HG is an interkontinental treasure. but as dr k states, entertainment and information only. he seems to hit the spot everytime and i struggled a lot with protagonist syndrome on his content. *not to undermine or deminish the work, not in the slightest. i benefit a huge deal off of their videos.* i look at this as a very very eleborate and tutored google search. getting an evalutation from a therapist is still the most valuable lesson HG taught me and tries to teach everyone. disclaimer: imo.
@pradiptahafid Please learn about "avoidant attachment styles." I never talk like this, but it absolutely blew my mind. Once I really got it, I feel like my emotional and even intellectual intelligence doubled. doubled. in 2 days
Yeah, I remember that I would often get drunk and stare at myself in the mirror and women would say that I'm full of myself, but I was actually experiencing dissociation, which explains a lot.
If you weren't taught how to identify and express emotions as a child, that isn't set in stone. That means it is a learned skill, and as long as you can learn, you can recover.
To a large extent yes, but it does take a fair amount of work and most of our "emotions" are really a mixture of other emotions, positive, negative and approach. (Approach emotions aren't something that typically gets much attention, but that's mostly like anger that makes us want to approach the problem and do something about it)
Disagreed. Identifying and expressing emotions is something person does. He doesnt need to learn it.. He does need to unlearn the stuff preventing him from feeling.
@@jakubhladil5340 Expressing, maybe. But identifying, no. Children learn what pain is from their parents expressing concern for their pain, as an example.
Oh wow, I was waiting for this. I've been living on autopilot for about 4 years. Waking up, dressing up, getting into bus, riding to work, working, getting back home, gettin into bed and in the end... realising I don't remember almost ANYTHING that happened throughout the day. I didn't know how I got up, how I appeared at work, how I got back home. I was stuck in my own world inside my head where I was going through same events from my life, same fuck ups, imagining what could have been if I chose differently etc. I was in such a bad state my family forced me to go to a psychiatrist. Anxiety-depressive states with dissociative symptoms. I got my meds and got better after a year of treatment.
@@Photik I started from 5mg per day of Elicea and went up to 20mg during my treatment. I know those drugs can have different names around the world or something. It has Escitalopram in it. I guess that's the most important component. I still struggle from identity issues and the feeling of pointlessness of my life but at least I'm in it again. Not god knows where.
@@Photik I don't know the exact reasons for you asking this, but as a disclaimer I should mention that you shouldn't use another person as a compass for what you should pursue in terms of treatment. The causes for dissociation could be entirely different between the two of you. The physiology is also likely entirely different, and both of these things have an immense impact on what treatments will and won't work. It took me 4 psychiatrists and a dozen medications before I started treatment for a mood disorder (which was originally thought to be other ailments) because my constellation of symptoms was so complex. As a general rule, I'd always recommend therapy with the caveat that you might not jive with the therapist, and you might have to try a few; just make sure you're entirely honest with your expectations and experiences with the therapist. They may be able to adjust their approach if what they're doing doesn't seem to be helping. As far as medication goes, you'll typically start with a general practitioner. GP's are able to prescribe medications for mental disorders/illnesses but I'd recommend pressing them on being referred to an actual psychiatrist because GP's tend to (from personal experience and what I've heard from others) not have the level of knowledge and experience needed to effectively treat a mental illness. Hope that was helpful.
Autopilot for 15 years, so basically go to school (soon work), do shit I don't care about, come back, sit on my phone until falling asleep, and repeat. One boring day after another equally boring day wondering why people find being alive is great as it's just blank and boring. It's how I grew up so can't blame for thinking that way.
27:00 Dr k on who we are 29:00 Our role in coop games reflects our personality 43:00 Intrusive thoughts 1:10:00 dissociation as treatment for depression? 1:15:00 inappropriate times of abundance of emotions vs lack of emotions 1:26:00 Living without emotions 1:40:00 solutions 1:48:00 ,Don’t dessociate away from emotions 1:51:00 must form relationships 1:56:00 start living a good life. Not easy, but invest into non dissosiated part of self 3:03:00 Sit with emotions, accept self, then gain experience
the irony in that I keep having to rewind a few minutes because i realise i have dissociated while thinking about something said and stopped paying attention to what is being said afterwards
Same lol. I have issues with spacing out and having to rewind most content, but it's very meta to be doing it while watching this. I'm about 50 minutes in after watching for a good almost 3 hours.
OMG the same happens to me!!! I know it’s not distraction because I can listen to his videos only rarely rewinding, but this one I keep going somewhere else.
Dude… This channel has done more for my mental health than any doctor, practitioner, standard self help by MILES. Thank you and all behind the HealthyGamer team. Been dealing with this for about 7 years, and as a soon 25 year old. It’s so frustrating, but I’ve seen progress. Most that deal with this, feel alone, unseen and unheard. I wish everyone the best, and you can overcome this 🤙
my chronic depersonalization/derealization began when i was 12 years old. i know the exact date. if you showed me a film of myself, i could pinpoint the exact moment it started. this was the beginning of a long journey where i thought i was utterly insane. most of the time, when you're experiencing a symptom of mental illness, you can google key words to find out what it is that you have. to find others who are experiencing the same thing. but with dp/dr, this took me multiple years. how do you look up a feeling? that the grass is too green. like i'm drunk or high, but without any of the fun. that the malls are too big and bright. that everything is foggy, yet vibrant. that my hands aren't my own. that i'm a little person sitting behind my own eyes. that the ground keeps coming closer when i walk. i asked doctors, i was referred to opthalmologists, i asked my family. sometimes descriptions of dpdr would accidentally slip out of my mouth to someone in my life, and they couldn't understand. i only found out what it was when i stumbled across a youtube video by a musician i listen to. and finally, i could breathe again. i finally felt seen. feelings of derealization and depersonalization are the 3rd most common symptoms of mental illness after feelings of anxiety and depression. and there was a huge spike during covid, when everyone was quarantined. the pandemic was a global trauma. it is going to affect us as a society, as people, long-term. i dont wish dpdr on anyone.
If you are still experiencing this, I'm sorry for you. I had dp/dr only 3 months and it was hell on earth. It was so severe that I would black out for a second or two sometimes and not remember anything that happened during that time. Not to mention the lapses in memory and other cognitive problems. I found meditation to be very helpful when it came to overcoming dp/dr. Try it if you haven't already.
Its awful how poorly understood this is by professionals and how people suffer so long without a diagnosis. I keep running into the same problem over and over with sufferers 'they don't know what's wrong, their Doctor was useless etc etc' I wish you luck on your recovery...
50:30 Paralysis of initiation 1:22:00 Salience (the notion of importance in an emotional level) 1:30:00 Why this is on the rise 1:40:00 What do we do: Therapy, EMDR, The importance of Connection to others (humans and animals) (we all feel more than we can handle) 1:56:00 Learn how to live life
I have few deep memories from my childhood, but I can vividly remember around the age of 10 asking my brother if he felt like he "wasn't in control of his life, like you're watching someone else live life for you?" I'd been quickly dismissed by him and the rest of my family, no matter how often I brought up this strange feeling over time. 20 something years later I'm halfway through this lecture relating to more than I anticipated. Not diagnosing myself, but I can say this is the motivation and specific angle I needed to begin seeking more individualized help. Thanks Dr K. Been a big fan for a while, but this is without a doubt the most personally impacting video to date.
I think dissociation/depersonalization has always been a larger issue than people realize, but technology helped us recognize and keep track of it better. Since other ways of dissociating were more subtle, and social pressure to conform could easily cover a lot of it up simply because no one’s paying attention to conforming-“it’s just taking part in normal common behavior”. Other ways to dissociate is through reading, music, media, being a workaholic, etc. The work place is a huge place for dissociation especially when it’s highly demanding and toxic, people end up “switching off” to get through it. I’m still at the beginning of the video so if you touch on this later or if I’m using the wrong words, I apologize in advance.
Oh yes I was a huge reader. I read all day and all night 😅 then when mom would force me to stop reading and go to bed I’d lay in bed for hours either crushing sense of doom It started from as early as I learned how to read, I have a life long issue with dissociation
Moment of vulnerability for me. I see comments that say “I cried at this video…” a lot for Dr.Ks videos. I always thought it was corny. I did cry at this video. I have suffered from derealization and depersonalization for years now. Heavy gaming time, porn use and internet use. No feeling of a continuous, whole sense of self. It hurts. My primary focus in my life right now is healing. So glad this is getting talked about. I know I am not the only one.
The reason I cried at this one is just the feeling of how utterly unfair it is that because of trauma, all these extra years of my youth have been robbed from me in a way that to all my friends and family just looks like a moral faliure and me being lazy.
I absolutely know this feeling. But I’ve also seen people who are older than me and just seem to live life on autopilot. So although my last several years have been pretty bad, I’m making sure the rest of my life is filled with meaning and happiness.
"No feeling of a continuous, whole sense of self. It hurts." puts into words something I've been trying to figure out for a good bit, if it's anything like what I'm thinking of then you aren't alone
When I dissociate I feel literally nothing except ambiguity and ambivalence towards everything and everyone, especially if with my partner. It brings me to the point of guilt, to feel so empty and void of any feeling for someone I genuinely do love. It is the exit of the willful being and personality I usually embody, replaced with a shell of a human that hardly has any regard for itself because it cannot truly believe that it exists in that moment. Nothing is real in that moment, the whole curtain of reality is undone, things cease to exist in a real sense other than the arbitrary nature of physicality that must pervade this world, but it seems rather all unbelievable that it is happening at the same time. At times, I find myself even at work in this space- working with kids with severe behavioral issues that are special education, and I feel at moments the inevitable, inseparable thought glued to my psyche- "How did I get here at all? Am I truly here right now? This is real? This is actually happening right now?" It is as if though a permanent state of trauma where things are maddeningly unbelievable and you can't reconcile them to reality, much less to your own perception. It just simply is, but altogether isn't.
the part about it being considered rare but way more ppl have it than we thought: I must say this, as a citizen of one of the many countries affected by war right now, actively concerned about effective PTSD treatments for the many many many veterans that we will encounter. However still I had NO IDEA this was SO common. I've just entered the practice of counseling/psychology working in a school, only for half a year so far. Nothing too difficult for beginners. I'm shocked to say I've already worked with a client (grade 9) with DP/DR and some concerning amnesia symptoms. If that's how common this is and not a total coincidence, then dissociation and especially DID are going to appear SO MUCH MORE in the next decade. It's so crucial they MUST be explained more to society, starting, like, right now. So, thank you so much for covering this!
I'm actively at work, I opened TH-cam because I had an overwhelming wave of guilt and depression. I just about laughed out loud because Dr. K streamed about dissociation the one day I wasn't dissociating the last bit of his lecture had me trying not to cry at my station
I am only in the first hour watching this back but it’s the most helpful video in terms of understanding myself how my brain functions. I am no longer young. I am 43. I want to mention it so that this community gets to know there aren’t only young people who follow this channel. We are broken as well. We’ve been “living” our lives not knowing what the fuck is wrong with us. I no longer believe it can be better but at least knowing it’s not my fault and I didn’t have a choice but to happen like that to just survive. I am so grateful Dr. K exists.
I'm a psychiatry resident (who also myself struggle with dissociation), and this is the first time I've really been able to make any sense at all of what always seemed like nebulous concepts like the "self" and "fragmentation" that would come up from time to time in any lectures, readings, etc I tried to use in attempt to better understand this topic. Actually dealing with dissociative tendencies is hell from both the patient and the clinician side because most clinicians barely understand the concept, yet alone know how to address it. I've seen a few therapists, and they basically all just taught be basic grounding techniques (eg 5,4,3,2,1), which may be helpful for fairly straightforward/textbook cases of dissociation but never helped me much.
Let's hope the information will slowly but firmly take root in those fields as time passes. Incompetent and/or inhumane "healthcare" professionals are ruining lives daily as we speak.
I really feel that comment about simple grounding not working, it’s so frustrating when conventional advice has little to no effect and you’re left scratching your head in frustration and sheer desperation for change. It’s even worse when therapists say “you’re so articulate and aware” but I’m so detached from myself I barely even know what I’m saying, operating purely off subconscious programming and not directly interfacing with the world. And dissociation is so common too, I’ve met so many people who experience it and yet it’s treated like some rare condition. I think people like you in the medical field can help spearhead a change - our healthcare professionals are so uninformed and fail to serve the needs of patients. I feel like dissociation isn’t something that can be understood intellectually, you just have to know from personal experience how horrific it is
With you about the grounding techniques. They sometimes made things worse for me by amplifying my sense of confusion and disorientation because I couldn't properly connect with what I was doing, if that makes sense. I also found that grounding myself jn stressful situations made things worse because, well, I'm in a stressful situation. Being there is literally the problem, so I can't really expect to cope with being _more_ present. Turns out, I'm autistic, so I actually need to just remove myself from situations that are overstimulating that then cause/worsen dissociation rather than ground myself in them. I quite literally cannot cope with the stimulus I'm exposed to when overstimulated, so removing myself in one way or another is so necessary that if I don't do it physically, my brain will do it mentally (that's what I've learned about myself, at least; I can't speak for others). Grounding is not very helpful for me in a lot of situations, aside from it being generally ineffective. Therapy was most helpful with the dissociation, not when it was trying to treat it directly, but when it was addressing it indirectly by treating the cause. For me, it was constant overstimulation and severe anxiety and depression. To this day, overwhelming emotion causes the most severe episodes, and when I was in a constant state of overwhelming emotion, I was constantly severely dissociated. I've had approximately zero success with treating dissociation directly because as long as I've got a need to dissociate, it will happen. By managing stress and anxiety and essentially eliminating my depression now, I no longer feel like I'm losing my mind. I've basically stopped doing any of the things that are actually recommended for treating dissociation and focus solely on managing potential overwhelming emotion and stress, and that's been the only thing that's helped. I'm always at a low level of dissociation these days, but it's a level that I'm genuinely at peace with. It worsens if I have episodes of high anxiety or due to certain substances (benzos and sleeping meds are the worst; I haven't even attempted to find out what alcohol would do lol). I don't think I know how to cope with even non-stressful life, hence the continued dissociation (mostly in the form of mild derealisation) but I can live in my body and experience my feelings and have moments of connection with the world around me. It's something I could live with forever if I had to without feeling like I'm losing out on anything, so I count it as a win. TL;DR: in my experience, dissociation is best treated by addressing the thing that's causing it, not by treating dissociation directly. Kind of obvious ig and anyone who deals with it will be like "Yeah duh" but I don't like that grounding techniques seem to be the only thing talked about. I feel like they're painkillers for a broken leg - they're not helpful if you don't mend the break.
For those who maybe still don't fully get it: Dissociation can be a symptom of disorders such as -anxiety -ptsd -bpd When the dissociation integrates itself more intensly into an individuals life (it is long lasting and causes distress) it potentially can become its own condition rather than just a symptom of a different disorder. There are 4 main dissociative disorders: -DPDR (depersonalisation/derealisation disorder) - a disconnection between experiences of the minds and the self and reality -DID (dissoctiave identity disorder) - a disconnection between different internal identities or selves -Dissociative amnesia - disconnection between self and memory or elements of identity -Dissociative fugue - a form of dissociative amnesia Depersonalisation and derealisation are forms of dissociation that describe a disconnection from self and reality, respectively. It isn't abnormal to experience either of these occasionally as fleeting sensations, and they can be symptoms of disorders first mentioned but once they establish themselves as both lingering and distressing (and resistant to conventional treatment) the experiencing of these forms of dissociation could be linked to dissociative disorders like DPDR, in particular. I also think the reason more people supposedly are dissociated is, in part, because people have a greater understanding of self and access to vocabulary - the ability to describe what's wrong, even if it's hard to treat. Dissociation cannot be medicated away. It is essentialy the result of severe anxiety, and the anxiety can be medicated, which can alleviate the dissociation. But to this day, there's no clear protocol or set means of treatment for dissociation alone because it is so complicated and misunderstood. Anyway Dissociation is super interesting and overwhelmingly misunderstood online. This lecture was really interesting, but I feel like it probably isn't super comprehensible to people who don't already have a solid base level understanding of dissociation. Still, any information given by people who actually know what they're talking about can only do any good in the end. I'm glad Dr K discussed this issue, and think he did a pretty decent job.
Can we Add dissociation seizures. I find it important to mention that it can also cause physical Symptoms. There are also some cases where people became paralysed and cant Walk longterm
The online representation of dissociative disorders is terrible. I was a victim of a violent crime and im non speaking autistic they had to withdraw charges because the online representation of DID is so bad that they realised the jury would be inherently so bias against me it would result in more trauma. I wish it was better understood and I didn't think the online stuff was so bad. People don't realise what level of trauma has to happen at a young age in pretty specific situations to cause especially osdd/did.
I've said this before; I saw this gamer therapist pop up on my feed and thought it was hilariously dumb. Watched one video and now I'm hooked. This lecture was made for me. Thank you.
Really happy and grateful that this is being adressed. I've struggle with Dissociation for all my life and developed DID. Finally think I can make big steps in healing now with the information given to me in this Video. Might be one of the most important ones I've ever seen.
Wishing you all the best in your healing journey. The CTAD Clinic treats OSDD/DID, and they have a TH-cam page. Perhaps they can be a helpful resource for you.
This sparked a memory that adults used to make fun of the fact that I wouldn't be able to see a fire next to me if I were watching tv as a kid. I was completely locked into the screen and logged out of my surroundings. Also dissociation by these definitions. Poor lil 6 y.o. me 😢
The true crushing weight of modern life is when you hear "Do yoga, do tai chi" and you look up where you can go IRL to 'live your life' and take a class and find out... they are all during weekdays at 11am and you work every weekday 9-5... Nothing quite like getting a ray of hope only to realize the cards are deeply stacked against you. Can you do SOMETHING in the face of this? yea prob. Do it on your own, etcetc. But that's why the MODERN life is SO bad. We all keep having to problem solve everything, it seems like, ourselves in a time when supposedly business solutions and products are CLAIMING to make our life easier than ever. Which might be true...except it's all with a fee and to pay that fee you have to busy yourself in such a hugely unbalanced way with what we call 'actually living' that LIVING is ALWAYS going to be the thing that gets thrown out, in sublimation to MAKING MONEY instead, unless you have the herculean strength to walk upstream in waist deep water for the rest of your life OR you are pre-resourced (AKA family money, trust fund, etc) enough to start sculpting the environment and the river to suit your own needs. Very few people, in totality, can afford that kind of commanding power, but we sure as hell all LISTEN to their BS about how "just" waking up at 5am solves all of THEIR problems. And it'll solve YOURS too (If you also have $1000 to spend every day to sustain it, is the part they don't say out loud.) Then you look for people to help you and find them FINALLY after a lot of failed tries...except they're kinda hoping that YOU can help THEM walk through the water instead. And you think "well we'll link hands and walk together" and you take 3 steps and then find a split in the river and your guys' paths diverge in a way you can't rectify because you went to school for 4 years for path A and they have 8 years of EXP working on Path B and both of these industries only exist in 2-3 cities that are split across the entire country. -__- Then remote work started to seem like a solution and now it's all "GO BACK TO THE OFFICE! REMOTE WORK SUCKS" again now that no one's being FORCED to allow it. -__- (plus remote work might even make work TWICE as isolating!) It feels to me like we're reaching a human specialization cap on how we can expect our society to function without very high level control and clear rules to sort people, which is what everyone is scared of with both communism and fascism alike... So wtf do we do about THAT???? There's only so many times a person can try this cycle over and over and over and find something that seems great but doesn't work out in the medium run, or even the short run, before they lose all will to keep trying. It's how slot machines get you. They don't have a 1% hit rate, they have like a 15% hit rate b/c people are smart at realizing when their efforts never pay off!!! That part of the problem, imo, won't go away until life shifts DRAMATICALLY in some kind of way, but ofc no one knows how to solve it b/c it's as complex as real life is and requires highly resourced individuals (not unlike Dr K!) to start the arm linking and try to help others figure out how they can manage to get into the same river in their life. THAT is how we heal the world. Harmonization, moving towards the same goals, and reverberation energy. NOT individualism and personal achievement. That's the recipe that got us into this mess to begin with.
The good news is that human resilience as a whole is extremely inspiring and we CAN make it through this, but it probably WON'T ever be all unicorns and rainbows... and TBH probably never has been at any point, ever. But hope finds a way, nevertheless. We DO need to have more nice moments in life to remind people that, even if we will never reach that utopia we all hope for in reality, we can at least catch glimpses of WHY we are all hoping for it, and THAT is the glue that is meant to hold society together. NOT repression and domination and resource scarcity like we're increasingly relying on in 2024+.
Thanks Dr. K for being on the internet. You have helped me so much to understand myself and understand a little bit better the world around me. Some days just hearing your voice makes me feel better. You break down complex topics into simple pieces, and you integrate them in ways that few people can. You are truly the person who has influenced me the most in a positive way. Thank you so much ♡
This was one of your best talks Dr.K. I can recall exactly when I wished to be able disassociate from a turbulent childhood and unfortunately I got my wish.
I have loved all the videos and podcasts that you have shared!!! I appreciate your work and I share it with my clients and colleagues. I’m a Clinical Psychologist in Canada 🇨🇦 with dissociative symptoms due to childhood trauma that I’ve been working on for decades. More traumas add more dissociation. I am living full life. I am more sensitive than others to danger cues. My dissociative behaviour isn’t in gaming but in education, conferences, podcasts - keeps me in my head, so easy. I look ambitious and successful. I know it’s maladaptive and effective coping I’m trying to let go. With utmost respect, I want to send this to some clients who aren’t games and don’t participate in any social media, but the focus on this is so strong that it seems it would be unrelatable to them. Also, I find presentation style of jokes and volume and in presentation style (hard / flippant / not soft) is so triggering. I can push through because I’m a geek 🤓 for this information but they may be hurt. You don’t seem yourself, either, Dr. K. Not as compassionate as usual in other vids. Is this trigger for you?? You seem “chippy.” And defensive, flippant. You usually show so much compassion to your followers. What up? No need to answer. Boundaries are cool. But can you make a video with similar content and same sweet moments, without the protective shell? People who experience dissociation won’t trust you and it will be hard to help with this kind of presentation. Especially with trauma; they can see right through you. Content is excellent, information is essential. You’re missing a whole subgroup of people that won’t be able to learn from you on this super important topic. Not everyone is internet addicted. The neurological information is great. The optimism is wonderful. The breakdown of complex brain info is as always genuis! I’m just hoping to reach the peeps you might have missed and to broaden your audience. Honestly, I love your work so much that I have a hard time saying all of this and don’t want to seem ungrateful for all this free wonderful content. I do want to speak up for a population who doesn’t speak up for themselves. Namaste. Lots of love. You are wonderful!!!
53:01 Really hit home for me- my mom was training for the olympics. she was a swimmer from middle school up until 20 when she got pregnant. she tried signing me up for swim classes and teams, tried to teach me how to swim. but she made it all about her, and all about me doing it wrong and not being a good enough natural. she always made me feel guilty for not wanting to follow in her path.
Holy shit* I mean, don’t internalize that if u don’t want to, pls, pls. U can like, not believe the complex messaging this experience is sending u, it’s just the awareness of that story that’s gonna provide u some perspective or u can just block that out it’s fine, up to u lol
I can’t even tell you how hyped I was when I saw the live! I’ve been journaling a lot and one problematic chunk of it is avoidance coupled and thru dissociation
As I continue my healing journey and working through my childhood trauma, videos like these are vital to my understanding of things and I just thank you so much for taking the time to do these! Cheers to you and your team! 😊
I love your content and your treatment style has reminded me of my roots as a clinician and has upped my Psychologist game! Thank you for your service, inspiration, kindness, love, and hard work.
Brother healthy gamer just wanted to chime in here and say you are doing gods work. Thank you for what you do, you’ve been a blessing to me and many others, seriously.
Thanatosis (physiological feign death) is a rather extreme example of a freeze response, and probably not even applicable to humans or other apes. If you walk in the woods and see a bear (or a man if that sounds scarier), your first reaction would probably be to stop, stand still, forget whatever you were doing (all the salience gets directed towards the bear), hope the bear does not notice you, and look for possible escapes. That is a more common case of a freeze response, and it also happens on a low neurological level. If you are carrying a baby through those woods (or hiding in a cellar from some bad people), even the baby can read your nonverbal cues, and freeze as well.
The baby response thing is so interesting! I know babies mimic their parents but I didn't know it also extended to the freeze response situations. Is there a word/study that describes that specific scenario?
Death feigning / tonic immobility is the vagotonic kind of "Freeze", and absolutely exists in humans. When all the other responses have failed, you just detach and numb yourself to the extreme waiting for the hurt to end.
You're talking about a single isolated incident where there is a deadly threat. Thanatosis in humans, aka the "collapse and submit" stress response, comes from being trapped long term in an ongoing mortal threat situation with no (perceived) escape, not just an isolated incident. When it gets to that stage, it really is more extreme than the freeze response.
It's far less dramatic, but "hope the bear does not notice you, and look for possible escapes" reminds me a bit of when I'm playing a combat game sometimes lol.
I have CPTSD and was prescribed heavy doses of benzos- I became addicted and also abused them for “the escape.” I had a very rapid taper off of them in rehab and one of the worst things was horrible dp/dr for almost 6 months. It felt like my sense of self was “shifted” and I was looking at the world from 5 ft underwater. It was absolutely awful- I was terrified I’d feel like this forever. Eventually I had one window of 5 minutes where I felt like myself again. I held onto these “Windows” wirh all the hope I had- If I had one “ window” eventually I’d have another. Over the course of 6 months the windows became more frequent and lasted longer. Thank god the dp/dr went away mostly at 6 months. Almost two years out I’ll have some moments I of do/dr. I don’t know if it’s extended post acute withdrawals or just my original diagnosis of CPTSD. I have heard that dp/dr is extremely common on people coming off benzos.
I have cptsd with horrible dp/dr episodes that will hit so hard I literally cannot speak or move for hours at a time. Benzos are the only thing I have ever found that can help me when I feel that coming on. I have weaned myself down to a very small dose (1/4 of a 2.5mg tablet) and at this point only occasionally need it because the episodes don’t ‘self-start’ as much as they used to. It if some environmental trigger happens (I do something wrong and think people are mad at me, someone yells angrily near me, etc), I have a window of maybe five minutes to get and take that med so that it can head off the worst of the crap that is coming. I still will have an episode, but it is much much less intense. I do not know how I would navigate my life without this rescue med for when I need it, and I hope to god it is never taken from me. I am so much more of a functional human being with it when I need it.
@@crowsong8097 I thought I was… it’s taken almost two years off of them and a ton of trauma therapy and a bunch of other work such as meditation, exercise, social interaction with safe people- etc. and my symptoms are almost gone entirely. They will pop up though when I am extremely stressed. What’s kind of interesting though is that if I really want to I can bring disassociation back on if I really want to. I had to have a surgery that they strongly suggested anesthesia, but it was going to cost too much money - I knew I was able to disassociate if I needed to so I told him to just give me the local… couldn’t believe how I handled it and I just said I took myself someplace else 🤷♀️. Dissociation is not nearly as distressing as depersonalization for me. Disassociation is whereI am just “someplace else” or am missing some chunks of time. Depersonalization though- to me is absolutely one of the worst feelings in the world for me.
i appreciate so much the use of nuero talk and showing published studies. it makes things so much more concrete as someone with a DD where denial is so strong.
02:50:11 Answering the question, what is the difference between dissolving Ego and Dissociation Dissolve ego = Notice the mind invoking the mechanism of self. Rather than tunneling down the rabbit hole and triggering more emotional fallout, Disagree with the assertion and drop/ dismiss the thought. Then use techniques such as naddi shuddhi or om chanting to process the emotions Dissociation= Force stop and disable emotions. They will still persist at deeper levels and cause glitches in overly strong or overly weak reactions to triggers as one goes forward in life
I feel so f*****g lonely, i live with my family parents and 2 little sisters, but I've never felf loved neither understood or welcomed in this family, my childhood was like hell, nothing good about it but manipulation and humiliation and shame. I'm so tired.
I can understand it to some degree. My childhood also consisted of constant manipulation, humiliation, and shame. Got a few fun disorders thanks to them. The best thing I ever did for myself was move out. For a while, I lived with some friends. Now I'm living on my own. I still find myself coming back to them, and getting hurt. But I'm at least not forced to be around them constantly now. I hope you can find a path to distance yourself from them.
Im halfway through, and i have a thought. Yall are talking about videogames, and social media, and internet use, and i wasnt relating... because im a millennial. I didnt get a phone till i was 15, i played in the dirt when i was traumatized, i developed a different safe space... in my mind. Youre right, dr k, i should find my diet important, but all i find myself prioritizing is my writing! I read a lot, i research and take notes on video essays about stories, and i write my own stories that are gonna save a generation from going through what i go through. That question, "whats important to you" really is the question to ask. So many things are clicking in this video, thank you! Now lets finish the second half jaja
This was wonderfully informative, love the map of choose your own adventure in mental & spiritual wellness- amazing work, thanks to you and your team ❤
introducing salience as a measure of the dissociation severity is so so important. the only periods of your life that you feel truly present for are those that have a cohesive narrative, where everything just sort of clicks and makes sense
I really enjoy an episode like this as someone with ADHD. People talk all the time about over diagnosing, but don’t even consider that thoughts that changes in our environment can lead to certain symptoms and disorders becoming more prevalent
there it is again,dr k putting all my exact issues into words. seriously,dr k manages to make me feel the most transparent ive ever felt in my life with so many of his videos
Your talks make my mind explode over and over with revelations and gratitude for learning the neuroscience behind my mental issues. Thank you. Gives me hope ❤
Thank you Dr K. Really appreciate someone putting words and order to such horrible life circumstances. I've tried to articulate these feelings but it's close to impossible.
I was waiting for this one since you announced it somewhere in winter. As someone with did who enjoys and learns from your videos a lot, thank you so much🙏🙏🙏 Edit: I do hope we'll get a deep dive into dissociation/did, was happy the person asked :) I'm very curious to see what your spiritual input on it would be as well.
This answers everything. I couldn't understand why other people can just "be," and I can't. I understand why I feel like I live life inside a glass box, and why I've always felt alien to the person looking back at me from the mirror.
Kinda sad I missed this one live, but I'm so glad it happened. I am so happy to learn about this cuz I've been feeling like this the past couple of weeks since I came back from vacation (I have diagnosed ADHD).
im so happy a video was made on this, had it in a really hard time in life and still have it, ive learned more how to deal with it, but i hope other people feel better if they have it worse
Yes this is me absolutely, I knew it was dissassociation but I never really thought about how it's probably affecting my whole life. I've been getting treated for my depression but I never mentioned this to them, I'm kind of afraid that I'll be judged or not believed or something because multiple personality is kind of a serious thing and I had "personalities" that I was talking to in late teens but for my own good they said they are gonna go away on strike because I didn't study, I'm unable to study lol so that was like 5 years ago and they never came back. Other than one time that I was super depressed, a new person came to talk to me and made me feel better and talked to me into me being worth something and mattered when I was at a very very low moment he said all the right things. Once I was feeling better from his compliments, pep talk, and advice it went away and I haven't actually had any more of those since. I think it's like the brain is really trying to protect you and keep you alive Because I was feeling so depressed and disassociated that I was unable to do anything hardly so when these Imaginary people in my head came suddenly it was nice and I wasn't alone, And I had like 10 people to talk to Who were rooting for me lol And who were all a different aspect of my personality was their whole being of each of them. Like all my negative, my depressive, My rude self, was named drag down. There was origional me who is myself, male me, flirty me, etc etc. Hard to tell apart so decided to have a different accent for each. Anyway, i may have subconsiously willed them away because I got scared about a movie where a guy had schitzophrenia. I knew they weren't real but it was still a nice experience once we could tell who is from who. They weren't all suddenly there at once, they came one by one in a short period of time.
Hi Dr.K, ive bad chornic depersonalisation derealisation for about 10 years after a couple panic attacks when i was 18. Im 29 today and still live with this, i think i've tried everything except antidepressants to get this to go away but i seem stuck. I have a therapist that specalises in it and actually wrote a book about it, she is really sweet but i'm not sure i'm getting anywhere. I have doubts about everything, my feelings towards my partner and family and friends. I don't really feel a connection towards anything and it's really a horrible state to live in every day, i'm about to become a father and have my first child in mars next year and i really don't want to live like this anymore, i hope we could talk, maybe it's a spirtual reason for all of this. Thank you.
Dr K - Thank you SO MUCH for this video!! The people you are speaking to in this video are the same people who are heartlessly bullied and harrassed by the awful Fake Disorder Cringe subreddit community. Bullying and harassment never solve anything. This video brings compassion and help to those who struggle with mental health. Thank you again so much.
Idk if it’s much more prevalent now I was a master dissociator before any of social media and computer games and such. I was called a very calm quiet child. Only at the age of 30 finally specialists confirmed to me I was great at dissociation and only by age 32 I finally stopped dissociating so easily.
100% on memory processing thing, my therapist insisted that would be most of the reason why I would feel like there’s gaps in time during normal everyday stuff. Journaling 20 mins before bed was very helpful with that, I would say.
Literally years, understanding family, therapy, group therapy medicines yoga , a weird amount of time in my room alone, a weird time not alone, waiting for shit to get better, making it get better, fixing shit, sitting back and letting shit go, getting up and trying every fucking day
2:37:16 DID >>>> alcohol & nicotine addiction properties etc. deeper complex topics >>>>> E for everyone topics I think if there was a decent interest for an influx in these more complex topics would be a good thing to start implementing because I understand always welcome the newcomer and I think HG has done that VERY well over the last few years. Maybe start with once a month or once bimonthly plan for a lecture like this. It doesn’t have to be one or the other, there is sooo much more to get into though when it comes to the more complex stuff giving more routes and information for viewers to explore in their own & the HG team will have endless content options because many things have been mentioned superficially and more in depth. The fact of the matter is these types of talks will go on forever because people are always learning and teaching, more and more.
Doing drugs and traumatic experinces with them caused me to get dpdr. Not healed 5 years later… its alot better though. The thing you need to realize… you are not going to snap out of it immediately even though you feel like thats the only way out since it feels like its going to be that way forever. You can improve your situation by reducing stressors. Stopping drugs, stressing out less, being connected with your feelings even if it means you have to experience the symptoms of dpdr and the empty feeling. That is something small that you can do and overtime you get better and tell yourself.. today was a good day again.
I'm just now understanding this in myself and knowing that someone else can describe to a T what it's like and how to cope with it was very helpful and reassuring , helps me to keep sanity. Thank you for your comment, today was indeed a good day again:)
Me a broke 21 year old with ADHD. No job and can't get any job because 1. no one accepts me, 2. Can't search jobs because of the dissociation and distractions. And then feeling time slipping away and getting more suicidal because it doesn't get any better. Have felt like this since forever, never been able to think and plan into the future, never hold a conversation because it blanks in my head and I don't know what to say. And overthinking everything. And no self-esteem what so ever. It's saddening because I can't provide for my parents, I'll probably get kicked out of the apartment soon. It's so over for me.
That goalie analogy was so good, holy shit. The RPG character class analogy didn't give me anything since I play everything, but I have never been able to be an attacker (formulating game plans and making the move) when playing soccer, or any other sport.
I can only say you are helping the realization and healing of the self for all of us through your continued hard work. Thank you 🙏 Please more on this topic 🙏❤ Learning how to be present so we can stop being dissociated, and what to do if you have been dissociated since early childhood. I believe this would help many people. Thank you 🫂 Thank you Question: If someone is constantly running into the counter *metaphorically speaking* and you point it out and they get mad at you and take it personally, like you are just being mean?!! What on earth do you do, especially if it's kids or family or a spouse? Thank you.
I hope one day you come out with a workshop for mental health clinicians. This is fantastic information thank you so much for putting the time to make this.
Dr. K I hope you see this, you did an amazing job researching this, I know because I've ben stuck in this state for over a decade and everything you described was spot on. Also amazing is that the research is far more advanced than I thought because it was able to help you deeply understand the disorder and then you were able to put the pieces together. Thank you
I know my case is pretty extreme, I was able to get diagnosed on what happened When i was 16 I had several traumatic events happen at once and I remember feeling a change hit me. Like night and day, suddenly everything was from the third person and I wasn't controlling or making decisions anymore. Like a movie where someone was playing me, in a half-assed but convincing way to everyone else and all i could do was watch in horror. It made me feel like I'd never get to participate in my life again, like I'd have to watch this fraud imitation of me make decisions for forever. There was this underwater haze of a feeling, reality wasn't real. But I knew deep down it had been real before, so it couldn't just disappear. Everything and everyone who raised me and the homes I've entered into a million times could have been places I'd never seen for all I knew. The people I loved most felt fague now, so making memories with them was horrific because it felt like I was watching us interact in the past even though the present was unfolding before my eyes in the moment. There was no moment to feel things, that felt cut out too. And anything I said was a predetermed script so it wasn't even my own words even though they sounded like something I'd say. My entire sense of agency as a human had washed away. Its back now, I'm 22 and am so grateful I made it out the other end because what the fuck It lasted years. 6 long years I clawed my way out and found good people, a better home.. therapy and medication 🫶 I'd never wish dissociation or derealization on anyone. They're so awful If you have it, dont give up or give into the overwhelm. If you can get yourself somewhere safe and therapy if possible , pieces can come back ❤ your survival instincts will let you back into the pilot seat again. Find good ways to ground yourself if you get small episodes where you slip out of place. Its going to be okay
I've been trying so hard to get back into the pilot seat, its been 7 years for me and I'm 24, I've been going to therapy and have been moving around a lot to try and find someplace that makes me feel safe. Right now it feels like thats impossible. I should feel safe but I am not and I don't know why. I would appreciate advice. Thanks.
@sausageanimations4301 feeling safe can mean so many things, but at the end of the day if you've moved around a lot and you still aren't in that safe place, maybe your heart doesn't recognize that this is an OK situation to let you roam yet. Not sure what type of therapy you have, but my advice would be to find somewhere safe, first and foremost ! You can't heal a wound when it's still being opened. When stuff quiets down it's a lot easier to work and lay out what you understand was the trigger for dissociation/ begin working on creating a bond with your mind that can communicate to it that it's okay now.
@sausageanimations4301 I'd also like to say, don't add any "should" phrases into your life. You'll move forward when you're ready to. There's no timer on these things and it can be incredibly challenging to heal from trauma. Especially dissociation which can take years to lift. Before anything or wishing it were gone, understand that there's a reason this is happening and you're still valid for feeling whatever made you scared. Don't push away your humanity towards yourself. The answer is in the center.
It was very difficult to hear some of this but I appreciate massively the understanding you're giving away. I'm hoping I can retrain some of this knowledge and apply it. Might check out the guide too
I would greatly appreciate a detailed video on DID. I do not believe a guide could be made for it. It is such a complex thing. Even experiencing it is…impossible to grasp. I think interviewing people with DID and ESPECIALLY those closely related to those people would be incredible and interesting to others.
This is so fascinating. It’s kinda like a neurological picture of how Internal Family Systems/parts work or DID works. Physiological compartmentalization in action. IFS specifically may have a somewhat poetic way of phrasing the same thing but it’s all physiological: all the meditative parts of it, and the defensive mechanisms like dissociation specifically, and the unresolved, emotionally loaded memory parts of it. We’re all low key just dissociating bambis on a savannah slowly being eaten by the lion of our lives 😁 brains are wild
Just a quick comment regarding the recovery projection for BPD - these percentages are based on cases that are working all of the therapy/DBT actively and consciously, non stop. If it wasn't said, it is worth noting that our average mortality rate is 45x the typical humans, 27 is said to be the average age we reach, with an average of 20 years less life expectancy than the typical humans due to physical maladies/chronic physical illness from extended elevated stress levels. We may go into remission but it never goes away completely, and it can relapse if not consciously managed. But we can get better! Happy BPD Awareness/Mental Health Awareness May!
As a person who suffers from bpd and bipolar life, it isn't as it seems. Especially when you finally do break and all 99% of your life is taking from you. from your own self sabotage behaviors. People need to understand im glad there are great doctors like you that can really change a life.
I'm diagnosed with BPD and the best way I can explain dissociation is like having a life you never knew was there. There is no connection with my emotions compared to myself or my memories. For example, I can lash out on someone for x reason then next week act like that situation never occurred. It's like having emotions so strong that your brain just shutdown to prevent damage. It's like reliving an experience that you've had before but to you that experience is new every time you have it. I've noticed if my brain is not dissociating, I feel manic and am able to create memories, gain knowledge, and live high on life. Depression medication will make me hypomanic as well. BPD is rough. Support is hard to find especially if you are male and many psychiatrists do not want to make a diagnosis, the only reason I have mine is because I had one psychiatrist asked me if I had ever been diagnosed which led to do research and then going to my formal psychiatrist. Depression medication doesn't seem to fix the core symptoms of BPD and BPD has comorbidity of other disorders like ADHD and Autism which all four of these disorders overlap in some behaviors and others not so much. DBT doesn't seem to work for me as I know the implications of my actions, but I do not care. What has worked for me its building an identity that I can be proud of. Following my passion and from that creating aspirations/goals to obtain. For a long time, I had no clue what was wrong with me, and I felt misunderstood. I hope one day the disorder will be less stigmatized. There are also studies that indicate people with BPD have lower intelligence, but I found those studies to be full of erroneous control groups. If you take someone who is depressed who just got out of a psychiatric unit in the 90s of course they will score lower on intelligence. Depression is known to cause psychomotor disabilities. Infact people with BPD are able to process other people emotions more quickly compared to the average person why do you think we call this having a sixth sense. Jordan Peterson also argues that many BPD have highly intelligent who are more than capable of analyzing their actions but unable to control the downfall. This is my personal opinion, but I think BPD is on the same spectrum as depression and mania and BPD is in the middle meaning you have intense mood swings over a short period of time that can be severe depression or intense euphoria this makes sense when considering depression medication will not fix the symptoms of BPD but also can cause mania as well as being my personal experience with the disorder on how my emotions range compared to how quickly they can change. When talking about BPD I always think of two artist, Kendrick Lamar(count me out) and Juice WRLD. BPD is much more common than people think, and trauma seems to play a huge role in the development of the disorder... and honestly that makes me sad AFF.
I wrote a short story for one of my college courses about a 3 month dissasoiative "episode" and I did my best to describe how it feels to not be me, to have months of life missing in my memory and yet it was otherwise perfect. My brain told me the best version of me is one where I'm not in it. If anyone wants to read it let me know I can probably link a comment to it here somewhere
@theartofthefart523 here you go I guess There I was, blind, deaf, and impervious-a being of instinct and less than a person. I made an experiment of myself and skipped out on my memory. With a freezing jolt, I woke up. It was a cool night in late summer, late July. I checked the time: 7:45. “What the fuck?” Had I gone back in time? I swear it was almost 9 when I went under. Maybe it'd been a few days. I checked the date: October 5th. How did that happen? I swear I just got back from vacation with my father and was out on a walk with my dog. Some quick math told me three months passed in the time I tested my ability to dissociate. I brought my dog back inside, a different one than I left with. Time started to catch up with me: glimpses of school and friends, classes, and tests. Games I was part of, where I was a player and a piece. I checked my grades and I was in high honors. It was only two or so months into the school year. I checked my messages with friends, and I had a fully functioning friend group. I had a girlfriend. My life was almost perfect. Nothing around me was familiar, and my world began collapsing. I felt something wash over me. Dread? Anxiety? Hate? Fear? It had been a long time. So much was lost being a human machine; No joy, no sadness, just motion. I searched for the feelings and found a gaping wound inside my chest. I felt everything that I was being sucked in and devoured, piece by piece before it was spat out a chewed rubble. I grasped for the last fragments of my emotion, but it was all gone. I was blind and deaf to feeling again. I didn't feel hungry, or thirsty, or sad. I dove into my imagination where there were once fields and cities. People and memories populated my soul beneath the sun and moon, depicted by emotions in red and blue, green and orange, and every color of the rainbow. There were once forests and battlegrounds, spaces full of masks and costumes for every occasion. Now, there was nothing. I flew for an eternal moonless night in my mind, searching for who I was before my subconscious took over. With careful examination of every nook and cranny of the rubble, I found my masks and costumes. The acts and faces I put on were merged and distorted, the people I pretended to be mish-mashed into the grayscale conglomeration of loose character traits and defects. I had become less than human, I lost my consciousness and barely maintained my morality. The voice of my inner child echoed out from the depths of my soul. “Where were you? Who did this? Who took my home?” ‘I don't know. I’m sorry.’ “All I want is to have my world back. Please, bring it back!” ‘How? It's all gone.” Before the thought was finished, the rubble was gone. Miles and miles of destruction turned to mist and sank into the inky blackness below. “I don’t know! Just bring it back! Bring it all back!” I didn't know where to start. Every attempt was met with a fog, a fuzzy cloud within my mind that stopped my inner world from being changed. The more I moved against it, the more solid it became until it left me paralyzed. This suffocating barrier was semitransparent at best, a cage between my mind and imagination. “Fine. If I can't shift the fiction, I’ll use the fact.” The memories of the last three months were blurry at best, and I had no leads on what happened. My mind and body felt hollow, reduced to the most basic of people. My phone buzzed and the screen glowed. It was only about 10:00. I looked at what it was, and opened the message. It was from my girlfriend, and through the misty filters over my memories, I had a place to start.
@@dogking4393 wow you have a way with words! So, it all started when you woke up one night (or so you thought), and led to sort of a panic attack, did the memories ever become clearer or they continue to be nebulous bits and pieces?
autism with bottom up thinking/processing style might also have alot to do with this because personally it feels like i have to learn cause and effect of things like their framework to put my mind at ease, so having both adhd and autism meant that starting stimulants finally helped my intense emotions to rest and help me finally start to figure these things out with a clear head.
So that's how it would be described, feeling like you have to learn the cause & effect of things to put ur mind at ease. I've felt that way my whole life. I can't tell if it's an anxiety thing, OCD or autism thing
I wish I could have been there for this live. I’m a neuroscience PhD and I’ve been suffering from dissociation/derealization for years and INFORMING all of my clinicians about this but they basically don’t believe me because I’m not presenting with DID. It got to the point that I wrote an entire grant for a class proposing how to model dissociation type symptoms in a mouse model, I was so intent on understanding. Hearing this makes me sad, because I’m reminded of these details, how I’ve known forever, but CBT just lets me waste away into unemployment. I also failed a long trial of Avulety, and that makes sense, it has DXM and basically made my dissociation worse.
Thanks so much for covering CPTSD (in the earlier stream) and dissociation! Dissociation is both a (huge) blessing and a (at times handicapping) burden to bear.
I learned to dissociate as a kid because I was constantly in pain. I wasn’t believed by my doctors or parents and was told I was making it up for attention. The only way I could deal with the pain was if I wasn’t “there.” It led to me not being able to remember huge chunks of my childhood.
Dr K. articulates concepts and sensations that many, myself included, have found hard to accurately talk about for years. He strikes it so precisely that it makes me laugh, almost like a weight off my shoulders!
9:35 I love Dr. K's almost sinister evil genius grin as he tells us how so many people are suffering from this condition! Of course, it's because he knows he has the power to help so many of us by addressing this topic
Before I knew what depersonalization was, I called it "existential dysphoria." You ask lots of questions "why do I exist?" when you are going through it.
Dissociation is like the deer that's about to be eaten by a lion going into freeze and checking out of the body so it doesn't have to go through the trauma of being eaten alive. So much distress that the body and mind just can't handle it (or thinks so). Learnt this from Teal Swan and it just makes so much sense.
I'm so glad Dr. K talked about the difference between knowing and feeling regarding virtual worlds. Our subconscious and unconscious systems get hijacked and we don't realize it because logically we know onling gaming doesn't matter much, but emotionally we are engaged to the max. Logically we know our achievements in these worlds hardly matter IRL but our emotional and deep-brain self doesn't see any difference. It's dangerous, and especially so for boys/men because so many of us are clueless when it comes to our feelings.
it is fron this video that i realised what i was going through was dp and dr. but the thing is I don't remember a time when i wasn't like that . the oldest memory i have related to it is me being super happy imagining going on a shaky bridge adventure and whatever i was feeling before felt useless as i could walk on that exciting bridge alone. I would have been 5 -8 years old. And i have been like that ever since.
Pre-transition Trans people dissociate all the time!Chances are you won’t see this but can you do a video where you talk to a trans person about dissociation? being trans pretransition I dissociated for YEARS dude. It was necessary. It was hell. Now I’m me. Now I’m out. Now I’m not dissociating anymore. I really think you’d have a fascinating conversation if you did this. I’m serious, I’d love to see it and I think there’s a lot of value in opening up that discussion
I recently (past few years) have been having sudden 'cringe moments' where I would recall past cringe events of my life, almost like a tick, where I would audibly gasp, or unknowingly say 'no!' Or cry out in pain. Its good to know what caused it.
I just know that i look at myself in the mirror and go 'huh, that's right, that's what i look, kinda forgot about that" And have 0 conception of what might drive people to "love themselves" to the point i can't see anything that would deprive me of things (time, money, physical abilities) for visual identifiers that i cannot see myself as a good trade in just about any possible context, it's just inconceivable to me, like a deaf person trying to understand why audiophiles spend so much money on audio systems, except for me is nornal people and self-care beyond health reasons
I used to be normal. At least none of these issues of mental disorders or illnesses never were issues for me or in my life. I’ve been trying to figure out where did shit hit the fan? Why did it and what triggered the descent of my healthy functioning mind to crack and essentially have a mental nervous breakdown. I had trauma as a child watching my daddy die and being unable to do anything about it. My mom was awesome, she/we had a lot of help with friends family and tons of therapy and many self help books. I grew up and still living and enjoying life fine. Had hopes dreams goals confidence and I knew what I wanted basically for my life. I was socially outgoing. Had plenty of friends and 2 or 3 really close ones . Thankfully I have those close ones still but I’ve alienated them from me. They’re there for me but I need to be the one to reach out nowadays. My boyfriend since 1996 has made so many things like in situations,issues,thoughts and feelings, sense of my self, all mixed up inside of me. I am just learning now I think he’s a narcissist and the insecure thoughts and actions have been created from him. It confuses my head so bad that I feel like if I try or care or have opinions or feelings it don’t matter and it’s all a moot effort. So I’m stuck and trapped with trying to get back my caring and feeling of importance in life and myself and believe again that I matter and life does matter and I know it’s not all my fault I am this way now but the constant doubt that’s reinforced by the things he says and by myself. It all seems pointless to care and try yet I know that is dumb to think regardless if I feel it. Lately I’m angry about anything and everything. Worst part of the day is waking up. I don’t know how much longer I can do this and I’m so scared about that…..I have a daughter who needs me. Or a mom that’s not fucked like me and I don’t know how to fix me or be what I know I need to,for her. Am I a narcissist? Am I a borderline depressed person? Basically just a lost cause? And again I’m so scared for my little girl cuz of me and also though, if she didn’t have me. I can’t afford therapist. Also I don’t trust people any more and never have with a therapist really. Out of many I had only found one therapist that seemed to help me and that I seemed to feel I could trust. But I was a child. As an adult I haven’t seeked out to see anyone yet. PTSD is also a past experience I know I had or have….. wow I sound absurdly confusing. I can’t make sense of anything anymore. WTF Chuck’s!!!!!!!!!!!!!!so totally not swell
That feeling when somoeone can articulate your confusion for years in a way that really hit the spot.
HG is an interkontinental treasure. but as dr k states, entertainment and information only. he seems to hit the spot everytime and i struggled a lot with protagonist syndrome on his content.
*not to undermine or deminish the work, not in the slightest. i benefit a huge deal off of their videos.*
i look at this as a very very eleborate and tutored google search. getting an evalutation from a therapist is still the most valuable lesson HG taught me and tries to teach everyone. disclaimer: imo.
ps: good luck to you, whatever youre struggling with. its gonna be alright eventually and thats the neat thing.
@@lifesahellofaride no its not. ive had dissociation issues for a decade. some will get better, some will die. thats the truth.
@pradiptahafid Please learn about "avoidant attachment styles." I never talk like this, but it absolutely blew my mind. Once I really got it, I feel like my emotional and even intellectual intelligence doubled. doubled. in 2 days
Yeah, I remember that I would often get drunk and stare at myself in the mirror and women would say that I'm full of myself, but I was actually experiencing dissociation, which explains a lot.
*Intro, YT Membership & Trauma Guide:* 6:06
*Dissociation Lecture:* 17:30
- Introduction & Why This Topic Matters: 17:30
- Dissociation & the internet: 24:55
- The "Psychic Pit Model": 26:59
- Defining Dissociation & Depersonalization: 30:42
- Components of self that are affected: 31:49
- Fracturing & Intrusions: 33:44
- Neuroscience of Dissociation: 34:59
- How dissociation works: 35:04
- Dissociation as a protective mechanism: 44:15
- The role of memory & flashbacks: 40:54
- Dissociation as a Protective Mechanism: 44:15
- PFC Suppressing Amygdala: 55:11
- Insula & Interoceptive Awareness: 56:16
- The PCC & Self-Recognition: 1:04:47
- DMN & Depression: 1:09:25
- Ketamine as Treatment : 1:11:01
- Overmodulation & undermodulation of emotions: 1:14:05
- Impact on Identity & Motivation: 1:26:33
- Dissociation, Gaming & The Internet: 1:30:28
- Virtual identities & problematic internet use: 1:34:19
- Finding safety & salience in the virtual world: 1:37:16
- What To Do: 1:40:26
- Trauma-related treatment (EMDR, psychotherapy): 1:40:26
- Learning to feel & reducing alexithymia: 1:41:57
- Re-engaging with Relationships: 1:50:47
- Living Life & Avoiding Retreat: 1:56:19
- Yoga for Dissociation: 2:00:09
*Dev Talk - Trauma Guide Feature Demo (with Trinian):* 2:10:18
*Q&A:* 2:32:39
- Gender Dysphoria & Dissociation: 2:33:20
- Future Lecture on DID/OSDD?: 2:36:06
- Neuroplasticity & Brain Changes: 2:38:12
- Yoga Nidra & Salience: 2:41:14
- Meditation & Dissociation: 2:43:57
- Dissociation & Romantic Relationships: 2:52:19
- PNES & The Trauma Guide: 2:58:02
- Gaming & Artificial Dissociation: 2:58:50
- BPD & Disorganized Attachment: 3:00:06
- Finding Balance Between Feeling & Action: 3:00:28
*Closing Remarks:* 3:07:28
Preemptive wholehearted thank you from the community!
thanks buddy
I love you genuinely. You always there when I need you king/queen 🤞🏽🙇🏽♂️
Look how you ate that!
I don't know who you are but I am so grateful for your consciousness, your concentration and your effort in making this timestamps.
If you weren't taught how to identify and express emotions as a child, that isn't set in stone. That means it is a learned skill, and as long as you can learn, you can recover.
To a large extent yes, but it does take a fair amount of work and most of our "emotions" are really a mixture of other emotions, positive, negative and approach. (Approach emotions aren't something that typically gets much attention, but that's mostly like anger that makes us want to approach the problem and do something about it)
:< shocker I agree
My parents never taught me that skill, but I'm glad the internet exists.
Disagreed. Identifying and expressing emotions is something person does. He doesnt need to learn it.. He does need to unlearn the stuff preventing him from feeling.
@@jakubhladil5340 Expressing, maybe. But identifying, no. Children learn what pain is from their parents expressing concern for their pain, as an example.
Oh wow, I was waiting for this. I've been living on autopilot for about 4 years. Waking up, dressing up, getting into bus, riding to work, working, getting back home, gettin into bed and in the end... realising I don't remember almost ANYTHING that happened throughout the day. I didn't know how I got up, how I appeared at work, how I got back home. I was stuck in my own world inside my head where I was going through same events from my life, same fuck ups, imagining what could have been if I chose differently etc.
I was in such a bad state my family forced me to go to a psychiatrist. Anxiety-depressive states with dissociative symptoms. I got my meds and got better after a year of treatment.
May i ask what medications you got on and if therapy helped?
That's really not helpful to anyone with mental health issues lol. @@balsaaa
@@Photik I started from 5mg per day of Elicea and went up to 20mg during my treatment. I know those drugs can have different names around the world or something. It has Escitalopram in it. I guess that's the most important component. I still struggle from identity issues and the feeling of pointlessness of my life but at least I'm in it again. Not god knows where.
@@Photik I don't know the exact reasons for you asking this, but as a disclaimer I should mention that you shouldn't use another person as a compass for what you should pursue in terms of treatment. The causes for dissociation could be entirely different between the two of you. The physiology is also likely entirely different, and both of these things have an immense impact on what treatments will and won't work. It took me 4 psychiatrists and a dozen medications before I started treatment for a mood disorder (which was originally thought to be other ailments) because my constellation of symptoms was so complex. As a general rule, I'd always recommend therapy with the caveat that you might not jive with the therapist, and you might have to try a few; just make sure you're entirely honest with your expectations and experiences with the therapist. They may be able to adjust their approach if what they're doing doesn't seem to be helping.
As far as medication goes, you'll typically start with a general practitioner. GP's are able to prescribe medications for mental disorders/illnesses but I'd recommend pressing them on being referred to an actual psychiatrist because GP's tend to (from personal experience and what I've heard from others) not have the level of knowledge and experience needed to effectively treat a mental illness.
Hope that was helpful.
Autopilot for 15 years, so basically go to school (soon work), do shit I don't care about, come back, sit on my phone until falling asleep, and repeat. One boring day after another equally boring day wondering why people find being alive is great as it's just blank and boring. It's how I grew up so can't blame for thinking that way.
27:00 Dr k on who we are
29:00 Our role in coop games reflects our personality
43:00 Intrusive thoughts
1:10:00 dissociation as treatment for depression?
1:15:00 inappropriate times of abundance of emotions vs lack of emotions
1:26:00 Living without emotions
1:40:00 solutions
1:48:00 ,Don’t dessociate away from emotions
1:51:00 must form relationships
1:56:00 start living a good life. Not easy, but invest into non dissosiated part of self
3:03:00 Sit with emotions, accept self, then gain experience
@@dend1 tyvm
Thank you
@@dend1 ur so sweet🥲
the irony in that I keep having to rewind a few minutes because i realise i have dissociated while thinking about something said and stopped paying attention to what is being said afterwards
Same lol. I have issues with spacing out and having to rewind most content, but it's very meta to be doing it while watching this. I'm about 50 minutes in after watching for a good almost 3 hours.
Sounds like my ADHD lol
It's like 2 steps forward- 1 step back 24/7 😮💨
@@Aires457 Yeah, that sounds like more of an ADHD thing. Especially if it's happening repeatedly on that sort of short time frame.
OMG the same happens to me!!! I know it’s not distraction because I can listen to his videos only rarely rewinding, but this one I keep going somewhere else.
Dude… This channel has done more for my mental health than any doctor, practitioner, standard self help by MILES. Thank you and all behind the HealthyGamer team.
Been dealing with this for about 7 years, and as a soon 25 year old. It’s so frustrating, but I’ve seen progress.
Most that deal with this, feel alone, unseen and unheard. I wish everyone the best, and you can overcome this 🤙
Completely with you there. Idk where I’d be if I didn’t find this channel way back. 23 and chugging along
Stay strong bros ❤️
@@aidanbrown7137 keep on keeping on ✊
@@aidanbrown7137 stay strong 💪
my chronic depersonalization/derealization began when i was 12 years old. i know the exact date. if you showed me a film of myself, i could pinpoint the exact moment it started. this was the beginning of a long journey where i thought i was utterly insane. most of the time, when you're experiencing a symptom of mental illness, you can google key words to find out what it is that you have. to find others who are experiencing the same thing. but with dp/dr, this took me multiple years.
how do you look up a feeling? that the grass is too green. like i'm drunk or high, but without any of the fun. that the malls are too big and bright. that everything is foggy, yet vibrant. that my hands aren't my own. that i'm a little person sitting behind my own eyes. that the ground keeps coming closer when i walk.
i asked doctors, i was referred to opthalmologists, i asked my family. sometimes descriptions of dpdr would accidentally slip out of my mouth to someone in my life, and they couldn't understand. i only found out what it was when i stumbled across a youtube video by a musician i listen to. and finally, i could breathe again. i finally felt seen.
feelings of derealization and depersonalization are the 3rd most common symptoms of mental illness after feelings of anxiety and depression. and there was a huge spike during covid, when everyone was quarantined. the pandemic was a global trauma. it is going to affect us as a society, as people, long-term. i dont wish dpdr on anyone.
Ooo what music
@@summer6100 dodie!!!! she has a few videos on it still up, but some have been deleted
If you are still experiencing this, I'm sorry for you. I had dp/dr only 3 months and it was hell on earth. It was so severe that I would black out for a second or two sometimes and not remember anything that happened during that time. Not to mention the lapses in memory and other cognitive problems.
I found meditation to be very helpful when it came to overcoming dp/dr. Try it if you haven't already.
Its awful how poorly understood this is by professionals and how people suffer so long without a diagnosis. I keep running into the same problem over and over with sufferers 'they don't know what's wrong, their Doctor was useless etc etc'
I wish you luck on your recovery...
❤️
50:30 Paralysis of initiation
1:22:00 Salience (the notion of importance in an emotional level)
1:30:00 Why this is on the rise
1:40:00 What do we do: Therapy, EMDR, The importance of Connection to others (humans and animals) (we all feel more than we can handle)
1:56:00 Learn how to live life
I have few deep memories from my childhood, but I can vividly remember around the age of 10 asking my brother if he felt like he "wasn't in control of his life, like you're watching someone else live life for you?"
I'd been quickly dismissed by him and the rest of my family, no matter how often I brought up this strange feeling over time. 20 something years later I'm halfway through this lecture relating to more than I anticipated. Not diagnosing myself, but I can say this is the motivation and specific angle I needed to begin seeking more individualized help.
Thanks Dr K. Been a big fan for a while, but this is without a doubt the most personally impacting video to date.
I think dissociation/depersonalization has always been a larger issue than people realize, but technology helped us recognize and keep track of it better. Since other ways of dissociating were more subtle, and social pressure to conform could easily cover a lot of it up simply because no one’s paying attention to conforming-“it’s just taking part in normal common behavior”.
Other ways to dissociate is through reading, music, media, being a workaholic, etc.
The work place is a huge place for dissociation especially when it’s highly demanding and toxic, people end up “switching off” to get through it.
I’m still at the beginning of the video so if you touch on this later or if I’m using the wrong words, I apologize in advance.
Excellent points! I would love to read more from you.
Oh yes I was a huge reader. I read all day and all night 😅 then when mom would force me to stop reading and go to bed I’d lay in bed for hours either crushing sense of doom
It started from as early as I learned how to read, I have a life long issue with dissociation
@@Tesisoh I teel this, I even chose the field of phylology in Uni just to read more...
@@laughing_sunset What on earth is "phylology"
@@timefortee sorry, English is not my native and I haven't had language lessons in a while. Philology*
This is an incredibly useful video and my personal favorite you've ever done. Big thanks to you and your team
Moment of vulnerability for me. I see comments that say “I cried at this video…” a lot for Dr.Ks videos. I always thought it was corny. I did cry at this video. I have suffered from derealization and depersonalization for years now. Heavy gaming time, porn use and internet use. No feeling of a continuous, whole sense of self. It hurts.
My primary focus in my life right now is healing. So glad this is getting talked about. I know I am not the only one.
The reason I cried at this one is just the feeling of how utterly unfair it is that because of trauma, all these extra years of my youth have been robbed from me in a way that to all my friends and family just looks like a moral faliure and me being lazy.
I absolutely know this feeling. But I’ve also seen people who are older than me and just seem to live life on autopilot. So although my last several years have been pretty bad, I’m making sure the rest of my life is filled with meaning and happiness.
I'm in the same boat, it's been years. We will both get through this. I believe in you.
"No feeling of a continuous, whole sense of self. It hurts." puts into words something I've been trying to figure out for a good bit, if it's anything like what I'm thinking of then you aren't alone
Definitely not alone. I’m with you man, hang in there. One day we’ll make it out
When I dissociate I feel literally nothing except ambiguity and ambivalence towards everything and everyone, especially if with my partner. It brings me to the point of guilt, to feel so empty and void of any feeling for someone I genuinely do love. It is the exit of the willful being and personality I usually embody, replaced with a shell of a human that hardly has any regard for itself because it cannot truly believe that it exists in that moment. Nothing is real in that moment, the whole curtain of reality is undone, things cease to exist in a real sense other than the arbitrary nature of physicality that must pervade this world, but it seems rather all unbelievable that it is happening at the same time. At times, I find myself even at work in this space- working with kids with severe behavioral issues that are special education, and I feel at moments the inevitable, inseparable thought glued to my psyche- "How did I get here at all? Am I truly here right now? This is real? This is actually happening right now?" It is as if though a permanent state of trauma where things are maddeningly unbelievable and you can't reconcile them to reality, much less to your own perception. It just simply is, but altogether isn't.
Beautifully described
the part about it being considered rare but way more ppl have it than we thought: I must say this, as a citizen of one of the many countries affected by war right now, actively concerned about effective PTSD treatments for the many many many veterans that we will encounter. However still I had NO IDEA this was SO common. I've just entered the practice of counseling/psychology working in a school, only for half a year so far. Nothing too difficult for beginners. I'm shocked to say I've already worked with a client (grade 9) with DP/DR and some concerning amnesia symptoms. If that's how common this is and not a total coincidence, then dissociation and especially DID are going to appear SO MUCH MORE in the next decade. It's so crucial they MUST be explained more to society, starting, like, right now. So, thank you so much for covering this!
Ok ut Lmao i u
Concerned for the kids in gaza
I'm actively at work, I opened TH-cam because I had an overwhelming wave of guilt and depression. I just about laughed out loud because Dr. K streamed about dissociation the one day I wasn't dissociating
the last bit of his lecture had me trying not to cry at my station
Same here 🫶
I am only in the first hour watching this back but it’s the most helpful video in terms of understanding myself how my brain functions. I am no longer young. I am 43. I want to mention it so that this community gets to know there aren’t only young people who follow this channel. We are broken as well. We’ve been “living” our lives not knowing what the fuck is wrong with us.
I no longer believe it can be better but at least knowing it’s not my fault and I didn’t have a choice but to happen like that to just survive.
I am so grateful Dr. K exists.
I'm a psychiatry resident (who also myself struggle with dissociation), and this is the first time I've really been able to make any sense at all of what always seemed like nebulous concepts like the "self" and "fragmentation" that would come up from time to time in any lectures, readings, etc I tried to use in attempt to better understand this topic. Actually dealing with dissociative tendencies is hell from both the patient and the clinician side because most clinicians barely understand the concept, yet alone know how to address it. I've seen a few therapists, and they basically all just taught be basic grounding techniques (eg 5,4,3,2,1), which may be helpful for fairly straightforward/textbook cases of dissociation but never helped me much.
Let's hope the information will slowly but firmly take root in those fields as time passes. Incompetent and/or inhumane "healthcare" professionals are ruining lives daily as we speak.
I really feel that comment about simple grounding not working, it’s so frustrating when conventional advice has little to no effect and you’re left scratching your head in frustration and sheer desperation for change. It’s even worse when therapists say “you’re so articulate and aware” but I’m so detached from myself I barely even know what I’m saying, operating purely off subconscious programming and not directly interfacing with the world. And dissociation is so common too, I’ve met so many people who experience it and yet it’s treated like some rare condition. I think people like you in the medical field can help spearhead a change - our healthcare professionals are so uninformed and fail to serve the needs of patients. I feel like dissociation isn’t something that can be understood intellectually, you just have to know from personal experience how horrific it is
With you about the grounding techniques. They sometimes made things worse for me by amplifying my sense of confusion and disorientation because I couldn't properly connect with what I was doing, if that makes sense. I also found that grounding myself jn stressful situations made things worse because, well, I'm in a stressful situation. Being there is literally the problem, so I can't really expect to cope with being _more_ present.
Turns out, I'm autistic, so I actually need to just remove myself from situations that are overstimulating that then cause/worsen dissociation rather than ground myself in them. I quite literally cannot cope with the stimulus I'm exposed to when overstimulated, so removing myself in one way or another is so necessary that if I don't do it physically, my brain will do it mentally (that's what I've learned about myself, at least; I can't speak for others). Grounding is not very helpful for me in a lot of situations, aside from it being generally ineffective.
Therapy was most helpful with the dissociation, not when it was trying to treat it directly, but when it was addressing it indirectly by treating the cause. For me, it was constant overstimulation and severe anxiety and depression. To this day, overwhelming emotion causes the most severe episodes, and when I was in a constant state of overwhelming emotion, I was constantly severely dissociated. I've had approximately zero success with treating dissociation directly because as long as I've got a need to dissociate, it will happen. By managing stress and anxiety and essentially eliminating my depression now, I no longer feel like I'm losing my mind.
I've basically stopped doing any of the things that are actually recommended for treating dissociation and focus solely on managing potential overwhelming emotion and stress, and that's been the only thing that's helped.
I'm always at a low level of dissociation these days, but it's a level that I'm genuinely at peace with. It worsens if I have episodes of high anxiety or due to certain substances (benzos and sleeping meds are the worst; I haven't even attempted to find out what alcohol would do lol).
I don't think I know how to cope with even non-stressful life, hence the continued dissociation (mostly in the form of mild derealisation) but I can live in my body and experience my feelings and have moments of connection with the world around me. It's something I could live with forever if I had to without feeling like I'm losing out on anything, so I count it as a win.
TL;DR: in my experience, dissociation is best treated by addressing the thing that's causing it, not by treating dissociation directly. Kind of obvious ig and anyone who deals with it will be like "Yeah duh" but I don't like that grounding techniques seem to be the only thing talked about. I feel like they're painkillers for a broken leg - they're not helpful if you don't mend the break.
For those who maybe still don't fully get it:
Dissociation can be a symptom of disorders such as
-anxiety
-ptsd
-bpd
When the dissociation integrates itself more intensly into an individuals life (it is long lasting and causes distress) it potentially can become its own condition rather than just a symptom of a different disorder. There are 4 main dissociative disorders:
-DPDR (depersonalisation/derealisation disorder) - a disconnection between experiences of the minds and the self and reality
-DID (dissoctiave identity disorder) - a disconnection between different internal identities or selves
-Dissociative amnesia - disconnection between self and memory or elements of identity
-Dissociative fugue - a form of dissociative amnesia
Depersonalisation and derealisation are forms of dissociation that describe a disconnection from self and reality, respectively. It isn't abnormal to experience either of these occasionally as fleeting sensations, and they can be symptoms of disorders first mentioned but once they establish themselves as both lingering and distressing (and resistant to conventional treatment) the experiencing of these forms of dissociation could be linked to dissociative disorders like DPDR, in particular.
I also think the reason more people supposedly are dissociated is, in part, because people have a greater understanding of self and access to vocabulary - the ability to describe what's wrong, even if it's hard to treat.
Dissociation cannot be medicated away. It is essentialy the result of severe anxiety, and the anxiety can be medicated, which can alleviate the dissociation. But to this day, there's no clear protocol or set means of treatment for dissociation alone because it is so complicated and misunderstood.
Anyway
Dissociation is super interesting and overwhelmingly misunderstood online. This lecture was really interesting, but I feel like it probably isn't super comprehensible to people who don't already have a solid base level understanding of dissociation.
Still, any information given by people who actually know what they're talking about can only do any good in the end. I'm glad Dr K discussed this issue, and think he did a pretty decent job.
Thank you for writing this friend
A fantastic summary
Can we Add dissociation seizures. I find it important to mention that it can also cause physical Symptoms. There are also some cases where people became paralysed and cant Walk longterm
The online representation of dissociative disorders is terrible. I was a victim of a violent crime and im non speaking autistic they had to withdraw charges because the online representation of DID is so bad that they realised the jury would be inherently so bias against me it would result in more trauma. I wish it was better understood and I didn't think the online stuff was so bad. People don't realise what level of trauma has to happen at a young age in pretty specific situations to cause especially osdd/did.
I've said this before; I saw this gamer therapist pop up on my feed and thought it was hilariously dumb. Watched one video and now I'm hooked.
This lecture was made for me. Thank you.
Really happy and grateful that this is being adressed. I've struggle with Dissociation for all my life and developed DID. Finally think I can make big steps in healing now with the information given to me in this Video. Might be one of the most important ones I've ever seen.
Wishing you all the best in your healing journey.
The CTAD Clinic treats OSDD/DID, and they have a TH-cam page. Perhaps they can be a helpful resource for you.
This sparked a memory that adults used to make fun of the fact that I wouldn't be able to see a fire next to me if I were watching tv as a kid. I was completely locked into the screen and logged out of my surroundings. Also dissociation by these definitions. Poor lil 6 y.o. me 😢
The true crushing weight of modern life is when you hear "Do yoga, do tai chi" and you look up where you can go IRL to 'live your life' and take a class and find out... they are all during weekdays at 11am and you work every weekday 9-5... Nothing quite like getting a ray of hope only to realize the cards are deeply stacked against you. Can you do SOMETHING in the face of this? yea prob. Do it on your own, etcetc. But that's why the MODERN life is SO bad. We all keep having to problem solve everything, it seems like, ourselves in a time when supposedly business solutions and products are CLAIMING to make our life easier than ever. Which might be true...except it's all with a fee and to pay that fee you have to busy yourself in such a hugely unbalanced way with what we call 'actually living' that LIVING is ALWAYS going to be the thing that gets thrown out, in sublimation to MAKING MONEY instead, unless you have the herculean strength to walk upstream in waist deep water for the rest of your life OR you are pre-resourced (AKA family money, trust fund, etc) enough to start sculpting the environment and the river to suit your own needs. Very few people, in totality, can afford that kind of commanding power, but we sure as hell all LISTEN to their BS about how "just" waking up at 5am solves all of THEIR problems. And it'll solve YOURS too (If you also have $1000 to spend every day to sustain it, is the part they don't say out loud.)
Then you look for people to help you and find them FINALLY after a lot of failed tries...except they're kinda hoping that YOU can help THEM walk through the water instead. And you think "well we'll link hands and walk together" and you take 3 steps and then find a split in the river and your guys' paths diverge in a way you can't rectify because you went to school for 4 years for path A and they have 8 years of EXP working on Path B and both of these industries only exist in 2-3 cities that are split across the entire country. -__- Then remote work started to seem like a solution and now it's all "GO BACK TO THE OFFICE! REMOTE WORK SUCKS" again now that no one's being FORCED to allow it. -__- (plus remote work might even make work TWICE as isolating!) It feels to me like we're reaching a human specialization cap on how we can expect our society to function without very high level control and clear rules to sort people, which is what everyone is scared of with both communism and fascism alike... So wtf do we do about THAT????
There's only so many times a person can try this cycle over and over and over and find something that seems great but doesn't work out in the medium run, or even the short run, before they lose all will to keep trying. It's how slot machines get you. They don't have a 1% hit rate, they have like a 15% hit rate b/c people are smart at realizing when their efforts never pay off!!! That part of the problem, imo, won't go away until life shifts DRAMATICALLY in some kind of way, but ofc no one knows how to solve it b/c it's as complex as real life is and requires highly resourced individuals (not unlike Dr K!) to start the arm linking and try to help others figure out how they can manage to get into the same river in their life. THAT is how we heal the world. Harmonization, moving towards the same goals, and reverberation energy. NOT individualism and personal achievement. That's the recipe that got us into this mess to begin with.
The good news is that human resilience as a whole is extremely inspiring and we CAN make it through this, but it probably WON'T ever be all unicorns and rainbows... and TBH probably never has been at any point, ever. But hope finds a way, nevertheless. We DO need to have more nice moments in life to remind people that, even if we will never reach that utopia we all hope for in reality, we can at least catch glimpses of WHY we are all hoping for it, and THAT is the glue that is meant to hold society together. NOT repression and domination and resource scarcity like we're increasingly relying on in 2024+.
I'm an atheist but PREACH! 😫🙏
Damn.. This was hard ❤
The frustration oozes from your post.
I agree. Humans essentially built a society they haven't evolved to live in.
You caught me kn the first 9/10ths
Thanks Dr. K for being on the internet. You have helped me so much to understand myself and understand a little bit better the world around me. Some days just hearing your voice makes me feel better. You break down complex topics into simple pieces, and you integrate them in ways that few people can. You are truly the person who has influenced me the most in a positive way. Thank you so much ♡
This was one of your best talks Dr.K.
I can recall exactly when I wished to be able disassociate from a turbulent childhood and unfortunately I got my wish.
I have loved all the videos and podcasts that you have shared!!! I appreciate your work and I share it with my clients and colleagues. I’m a Clinical Psychologist in Canada 🇨🇦 with dissociative symptoms due to childhood trauma that I’ve been working on for decades. More traumas add more dissociation. I am living full life. I am more sensitive than others to danger cues. My dissociative behaviour isn’t in gaming but in education, conferences, podcasts - keeps me in my head, so easy. I look ambitious and successful. I know it’s maladaptive and effective coping I’m trying to let go.
With utmost respect, I want to send this to some clients who aren’t games and don’t participate in any social media, but the focus on this is so strong that it seems it would be unrelatable to them.
Also, I find presentation style of jokes and volume and in presentation style (hard / flippant / not soft) is so triggering. I can push through because I’m a geek 🤓 for this information but they may be hurt.
You don’t seem yourself, either, Dr. K. Not as compassionate as usual in other vids. Is this trigger for you?? You seem “chippy.” And defensive, flippant. You usually show so much compassion to your followers. What up? No need to answer. Boundaries are cool.
But can you make a video with similar content and same sweet moments, without the protective shell?
People who experience dissociation won’t trust you and it will be hard to help with this kind of presentation. Especially with trauma; they can see right through you.
Content is excellent, information is essential. You’re missing a whole subgroup of people that won’t be able to learn from you on this super important topic. Not everyone is internet addicted. The neurological information is great. The optimism is wonderful. The breakdown of complex brain info is as always genuis!
I’m just hoping to reach the peeps you might have missed and to broaden your audience.
Honestly, I love your work so much that I have a hard time saying all of this and don’t want to seem ungrateful for all this free wonderful content. I do want to speak up for a population who doesn’t speak up for themselves.
Namaste. Lots of love. You are wonderful!!!
53:01 Really hit home for me- my mom was training for the olympics. she was a swimmer from middle school up until 20 when she got pregnant. she tried signing me up for swim classes and teams, tried to teach me how to swim. but she made it all about her, and all about me doing it wrong and not being a good enough natural. she always made me feel guilty for not wanting to follow in her path.
What path have you chosen for yourself?
Holy shit* I mean, don’t internalize that if u don’t want to, pls, pls. U can like, not believe the complex messaging this experience is sending u, it’s just the awareness of that story that’s gonna provide u some perspective or u can just block that out it’s fine, up to u lol
I can’t even tell you how hyped I was when I saw the live! I’ve been journaling a lot and one problematic chunk of it is avoidance coupled and thru dissociation
As I continue my healing journey and working through my childhood trauma, videos like these are vital to my understanding of things and I just thank you so much for taking the time to do these! Cheers to you and your team! 😊
"A-ha! You thought I was Dr. K, but I am now Aloki, Monk of Mischief!"
This is your best video since the c-ptsd deep dive imo! Thank you for all your great work!
I love your content and your treatment style has reminded me of my roots as a clinician and has upped my Psychologist game! Thank you for your service, inspiration, kindness, love, and hard work.
Brother healthy gamer just wanted to chime in here and say you are doing gods work. Thank you for what you do, you’ve been a blessing to me and many others, seriously.
This is perhaps one of the most important videos I've ever seen on this channel. And that's saying something.
Thanks Healthy Gamer.
Thank you Dr K for everything you do. I think the way you have managed to spread your expertise and help people help themselves is incredible.
Thanatosis (physiological feign death) is a rather extreme example of a freeze response, and probably not even applicable to humans or other apes. If you walk in the woods and see a bear (or a man if that sounds scarier), your first reaction would probably be to stop, stand still, forget whatever you were doing (all the salience gets directed towards the bear), hope the bear does not notice you, and look for possible escapes. That is a more common case of a freeze response, and it also happens on a low neurological level. If you are carrying a baby through those woods (or hiding in a cellar from some bad people), even the baby can read your nonverbal cues, and freeze as well.
The baby response thing is so interesting! I know babies mimic their parents but I didn't know it also extended to the freeze response situations. Is there a word/study that describes that specific scenario?
Death feigning / tonic immobility is the vagotonic kind of "Freeze", and absolutely exists in humans. When all the other responses have failed, you just detach and numb yourself to the extreme waiting for the hurt to end.
I like your inclusion of the man-bear debate lmao. Thanks for the info!
You're talking about a single isolated incident where there is a deadly threat. Thanatosis in humans, aka the "collapse and submit" stress response, comes from being trapped long term in an ongoing mortal threat situation with no (perceived) escape, not just an isolated incident. When it gets to that stage, it really is more extreme than the freeze response.
It's far less dramatic, but "hope the bear does not notice you, and look for possible escapes" reminds me a bit of when I'm playing a combat game sometimes lol.
Out of all the videos ive seen. This one's hitting home the most
I have CPTSD and was prescribed heavy doses of benzos- I became addicted and also abused them for “the escape.” I had a very rapid taper off of them in rehab and one of the worst things was horrible dp/dr for almost 6 months.
It felt like my sense of self was “shifted” and I was looking at the world from 5 ft underwater. It was absolutely awful- I was terrified I’d feel like this forever. Eventually I had one window of 5 minutes where I felt like myself again.
I held onto these “Windows” wirh all the hope I had- If I had one “ window” eventually I’d have another. Over the course of 6 months the windows became more frequent and lasted longer.
Thank god the dp/dr went away mostly at 6 months. Almost two years out I’ll have some moments I of do/dr. I don’t know if it’s extended post acute withdrawals or just my original diagnosis of CPTSD.
I have heard that dp/dr is extremely common on people coming off benzos.
I have cptsd with horrible dp/dr episodes that will hit so hard I literally cannot speak or move for hours at a time. Benzos are the only thing I have ever found that can help me when I feel that coming on. I have weaned myself down to a very small dose (1/4 of a 2.5mg tablet) and at this point only occasionally need it because the episodes don’t ‘self-start’ as much as they used to. It if some environmental trigger happens (I do something wrong and think people are mad at me, someone yells angrily near me, etc), I have a window of maybe five minutes to get and take that med so that it can head off the worst of the crap that is coming. I still will have an episode, but it is much much less intense. I do not know how I would navigate my life without this rescue med for when I need it, and I hope to god it is never taken from me. I am so much more of a functional human being with it when I need it.
@@crowsong8097 I thought I was… it’s taken almost two years off of them and a ton of trauma therapy and a bunch of other work such as meditation, exercise, social interaction with safe people- etc. and my symptoms are almost gone entirely. They will pop up though when I am extremely stressed.
What’s kind of interesting though is that if I really want to I can bring disassociation back on if I really want to. I had to have a surgery that they strongly suggested anesthesia, but it was going to cost too much money - I knew I was able to disassociate if I needed to so I told him to just give me the local… couldn’t believe how I handled it and I just said I took myself someplace else 🤷♀️. Dissociation is not nearly as distressing as depersonalization for me. Disassociation is whereI am just “someplace else” or am missing some chunks of time. Depersonalization though- to me is absolutely one of the worst feelings in the world for me.
i appreciate so much the use of nuero talk and showing published studies. it makes things so much more concrete as someone with a DD where denial is so strong.
02:50:11 Answering the question, what is the difference between dissolving Ego and Dissociation
Dissolve ego = Notice the mind invoking the mechanism of self. Rather than tunneling down the rabbit hole and triggering more emotional fallout, Disagree with the assertion and drop/ dismiss the thought. Then use techniques such as naddi shuddhi or om chanting to process the emotions
Dissociation= Force stop and disable emotions.
They will still persist at deeper levels and cause glitches in overly strong or overly weak reactions to triggers as one goes forward in life
I feel so f*****g lonely, i live with my family parents and 2 little sisters, but I've never felf loved neither understood or welcomed in this family, my childhood was like hell, nothing good about it but manipulation and humiliation and shame. I'm so tired.
❤
Gotta try to find where you fit in, as corny as it sounds. I belive in you and i dont even know you. You got this ❤
I feel ya on that
I can understand it to some degree. My childhood also consisted of constant manipulation, humiliation, and shame. Got a few fun disorders thanks to them. The best thing I ever did for myself was move out. For a while, I lived with some friends. Now I'm living on my own. I still find myself coming back to them, and getting hurt. But I'm at least not forced to be around them constantly now. I hope you can find a path to distance yourself from them.
I read a story about similar case it's called "metamorphosis" by the author Kafka
All this time i thought i have some kind of depression, or apathy, but now everything have come together
Im halfway through, and i have a thought. Yall are talking about videogames, and social media, and internet use, and i wasnt relating... because im a millennial. I didnt get a phone till i was 15, i played in the dirt when i was traumatized, i developed a different safe space... in my mind. Youre right, dr k, i should find my diet important, but all i find myself prioritizing is my writing! I read a lot, i research and take notes on video essays about stories, and i write my own stories that are gonna save a generation from going through what i go through.
That question, "whats important to you" really is the question to ask. So many things are clicking in this video, thank you! Now lets finish the second half jaja
This was wonderfully informative, love the map of choose your own adventure in mental & spiritual wellness- amazing work, thanks to you and your team ❤
introducing salience as a measure of the dissociation severity is so so important. the only periods of your life that you feel truly present for are those that have a cohesive narrative, where everything just sort of clicks and makes sense
I really enjoy an episode like this as someone with ADHD. People talk all the time about over diagnosing, but don’t even consider that thoughts that changes in our environment can lead to certain symptoms and disorders becoming more prevalent
there it is again,dr k putting all my exact issues into words. seriously,dr k manages to make me feel the most transparent ive ever felt in my life with so many of his videos
Your talks make my mind explode over and over with revelations and gratitude for learning the neuroscience behind my mental issues. Thank you. Gives me hope ❤
Thank you Dr K. Really appreciate someone putting words and order to such horrible life circumstances. I've tried to articulate these feelings but it's close to impossible.
I was waiting for this one since you announced it somewhere in winter. As someone with did who enjoys and learns from your videos a lot, thank you so much🙏🙏🙏
Edit: I do hope we'll get a deep dive into dissociation/did, was happy the person asked :) I'm very curious to see what your spiritual input on it would be as well.
This answers everything. I couldn't understand why other people can just "be," and I can't. I understand why I feel like I live life inside a glass box, and why I've always felt alien to the person looking back at me from the mirror.
Kinda sad I missed this one live, but I'm so glad it happened. I am so happy to learn about this cuz I've been feeling like this the past couple of weeks since I came back from vacation (I have diagnosed ADHD).
im so happy a video was made on this, had it in a really hard time in life and still have it, ive learned more how to deal with it, but i hope other people feel better if they have it worse
This guide sounds amazing and I really appreciate what kind of work you all have done to make it so clear and useful! I'm definitely checking it out
Yes this is me absolutely, I knew it was dissassociation but I never really thought about how it's probably affecting my whole life. I've been getting treated for my depression but I never mentioned this to them, I'm kind of afraid that I'll be judged or not believed or something because multiple personality is kind of a serious thing and I had "personalities" that I was talking to in late teens but for my own good they said they are gonna go away on strike because I didn't study, I'm unable to study lol so that was like 5 years ago and they never came back. Other than one time that I was super depressed, a new person came to talk to me and made me feel better and talked to me into me being worth something and mattered when I was at a very very low moment he said all the right things. Once I was feeling better from his compliments, pep talk, and advice it went away and I haven't actually had any more of those since. I think it's like the brain is really trying to protect you and keep you alive Because I was feeling so depressed and disassociated that I was unable to do anything hardly so when these Imaginary people in my head came suddenly it was nice and I wasn't alone, And I had like 10 people to talk to Who were rooting for me lol And who were all a different aspect of my personality was their whole being of each of them. Like all my negative, my depressive, My rude self, was named drag down. There was origional me who is myself, male me, flirty me, etc etc. Hard to tell apart so decided to have a different accent for each. Anyway, i may have subconsiously willed them away because I got scared about a movie where a guy had schitzophrenia. I knew they weren't real but it was still a nice experience once we could tell who is from who. They weren't all suddenly there at once, they came one by one in a short period of time.
Hi Dr.K, ive bad chornic depersonalisation derealisation for about 10 years after a couple panic attacks when i was 18. Im 29 today and still live with this, i think i've tried everything except antidepressants to get this to go away but i seem stuck. I have a therapist that specalises in it and actually wrote a book about it, she is really sweet but i'm not sure i'm getting anywhere. I have
doubts about everything, my feelings towards my partner and family and friends. I don't really feel a connection towards anything and it's really a horrible state to live in every day, i'm about to become a father and have my first child in mars next year and i really don't want to live like this anymore, i hope we could talk, maybe it's a spirtual reason for all of this.
Thank you.
Dr K - Thank you SO MUCH for this video!! The people you are speaking to in this video are the same people who are heartlessly bullied and harrassed by the awful Fake Disorder Cringe subreddit community. Bullying and harassment never solve anything. This video brings compassion and help to those who struggle with mental health. Thank you again so much.
Idk if it’s much more prevalent now I was a master dissociator before any of social media and computer games and such. I was called a very calm quiet child. Only at the age of 30 finally specialists confirmed to me I was great at dissociation and only by age 32 I finally stopped dissociating so easily.
Infinity scrolling feature in social media is amazing and helping to dissociate though.
100% on memory processing thing, my therapist insisted that would be most of the reason why I would feel like there’s gaps in time during normal everyday stuff.
Journaling 20 mins before bed was very helpful with that, I would say.
How did you get out from dissociation?
Literally years, understanding family, therapy, group therapy medicines yoga , a weird amount of time in my room alone, a weird time not alone, waiting for shit to get better, making it get better, fixing shit, sitting back and letting shit go, getting up and trying every fucking day
whatched all 3 hours, at the moment this is one of the most helpful things for me in mental health area
thanks
2:37:16 DID >>>> alcohol & nicotine addiction properties etc.
deeper complex topics >>>>> E for everyone topics
I think if there was a decent interest for an influx in these more complex topics would be a good thing to start implementing because I understand always welcome the newcomer and I think HG has done that VERY well over the last few years. Maybe start with once a month or once bimonthly plan for a lecture like this. It doesn’t have to be one or the other, there is sooo much more to get into though when it comes to the more complex stuff giving more routes and information for viewers to explore in their own & the HG team will have endless content options because many things have been mentioned superficially and more in depth. The fact of the matter is these types of talks will go on forever because people are always learning and teaching, more and more.
Doing drugs and traumatic experinces with them caused me to get dpdr. Not healed 5 years later… its alot better though. The thing you need to realize… you are not going to snap out of it immediately even though you feel like thats the only way out since it feels like its going to be that way forever. You can improve your situation by reducing stressors. Stopping drugs, stressing out less, being connected with your feelings even if it means you have to experience the symptoms of dpdr and the empty feeling. That is something small that you can do and overtime you get better and tell yourself.. today was a good day again.
I'm just now understanding this in myself and knowing that someone else can describe to a T what it's like and how to cope with it was very helpful and reassuring , helps me to keep sanity. Thank you for your comment, today was indeed a good day again:)
Me a broke 21 year old with ADHD. No job and can't get any job because 1. no one accepts me, 2. Can't search jobs because of the dissociation and distractions. And then feeling time slipping away and getting more suicidal because it doesn't get any better.
Have felt like this since forever, never been able to think and plan into the future, never hold a conversation because it blanks in my head and I don't know what to say. And overthinking everything. And no self-esteem what so ever.
It's saddening because I can't provide for my parents, I'll probably get kicked out of the apartment soon.
It's so over for me.
That goalie analogy was so good, holy shit. The RPG character class analogy didn't give me anything since I play everything, but I have never been able to be an attacker (formulating game plans and making the move) when playing soccer, or any other sport.
I can only say you are helping the realization and healing of the self for all of us through your continued hard work. Thank you 🙏
Please more on this topic 🙏❤ Learning how to be present so we can stop being dissociated, and what to do if you have been dissociated since early childhood. I believe this would help many people.
Thank you 🫂 Thank you
Question: If someone is constantly running into the counter *metaphorically speaking* and you point it out and they get mad at you and take it personally, like you are just being mean?!! What on earth do you do, especially if it's kids or family or a spouse? Thank you.
Could they have RSD?
I hope one day you come out with a workshop for mental health clinicians. This is fantastic information thank you so much for putting the time to make this.
already knew this would be good from the thumbnail, such an accurate portrayal
Dr. K I hope you see this, you did an amazing job researching this, I know because I've ben stuck in this state for over a decade and everything you described was spot on. Also amazing is that the research is far more advanced than I thought because it was able to help you deeply understand the disorder and then you were able to put the pieces together. Thank you
I know my case is pretty extreme, I was able to get diagnosed on what happened
When i was 16 I had several traumatic events happen at once and I remember feeling a change hit me. Like night and day, suddenly everything was from the third person and I wasn't controlling or making decisions anymore. Like a movie where someone was playing me, in a half-assed but convincing way to everyone else and all i could do was watch in horror. It made me feel like I'd never get to participate in my life again, like I'd have to watch this fraud imitation of me make decisions for forever. There was this underwater haze of a feeling, reality wasn't real. But I knew deep down it had been real before, so it couldn't just disappear. Everything and everyone who raised me and the homes I've entered into a million times could have been places I'd never seen for all I knew. The people I loved most felt fague now, so making memories with them was horrific because it felt like I was watching us interact in the past even though the present was unfolding before my eyes in the moment. There was no moment to feel things, that felt cut out too. And anything I said was a predetermed script so it wasn't even my own words even though they sounded like something I'd say.
My entire sense of agency as a human had washed away. Its back now, I'm 22 and am so grateful I made it out the other end because what the fuck
It lasted years. 6 long years I clawed my way out and found good people, a better home.. therapy and medication 🫶
I'd never wish dissociation or derealization on anyone. They're so awful
If you have it, dont give up or give into the overwhelm. If you can get yourself somewhere safe and therapy if possible , pieces can come back ❤ your survival instincts will let you back into the pilot seat again. Find good ways to ground yourself if you get small episodes where you slip out of place. Its going to be okay
If you feel detached and like the world is quiet, let yourself ride it out for the time being
I've been trying so hard to get back into the pilot seat, its been 7 years for me and I'm 24, I've been going to therapy and have been moving around a lot to try and find someplace that makes me feel safe. Right now it feels like thats impossible. I should feel safe but I am not and I don't know why. I would appreciate advice. Thanks.
@sausageanimations4301 feeling safe can mean so many things, but at the end of the day if you've moved around a lot and you still aren't in that safe place, maybe your heart doesn't recognize that this is an OK situation to let you roam yet.
Not sure what type of therapy you have, but my advice would be to find somewhere safe, first and foremost ! You can't heal a wound when it's still being opened.
When stuff quiets down it's a lot easier to work and lay out what you understand was the trigger for dissociation/ begin working on creating a bond with your mind that can communicate to it that it's okay now.
@sausageanimations4301 I'd also like to say, don't add any "should" phrases into your life. You'll move forward when you're ready to. There's no timer on these things and it can be incredibly challenging to heal from trauma.
Especially dissociation which can take years to lift. Before anything or wishing it were gone, understand that there's a reason this is happening and you're still valid for feeling whatever made you scared. Don't push away your humanity towards yourself. The answer is in the center.
It was very difficult to hear some of this but I appreciate massively the understanding you're giving away. I'm hoping I can retrain some of this knowledge and apply it. Might check out the guide too
We're so lucky to have you Dr. K
I would greatly appreciate a detailed video on DID. I do not believe a guide could be made for it. It is such a complex thing. Even experiencing it is…impossible to grasp. I think interviewing people with DID and ESPECIALLY those closely related to those people would be incredible and interesting to others.
This is so fascinating. It’s kinda like a neurological picture of how Internal Family Systems/parts work or DID works. Physiological compartmentalization in action. IFS specifically may have a somewhat poetic way of phrasing the same thing but it’s all physiological: all the meditative parts of it, and the defensive mechanisms like dissociation specifically, and the unresolved, emotionally loaded memory parts of it. We’re all low key just dissociating bambis on a savannah slowly being eaten by the lion of our lives 😁 brains are wild
Just a quick comment regarding the recovery projection for BPD - these percentages are based on cases that are working all of the therapy/DBT actively and consciously, non stop. If it wasn't said, it is worth noting that our average mortality rate is 45x the typical humans, 27 is said to be the average age we reach, with an average of 20 years less life expectancy than the typical humans due to physical maladies/chronic physical illness from extended elevated stress levels.
We may go into remission but it never goes away completely, and it can relapse if not consciously managed. But we can get better! Happy BPD Awareness/Mental Health Awareness May!
The bit about being wired to play defense hit home hella hard
Learning to follow my intuition has been huge in even this past week
As a person who suffers from bpd and bipolar life, it isn't as it seems. Especially when you finally do break and all 99% of your life is taking from you. from your own self sabotage behaviors. People need to understand im glad there are great doctors like you that can really change a life.
Thank you so much Dr. K and team!
I'm diagnosed with BPD and the best way I can explain dissociation is like having a life you never knew was there. There is no connection with my emotions compared to myself or my memories. For example, I can lash out on someone for x reason then next week act like that situation never occurred. It's like having emotions so strong that your brain just shutdown to prevent damage. It's like reliving an experience that you've had before but to you that experience is new every time you have it. I've noticed if my brain is not dissociating, I feel manic and am able to create memories, gain knowledge, and live high on life. Depression medication will make me hypomanic as well. BPD is rough. Support is hard to find especially if you are male and many psychiatrists do not want to make a diagnosis, the only reason I have mine is because I had one psychiatrist asked me if I had ever been diagnosed which led to do research and then going to my formal psychiatrist. Depression medication doesn't seem to fix the core symptoms of BPD and BPD has comorbidity of other disorders like ADHD and Autism which all four of these disorders overlap in some behaviors and others not so much. DBT doesn't seem to work for me as I know the implications of my actions, but I do not care. What has worked for me its building an identity that I can be proud of. Following my passion and from that creating aspirations/goals to obtain. For a long time, I had no clue what was wrong with me, and I felt misunderstood. I hope one day the disorder will be less stigmatized. There are also studies that indicate people with BPD have lower intelligence, but I found those studies to be full of erroneous control groups. If you take someone who is depressed who just got out of a psychiatric unit in the 90s of course they will score lower on intelligence. Depression is known to cause psychomotor disabilities. Infact people with BPD are able to process other people emotions more quickly compared to the average person why do you think we call this having a sixth sense. Jordan Peterson also argues that many BPD have highly intelligent who are more than capable of analyzing their actions but unable to control the downfall. This is my personal opinion, but I think BPD is on the same spectrum as depression and mania and BPD is in the middle meaning you have intense mood swings over a short period of time that can be severe depression or intense euphoria this makes sense when considering depression medication will not fix the symptoms of BPD but also can cause mania as well as being my personal experience with the disorder on how my emotions range compared to how quickly they can change. When talking about BPD I always think of two artist, Kendrick Lamar(count me out) and Juice WRLD. BPD is much more common than people think, and trauma seems to play a huge role in the development of the disorder... and honestly that makes me sad AFF.
I wrote a short story for one of my college courses about a 3 month dissasoiative "episode" and I did my best to describe how it feels to not be me, to have months of life missing in my memory and yet it was otherwise perfect. My brain told me the best version of me is one where I'm not in it. If anyone wants to read it let me know I can probably link a comment to it here somewhere
I want to read about ti, please share! I am sure, plenty of people would appreciate.
@theartofthefart523 here you go I guess
There I was, blind, deaf, and impervious-a being of instinct and less than a person. I made an experiment of myself and skipped out on my memory. With a freezing jolt, I woke up. It was a cool night in late summer, late July. I checked the time: 7:45.
“What the fuck?”
Had I gone back in time? I swear it was almost 9 when I went under. Maybe it'd been a few days. I checked the date: October 5th. How did that happen? I swear I just got back from vacation with my father and was out on a walk with my dog.
Some quick math told me three months passed in the time I tested my ability to dissociate. I brought my dog back inside, a different one than I left with. Time started to catch up with me: glimpses of school and friends, classes, and tests. Games I was part of, where I was a player and a piece. I checked my grades and I was in high honors. It was only two or so months into the school year. I checked my messages with friends, and I had a fully functioning friend group. I had a girlfriend. My life was almost perfect.
Nothing around me was familiar, and my world began collapsing. I felt something wash over me. Dread? Anxiety? Hate? Fear? It had been a long time. So much was lost being a human machine; No joy, no sadness, just motion. I searched for the feelings and found a gaping wound inside my chest. I felt everything that I was being sucked in and devoured, piece by piece before it was spat out a chewed rubble. I grasped for the last fragments of my emotion, but it was all gone. I was blind and deaf to feeling again. I didn't feel hungry, or thirsty, or sad. I dove into my imagination where there were once fields and cities. People and memories populated my soul beneath the sun and moon, depicted by emotions in red and blue, green and orange, and every color of the rainbow. There were once forests and battlegrounds, spaces full of masks and costumes for every occasion.
Now, there was nothing. I flew for an eternal moonless night in my mind, searching for who I was before my subconscious took over. With careful examination of every nook and cranny of the rubble, I found my masks and costumes. The acts and faces I put on were merged and distorted, the people I pretended to be mish-mashed into the grayscale conglomeration of loose character traits and defects. I had become less than human, I lost my consciousness and barely maintained my morality.
The voice of my inner child echoed out from the depths of my soul. “Where were you? Who did this? Who took my home?”
‘I don't know. I’m sorry.’
“All I want is to have my world back. Please, bring it back!”
‘How? It's all gone.” Before the thought was finished, the rubble was gone. Miles and miles of destruction turned to mist and sank into the inky blackness below.
“I don’t know! Just bring it back! Bring it all back!”
I didn't know where to start. Every attempt was met with a fog, a fuzzy cloud within my mind that stopped my inner world from being changed. The more I moved against it, the more solid it became until it left me paralyzed. This suffocating barrier was semitransparent at best, a cage between my mind and imagination.
“Fine. If I can't shift the fiction, I’ll use the fact.”
The memories of the last three months were blurry at best, and I had no leads on what happened. My mind and body felt hollow, reduced to the most basic of people. My phone buzzed and the screen glowed. It was only about 10:00. I looked at what it was, and opened the message. It was from my girlfriend, and through the misty filters over my memories, I had a place to start.
@@dogking4393 wow you have a way with words! So, it all started when you woke up one night (or so you thought), and led to sort of a panic attack, did the memories ever become clearer or they continue to be nebulous bits and pieces?
autism with bottom up thinking/processing style might also have alot to do with this because personally it feels like i have to learn cause and effect of things like their framework to put my mind at ease, so having both adhd and autism meant that starting stimulants finally helped my intense emotions to rest and help me finally start to figure these things out with a clear head.
So that's how it would be described, feeling like you have to learn the cause & effect of things to put ur mind at ease. I've felt that way my whole life. I can't tell if it's an anxiety thing, OCD or autism thing
@@Michal_o likely all three
This resonated with me. Thank you, i wasnt aware of this before but is exactly what ive been feeling ever since i lost my job
I wish I could have been there for this live. I’m a neuroscience PhD and I’ve been suffering from dissociation/derealization for years and INFORMING all of my clinicians about this but they basically don’t believe me because I’m not presenting with DID. It got to the point that I wrote an entire grant for a class proposing how to model dissociation type symptoms in a mouse model, I was so intent on understanding. Hearing this makes me sad, because I’m reminded of these details, how I’ve known forever, but CBT just lets me waste away into unemployment. I also failed a long trial of Avulety, and that makes sense, it has DXM and basically made my dissociation worse.
I could legit listen to this all day.
Thanks so much for covering CPTSD (in the earlier stream) and dissociation!
Dissociation is both a (huge) blessing and a (at times handicapping) burden to bear.
I learned to dissociate as a kid because I was constantly in pain. I wasn’t believed by my doctors or parents and was told I was making it up for attention. The only way I could deal with the pain was if I wasn’t “there.” It led to me not being able to remember huge chunks of my childhood.
This stream and the CPTSD one is gold content. Can't believe its for free
Dr K. articulates concepts and sensations that many, myself included, have found hard to accurately talk about for years. He strikes it so precisely that it makes me laugh, almost like a weight off my shoulders!
9:35 I love Dr. K's almost sinister evil genius grin as he tells us how so many people are suffering from this condition! Of course, it's because he knows he has the power to help so many of us by addressing this topic
this guy's saving my life holy shit
Before I knew what depersonalization was, I called it "existential dysphoria." You ask lots of questions "why do I exist?" when you are going through it.
Dissociation is like the deer that's about to be eaten by a lion going into freeze and checking out of the body so it doesn't have to go through the trauma of being eaten alive. So much distress that the body and mind just can't handle it (or thinks so). Learnt this from Teal Swan and it just makes so much sense.
I'm so glad Dr. K talked about the difference between knowing and feeling regarding virtual worlds. Our subconscious and unconscious systems get hijacked and we don't realize it because logically we know onling gaming doesn't matter much, but emotionally we are engaged to the max. Logically we know our achievements in these worlds hardly matter IRL but our emotional and deep-brain self doesn't see any difference.
It's dangerous, and especially so for boys/men because so many of us are clueless when it comes to our feelings.
Strumming my pain with his fingers 🎶
The timing of this video was impeccable
it is fron this video that i realised what i was going through was dp and dr. but the thing is I don't remember a time when i wasn't like that . the oldest memory i have related to it is me being super happy imagining going on a shaky bridge adventure and whatever i was feeling before felt useless as i could walk on that exciting bridge alone. I would have been 5 -8 years old. And i have been like that ever since.
Pre-transition Trans people dissociate all the time!Chances are you won’t see this but can you do a video where you talk to a trans person about dissociation?
being trans pretransition I dissociated for YEARS dude. It was necessary. It was hell. Now I’m me. Now I’m out. Now I’m not dissociating anymore.
I really think you’d have a fascinating conversation if you did this. I’m serious, I’d love to see it and I think there’s a lot of value in opening up that discussion
I recently (past few years) have been having sudden 'cringe moments' where I would recall past cringe events of my life, almost like a tick, where I would audibly gasp, or unknowingly say 'no!' Or cry out in pain. Its good to know what caused it.
Dr. K.
Thank you for the space to Re-member. ❤
I just know that i look at myself in the mirror and go 'huh, that's right, that's what i look, kinda forgot about that"
And have 0 conception of what might drive people to "love themselves" to the point i can't see anything that would deprive me of things (time, money, physical abilities) for visual identifiers that i cannot see myself as a good trade in just about any possible context, it's just inconceivable to me, like a deaf person trying to understand why audiophiles spend so much money on audio systems, except for me is nornal people and self-care beyond health reasons
I used to be normal. At least none of these issues of mental disorders or illnesses never were issues for me or in my life. I’ve been trying to figure out where did shit hit the fan? Why did it and what triggered the descent of my healthy functioning mind to crack and essentially have a mental nervous breakdown. I had trauma as a child watching my daddy die and being unable to do anything about it. My mom was awesome, she/we had a lot of help with friends family and tons of therapy and many self help books. I grew up and still living and enjoying life fine. Had hopes dreams goals confidence and I knew what I wanted basically for my life. I was socially outgoing. Had plenty of friends and 2 or 3 really close ones . Thankfully I have those close ones still but I’ve alienated them from me. They’re there for me but I need to be the one to reach out nowadays. My boyfriend since 1996 has made so many things like in situations,issues,thoughts and feelings, sense of my self, all mixed up inside of me. I am just learning now I think he’s a narcissist and the insecure thoughts and actions have been created from him. It confuses my head so bad that I feel like if I try or care or have opinions or feelings it don’t matter and it’s all a moot effort. So I’m stuck and trapped with trying to get back my caring and feeling of importance in life and myself and believe again that I matter and life does matter and I know it’s not all my fault I am this way now but the constant doubt that’s reinforced by the things he says and by myself. It all seems pointless to care and try yet I know that is dumb to think regardless if I feel it. Lately I’m angry about anything and everything. Worst part of the day is waking up. I don’t know how much longer I can do this and I’m so scared about that…..I have a daughter who needs me. Or a mom that’s not fucked like me and I don’t know how to fix me or be what I know I need to,for her. Am I a narcissist? Am I a borderline depressed person? Basically just a lost cause? And again I’m so scared for my little girl cuz of me and also though, if she didn’t have me. I can’t afford therapist. Also I don’t trust people any more and never have with a therapist really. Out of many I had only found one therapist that seemed to help me and that I seemed to feel I could trust. But I was a child. As an adult I haven’t seeked out to see anyone yet. PTSD is also a past experience I know I had or have….. wow I sound absurdly confusing. I can’t make sense of anything anymore. WTF Chuck’s!!!!!!!!!!!!!!so totally not swell