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Original poster

Was I a fucked up kid? Thinking of a freaky thing I used to do.

79 replies

inigomontoyahwillcox · 07/01/2024 14:09

Something that's been bugging me for a while, which I only started thinking about seriously over the past year or so, as prior to that it was just "something that I did".

When I was a child, and I mean since I can pretty much remember, so young, I used to do this thing to myself when I would induce what I can only describe as a state of disassociation. I achieved it by repeating to myself the words "I can't believe I'm here, I can't believe I'm here" over and over again until I was taken over by the intense feeling of not being present in my surroundings - I suppose I can explain it as like the real world was a movie which I didn't feature in. In hindsight it was a very bizarre thing to do, and I did it often as a child.

I can still induce the same feeling on demand, but it scares me now, so I don't.

Has anyone else done this? Come across anyone who did or does this?

OP posts:
Palomabalom · 07/01/2024 15:02

I had a stable loving upbringing and used to do this. Is this not part of growing and splitting away as an independent being? I used to have this overwhelming feeling and repeat “ I can’t believe I am me. I am me I am me over and over again! It surely must be developmental

Palomabalom · 07/01/2024 15:04

Also it would feel like I was seeing myself and the world through someone else’s eyes. I would sometimes feel like this about a familiar place or a house for example. It suddenly seemed like the camera focus had changed

weegiemum · 07/01/2024 15:04

I've dissociated since I was 11 or 12 (parents divorce, my mother left) as a way of dealing with stress. I just concentrate hard on not liking what's happening and 'pop' out of my body. Have taken many exams from above my head!

Interestingly I can't think of the last time I did it. Probably not since I was diagnosed and got treatment for cPTSD/EUPD. And I'm in a happy, long term marriage with great adult children and life is good. So 5 years anyway, and that's a good thing. I'm not tempted to "try" to do it now, anyway!!

trakehner · 07/01/2024 15:05

I remember distinctly the first time it happened to me when I was aged around 10 and waiting to board a cross channel ferry. I was really scared that I was dying or something. I used to call it "I'm not really here". It usually happens spontaneously but I can also induce it by repeating the words "I'm not really here" in my head.

It still happens to me sometimes (I'm nearly 50) and nearly always list randomly out of the blue. I try and stay calm, deep breaths and remind myself I will "come to" in a few minutes but I do still find it scary. It feels like skating on the edge of an abyss and sometimes I fear that I won't ever come back into myself and will be stuck in this not realness forever (if that makes sense?!).

For me it feels like I am outside of myself or that my brain is separated from both my body and the world by a thick force field. I am aware of everything going on, can reach out and touch things, move my body and maintain conversations all whilst "not being really there".

I did experience childhood trauma (not abuse) as a young child and likely attachment issues due to the illness and subsequent death of my sibling taking over my parents lives from my birth to approx 2 years. I suspect they were emotionally unavailable to me for most of my childhood despite being very good parents in all other respects.
I also suffer from sleep paralysis and had the dreams of flying down the stairs as a child, so maybe my brain is just wired a bit oddly!

Original poster
inigomontoyahwillcox · 07/01/2024 15:06

Usernamen · 07/01/2024 14:59

Was your childhood abusive?

I didn’t do the dissociation thing, but two things I did as a child that I didn’t realise were unusual until much later in adult life:

  • live completely in my head, with the most elaborate pretend-life you can imagine. It spanned years and had more storylines than a soap opera. This would take up 80-90% of my waking hours.
  • cry myself to sleep every night for years due to undiagnosed depression as a teenager

Both of the above were due to suffering emotional abuse as a child.

It was. Physically violent father (to me, rarely anyone else), and lived in a household where everyone lived on tenterhooks waiting to find out what mood he was in every morning or when he got home from work.

I guess that's one of the things I've been pondering recently, whether that was connected.

OP posts:
Original poster
inigomontoyahwillcox · 07/01/2024 15:11

trakehner · 07/01/2024 15:05

I remember distinctly the first time it happened to me when I was aged around 10 and waiting to board a cross channel ferry. I was really scared that I was dying or something. I used to call it "I'm not really here". It usually happens spontaneously but I can also induce it by repeating the words "I'm not really here" in my head.

It still happens to me sometimes (I'm nearly 50) and nearly always list randomly out of the blue. I try and stay calm, deep breaths and remind myself I will "come to" in a few minutes but I do still find it scary. It feels like skating on the edge of an abyss and sometimes I fear that I won't ever come back into myself and will be stuck in this not realness forever (if that makes sense?!).

For me it feels like I am outside of myself or that my brain is separated from both my body and the world by a thick force field. I am aware of everything going on, can reach out and touch things, move my body and maintain conversations all whilst "not being really there".

I did experience childhood trauma (not abuse) as a young child and likely attachment issues due to the illness and subsequent death of my sibling taking over my parents lives from my birth to approx 2 years. I suspect they were emotionally unavailable to me for most of my childhood despite being very good parents in all other respects.
I also suffer from sleep paralysis and had the dreams of flying down the stairs as a child, so maybe my brain is just wired a bit oddly!

skating on the edge of an abyss

That's a really good way of putting it.

I used to get sleep paralysis as a young adult, and the flying thing as long as I can remember (I think quite a few people have experienced the latter). Sleep paralysis is terrifying. I ended up putting a TV in my room and leaving it on all night so if I "woke" up hopefully the TV would wake the other 1/2 of my brain up and drag me out of the paralysis.

OP posts:
34weekmess · 07/01/2024 15:13

I used to hold my breath until I went really really dizzy. I was about 11!! Stopped doing it when I did it once in class and woke up on the floor with everyone looking at me like I was an absolute nutter Blush

Elfidela1980 · 07/01/2024 15:19

This thread has floored me!

When I was very small I’d sit looking deep into the mirror until I could feel the ‘me inside me’ and ‘me the body’ separate.

I had to try very hard to send signals to myself to move, and so come back. Like I was the navigator trying to get control again.

The last time I did it I was on holiday in Ireland, eight years old. It was different because I felt like who I was watching in the mirror wasn’t me at all. Probably because it was a strange house at twilight or something, but I got the willies and never did it again.

Also had a traumatic childhood (DA) and like thinking about thinking. Fascinating to know this is something a lot of other people have experienced.

Original poster
inigomontoyahwillcox · 07/01/2024 15:19

34weekmess · 07/01/2024 15:13

I used to hold my breath until I went really really dizzy. I was about 11!! Stopped doing it when I did it once in class and woke up on the floor with everyone looking at me like I was an absolute nutter Blush

I've heard of that in babies and toddlers. But not an 11 year old!

OP posts:
GeneCity · 07/01/2024 15:22

Just to add that as a child I would actively make this happen, so it wasn't something that happened during times of particular stress or whatever.

I would also think a repeated phrase to make this happen - I am real / I am really thinking this kind of thing.

Octavia64 · 07/01/2024 15:23

I used to dissociate from pain.

I had extremely painful periods which my parents took me to the doctor for and he said that there was nothing he could do.

I used to get vomiting and diarrhoea and I remember spending one night lying on the bathroom floor in a spaced out state, vomiting every now and then.

It was ten years before I got enough money to be seen privately and now I have dissociative disorder, anxiety, depression and chronic pain. Oh, and endometriosis.

Worriedmum79 · 07/01/2024 15:25

Palomabalom · 07/01/2024 15:02

I had a stable loving upbringing and used to do this. Is this not part of growing and splitting away as an independent being? I used to have this overwhelming feeling and repeat “ I can’t believe I am me. I am me I am me over and over again! It surely must be developmental

Same! Also wondering if it’s a rite of passage almost to experience something like this…

Pierogiruskie · 07/01/2024 15:31

It could be a type of transcendental experience. There are states of meditation in which the world is experienced as unreal, like a movie. One may also experience our-of-the-body states. According to Buddha's teachings, and various Hindu philosophies, the world has only seeming reality. It has nothing of permanence in it, being in a constant state of flux.

34weekmess · 07/01/2024 16:03

Anyone ever try "light as a feather stiff as a board" from the craft?? 😆😆

Hubblebubble · 07/01/2024 16:08

I disassociated as a child once, it was odd coming back to myself as it were. Again, lots of childhood abuse and neglect. I also used to reassure myself by thinking this time will pass.

TheSlantedOwl · 07/01/2024 16:12

34weekmess · 07/01/2024 16:03

Anyone ever try "light as a feather stiff as a board" from the craft?? 😆😆

Explain please?! 😊

TommyShelby · 07/01/2024 16:22

I can still do this now. I tell myself ‘they can’t see me’ until I ‘disappear’. Again - abusive upbringing and desperately wanted to become anonymous and invisible

Palomabalom · 07/01/2024 16:40

I can totally relate to the flying down the stairs as a child. It was so vivid I think it must have been a lucid dream or something and for years I thought I could really fly and that it had happened! I think it’s probably down to brain development given that so many of us seem to have experienced similar at a young age

IvorTheEngineDriver · 07/01/2024 16:41

I did that but never had to repeat any words, I managed it by staring at some object across the room.

34weekmess · 07/01/2024 17:35

@TheSlantedOwl The craft is a 90's film about teenage witches, they would get one of them to lye down and the others use just their fingertips to lift them in the air while chanting "light as a feather stiff as a board" me and my friends were convinced we could do it 🤦‍♀️😆

vidflex · 07/01/2024 17:40

I had a very abusive childhood and I quickly learnt how to escape when bad things were happening to me. I'd hum a song, always the same song (it was a tune from a musical jewellery box my grandmother had) and I'd slowly just fade out. I thought I was a witch for a while there lol

TheWanderingWoman · 07/01/2024 17:55

It sounds like "derealization". I had a bit of a rough childhood and often lived in my head thinking about fantasy scenarios that I'd made up.

sleeplessinmumsville · 07/01/2024 20:55

Wow!!! Yes I used to do this too as a child.
I think I used to say 'I can't believe I'm me' over and over and then I would feel like I was looking back in at myself or observing myself from outside. It was a very surreal feeling.

I had very controlling parents and my dad was an aggressive man who would also be heavy handed with me. I was certainly not a happy child!

KayDog · 07/01/2024 21:36

I used to do this when I looked in the mirror too long, and then I'd end up laughing at my own reflection because I couldn't believe I existed.
I honestly thought I was a bit bonkers so it's nice to know I wasn't alone!

LadyMacbethWasMisunderstood · 07/01/2024 21:48

I used to do this. Only what I used to say was “I don’t know what my name is”. Over and over. I just did it out of curiosity. I had a happy childhood and was not anxious or troubled. I did it fairly regularly till I was about mid teens. I’ve tried doing it off and on since over the years, but don’t “enjoy” it anymore. I had not thought about it in years!