop talking to me (the minimum). I don't know about the visual processing. It is like my mind can process very little of anything.

My shutdowns are not like my dissociative experiences. I lose skills, and often lose the ability to act entirely.

I don't think I've had many shutdowns in my life. Mostly meltdowns/ tantrums and disassociation. I agree with the descriptors thus far.

I have sort of different sorts of disassociationI go entirely numb and come off as 'too' calm, then I get hit with it later. Or if I go into this weird rage mode thing I feel like I am just watching myself but instead of being calm I'm more in berserker mode I hate that as it obviously comes off immature and dangerous that is fairly rare though, some drugs can make that more frequent like klonopin I was prescribed. I've found through personal experiance. But both involve feeling quite detatched, as for a shutdown that is more like the reverse I mostly just end up unable to do much of anything until it passes...sometimes that will be followed by a more active anxiety attack in which I might kinda freak out.