The effects of dissociation and dissociative disorders can be difficult to pinpoint and differ from person to person. The following symptoms are examples of what you may experience:
- feeling detached from your body
- experiencing gaps in your memory
- forgetting important information about yourself
- feeling as if there is more than one person inside of you
- hearing voices
- feeling as if the world around you isn't real
- referring to yourself as 'we' rather than 'I'
- having out-of-body experiences
- other people telling you that you have behaved out of character
- feeling detached from your emotions
- feeling numb or devoid of emotion.
A person who has a dissociative disorder may also be experiencing other problems too such as anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, panic attacks, hearing voices, phobias, obsessive behaviours and more. Through counselling treating dissociative disorders aims to re-connect you with your thoughts, feeling and memories to help you feel more real and complete as a person.
