disociation

Hi everyone,

Does anyone else have disociation happen to them?  I guess it is because of trauma.  I have it happen when I am really scared and stressed and feel threatened. 

When it happens, I go into tunnel vision and can only see and hear things that are distorted I think from my childhood.  It like I am suddenly catapulted back in time to the trauma over and over.

I begin to get the idea that I am helpless, powerless and that everyone around me is going to hurt me, gang up on me, humiliate me, target me, verbally assault me, laugh at me, torment me.

Maybe this all happened as a child- I am pretty sure it did but I can't remember. 

But my psyche seems to bring me back there over and over when I feel stressed and overwhelmed.  Then I enter this disociated state where I can barely talk and I feel terror.

Then everyone seems like my enemy and I am fighting a battle against them.  After a while and some effort, my adult Self state returns and I see all the damage I caused by acting out while in this regressed state.

It is horrible.  I am in the state right now actually.  I try to will my adult Self back and cannot.  It is only when my psyche feels safe again, does my adult Self 'come back'.  I am aware that the shift occurs when it does so I know that I do not (as of yet) have what they label Disociative Identity Disorder. 

But it is severe disociation nevertheless and my understanding is that disociation is on a continuum, DID being the most severe form.

Help!! I am in a support group and I am so scared and stressed because my 'child Self' is out and my adult Self has taken a back seat again.  I need to come back to the present before my negative distorted thinking  causes me to act on it and then get myself in the very scenario that is in my mind.

I'm seeing a therapist tomorrow but I don't know if she knows about or specialized in trauma. People keep saying I need a trauma specialist.  I have wanted to hurt myself yesterday because I cannot seem to keep this cycle from happening in my life.

I'm really scared.  When I shift to the child Self, I imagine everyone is more powerful than me, that I am helpless, inferior, that everyone is laughing at me, wants to destroy me because I am so helpless and cannot set any boundaries because no one will respect them anyway.  Childhood distorted thinking!!!  Then I act it out and it becomes my reality again.  Help!!

Distorted thoughts- I am powerless to change it,  everyone will always gang up on me, attack me, throw me out, bully me, kick me, step on me, abuse me.  It will never end.  I have to die because I cannot stop mean people from getting into my boundaries and attacking and laughing at me and ganging up on me blah blah blah.

OK,  I want to write and write when I get on here, being disociated I do sometimes, but I will stop here because it is probably too much to read.