American Psychiatric Association describes dissociative disorder as a condition that affects your memory, sense of self, emotions, identity, your perception and behavior. When a person has this disorder, that person feels a loss of reality. Their reality is distorted and can feel like life is not real. This condition’s cause is frequently associated with trauma (APA, 2018).  

There are three types of dissociative disorders: 

1. Dissociative identity disorder 

       2. Dissociative amnesia 

       3. Depersonalization/derealization disorder 

A person’s thoughts, emotions, memories, actions, etc. Are disconnected. For example, daydreaming can disconnect a person from their reality. However, people who suffer from dissociative disorder daydream more often than most or they are stuck in this altered reality (APA, 2018). Past or current trauma may have been too much for that person to bear, so they created a world where they do not have to deal with that trauma. Therefore, they live in this altered reality of not accepting and healing from the trauma. 

Severe Cases 

A more severe case of this disorder, can make people feel like they are in a movie. Moreover, this person feels like life is not real and they feel numb to the world. This person may have difficulty understanding the difference between what is real and what is not. Then they may get tingles and odd sensations throughout their body, making them feel out of sorts and not real.  

Dissociative disorder is something that I suffer with, at least what I believe I do. I have never been diagnosed with this disorder, so I cannot exactly say I have this condition. However, I do have a lot of the symptoms associated with it because a lot of the time I feel a loss of identity/self. I depersonalize the world around me and feel numb to the world. Oftentimes, I think “Am I real? Where am I? Who am I?” All of these thoughts have circulated in my mind many times. I only feel this way sometimes but it can happen when something makes me uncomfortable. Such as an argument or my feelings are hurt.  

If you feel like you suffer from this disorder, contact your doctor to set up a consultation with a psychiatrist. If you suffer from this more often than not, then you should discuss this with a psychiatrist. This advice is something I need to do myself, so I can finally see what type of mental health disorder I am suffering from. Do not hesitate to receive help, receiving help makes you a stronger person. Life is too short to suffer unnecessarily, when there are plenty of resources that will help you live a more productive life. In fact, I believe a person shows more weakness by not getting help, than when that person seeks help. 

Please subscribe to get alerts when I post new content. My goal for this blog is to help people understand themselves and their mental health. I also want to inspire and put smiles on people’s faces. On Sunday I post short stories, called “Sunday’s Shorts.” These stories are meant to be light-hearted and not always too serious. My life is centered around living with a light-heart and not being too serious. Thank you for reading and supporting my blog!  

The above images are not my own, these are on Google. A simple “dissociative disorder” search and I found these images. 

Reference: 

APA (2018). What are dissociative disorders? American Psychiatric Association. http://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/dissociative-disorders/what-are-dissociative-disorders