Dissociation…. what’s that then?

As a newly qualified psychologist over 10 years ago, I hadn’t really heard about dissociation. But as I started working with complex, enduring mental health….with people who had experienced a lot of trauma and adversity…I found that learning about dissociation made such a lot of sense. Because I heard about it and saw it in sessions so often. And what it made me realise the most is

Humans. Are. Incredible.

Because dissociation is a natural human reflex that we all have the capacity for. At its very core, it is about survival. It’s about allowing us to keep on going. Particularly when we are feeling stressed, or overwhelmed, or faced with intolerable situations. It allows us to keep putting one foot in front of the other. And so I have been learning about this amazing coping strategy over the past 10 years, and I’m sure I will continue learning about it for the next 10 years (and beyond). Because it’s complex. And while it is amazing, it also has unintended consequences that can make life very difficult.

So dissociation….what’s that then?

For me, it makes sense to think of dissociation as a continuum. We all dissociate, to some degree or other. At the mild end, most of us who drive can relate to heading home on a journey and drifting into our own thoughts, only to blink and realise we are at a set of traffic lights, without really noticing how we got there. But we got there, and we did so safely. Whilst at the other end of the continuum, when dissociation has been needed from a very young age in order to survive unbearable trauma and abuse, it can mean that we have large gaps in our memory, have “unusual experiences” such as voices and visions, or that our very sense of self may have become dissociated into different “parts”, meaning we experience life as a plural – not “me” but “us”.  

And everything on that continuum inbetween.

The technical words are depersonalisation; derealisation; dissociative amnesia; identity confusion; identity alteration.

In essence, dissociation is about disconnection.

Disconnection from the world around us.

Disconnection from events that are too threatening.

Disconnection from ourselves and emotions or memories or sensations or internal conflicts that are just too much.

And it does its job beautifully.

For those of us who have suffered the loss of someone we love, we are likely to be able to relate to a sense of numbness at times. Shock is part of grief, and with this can come moments or periods of feeling nothing – and this is likely to be emotional dissociation kicking in. Giving us brief reprieve from the painfulness of the loss we have suffered. Usually that numbness doesn’t last long, but often if we have had experiences growing up where emotions are seen as “bad”, or “dangerous”, or something that we get punished for, we may learn that to be disconnected from our feelings is helpful. And it is, in many ways. We can continue with everyday life unhindered by tricky emotions. But it means that we may not feel much of anything. You can’t feel the good, without also feeling the bad. And often people describe depression as an absence of feeling anything, as if we’re no longer human.

So we are designed to feel.

We are designed as human beings to be connected with others, with the world around us, with ourselves. And when this is difficult, it feels as if something is wrong. And so often in noticing dissociation, we can bring compassion to why it has been needed. How it has helped us get by, to survive. And often the work in therapy starts with noticing, because in noticing we can give ourselves choices. We can choose to learn ways to be present in our bodies, to learn about emotions, to stay grounded when we need to, to know what can trigger us. Dissociation may have been the only thing we had back then to cope.

But now is different.

Now you have choices, and can learn new ways to help it feel safe enough to feel. To help it feel safe enough to remember (if you want to). To help it feel safe enough to feel safe. To find ways to stay within your “Window of Tolerance”, so that you aren’t triggered as easily or as quickly. And you have other skills to rely on, instead of just dissociation.

 Because when we have ways to feel safe, when we have ways to be connected with ourselves and the world and others – then we have the potential to feel at our best.