When You Meet Someone Who Dissociates - And You Don’t Know It

There is a particular kind of disorientation that happens when you are with someone and, without warning, the person you are speaking to is no longer there.

Nothing dramatic announces it. No confession, no label.

Something simply shifts. The eyes change. The posture rearranges itself.
The tone of voice moves sideways.
Time loses continuity.

At first, you may not know what is going on. Maybe you misheard?

You find yourself speaking into a space where the person you were just with no longer has access to what was happening moments before.

This is not inner conflict, or mood, or defensiveness. This is dissociation. It can be quite disorienting to witness.

From the outside, it may feel like this:

  • You are suddenly alone in the room while someone else is still present.
  • You feel responsible for continuity that no longer exists.
  • Your body becomes alert before your mind can explain why.
  • You experience confusion without a story to attach it to.

The most destabilising part is not the shift itself. It is the absence of shared memory.

When the state passes, the person often has no idea anything occurred. No awareness, no recall.

You are left holding something that cannot be confirmed.

This creates a specific ethical problem for the witness:

Do you name what you saw? Do you stay quiet to preserve safety? Do you doubt your own perception?

There is no universal answer.

What matters is recognising this truth:

Dissociation is not metaphorical.
It is not rare. And it is not always visible to the person experiencing it.

Many people live functional lives while organised this way. They work. They love. They partner.

And still, under pressure, something splits to survive.

If you have encountered this, you are not alone. Sometimes the most honest response is simply this:

I noticed something changed.

[image: Wassily Kandinsky, Delicate Tension N°85, 1923]

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