Dissociation Disorders

http://www.lifewatch-eap.com/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=1215

http://www.giftfromwithin.org/html/ptsd101.html
an even better site about PTSD!

This link (above) has a pretty compassionate, lay-description of dissociative disorders.
I appreciated this bit from the site:
Dissociation is thought to be a relatively common mental process engaged in by many people, not all of whom have a mental disorder.

See. Dissociation isnt just for crazy people!

Just to clarify, my previous experience with a fugue state was not like the runaway bride. I did not skip town and get remarried. :) I did, however, not fully know who I was, nor did I know who the people around me were. I could not fully understand where I was or what was going on. Many of the items that I used every day were foreign to me.

At that time, I kept a few items on a table by my bed for quick use. Fortunately one was a phone book with support and friends listed in it. After about two hours of being 'lost' and wandering around the house, I began calling numbers in that book. I didnt know who I was calling, but something inside of me was telling me that the people listed must be friends. I found that on the front page of the book, I had listed five or so VIP names and numbers. That is where I started.

Fortunately, those names and numbers I had recorded months before, in case of emergency. My thought at the time was that DH might need to call someone if something happened. Little did I know they would become my own lifeline.

So I started calling. Just like in my nightmares, I wasnt even sure how to use the phone. I knew the phone was for calling people and that you plug numbers into it. But I had trouble coordinating the numbers - seeing the numbers with my eyes, transfering that knowlege to my fingers and to pushing buttons. I dialed and dialed and finally got one right.

Turns out it was a friend who was shopping just a few blocks away. She came immediately upon hearing that I was crying and confused.

I went for a second number. It began to dawn on me that I had two children who were playing constructively in the house. Thank God. I knew they were my children. I knew they were mine and I loved them more than anything. This was one relationship that was not confusing for me. And yet, I knew my ability to parent them was completely gone. I did not know what a parent was supposed to do. Somehow provide meals? Conversation? I could barely talk.

I know I dialed up my therapist at some point, although I have no memory of actually speaking to him. I remember sitting on the porch swing calling a number, having a voice answer that I knew but couldnt name. Later, my therapist remembered the conversation just fine, so I must have had it.

The friend arrived. I knew that I was supposed to know her and be able to rely on her. But I did not know who the hell she was. It took all of me to turn my children's care over to her.

It took a day or three to get back to 'normal'. At some point the therapist convinced me that sleeping could help reset my brain. I dont remember what all happened at that point.

During this entire time, it was like I wasnt real. When I am dissociative, I often feel like I am 'outside of myself', or existig in a little, floating sphere in front of my forehead. But this time, I could not find myself at all. I had NO connection with my body, not even a context or understanding of relativism like when I float in front of myself. There was no self to orient to. I honestly felt as though all of who I was had slipped into a fictional story or into a living dream.

All this frankness about my mental status might bring on questions about my ability to care for, much less homeschool, my children. I understand why that is a worry.

And yet, I believe that far more people deal with these issues than we know or admit. And in addition to that, this is only a small, but memorable, experience of a whole life. It isnt like I am constantly 'gone'. Only three days in 10 years. More people are down with the flu for longer than that.

I constantly strive for understanding, healing and ... more understanding. This helps me be a better parent, a better teacher, a better friend and a better servant of God's will. I truly believe that by talking about these things, we demystify mental health problems- not that my blog is public. I am not totally crazy.