Hi Molly Burke and this is Posttraumatic Victory. Awesome thanks. Hello welcome or welcome back. The clip that you saw before my intro is no big deal one of my favorite YouTubers Molly Burke. My friend Matt tracked her down at VidCon and was lovely enough to use that interaction to get her to say something to me. That's nice. Go subscribe to him and her but mostly him because he's a hero. Anyway moving on. Today I want to talk to you about what dissociation feels like. But first we have to think about what is dissociation. Dissociation is known by a few different names. The most common one is depersonalization and then there's de-realization being out of it. What's kind of what it feels like to me? Depersonalization is when you feel like you aren't in your body. Like you're like you're living in a dream I guess. You don't feel like you're connected to your body. Your body and your mind are two separate entities I guess is an okay way to describe it. I believe de-realization is not knowing what's real. I'm gonna look that up because I don't want to lie to you. A feeling that one's surroundings are not real. Depersonalization is not feeling like you're real. De-realization is feeling like the world around you isn't real. It's great. It's such a fun time. And you know it can just go away with the power of positive thinking and prayer. Just kidding. You can be dissociated and not realize it. You can be dissociated and realize it. Both are equally scary. What it feels like for me to dissociate most of the time is if my mind is a car. I'm in the passenger seat looking at myself driving. I guess it's not an out of body experience at all in any way. I look like I'm holding. If you've seen the movie Inside Out you know how there's like there's the control board in the brain. It's like I'm sitting at that board kind of like I know I'm in control of what's going on. But I don't feel like I'm in my body when it's happening. If that makes any sense. I very often don't know what I'm saying. Sometimes I'll speak slower because it's harder to... This might be a good example of it. It's harder to find my words because I'm not in there fully if that makes sense. My mind is hovering around back here and my body is out here. I know I'm in control of it but I'm not really controlling a darn thing. It can make your memory spotty because it's almost like blacking out sometimes because it is a defense mechanism if your system feels threatened by. If something triggers me sometimes I will just fly out of my body as I call it. I'll just dissociate, nope the heck out of there. Be on autopilot essentially. And you don't always remember things clearly when you're not there. I hope this makes some kind of sense. It can be scary to not remember things. To just have spots in your memory. There have been a lot of times with just harmless things like my boyfriend Luke will tell me. Oh yeah, there's this movie that we watch together and I will have zero memory of seeing that movie. I'll think I've never heard of it before. That is a simple little thing but then there's stuff like traumatic experiences that you can have pushed back in your mind that you don't remember happening. And all the knowledge and all the memory is there. You just don't have access to it because your brain decided you should duck out for a minute. This isn't for you, I don't think you're going to like this. Sometimes when I am dissociated I can kind of tell because I touch the tips of my fingers together a lot and it almost feels muted. Colors don't seem as bright. It's like the world before falling in love. Everything seems kind of dull. When I was a kid I was experiencing dissociation a lot but had no idea until a couple years ago when I started therapy. The way that I would picture myself I guess is like a crunchy leaf or a stale piece of bread or a rusty brown van. Nothing felt vivid. Just like muted and crusty I guess. And since starting therapy I have found out that's not how it has to be. You can experience life in color, vivid color and be fully present for it but it's tough. Something that my service dog in training Sadie does for me is deep pressure therapy. So that's basically she puts herself across my legs or my chest and that kind of tells my nervous system like oh it's fine. It acts like a weighted blanket or a hug and it is amazing. If you can get a weighted blanket I highly recommend it. I sleep under one every single night and well it doesn't necessarily help with the nightmares. It helps to calm me enough to put me to sleep. And it mostly works unless you're like super by out of there in which case there's usually a reason why you're so far gone because it's a coping mechanism, a survival technique. Your body is trying to protect you from perceived danger and that's trauma for you. I personally benefit a lot from having a service animal for my PTSD because dissociation is a huge part of my life. I don't get lost but I get overwhelmed and disoriented a lot. So having her there to kind of bring me back and follow whoever I'm with I guess that's technically a guiding task but I've trained her to follow my boyfriend or whoever we're with I tell her follow and she sticks with them and that makes my life a lot easier when I'm way out here being triggered by something. I don't know if I really thoroughly explained what dissociation is but I hope I kind of mostly explained what it feels like. It doesn't feel great and it can be very confusing and spooky but it isn't forever and it's your body's way of trying to protect you so that's a positive thing I guess. If you have had any experience with dissociation, if you have any kind of dissociative disorder, let me know in the comments below. I would love to hear from you and we're all in this together. Go team. Thank you so much for watching. If you're new here, please consider subscribing to my channel because I'd love that. Yes, I will see you very soon. Don't forget to be kind to yourself and others today. Bye.