I am very self conscious and sensitive to other people’s emotions, to the point that if I hear someone sigh in an annoyed way, stomp around, shout in another room, or slam a door it can completely throw my day off and my first thought is if I’ve done something to upset them, which leads to a lot of rumination about everything I’ve done and trying to figure out what I could have done that upset them. I get preemptively anxious when I’m going to be around someone who is normally annoyed or upset, and have to emotionally prepare myself to interact with them and be in their presence. 

Sometimes I notice I zone out if I’m around someone like that, for example at the dinner table I will look past the person opposite to me or just watch my cat, and while I’m aware people are talking around me it feels more like background noise than speech. 

I tend to get caught up in my thoughts and anxious feelings when this happens. If my anxious thoughts get intense, even if I’m alone, sometimes my eyes defocus and the external world kinda feels less real, or at least I’m less aware of it and what’s going on in it. It’s just me and my thoughts, and  I could spend a long time in that place if something doesn’t happen to bring my attention back to reality. 

I don’t know if it’s dissociation, it feels like my thoughts just overwhelm me and I ignore external stimuli as I focus intently on the things running through my brain. Is that what dissociation is? I have heard dissociation is a coping response learned from trauma and I can’t recall ever being traumatized where I did that, although if someone shouts at me a similar feeling happens and I kinda go into an autopilot mode where my subconscious does the talking and moving for me.

Is this something anyone else has experienced? Is this what dissociation is?