Anyone experience dissociation w/their TBI? How do you cope?

I've been pretty lucky to maintain self-awareness and sense of self, but when I'm unsure about something important/complex/emotionally charged, and my brain is foggy, I'll write it down the day before or even craft the thoughts in Word or something and then sleep on it to look at the next day to see if it's still right. Knowing its written down for later lets me let go of it and not stress me out to where my brain gets even worse. I've found that a fresher brain in the morning usually has better perspective on things. I choose times of day that work best for how my brain is. I'll do automatic stuff like cooking, cleanup or exercise when my brain isn't perfect anyway which for me has followed rhythms during the day. I usually nap at lunch which gives me kind of a mid-day reset.

This. I hate this. It's a weird one for me. Only 3 montgs in or so and sometimes I get that 'im in the matrix' thing. Super unsettling. At that moment, it's a lot of me sitting there and looking around at everything having internal monologue of what is happening around me. Normally telling my husband this doesn't feel right. If I'm alone, I count something. Anything I see. Anything, could be leaves in a tree, ceiling tiles whatever. For some reason since the tbi finding patterns calms me down and helps me get through those weird moments of not feeling like I'm in reality.

I don't exist inside the normie mind set. I see the dystopia of everyone around me dislodged from my common sense direction, I look for faults and entrapments, distrust of a mind set that I don't trust. One day I'll probably feel saved by my TBI and induced coma. Maybe I've had sense knocked into me.

I can relate to what you are saying. I notice after getting out of the hospital how I perceived things was different, particularly when it comes to calculation and execution when driving, reading, and at times just interacting with others. I am aware of what I am doing, but it feels different--as if I am detached from the process. It is a state of being which is really hard to define. Ironically, the harder a task may be--such as learning something new, the better I feel. Perhaps a new challenge requires so much energy, I become more focused on it as opposed to my "altered state". Listening to music, trying to learn to play keyboard, game apps like Chess (with an "undo" feature of course) helps me a great deal. Also, new home projects as well.

I lost my sense of smell after my brain injury 4 years ago. I also misaligned my eyes and messed up my hearing. Over time I got my eyesight and hearing corrected but I can't do a thing about my sense of smell. As a result, I'm anxious all the time. I'm currently going to therapy to deal with this and realized that I have dissociation under all that anxiety from having no sense of smell. I don't feel safe because not being able to smell has taken away a piece of my reality. But I don't know how to get back into real life except to keep myself busy. Does anyone else have this problem?