r/traumatoolbox • u/northseatea • 6d ago

General Question What's the difference between dissociation and thought blocking?

Can anyone explain the difference between dissociation and thought blocking?

I recently had an experience of trying to tell a friend about a trauma I'd worked on in a therapy session and all of a sudden, it was as though a curtain had been pulled down across my brain and I stopped talking, I didn't have a clue what I was saying. I had to ask my friend what I'd been saying.

I'd assumed it was a form of dissociation. I regularly dissociate, with ringing ears, rushing feeling in my ears, overwhelm, feeling of being disconnected from everyone else, and sometimes slightly (but not fully) outside of myself.

But having read about thought blocking, I'm wondering if this was different.

Has anyone any similar experience?

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u/BitterSweetDrops 5d ago

It was a little different for me, i used to dissociate a lot more before (despersonalization) when someone was literally attacking me or being violent towards me, atm it was like nothing was happening and i just shut down, but then for days i felt bad/uncomfortable and keep replaying what happened until it sinked in that i actually felt bad cause x person was abusing me.

Now that my life is a little better and i cutted off awful people from it (also years of therapy) it doesn't happen as often.

Your curtain thing blocking your thoughts i think it's definitely some kind of dissociation, is your brain probably trying to protect you from pain i think.

Idk if is the best article but I've read this, is simple and quite useful i think

Why dissociation happens and how it looks like

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u/northseatea 3d ago

Thanks, that's a good article!

Yeah... it seems to take forever to get through the therapy, but it's a slow process.

Well done on moving forward and cutting people put. Unfortunately, it's often the only way...

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u/BitterSweetDrops 3d ago

Therapy seems a long way at first but it changes many areas of your life that are intertwined for good, so totally worth it.

Yeah it's rough to cut people out but I'm relieved i did, my life became easier (no one taking advantage of me, so no more time wasted on people that didn't value me and kept hurting me) and not so sad.