What do you call this?

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Does anyone else feel like they're not really in the moment sometimes? Like for example, I know who I'am, what I like and do but I don't feel like me. I feel like this Individual is in a way an illusion. I kind of feel like an actor in a script, with no control over my life, sometimes I do things just because I feel that I have to. Like a feeling in my gut and a voice in the back of my head saying "do it" and it generally makes my life better but at the same time, is this intuition or what? Some who're more dogmatically inclined/new age would say this is higher self/god or an angel or something but it could be something totally different. Any idea? I've thought it could be De-Realization disorder because I often don't really feel in connection with anything. I was thinking this over lately and I haven't told any of my pals but it's just really hard for me to fathom. I don't know how to explain this but when I say my own name, it doesn't sound familiar. I feel like this person that I'am is more or less, a blank slate.

Is there a label for sentiments like what I've described as best I can elaborate?

I get this way sometimes. It feels like I'm watching my life as a movie and I feel like I'm out of my body. Almost like I'm doing my daily routine without really acknowledging myself.

This is what occurs in non aspies around age 3 to 5, it is when their ego develops and they create/associate with an identity. The fact is that an identity is only a concept, a great and useful concept. but a concept non the less. It is just a label. Like a photograpgh is not the real thing. A name is label, a word, it is a separation from you. Non aspies just get so used to thier illusionary identity, they they forget their inner self. The purpose of an identity is to be able to communicate to other identies. Facades/illusions/concepts/labels communicating with other facades/illusions/concepts/labels.

So most of societal life is illusionary and unreal. If you are alone in nature, an aspie will realize that they are perfectly normal and suited to function in nature. But society is mainly a collection and interaction of indentities (facades) and not really in harmony with nature and the world.
cheers

I think I can relate (?)

Sickpuppies, I don't know if what I'm describing here is similar for you, and actually, it's difficult for me to describe this....but it's like my consciousness/awareness is very separate from my physical self (and I don't mean this in a spiritual way; I mean it in a psychological way).


It wasn't until I was in my mid 20's that I began to feel some sort of self-awareness (like I actually existed), but still even now I don't fully identify with myself.

In fact even now, (this is going to sound really strange) when I look in the mirror, I don't feel like I'm looking at myself. Same with photographs and videos. I don't recognize my own voice either (which is pretty funny since I record music, and when I hear it, I am always thinking "that's me singing???")

Almost all of my memories are like watching a movie of someone else - and there are hardly any "movies" in my head that I feel a personal connection with or any emotion toward (except my last kitty that passed away - we were very close, but that was several years ago).

My birth name sounds foreign/actually somewhat offensive to me too (actually, I think this is true for additional reasons though), so I insist that people call me by my first initial. I've never had a nervous breakdown (as far as I am aware), and I've been like this for as long as I can remember, so I don't think it's because of a traumatizing experience.

I don't know - maybe what I'm describing is actually normal ?

Last edited by goodwitchy on 02 Mar 2012, 11:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[/quote][I don't know - maybe what I'm describing is actually normal ?]

Yes it is normal. What happens with non aspies is they develop a stronger ego/identity in order to converse with other identities. The cost of this is separation from the whole. Normal people have all sorts of emotional problems and it is a result of the ego seaparating and fragmenting. Aspies have less separation with the whole and operate more from their unconscious self. that is, they are more united. The cost of this is that they have less capability to funtion socially.

I believe this cost is well worth the benefits of less separation and fragmention.

Maybe.
I still have to go see a doc because I know I'm not really "normal" in a psychological sense.

So seatyed, are you stating that a Dissociative or Depersonalization disorder is never a co-morbid of Asperger's?

Last edited by goodwitchy on 03 Mar 2012, 12:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

Why do say it is a disorder?
I am saying that normal is a far wider range than is generally assumed. Medicos are in the business of finding, defining and fixing problems. This tends to create problems.

With disassociation and depersonalization, these are normal functions of the brain. I am a hypnotherapist and utilize all of the brain's functions for different purposes. Disassociation is a very powerful tool to use in therapy.

My point is that disassociation etc are neutral. It is in the context and for what purpose you use them that is important. What do you specifically achieve by disassociation? What would happen if you did not disassociate? Think of what is the worst thing that would happen, no matter how ridiculous the answer. This will give you some clue to the purpose of disassociation. Many feel that if they don't dissociate then they will lose themself and be like other people and this is terrifying for them.

To most - disassociation is a safeguard and preventative measure.

Normal is a label, by what criteria do you define 'normal'. Are you influenced by how others define normal.
You have a purpose and it is to live and live joyously and wonderfully, most people fail miserably but they will tell you how to live your life.

Cheers

Thank you for explaining. I am certain you understand the brain and its functions much more than I ever will, as you are a hypnotherapist.
I don't think I know what "normal" in a clinical sense really means. There are people around me that I can try to compare myself to who seem like they are more "normal", but that is an unscientific observation.

The key to life is being happy with yourself.

If you compare yourself with other, then you will feel faulty. When you look at them, you are only looking at how they react in their normal circumstances, so they will seem perfectly okay. But I can assure you that most and I mean most, are not happy with themselves and have big problems with life.

If the world was mostly filled with aspies then normal people would have great difficulty in fitting in socially and they would then have a 'disorder'.
If you function perfectly well out in nature alone, then there is nothing wrong with you. A basketball player would feel awkward and dysfunctional if he was playing a game of football.

Once again - anybody, normal or aspie, will lose if they compare themself with others. There is no benefit to anyone when there is comparisons, judgments etc.

Live your life for you.
Cheers

Wow, lots of good information in here. Really made me think. I like how you stated that Identities are Illusory and such. Really does make you wonder about a lot lol

Yes they are illusionary, or rather just a concept and a functioning process but having no physical form. Language is our most common tool and it allowed for the massive evolution of man, it gave us the greatest leverage in the animal kingdom. Language to function efficiently and creatively, created the need for individual identities. Identity greatly expanded the use and complexities of language. For language to evolve into the massive tool that it is, it needed an owner of this tool. A part of the mind that is in charge of this function only.
The unconscious mind uses electrical and chemical signals for its language (information transfer). Our spoken language is an external language, it is a communication between people.
As an identity develops it uses language exclusively with other identities that use language exclusively. And as this tool is probably our most advantageous evolutionary tool, great importance and value was placed on it. And the identity assumed great (self)importance. It only deals with external relationships and becomes ignorant of the internal world of the whole being.

The interesting feature of an identity is not that it knows who it is, it can only know who and what it is NOT. That is how identity originally formed and still can only operate this way today. When identity first formed, say in caveman days, as a member of a tribe, you could label (because of the use of language) another member and so that thing there became 'John' and so I am not 'John' I am not tree, I am not rock, I am not Bill. But I can not be Philip because it is only a word a sound. I cannot know who I am as if I can see, feel, sense anything then it is obviously not me, if I become aware of any cells etc in my body then I can't be that.

Hence man’s eternal quest to know, define and validate himself, or rather identities eternal quest.
Science looks for smaller and smaller physical fragments as a pseudo attempt to discover himself, as if we know everything then we will now ourselves.

The identity has to be the smallest possible thing possible, for if it sees neurons of microscopic particles -I can not be that. Hence the creation of insignificance even though we can argue that we are the most significant species on the planet or universe, and we can feel more insignificant than an ant.
When you become aware of the illusion, then you can use it, without many of the negative consequences of believing and attaching to it.