a strange incident

My mind is telling me to trivialize this and to think of it as nothing more than a strange happening that I shrug my shoulders to. However, I am trying to become more conscious and more aware of times that I may be more out of it, not "myself," or not present.

So... this is what happened.

Tonight I sat down to eat my dinner. My partner had already eaten. She sat down with me while I ate and we talked. At some point, I looked down at my hands, which were getting a little food on them, and said, "Ugh, I really should get a napkin but I'm just too lazy..." We went on talking and I went on eating. At some point, I happened to look down at the table next to me, and there sat a napkin. I knew there hadn't been one there before. I asked my partner, where did this napkin come from? She said, I got it for you! and I said, yeah but when? And she said, "After you said you wished you had one. I said [meaning my partner to me], 'I'm gonna go to bed soon, but I'll get you a napkin first.' So I got up, went and got you a napkin, came back, put it on the table next to you, I gave you a rub on the back, and I sat back down." I just stared at her, completely shocked. She had gotten up? She had gone to the kitchen? She put a napkin down on the table? She rubbed my back? My partner shrugged it off and just kept on talking (this sort of thing happens to me quite often I think, so she's used to it), but it just got me thinking. Normally I would shrug something like this off too. But what if...

Would this be an incidence of losing time? I mean, I have no idea how I was acting when she was doing all that, since I have no recollection of any those things. For all I knew, she was sitting at the table with me the whole time. I know this sort of thing has happened before. In fact, I think it happens quite often. I just usually don't think anything of it. Now I want to start taking notice.

I don't necessarily think another part of me was present, although I guess it's impossible for me to know for sure. My guess is that I just totally spaced out. So much so that a chunk of time went by and I also didn't even ever realize I had spaced out.

Anyways, I'm not sure what kind of feedback I'm looking for, I guess just thoughts and responses, whatever they might be. Is this a typical type of thing that happens to most people? Should I just write it off as nothing, which is what my tendency is to want to do? I want to know if this seems out of the ordinary to anyone, or if this just seems totally normal.

Thanks!

It happens every now and again to "normal" people, at times of high stress I'd imagine.. like teh whole driving along the road on auto pilot thing. I know my partner will look at me and say: when did you do that?? when I told him 5 minutes ago I was going to do it, and got up and did it, and he has no recollection.

But - the fact it is happening to you, who has been diagnosed with a dissociative disorder probably means it's more than that. Just take note of all these times, that's all you can do.

thinkikng of you

Bourbon

p.s. sorry this writing is all funky... that anti psychotic last night has made a brain a bit wonky :/

Honestly it kind of sounds like losing time to me. When it happened to me that one night in the hospital, it was a similar situation. I was just sitting in the bed, then the next second the nurse asked me if she wanted me to wheel my bed around, facing the other direction. When she did, I saw that my socks were on the floor, and she told me I had been throwing them.

So...yeah. No idea. Because I don't think I have DID yet it's a definite episode of losing time, no memory of it, etc. I space out all the time. But losing time with amnesia, to my knowledge, has happened 1 to 3 times in one day. Not to mention I can't imagine myself removing my socks and throwing them across the room while laying in a hospital bed in a hallway.

I kind of thought it sounded like spacing out until you said you didn't even realize you had spaced. Usually I realize I have spaced once I snap out of long tangential chain of thoughts and back into reality, though I'm not completely sure how much time has passed.

It sounds like losing time to me. Here is why. When I space out I know I have spaced out so there is no moment of disorientation when I come back. I am not startled by changes in my environment, such as a napkin where before there wasn't one. It is just as if I left the room briefly. I know some time has passed. I might be curious about the napkin but there would be no sense of shock. When I lose time, however, even such a minor change is shocking because it seems to have happened in an instant. There is a subjective feeling of discontinuity. This experience is so disturbing that big budget films may employ one or more people whose job is to maintain continuity. To ensure that objects in the scene are in exactly the same place in each shot that makes up a scene. Some films use deliberate continuity errors to simulate losing time. Watching the 1976 version of Sybil (starring Sally Field) clued me into the fact that my own experiences of discontinuity were signs of lost time.

You can ask your partner if you seemed to be present during the time that you were gone.

Wikipedia: Continuity (fiction)

-- Wed Jan 04, 2012 3:18 pm --

It sounds like losing time to me. Here is why. When I space out I know I have spaced out so there is no moment of disorientation when I come back. I am not startled by changes in my environment, such as a napkin where before there wasn't one. It is just as if I left the room briefly. I know some time has passed. I might be curious about the napkin but there would be no sense of shock. When I lose time, however, even such a minor change is shocking because it seems to have happened in an instant. There is a subjective feeling of discontinuity. This experience is so disturbing that big budget films may employ one or more people whose job is to maintain continuity. To ensure that objects in the scene are in exactly the same place in each shot that makes up a scene. Some films use deliberate continuity errors to simulate losing time. Watching the 1976 version of Sybil (starring Sally Field) clued me into the fact that my own experiences of discontinuity were signs of lost time.

You can ask your partner if you seemed to be present during the time that you were gone.

Wikipedia: Continuity (fiction)

Brandic, your incident is much like mine where I am trying to decide if I am losing time. There is a discontinuity, thanks for the language Una+ it always helps to have the right words. There are many such things that have creeped in in the past few years. And I always felt I had a memory of gold so it started to really bug me. To the extent I - ok get ready to roll over laughing - I thought our house was haunted and some spirit was playing tricks on me, LOL . It happened when I was home by myself a lot or just with the baby during mat leave and then when I lost my job. I started spending entire days out of the house because I was certain there was something playing tricks on me. But I'm starting to wonder if it was just me all along. I am glad I can laugh about it now.

But they are little things, mostly objects out of place, or finding myself doing something that I don't remember making the decision to start doing. But no loss of hours or days, or finding myself in places I don't remember going to. I feel these symptoms are more extreme and there must be lead up to to this kind of major loss of time, don't you think?

Sam

SamsLand wrote:there must be lead up to to this kind of major loss of time, don't you think?

"Lead up" as in some premonition or feeling of something about to happen? No. That's the whole modus operandi of DID when you are unaware that you have it. Your system is protecting you, the host, ensuring that you remain unaware. When something triggers a switch, memory of the trigger itself goes into the amnestic black hole along with the lost time.

Perhaps what triggered you was your thought that you were too lazy to get yourself a napkin. Was there someone in your FOO who would call you lazy? Or perhaps it was something that happened right after you said that, that you don't remember. The trigger can be something very subtle and harmless in itself, that nonetheless is a trigger because in some small way it reminds some part of your system of a trauma.

Yes, very interesting. Thank you all for your responses!

Yes I've had many incidences of spacing out (on a daily basis), but like you said Una, it never shocks me. Often it's when I'm talking with someone and I'll realize I missed an entire chunk of the conversation and I'll have to ask them to repeat themselves. I am always aware when I space out, and it doesn't come as a shock.

There are also often incidents of me asking my partner to bring me something and I find it sitting there right next to me, with no recollection of her bringing it to me. These incidents don't startle me either, since I figure I was just preoccupied with something else.

This was different. I had no awareness of having spaced out, in fact I still thinking I didn't space out! It felt like the twilight zone. We were sitting there talking the whole time! How could she have possibly gotten up and gone to the kitchen without me noticing?! It just doesn't make sense... And on top of it she rubbed me on the back...??? If I were to tell you my view of events, we were sitting at the table together, engaging with one another, and the napkin just appeared on the table out of nowhere. Having it magically appear there would actually make more sense than having her get up and get it, etc.

Right after I said I was too lazy to get it, I had the thought that I should ask my partner to get it for me, but then I thought of how selfish that was and that she was tired and what was wrong with me that I couldn't go get it myself. So I just let it go and we kept talking. Or so I thought... :/

I'll have to ask her how I was acting during that time...

SamsLand wrote:
there must be lead up to to this kind of major loss of time, don't you think?

"Lead up" as in some premonition or feeling of something about to happen? No. That's the whole modus operandi of DID when you are unaware that you have it. Your system is protecting you, the host, ensuring that you remain unaware. When something triggers a switch, memory of the trigger itself goes into the amnestic black hole along with the lost time.

No sorry that is not what I meant at all.... I meant lead up to the state or severity of illness where you have major time loss. Not the right phrasing. More like either spectrum in the illness or progression I was thinking when I wrote that, where one could imagine we progress from losing bits of time to big chunks? That is what I meant.

no I am fully aware of there being no premonition. Sometimes I feel something as it is happening but even the triggers are not entirely predictable. That is what freaks me out.

I'd be curious if there is any evidence of progression. Both in the form of bits of time loss to major time loss AND dissociated ego states to full DID switching with time loss. It is all very interesting to me. Whether the differences in DID experiences (while most individual due to our different experiences, different ways of handling trauma/stress, and different sensitivities) but also if differences are different illnesses that can be subcategorized and whether these are progressive or just the way they are.

Hmmmm

Sam

SamsLand wrote:one could imagine we progress from losing bits of time to big chunks?

I have seen no evidence that any of the dissociative disorders are progressive.

oh, thank god!

Sam