Emotional dissociation treatment?

[StarStruck]

My therapist really doesn’t know how to deal with this. My previous one didn’t know how to deal with it either. 

I can feel certain senses fine when it is frustration, happiness, sadness, horniness and such. But there are just certain emotions I can’t feel. When my grandfather died I was sad but I couldn’t cry or emotionally process it. The energy just gets stuck in the body and it is unhealthy. 

My guesses are that my mechanism for emotional processes is broken or something. I wasn’t allowed to show a lot of emotions in my childhood. The strange thing is that with psychedelics I’m able to have those suppressed emotions but a lot of times I’m even suppressing my emotions during a LSD trip which causes a lot of suffering. I don’t suppress it on purpose. I know what I’m doing at the moment but I just don’t know how to not do it. 

My therapist advices me not to take psychedelics and he forwarded me to haptotherapy and psychomotoric therapy. Both are body based therapy instead of talk therapy. I hope this works but if it doesn’t I really don’t know where to go from there. My last option would be to take 500 ug LSD to see if that will smash my overcontrolling ego.

[kag101]

1 hour ago, StarStruck said:

My therapist really doesn’t know how to deal with this.

How long have you been having sessions with her?

1 hour ago, StarStruck said:

My last option would be to take 500 ug LSD to see if that will smash my overcontrolling ego.

this sounds way too neurotic. do you do LSD by yourself?

there are other routes to getting in touch with your emotions.

do you have a good emotional bond with anyone?

[StarStruck]

29 minutes ago, kag101 said:

How long have you been having sessions with her?

this sounds way too neurotic. do you do LSD by yourself?

there are other routes to getting in touch with your emotions.

do you have a good emotional bond with anyone?

With my current one for 5 months. With my one before this therapist 1 year. I have a good bond with him (it is a he). I also have some other good bonds but I’m an introvert so not that many. 

[Mz Hyde]

@StarStruck Hey, I have problem with repressed emotions too.

Do you have daily meditation practice?

I've been doing SDS for 2 years now and since january all kind of bottled up emotions and childhood memories started coming up during my sessions and I often end up crying my eyes out.

I've never done any psychedelic, so I can't help you there.

[Ulax]

@StarStruck Hey dude, I was wary of giving unsolicited advice before.

I say that in reference to when on your journal you said that your IFS therapist wasn't IFS institute certified.

However, I really recommend you instead get an at least IFS level 1 certified practioner.

I've experienced a couple non-institute certified IFS people and a level 3 ifs institute certified person. I find the process completely different with the institute certified person - its proper IFS. 

I'd also recommend doing the IFS meditations in, 'Greater than the sum of your parts' by Dick Schwartz.

Further, the r/internalfamilysystems subreddit might be useful for your journey through the process.

Penultimately, to relate, I have experienced, and do experience serious chronic dissociation myself.

-----------------------------------

Finally, I'd be very wary of using psychedelics in your situation. To speak in IFS terms, I think you'll be bypassing protector parts and accessing exiles. There may be healthy aspects to that but there is a serious risk of overwhelm. Further, it may increase the polarisation of the parts in your system after the trip ends.

[StarStruck]

22 minutes ago, Mz Hyde said:

@StarStruck Hey, I have problem with repressed emotions too.

Do you have daily meditation practice?

I've been doing SDS for 2 years now and since january all kind of bottled up emotions and childhood memories started coming up during my sessions and I often end up crying my eyes out.

I've never done any psychedelic, so I can't help you there.

SDS?

 

@Ulax thanks for the advice. When I pick my next therapist I will definitely look if the practitioner is IFS certified. At this moment it is not possible to change my therapist. By the way, I'v read books on IFS so I know what you are talking about.

Edited May 6, 2022 by StarStruck

[Mz Hyde]

@StarStruck Strong determination sitting - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cub6kY0oHZc&t=1550s

[Ulax]

@StarStruck Nice one dude. Good luck. And ye I thought so re you knowing a decent bit about ifs

[Tristan12]

3 hours ago, StarStruck said:

But there are just certain emotions I can’t feel. When my grandfather died I was sad but I couldn’t cry or emotionally process it.

You may have issues around grief or other emotions from earlier traumas that make it difficult for you to access these emotions now, so you would probably want to find and address those, but for now, treat emotional numbness as its own emotion. If you think about your grandfather's death and you can't get yourself to grieve, just let yourself feel how you feel, even if you don't really feel anything, and just sit with that and let yourself feel that way. Numbness is often a cover emotion for overly strong or difficult emotions. A cover emotion is an emotion sitting on top of another emotion to try and protect you from a more painful emotional state. If you just sit with it, honour it for what it is (trying to protect you from a painful emotional state) and let yourself feel it, you will often drop into the emotion beneath it.

I recommend just sitting with your numbness and letting yourself feel that, and it may help you start to feel again. It's important that you don't just try to push your way through the numbness and instead you honour and respect it for what it is, since its trying to help you, so go into it with that mindset.

[Mz Hyde]

@StarStruck There's a book 'It's not always depression: Working the change triangle to listen to the body, discover core emotions and connect to your authentic self' by Hilary Jacobs Hendel. You may find it helpful.

[puporing]

22 hours ago, StarStruck said:

The energy just gets stuck in the body and it is unhealthy. 

It's good that you're noticing it/have started to become aware of it.

22 hours ago, StarStruck said:

I wasn’t allowed to show a lot of emotions in my childhood.

Is it a feeling of unsafety if you were to imagine yourself showing emotions to someone you thought were close to you? Can you recall at all in your early childhood at what point did you start shutting them off (in order to be accepted by a caregiver..)? This could've been very early so don't beat yourself up if you can't remember..

I wouldn't completely abandon LSD/psychedelics as an option to help you "peel away the layers", but perhaps low doses might be more suitable.. and slowly work your way in. 

As for therapy... you might want someone who is able to show their emotions to you openly. This can be hard to find actually. Don't settle on someone if it doesn't feel quite right. They would also have to feel very safe to be around... ultimately it's a "simulation" of the caregiver relationship where you can feel safe and heal the parts that you didn't feel safe before.

Edited May 7, 2022 by puporing

[Ulax]

@StarStruck I just thought of something else for you, bro.

You might want to run this meditation on your therapist:

By, 'run this on [them]', I mean select them as the specific person to focus on in the meditation. It will make sense when you listen to the recording. If you choose to - of course ;).

Been having some success with this meditation myself.

Edited May 7, 2022 by Ulax

[StarStruck]

22 hours ago, Mz Hyde said:

@StarStruck Strong determination sitting - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cub6kY0oHZc&t=1550s

Hmm, intesting

21 hours ago, Tristan12 said:

You may have issues around grief or other emotions from earlier traumas that make it difficult for you to access these emotions now, so you would probably want to find and address those, but for now, treat emotional numbness as its own emotion. If you think about your grandfather's death and you can't get yourself to grieve, just let yourself feel how you feel, even if you don't really feel anything, and just sit with that and let yourself feel that way. Numbness is often a cover emotion for overly strong or difficult emotions. A cover emotion is an emotion sitting on top of another emotion to try and protect you from a more painful emotional state. If you just sit with it, honour it for what it is (trying to protect you from a painful emotional state) and let yourself feel it, you will often drop into the emotion beneath it.

I recommend just sitting with your numbness and letting yourself feel that, and it may help you start to feel again. It's important that you don't just try to push your way through the numbness and instead you honour and respect it for what it is, since its trying to help you, so go into it with that mindset.

Just sitting with my feeling is very hard for me, I'm very prone to overanalyzing, retreating from my body to my head. It is not even an option but an automatic habit. I really have to implement a steady meditation habit which is very hard for me.

1 hour ago, Ulax said:

@StarStruck I just thought of something else for you, bro.

You might want to run this meditation on your therapist:

By, 'run this on [them]', I mean select them as the specific person to focus on in the meditation. It will make sense when you listen to the recording. If you choose to - of course ;).

Been having some success with this meditation myself.

Hm, but why do you ask me to pick my therapist for this exercise? He doesn't really trigger me.

[StarStruck]

2 hours ago, puporing said:

It's good that you're noticing it/have started to become aware of it.

Is it a feeling of unsafety if you were to imagine yourself showing emotions to someone you thought were close to you? Can you recall at all in your early childhood at what point did you start shutting them off (in order to be accepted by a caregiver..)? This could've been very early so don't beat yourself up if you can't remember..

There was not really a point but a gradual transition to cutting emotional ties. I do remember there was no safety so I had to train myself not to express myself to my parents.

Quote

I wouldn't completely abandon LSD/psychedelics as an option to help you "peel away the layers", but perhaps low doses might be more suitable.. and slowly work your way in. 

As for therapy... you might want someone who is able to show their emotions to you openly. This can be hard to find actually. Don't settle on someone if it doesn't feel quite right. They would also have to feel very safe to be around... ultimately it's a "simulation" of the caregiver relationship where you can feel safe and heal the parts that you didn't feel safe before.

Ok, I didn't know it was important for the therapist to openly show their emotions. I think he is a pretty honest guy and just tells straight up if I'm weird (when I 'm intellectualising too much). I really appreciate the honesty and he knows that because my previous therapist wouldn't give me those reality checks.

It is interesting that you bring safety up. My next session I will focus on this aspect and see if there is a chance in the vibe.

[Ulax]

@StarStruck

9 minutes ago, StarStruck said:

Hm, but why do you ask me to pick my therapist for this exercise? He doesn't really trigger me.

I get you. I thought you might say that.

My thinking is/ was the following. It may well be that many of your parts like your therapist. However, there may be some protector parts, i.e. firefighters, that go relatively unnoticed. Perhaps, they are exiled themselves. And they, for example, might be protecting a part that is afraid of change, and are therefore understandably sabotaging the process. So, doing the fire drill might bring them up.

I personally think that is a significant possibility with your dissociative experiences. But i am no expert.

[Grateful Dead]

Psychedelics are the most powerful tool I know to release stuck energy. You have to suffer through it over and over again until you learn how to let go, that's all psychedelics want to teach you. You might have to take 400-500ug a few times to breakthrough, but usually doses around 50-250ug work best for this type of work, at least if you do it alone it's much safer.

Therapy can then be used to integrate your experiences. You might want to check out Stan Grof's work, he is the master in this field.

[ll Ontology ll]

On 6/5/2022 at 4:37 PM, StarStruck said:

My therapist really doesn’t know how to deal with this. My previous one didn’t know how to deal with it either. 

I can feel certain senses fine when it is frustration, happiness, sadness, horniness and such. But there are just certain emotions I can’t feel. When my grandfather died I was sad but I couldn’t cry or emotionally process it. The energy just gets stuck in the body and it is unhealthy. 

My guesses are that my mechanism for emotional processes is broken or something. I wasn’t allowed to show a lot of emotions in my childhood. The strange thing is that with psychedelics I’m able to have those suppressed emotions but a lot of times I’m even suppressing my emotions during a LSD trip which causes a lot of suffering. I don’t suppress it on purpose. I know what I’m doing at the moment but I just don’t know how to not do it. 

My therapist advices me not to take psychedelics and he forwarded me to haptotherapy and psychomotoric therapy. Both are body based therapy instead of talk therapy. I hope this works but if it doesn’t I really don’t know where to go from there. My last option would be to take 500 ug LSD to see if that will smash my overcontrolling ego.

I’ve been dissociating almost since the onset of birth due to my childhood upbringing so I really empathise with your struggle and recognise it as real.

I’ve been documenting my progress from dissociation in my Heart journal in a way where I don’t really go into specific issues I just shared my journey, emotional experiences and processing in various ways.

I share my process in pretty good detail here however after reading this I recommend either going back to the start of my journal, starting from “introduction 1” or both.

At present, I don’t really want to be giving advice in SEP until I’ve recovered enough from my own “childhood trauma”. To me, that just seems like the right thing to do, I couldn’t respect myself to the desired esteem if I did otherwise. 

Much love and respect hey, I get it.

For me, therapy never did it. They can’t provide me with emotional support as I get that from other people anyway and any intellectualisation I generally do better like if we start getting at all intellectual I start reverse engineering all of their speech patterns to the point where it all just becomes a bit ridiculous. I learn so much from myself and my understanding, observation and sincere and heart felt learning from others, especially loved ones.

[Advocate]

Try microdosing mushrooms or LSD or try MDMA, something that’s more gentle. It will show you that the dissociation is not the problem, it is already the solution. 

[StarStruck]

8 hours ago, Ulax said:

@StarStruck

I get you. I thought you might say that.

My thinking is/ was the following. It may well be that many of your parts like your therapist. However, there may be some protector parts, i.e. firefighters, that go relatively unnoticed. Perhaps, they are exiled themselves. And they, for example, might be protecting a part that is afraid of change, and are therefore understandably sabotaging the process. So, doing the fire drill might bring them up.

I personally think that is a significant possibility with your dissociative experiences. But i am no expert.

I think you might be right. To be honest I found IFS to be a little childish and I didn't give it a serious try. I still have the book with the notes so I might just do self-help and ask my therapist for assistance. He is familiar with system therapy and schema therapy which is closely related to IFS. My current view on IFS is that it is very helpful but I just have to give it a serious try.

Sometimes I do feel deep emotions like sadness. Yesterday I had to friendzone a girl I liked because of my no-fap journey and self-healing.  These sensitive parts (sensitive side of me) do exist but like you say they are tucked away by conditioning and protected by old guards that are no longer needed.

6 hours ago, Advocate said:

Try microdosing mushrooms or LSD or try MDMA, something that’s more gentle. It will show you that the dissociation is not the problem, it is already the solution. 

Microdosing is a hell for me because my overprotecting ego kicks it and the trip just becomes a drag.

Edited May 7, 2022 by StarStruck

[StarStruck]

8 hours ago, acidgoofy said:

Psychedelics are the most powerful tool I know to release stuck energy. You have to suffer through it over and over again until you learn how to let go, that's all psychedelics want to teach you. You might have to take 400-500ug a few times to breakthrough, but usually doses around 50-250ug work best for this type of work, at least if you do it alone it's much safer.

Therapy can then be used to integrate your experiences. You might want to check out Stan Grof's work, he is the master in this field.

Which book of Stan Grof do you recommend? I remember scrolling through couple of his ebooks but it was very theoretical and no a lot of practical application.

 

 

@ll Ontology ll I appreciate your honest input. Your story sounds very similar to my. A lot of intellectualization. I will look into your topic. Perhaps we should try Ketamine? Have you watched Leo's latest video? Ketamine just sounds like it was made for me. Obviously I will use it for insights and not as an easy way out. 

What I learned about myself is this: no need to make easy stuff more complicated than it is. Easy problems need easy solutions. Difficult problems need difficult solutions. The ordeal is to correctly assess the situation. It is a matter of accurate "mentalization". Having the right holistic picture of a problem is much powerful than understanding all the nitty-gritty (details) of problem. Most of the time we don't even need to understand all the unnecessary nitty-gritty.