A strategy our mind uses to deal with a traumatic experience is to separate from what is happening. Sometimes this strategy is generalized and we find ourselves feeling disconnected, sometimes outside of our bodies. We first learn different strategies and ways to relate with our pain.
Grounding, soothing, and leaning to separate out past trauma from present reality helps decrease dissociation. I also approach this with some of the approaches I’ve already mentioned. People who dissociate are often plagued with past thoughts or memories of a very difficult time. Exploring childhood patterns of family interactions gives one a key to understanding their dissociation as a trauma response. Also essential is the learning of other trauma responses that don’t come with the down sides of dissociating, like memory problems or depersonalization/derealization anxiety.
These disorders are caused by trauma and are a natural mechanism to deal with trauma: somatic therapies support the processing of the trauma, which is held in the body and can be discharged, such that one does not dissociate in the future.
I've worked with dissociative disorders for 32 years and heave helped many people recover fully. If you're losing time, feel like you have more than one identity, there is hope.