Anybody else dissociating? How do you stop it?

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I used to have dissociation episodes all the time, suffered from intense anxiety disorder but am coming to realize the the underlying problem was more in the spectrum of, or probably arising from, an aspergerish form of social deficit. That said, the feeling of dissociation ( I liken it to seeing your life as a movie except that it is real ) is most likely a cognitive manifestation of anxiety, like a mental defensive mechanism, i.e. the world is too painful/intense/etc. to be seen as real so the brain/mind forms this defensive type of overlay. This used to freak me out, but then again the list of things that did that was as long as your arm, and in the days 30 to 40 yrs ago when I suffered from this there were only terms like neurosis. I think that these anxiety based manifestations are driven by, and feed off of fear, so I found the most effective strategy would be to deal with the underlying fear, not the symptom itself. You can after all function while you're dissociating, I bet people around you don't even notice it. So just try to go with it, make believe you're wearing a spacesuit or some other mental imagery to help you relax. When you take the fear away you rob it of it's energy (this was also sort of the plot of an old Star Trek episode, but I digress). When I get an episode like that these days, I actually kind of enjoy it, it's kind of trippy in a good way. It never lasts though, since the energy is not there to sustain it. Good luck!

I've dissociated. I associate it with having your gods get killed, thus losing your bearings and sense of relationship to things around you. Swimmy feeling. In Buddhism there's a term for it meaning liberation.

I've had problems with dissociation on extreme levels. I did suffer many years of abuse, in which most of those years are blank for me, so there was dissociation out of necessity happening.

but think the dissociation probably came easy to me due to the Aspie traits?????

But it did get out of hand and I didn't have control over it, very scary! And painful when my two oldest children ask questions about their childhood and it's all a blank for me, so sad to see their faces as they think it means I didn't care about them.

But some people have mentioned meditation as a way to combat it and I couldn't agree more. I've tried medication and no help there. I've been using Vipissana (insight or mindfulness) meditation for 7 years now and I've never been clearer and less confused.

I do notice it if I slack on meditation, some of the haziness will start to come back, which makes me think the Aspie traits are the basis of my dissociation problems rather then the abuse, that the abuse was just the trigger for it to be so severe. Depression was also a huge part of that.

I do however disagree with the poster who said it's equal to the Buddhism state of liberation. I've had dissociation and I've had intense moments of liberation and they do have a much different feeling. Dissociation feels like you are far away, disconnected with the world, lost in waves of fog. Liberation feels like immense connection, no boudary between you and others, all are one deeply and fully, it's an energizing and very clear view, very different from the disconnected fog of dissociation.

Liberation = everything all coming together as one, infinate understanding on deepest levels, seeing and understanding all at once and while time will stand still and slow down every detail is understood quickly and simultaneously.

Dissociation = everything seperate, alone and lost, sometimes to the point where you can't even decipher words others are saying, slow and sluggish like walking through molases, difficult to understand simple things like brushing teeth.