Any ideas what this is?

I need help with something, please. Any ideas, or suggestions. Does this sound like a personality, or some kind of dissociation? Maybe a combination of both?

I keep getting "episodes" of staring blankly at stuff, for who knows how long. Sometimes I'm aware we are doing that, other times I'm not. When I am aware, if someone tries to "snap" (I keep wanting to type us) out of it, I feel very agitated and a strong feeling to completely ignore them. I kinda think this might be a personality in a way, but it's really hard for me to say. It's so close to feelings of dissociation, BUT a lot stronger, I think. I feel as if the agitation is coming from this. I mean, not my own feeling. I don't know. I'm probably not even making any sense.

It's like an incredibly strong cloud, or something. Like 100X what our dissociation feels like. It comes, and then, I need to end this post now. I don't feel so good. This personality, or whatever it is, is here again. I feel it super strong. I'm having a really hard time thinking now.

I call that "brain fog". In here I'm the one to whom it happens the most.

A LOT of stuff can cause brain fog. Here are a few lists of possible explanations to bain fog, among many other explanations. https://www.healthline.com/health/brain-fog | https://www.webmd.com/brain/ss/slideshow-brain-fog | https://www.medicinenet.com/brain_fog/article.htm | https://collegeinfogeek.com/brain-fog/ For example, it is also very common in autism or AD(H)D.

It feels weird and it's unpleasant to just sit here and stare into the void. Especially since the void is not a black kitty and cannot stare back and meow and purr.

But yeah, sounds like brain fog to me.

--Zami--

Hi,

I have this too, usually at certain times of the day and mostly when I'm alone and I also recognize how you felt it coming during the end of your post. I think it's a freeze(/flight/fight) thing. The reason for it happening can be a lot of things but I think it's that mechanism.

When I have this a lot, I set an alarm on my phone every hour to a) check if I'm always aware of where I am and what I'm doing, and b) snap out of it might I be just staring and sitting.

In our experience this type of experience is always an alter, sometimes fronting, sometimes overwhelming influencing me or someone else who's in front. You could try asking inside to see if anyone knows who may be involved or what is happening.

For us it feels that the purpose -- the original one from when we were very young -- is a safety mechanism. Overwhelming stress, terror, sadness, feelings of betrayal, etc. were just too much for us to bear at the time. One of our parents, occasionally others, were hurting us and there would be no rescue. The zoning out would happen at any stage of abuse or chaos -- beforehand while awaiting impending abuse, during abuse, or following abuse.

The way we've addressed it is trying to figure out who stepped forward or was influencing us and later -- when we're not in the middle of it -- trying to communicate with that alter. Sometimes we don't know who it was so we have to speak generally. When we do, we remember we're speaking to a child alter, virtually always (in our system anyway).

What tends to get through most have been comments like: you're safe now, we have some adults here who can handle this and take care of you, you can step back and let them help, it's not your fault, you can go inside and lie down, the bad people aren't here anymore, thank you for trying but you don't have to do everything, let John (it helps to give names they recognize) figure out what to do, you're very brave.

Generally, it has worked for us to speak inside or aloud in a way that a confident, caring, reassuring adult would speak to a child. Luckily we had some examples in our lives, including the nurturing alters of our dissociative parents. Imagining reaching in and patting a child on the head or putting a hand on their shoulder may help.

Thanks for sharing Ponyta, we experience that too sometimes.

Those links to 'brain-fog', awesome, thanks all.

We can sometimes see that our brain needs that time, or that the 'brain fog' experience needs to happen, and that it ok and useful sometimes. Of course, it depends when its happening, but I guess we've stopped fighting it as much as we used to, and this helps.

We find it the hardest when around other people and it happens, as we literally can't 'think' anything to say or add to the conversation. It's like we can't 'think' at all...

We've found that making time for that kind of experience has helped, like walking, sketching, doing things where you don't need to think or use the Mind. We get it on our walks sometimes, but we can roll with it and try to get a bit more comfortable with it too.

Wishing you all the very best with it.

Pastella
(and All)

Thank you all for your replies! We greatly appreciate them!

Sorry, I'm not 100% here right now. Still having this feeling and it is getting worse, so I'm not able to concentrate too good.

There's a new thing going on with this. A horrible feeling of heaviness. Almost as if heavy weights are holding me down. When I tried to come back out, it was as if this "brain fog" or whatever it is was stuck to me. I feel crazy in this description. It didn't 100% feel like jello anymore, but extremely thick honey or something (almost like something sticky holding me down). I need to go for now. Feeling really, really bad. Not sure why it keeps getting stronger. I never had "brain fog" this bad before. Something must be going on.

Thank you all for your replies!