Dissociation -
What others are saying

Ellen

I have an exam tomorrow and dissociation was on the lecture, thanks for this help. It's very helpful.

Ellen

That's super Ellen. Glad you dropped by.

Shrinklady

Karie (Chatham, Ontario, Canada)

I know I'm not fully present some of the time. At times, it's like I'm watching someone live my life. I have experienced a sense that I was looking through plexiglass at the world and I wondered if something was wrong with my eyes. I later found out it was dissociation - it separated me from life around me.

Sometimes I can't keep focused on what I'm supposed to be doing at work when under high stress. I might repeat the task up to three times because I can't bring my mind into the now enough to be sure I'm not making mistakes. My brain seems to be absent and it is a very flaky place to be.....I'm always afraid someone else will find out how weird things are for me. I can't say that using grounding skills at work help me much when I need them to.

I was daydreaming a couple of days ago about painting myself as a Phoenix rising. But as the bird come up out of the ashes I saw it was a terrifying monster full of murderous rage......so, I'm understanding that I'm pretty angry. I was always known as "the happy go lucky kid" because anger was not an option in my family. It was hard for my family to understand when I became a cutter. Self abusing became a very familiar way of allowing anger and finding emotional relief. I was diagnosed with Complex PTSD. I am in therapy and would like to deal with the intense anger (it's rage) that I now admit I own.

There is a distinct separation between me and this rage and I can't allow it to be present. Is this a type of dissociation I'm doing or is it something else?

Karie

Thank-you for your comments Karie. It's wonderful to hear how you're working on yourself and moving through some tough stuff. Your description of dissociation was right on. Others who read it will probably find that useful.

Your post touches on a few topics that I enjoy chatting about. If my hunch is correct, I suspect that the rage that's surfacing reflects some positive things are happening with your nervous system.

That may sound odd at first but let me step back and explain that as I explained above, dissociation is a type of freeze response. When our activation gets too high, we'll move into freeze. However, as the nervous system resiliency starts to return, we will move through the fight or flight response. You might recall that the fight response is one of the survival tactics that gets triggered during traumatic moments. If fighting a foe is not possible, it'll back up into freeze.

This freeze response tends to happen to children who are facing unmet needs or abuse. And in the case of abuse, the offending foe is typically the same person who offered warmth and food creating later difficulties in adult relationships.

Backed up anger or thwarted fight contains enormous amounts of energy and sometimes our nervous system cannot handle it. It shows up as rage. It will take a little while for your nervous system to learn how to manage anger and in time, the rage will dissipate. We suspect that rage is a "young" response for the reason that words often seem inadequate for the intensity of the sensations. That verbal part of the brain has not yet come on line when the trauma occured.

Try to remember that the rage arises from the reptilian part of our brain that takes over when it feels threatened. It's not a feeling that can be "talked" out of. It must be experienced in titrated doses. And the best way I know how is through a body felt process. In other words, it must be felt to be changed.

Another thing to keep in mind Karie is that because anger was so forbidden at home, it's likely there's a lot of fear associated with feeling it. This means you will likely hate the feeling of anger initially. It might take a little while before you're okay with it.

Here's one exercise from body psychotherapy you might want to try. Remember our emotions are body-based so we can use this knowledge to help train ourselves to better manage unruly emotions.

Choose an instance of feeling anger that's small and not overwhelming. Sometimes it's easier to feel angry for someone else for instance. As the anger starts to surface allow yourself to feel the sensations in your body in the moment they arise. Temporarily let go of the source of the anger. (Thinking why you're angry will keep you from dissipating the anger.)

Then allow yourself to imagine slowly moving into a fight response such as a lion roaring, a warrior yelling or a fist moving slowly through the air. The image doesn't matter as long as it gives you a good releasing feeling. As long as you allow yourself to channel the anger through the image, some of your fight response can be shaved off. It's like a training session for your nervous system.

If this proves to be too difficult, you might want to suggest it as an exercise to do with your therapist. He or she would help you decide when the time is right.

All the best on your journey,

Shrinklady

vicki (usa)

I had constant dissociation for more than 4 months and I didnt even know I had it. I went to psychologists and they all said I had depression, so then i assumed it was depression too. but now i know its really dissociation, but i'm being treated (cognitive behavioral therapy) for depression and anxiety. will that treatment still help for my dissociation? My dissociation is pretty severe. I experience it 24/7.

Vicki

I asked Vicki to clarify her experience of dissociation and she replied with:

When I'm feeling my dissociation less, I just feel little more "there" but I  still feel out of it. I never feel any emotions, and i feel like i never experience anything in my life. Like everything feels the same, and I have no strong emotions or feelings about it because its just happening to me.. like i'm sitting back and not acting in my life. and i feel this laziness and distance all the time. but sometimes I just feel a little less like that so I can talk to people and stuff..but whenever i talk to people, I never feel like i'm saying those things.. I'm not sure if this is because of my social anxiety or my depression.. but if my cognitive therapy is supposed to cure those things, would it cure my dissociation too?
 
Vicki

Hello Vicki, it certainly sounds like dissociation from your description. Dissociation is not uncommon with depression. Both depression and dissociation are types of freeze responses. However, not everyone who finds themselves with depression suffers from dissociation. And there are certainly folks who suffer from dissociation who are not depressed.

I gather from your comments that the idea of depression seems foreign to you. The laziness you describe would certainly be characteristic of depression. In fact, fatigue is more of a defining feature than sadness.

Just so you know, dissociation, depression and social anxiety all have similar roots in dysregulation of the nervous system. So I caution you from diagnosing yourself as having a multitude of problems. Once your nervous system is better regulated, you will improve in all three areas.

There are certainly aspects of CBT that are helpful. Accessing and attending to resources is certainly a useful strategy. What's important is that the tasks that are assigned are in keeping with what you can realistically manage. For instance, it won't do you much good if you are encouraged to go out everyday if this feels undo-able. In fact, it might only serve to bring you into a place of shame.

You mentioned having difficulty in staying connected to yourself when you're talking with others. I'm wondering if this is what may be happening: It seems as you improve slightly, you tap into a very human inclination to connect. However, in doing so, this natural tendency tends to be flooding. In other words, your nervous system cannot manage the increased activation (stimulation) associated with connection.

To better understand how the nervous system manages during depressed states it might be helpful to read these two articles: Signs of Depression and What Causes Depression.

The really critical aspect of therapy - where the healing takes place - is in your interactions with your therapist. In brief, it's how your therapist helps you navigate your emotional states. While this is certainly not the core of CBT therapy, a good therapist does this automatically.

Now, it is possible that you may recover from depression and still be dissociative (although likely much less so). This certainly happened to me. And so, I took the next step in learning how to be more present within my own body. This took me on a journey of self-discovery and I landed into a vision of creating this site.

I wish you all the best on your journey Vicki,

Shrinklady

Emerald (AU)

just wondering could you explain the difference between frequent moderate to severe dissociation and dissociative disorder?

Emerald

Hi Emerald, thanks for posting these questions. They deserve to be answered with more depth than I could give them in a written response.

Down the road I hope to hold a teleseminar to answer questions such as these. I'll let you know when it happens in the MyShrink UpDates however, it will undoubtedly be some months yet.

Shrinklady

Antoni

"I am grateful to Dr. Lynne Zettl and Ed Josephs' clinical demonstratioins of how dissociation works and their descriptions of how it impacts the nervous system. Their clinical work clearly demonstrates that we need to address this issue in the literature and in our clinical trials."

Could you elaborate on how dissociation (DID especially) effects the nervous system? Can you explain how somatics would help?

Antoni

Shrinklady

Hi Dude, thanks for your comment. Sorry, I didn't mean to be offensive. I was thinking of 'parts of ourselves'. I'm not an expert in this area but I understand that there is no one 'self' in the brain. We all have many selves. And, some of us are more integrated than others in this regards. It sounds like you have some knowledge of this area.

Dude

Just to let you know, I find the term 'parts' insulting! - dude, of of the 'parts'

Shrinklady

Hey there Dude, another interesting question. Glad to hear you know about grounding. It's my opinion that all parts need to benefit from grounding. The more grounded anyone is or any parts are, the better we can deal with anxiety and therefore, make better decisions for ourselves.

Dude

Where does DID/MPD fit into this scheme? Do you still feel it is a situation in which the main person needs to become grounded?