I experience what I describe as dissociative “breaks” - sudden, visceral transitions between two distinct states of mind that fundamentally alter how I function. This has been ongoing for 12 years since age 19. My entire adult life has been dominated by trying to solve something that has no name, no clear treatment, and it seems, no one who recognizes it.
State 1 (3-10% of time):
- Full intuitive functioning - automatic social processing, spontaneous responses
- Complete confidence and presence
- The way most people experience life normally
- Accessed through what feels like a “snap” - a sudden, physiologically perceptible shift
- Can last hours to days, even up to a week at times (most recent: 24 hours)
- Exits through another “snap” with no identifiable trigger back to state 2
*State 2 (90-97% of time):*
- Dissociated observer position - watching myself try to be a person
- Manual/conscious control required for all social interactions
- Constant self-monitoring and evaluation
- Pervasive fear, lack of confidence, fundamental mistrust of ability to perform socially
- Experience of something essential being missing
- Loss of friendships, relationships and other things in life that require presence and consistency
- This is not living. This is being alive but with empty insides.
Core Agony -
I’m not grieving something I never had - I’m grieving something I HAD my entire life up until 19 and then lost. Now I can get it back for small periods of time and then it is lost again without warning. State 1 proves the capacity still exists inside me, which makes the loss unbearable. I watch myself lose things - connections, opportunities, moments - in real time while being completely powerless to stop it. I can’t think my way out, can’t will my way out, can’t understand my way out. My brain randomly locks me out of basic human functioning and I just have to watch it happen.
**Precipitating Event (Age 19):**
Erectile dysfunction with girlfriend. Immediately following this event, I lost automatic social/sexual functioning. This wasn’t gradual - it was an immediate, total shift from intuitive operation to dissociated manual control.
**Pattern Since Age 19:**
- Developed substance use (drugs, later primarily alcohol) as anesthetic for the pain of remembering what presence felt like
- Achieved sobriety from DOC in January 2020
- Used porn in place of missing intimacy, taking steps to cut this out entirely
- Recently ended relationship; dissociative pattern is heavily associated with romantic/sexual interactions, as these are contexts where the difference between State 1 and State 2 is most apparent
**Key Observations:**
*Relationship Context:*
- When in committed relationship: experienced “middle state” - didn’t access State 1, but avoided extreme oscillation between states
- When single: full pattern active
- Relationships provide stability and are where healing happens for me - being able to spend quality time with a partner, meet their family, build connection feels like where real therapeutic work occurs
*The Monitoring Paradox:*
- Constant monitoring for State 1
- Can’t stop monitoring because State 1 is actually being alive while State 2 is performing being alive and just getting by
- Attempting to “not monitor” creates meta-monitoring loop
- This is self-perpetuating and feels inescapable
*State 1 Creates Problems State 2 Can’t Solve:*
- In State 1: expansive - pursue connections, make commitments, start projects
- Return to State 2: overwhelmed by what State 1 created, want to retreat and minimize
- Cycle of expansion and collapse
- Recent example: Connected with a woman while in State 1, but when State 2 returned, couldn’t maintain the natural engagement and watched the connection deteriorate in real time
*Intentional Effort as Partial Workaround:*
- Sometimes can approximate State 1 functioning from State 2 through intense intentional effort
- This requires “trying a million things until something kind of works”
- Exhausting and unsustainable, but occasionally produces workable results
- Not the same as State 1’s effortless security, but better than complete inability to function
**Current Concern:**
This isn’t background anxiety I can manage. It’s a fundamental discontinuity in how my consciousness organizes itself, affecting every moment of lived experience. I’ve spent 12 years trying to understand and resolve this through insight, willpower, recovery work, and behavioral changes. Nothing has produced sustained access to State 1.
I am experiencing suicidal ideation over my inability to gain ground on this and my hopelessness that this just is never going to get solved. This isn’t just “having a hard time” - this is drowning. I need urgent intervention, not crisis stabilization, but actual resolution of the underlying condition. This is life or death for me.
**What I May Need:**
Treatment approaches that work at the nervous system level rather than cognitive/insight level. I believe this is trauma-based persistent dissociation stemming from the age 19 event, with my psyche maintaining a protective mechanism that removes me from automatic functioning to prevent re-experiencing sexual/social failure and shame.
I need resolution of the underlying protective mechanism so I can sustain State 1. Accepting this as permanent is unacceptable.
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Have you actually gone and been diagnosed / seen a therapist?
I’m looking for a therapist now, no formal diagnosis outside of depression
What age were you diagnosed ? Your clearly dealing with much more than depression in my opinion. Could be bipolar potentially.