Alright I called him and the conversation wasn’t as fruitful as I hoped but he does have some advice. I will start with the dissapointing news first.
He said the main way he has dealt with it is getting used to it. He used to regularly stress about how the constant minor dissasociation and occasional severe dissasociative episodes were probably going to be something he dealt with for the rest of his life and whether he is correct about that or not it led him down some negative thought spirals that made is dissasociation issue worse with time. Over the past few years he has come to accept this as out of his control and tries not to worry about it to much. He focuses on managing symptoms as they arrive and chooses not to stress about what may or may not be. Unfortunately this isn’t possible for everyone and I think he has only managed it through significant distraction.
So, for the advice I’m just gonna use a bullet point list of things he said that helped as well as some things I remember helping me as I talked to him about it.
listening to music
having a long term goal that you genuinely want to work towards, not just something you think you need to do. (For him its a power lifting wr, going to the gym helps him a lot)
going for a walk with or without something to listen to depending on how you feel
going outside and just touching grass for a bit, I mean this literally. Personally I got outside to watch and listen to the birds, I find that the natural world grounds me to reality.
calling someone you are close with and talking to them about how you’re feeling if it is particularly bad
He also texted me this “Focusing on all the different noises I can hear, and the tingling in my hands and feet helps me a lot sometimes. When I was home in [redacted] I would go lay out on the grass and focus on the feeling of the wind or sun.”
I think some of those were repetitive but I hope it helps somewhat.
Music sometimes helps me but the dissasociative moments I have aren’t too severe. I’ll ask my roommate what he does and get back to you because I know he struggles with it more than I do.
I used to find music unenjoyable as well and still occasionally go through multi-month long phases where I just don’t listen to music. Couldn’t tell you why though 🤷
I had a little bit of success with grounding, but you kinda have to be aware you’re zoning out. Look at or touch an item, like observe the crap out of it describing it to yourself for a few seconds and then move on to another after a moment. Doing something engaging enough to hold your focused attention helps, but it’s also hard to motivate yourself to want to zone back in. Basically you got to focus on the outside world and drown out your inner thoughts. You only can really manage to focus inside or outside at once.
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Alright I called him and the conversation wasn’t as fruitful as I hoped but he does have some advice. I will start with the dissapointing news first.
He said the main way he has dealt with it is getting used to it. He used to regularly stress about how the constant minor dissasociation and occasional severe dissasociative episodes were probably going to be something he dealt with for the rest of his life and whether he is correct about that or not it led him down some negative thought spirals that made is dissasociation issue worse with time. Over the past few years he has come to accept this as out of his control and tries not to worry about it to much. He focuses on managing symptoms as they arrive and chooses not to stress about what may or may not be. Unfortunately this isn’t possible for everyone and I think he has only managed it through significant distraction.
So, for the advice I’m just gonna use a bullet point list of things he said that helped as well as some things I remember helping me as I talked to him about it.
I think some of those were repetitive but I hope it helps somewhat.
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these words were just what i needed this evening. thank you for sharing. 🙏
Music sometimes helps me but the dissasociative moments I have aren’t too severe. I’ll ask my roommate what he does and get back to you because I know he struggles with it more than I do.
I hate music.
I used to find music unenjoyable as well and still occasionally go through multi-month long phases where I just don’t listen to music. Couldn’t tell you why though 🤷
I had a little bit of success with grounding, but you kinda have to be aware you’re zoning out. Look at or touch an item, like observe the crap out of it describing it to yourself for a few seconds and then move on to another after a moment. Doing something engaging enough to hold your focused attention helps, but it’s also hard to motivate yourself to want to zone back in. Basically you got to focus on the outside world and drown out your inner thoughts. You only can really manage to focus inside or outside at once.