Confusing Identity in Others

[LittleBird]

Does anyone here have anything similar?

[Three Roses]

Yes, this happens to me occasionally. The face of someone I know and trust is suddenly changed - it's very disconcerting. I don't have any insight or anything, but I wanted to let you know you weren't the only one this happens to!

[woodsgnome]

Yes, I've had lots of incidents like you describe, Sunrise. They used to bug me until my therapist reminded me that it's perfectly normal for people who've survived multiple traumas--to see fearsome 'others' who aren't there anymore. Yet I run into quite a few people who resemble them so closely--in looks, temperament, speech, everything.

My most common reaction is dissociation (the freeze response), where I stay present but it's like my mind slips out to let the danger pass. My preference, if I can do it, is to get outta there if I can (the flight response), and simmer down; pinch myself to remember that this is now, that was then...and is over.

Logic isn't always the fail-safe solution, so I try and access my sense of humour, wherein I see the threatening one as just a scary spook left over from Halloween or something. 

It can get worse, though--I can regard everyone as a potential threat. And sometimes, as some have noted in posts on other threads, this almost seems to create an invisible invitation signaling to the others that I can be taken advantage of, ignored, put off for seeming weird.

You've taken the critical first step to dealing with it, Sunrise,--by recognizing that it happens.

[BlancaLap]

It happened to me one day... that I had an argument with my mother... and I was really angry and sad and mad... and so minutes later I went to talk to her and she acted so strange... it almost felt like she wasn't my mother... it felt like it was some sort of monster faking being my mother... and I can say that feeling... was terrible.
It also happens to me sometimes that things feel like they weren't what they are, f.e. like my mother is not my mother, but in a different way. It feels like your brain doesn't make the conection between the person in front of you and the sense of having a mother, or the house in front of you and the sense you have YOUR own house...

[LittleBird]

BlancaLap, sorry to hear you had that experience. It's rough 

Have you tried grounding techniques? Might really help connect you to the things you know - things that can help you feel secure.

[BlancaLap]

I used to do grounding techniques even before I knew they had a name (I though I invented something new hahahahahaha), but since I had that terrible argument with my mother... it looks like they don't work anymore. I think it is because of the feeling of danger...

[LittleBird]

Sorry to hear that... Perhaps your mind is now associating that previous grounding technique with what happened with your mother.

Maybe think up a new one?

I've been known (when hyperventilating/panicked) to pick up a dry spiced chai tea bag and take in all the flavours from that! I think it's really important to find something that's yours: significant to you and the senses that help stabilising the most in difficult moments for you. It's not always the obvious stuff, I guess I'm trying to say 

[BlancaLap]

I get what you are trying to say... I'll try. Thanks!