Is this disassociation?

[alliematt]

One of the symptoms of C-PTSD is "disassociation" and one of the definitions of "disassociation" is "daydreaming."  I do a lot of it.  As a kid, I made up a bunch of imaginary characters and named some of them based on people I knew in real life.  I also read a lot of mysteries and watched a lot of cartoon/mystery shows, and I concocted plots involving my imaginary friends getting involved in mysteries and things like that.  I read a lot of Nancy Drew and watched cartoons like Scooby-Doo and Josie and the Pussycats.  (And of course, I was one of the "characters" involved in those imaginary plots."

Some of those plots have evolved into book ideas.  I call myself a writer in training because I write, but I am not published yet. 

I found, and still find, myself going into the world of my imaginary friends and my characters.  It seems that withdrawal was my modus operandi as a child, because I couldn't figure out a way to make the bullies stop picking on me.  So when you can't fight, you retreat. 

I don't think I'm psychotic.  I know that my imaginary world is just that.  It's imaginary.  My imaginary friends are not real.  I wish they were; I'd rather live in their world, where things end up working out, than in mine, when things just don't seem to work at times.  It hasn't been until just very recently that I've wondered, is this a symptom of C-PTSD that I have?  I've definitely used it as a coping mechanism.

[sanmagic7]

i don't think you're psychotic, either, alliematt.  you're much too coherent.

i don't know the answer to your question, but i can relate a bit to what you're talking about and have wondered about myself being dissociative, especially as a child.  i used to read ferociously, completely immersed in books, especially fantasy (alice in wonderland was my favorite).  i would be so into the book that people would call my name several times before i realized someone was talking to me.  the same sometimes happened when i was watching a favorite tv show (like superman).  i was just 'gone' from the reality of my living room or family.  when i just wrote 'gone', it suddenly sounded like dissociation. 

at any rate, i hope your stories take off and you do get published one day.  that would be so cool.

[Dee]

Alliemat,

I'm not totally sure, but I think it is.  I don't know if that daydreaming is normal as a kid, but the fact that you still do it and use it to cope sounds like it is to me.  I was asked if I daydreamed as a kid, and answered no.  Then I found out I did, it just was different, I daydreamed of safety.  I had an image of a police car pulling up to the house and my real parents came to rescue me.  I was sure I had been kidnapped.  I had every detail worked out, what they wore, how they looked, down to the shoes and hairstyles.  I can still see them today.  I would sit in front of the window for hours, waiting.  Perhaps it is different, but the same, dreaming of an escape.

Now it is different for me and I think it is derealization.  I start not feeling real, my hands go numb, I know where I am but it doesn't feel real.  I can carry on a conversation and appear present, but the person I am talking to doesn't seem real.  I think disassociation comes in many different forms.  The good part is I just starting really paying attention to this and finding my triggers.

[tea-the-artist]

Hiya alliematt!  like san and Dee, I also can't say for sure, but I can relate as well. 95% of my imaginary friends as a child came from cartoons I watched. As I got older, they changed, got phased out and were replaced when I watched different shows. And now it's still the same, though the setting is always domestic (despite the show Voltron not being a domestic cartoon at all).

One thing I've wondered is the "knowing" that the world is not real. Do you "feel" it's real (at least for me it's just "emotionally" real, not visually/physically) while imagining, but afterwards are 100% aware that it was not real at all? I don't know too much about dissociation (or derealization) but I wonder...

But I do think the continued use of the coping mech could be a symptom of CPTSD. I've done it since I was around 7 or 8 and when I became an adult I realized it wasn't normal but shrugged it off until a few months ago (which lead me to learning about CPTSD).

(also, high five? to writing the plots into book ideas! I've been doing that actually for 2 years, and I learned that I've been writing as if it was directed to my inner child. in a way, it's helped me cope for a long time without even realizing).

[irishthanhy]

I do something very similar. I go through my day imagining all sorts of different scenarios that I "live" in my mind. I've often wondered if this was a form of disassociating.

[Manchesterford]

I believe that this is a form of disassociation.  My former T helped me see this. I wrote down a list of the daydreams, characteristics of had,  themes etc. I soon found that they all had four things in common.  I had been playing these out in my head repeatedly for years because they gave me comfort. I still do it but now I'm aware. I give myself permission doing it but understand it's a band aid or way to supplement something lacking in my life.

It sounds weird written down!

[deptofhearts]

sounds like a form of dissociation to me... although its creative, and great solace can be found there! I am a musician/singer/songwriter and notice my "happy place" - my safe place is composing and creating quietly - feeling my way to what strikes a soothing nerve for me. And I have just recently seen that as me dissociating, though at a lesser scale to how I can and have dissociated before. 

It would be great to get curious amongst it though and to grieve out the need to numb out - BUT also to encourage you, these songs I have written in that quiet space have been played on radios, during primetime tv shows in Australia. So - fantasy or therapy, or self-medicating via reveries - in my broken and humble opinion sometimes that's where our truths are and as we fashion it into a story line or a picture of a poem or a song then something really amazing can happen.
Go you! X

[Rebel62]

I was a definitely a day dreamer as a child, both at home and in school. I witnessed and experienced all types of abuse at home, was bullied in school. Day dreaming seemed to make it go away. I replaced day dreaming (to some extent) with smoking pot and drinking alcohol when I was 13, stopped smoking pot when I was 17, but continued drinking (at different levels over the years) until I was 35 years old and became pregnant with my daughter. After that, I started doing what I call zoning in and zoning out. I would "zone in" when I needed to concentrate on something, usually at work, and "zone out" to destress. I could just "turn it off" for a short period of time.  It worked for me. I'm not sure that these coping mechanisms were a type of disassociation or not.

In the last several months, since my daughter's two suicide attempts and bipolar 2, rapid cycling/mixed episodes diagnosis, zoning in and zoning out don't work for me anymore. I struggle with work, trying to concentrate on what I'm doing. Some days I do ok, others, not so much. Work is exhausting. Zoning out has become anxiety attacks I guess, because when I try to "zone out" all my anxieties rush in and run through my head repeatedly for hours. I walk around my kitchen Island every morning for exercise, but it also has been a way for me to plan my day, but now I call them my "anxiety walks" as all my anxiety rushes in. Letting the anxiety "escape" does seem to help me get through the rest of the day, but it's also very exhausting at times. I don't know what to call this.

None of this seems to fit the classic definition of disassociation so I'm not really sure what to call it.

[hurtbeat]

It's like I've could have started this thread!

Same thing here, I used to love my cartoons and live in similar fantasy worlds as a child but not in a healthy moderate way.
I became completely immersed in my fantasy world where everything was nice and I had adventures, friends and felt loved.
When I turned 13 years old the pain of not being a normal teenager sent me even deeper into my dreams, I used to just stay in bed and dream of a guy I had fallen in love with in my dreams.

Thankfully I got out of it somehow.. or.. not really, I just realized that I discovered internet and replaced my dreams with the worlds online.
The daydreams are not as strong and vivid as they used to be but I still keep them inside of me as symbols of a sacred haven where no one could hurt me.
And if someone tried to hurt me there was always someone to rescue and comfort me, just like in the cartoons.

In a way I think these sort of creative dreams are better than using my vivid imagination to imagine all the disasters that could happen.
A little bit of moderate dreaming is always nice now and then.
I try to break off every so often with something physical that brings me back to the "here and now".
My work mainly consist of physical work so that I don't have to concentrate too much.
It's not very inspiring but my dissociation makes it harder to learn which makes it harder to get a more fulfilling job.
Being alert and focused every day is just too hard.

Sorry for being a bit unorganized but I guess I started to drift off a bit now, you know how it is
(Feels nice to see other people who understands this exact thing, my heart goes out to all of you who dream like this)

Edit: I just wanted to add that I've always known that these are fantasies but they were also a place to play out my emotions.
I used to say that I "like to dream even though I'm awake" and was known as "the daydreamer" to everyone.