What it was Like Having Delusions and Dissociation as a Child

Dissociation (shutting down, feeling disconnected from the world, like you're on the outside looking in) is a common coping mechanism for distress. For some children, dissociation is the brain's way of protecting them from harm or trauma. Unfortunately, dissociating too often can be unhealthy for children and adults, making it difficult to distinguish between reality and illusion or understand their own sense of self 01.

Today, Sarah Bailey explores how she grappled with both delusions and dissociation during childhood. She sheds light on the unusual thoughts and fears that shaped her early years.

A few weeks ago, I started thinking about topics I would like to talk about mental health in the year ahead. One thing that came to mind was some of the weird things I believed as a child due to my mental illness.

My brain struggles with processing some feelings and situations, and it has been like this for as long as I can remember. It has always tracked its own path, either due to trauma or mental health issues.

With dissociation during childhood possibly relating to early trauma, I wanted to share some strange things my brain has believed over the years. And what better place to share it than the void of the internet? A space where people don't know me in real life but where my ramblings can hopefully be both cathartic to myself and helpful to others.

Looking back over my life, I realise my “weird thoughts” started when I was young. I couldn't tell you the exact age, but we are talking elementary school age. In some ways, these thoughts became everything, and as much as I knew they couldn’t be true, they scared me both then and now.

So today, I face those thoughts head-on, admit they happened, and fight back as best I can.

4 examples of my delusions and dissociation during childhood

Thought 1: Gifts and belongings are bad

This thought clearly relates to being adopted as a child. It’s one of my earliest memories of thinking oddly.

I truly believed the only reason people gave me gifts and why I had belongings was to lull me into a false sense of security. This meant I’d only be more upset and surprised when the time came to be abandoned again.

I remember sitting on my bed and wondering why someone would do this? Why try to make me feel at home? The person who gave birth to me didn't want me, so why would these people?

Now, I understand that my adoptive parents never intended to abandon me. My belongings were truly mine, freely given to me because my adoptive parents loved me. After all, they stood by me through years of mental health issues and, even today, will continue to be there when I need them.

While I may not react in the same way these days, my abandonment issues are far from resolved, and they're something I still struggle with. Nowadays, they are mainly anxiety-inducing, leading me to push people away and/or hide from them, even when I really shouldn't.

Thought 2: Why am I me?

This was undoubtedly a form of dissociation. I still struggle to understand it, but dissociation can make you feel disconnected from the world around you and uncertain about who you are.

For me, dissociation felt like a detachment from reality, like I was completely separated from myself.

It felt like my inside and outside didn't match. I couldn't work out why this mind and this body had been put together and why I was "me" and not someone else.

I didn’t know who I should be or what I should look like. All I knew was that my pieces didn't fit, and I didn't understand how it had happened.

Thinking about early trauma, I once again wonder if these thoughts relate back to my adoption. The idea of being removed from my roots may have left me unable to work out who I was.

There are many reasons why I feel I will never be the person I was meant to be. However, I believe that my childhood dissociation was my way of trying to rebuild myself from trauma. I just didn't know how or why I had to do it.

I often had feelings like this. I remember locking myself in the bathroom to have a bath and sitting and sobbing with the taps on so no one could hear.

Thought 3: They know my thoughts

As well as dissociation, I struggled with delusions as a child. I’m more baffled by this example because I can't find a reason behind it.

When I was 9 or 10, I became convinced that my classmates had implanted something into my body, allowing them to read my thoughts.

I think this began when I didn't want to be bugged by the typical questions from classmates, like who I had a crush on. I was more interested in other things, so I'd tell them the truth and say, "No one." Naturally, they said I was being dishonest and picked someone for me.

While I knew the "rumours" were wrong and based on nothing, a little part of me started to worry. What if my classmates could read my mind? What if they found out how messed up my thoughts were, like not knowing who I was?

This small seed of paranoia took root and began to grow. I must have had some self-awareness in this possible persecutory delusion because the rational side of my brain knew it wasn't reality. How could elementary school children implant something in me?

But the more persistent, louder side (the side that never shut up or stopped pushing) told me what I feared was true. My classmates somehow knew everything and were toying with me.

Thought 4: My posters are watching me

Compared to the earlier three, which all happened at elementary school, this delusion developed during my mid-teens.

I remember one day when I was sitting in my bed area in the mental health hospital. I had covered the walls with posters and pictures - a privilege that came with being a long-term patient. Suddenly, a horrible paranoia gripped me: I was being watched through these posters.

I didn't speak up, even though this would have been the perfect place to do so. I still don't know why - perhaps it was due to my abandonment issues. What if they said I was too sick to support anymore? What if they gave up on me?

It turns out this wasn't a ridiculous fear. Later on, I was judged in therapy continuously and eventually told I was "beyond help.”
Plus, I was terrified. If these thoughts and feelings scared me, how would anyone else cope?

I ripped down every picture until I felt I was no longer being watched. I really believed eyes were spying on me in each one.

To this day, I don't have photographs of people around the house. They still give me an odd feeling.

So, why am I speaking about this now?

I only admitted that this stuff happened to me a few years ago. I was asked to write down a background as part of my therapy, and I found it much easier to write than to speak.

I remember being in my teens and trying to tell someone I'd prefer to get help via writing rather than with talking therapy. They laughed. I was told I needed to grow up and verbally express my feelings like everyone else.

The way I've been treated by many mental health professionals has never encouraged me to be open and honest with them.

I later received a mental health re-diagnosis, which added cyclothymia to my list of mental health conditions. I opened up about these childhood feelings for the first time during this process.

My mental health team offered me places in several workshops. In them, I learned more about borderline personality disorder (BPD) and bipolar and how they can connect to delusions and dissociation. Finally, I could put the pieces together and understand the thoughts and feelings I'd had since childhood.

So, if you experienced delusions or dissociation during childhood, and you’re still struggling with your mental health, please talk about it. It may be tricky, and you may need to speak to a few people before you find the right care. But if you don't, no one can help.

I still wonder if my life would have been different if I'd spoken up earlier instead of keeping these cruel thoughts hidden. Could my mental illness have been treated better?

Of course, I'll never get a real answer, as I can't change the past. But I hope that choosing to speak out now may encourage others to ask for help sooner.

Sources

1. Back to contents.

   Wilson, Sara. When Does Dissociation Become Unhealthy? Seattle Anxiety Specialists, 2023. https://seattleanxiety.com/psychiatrist/2023/6/6/when-does-dissociation-become-unhealthy. Last accessed 22^nd October 2024.

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Date of preparation: October 2024
D: COB-GB-NP-00549 (V1.0) / T: COB-GB-NP-00551 (V1.0) / M: COB-GB-NP-00550 (V1.0)