Dissociation

Dissociation is a common defense/reaction to stressful or traumatic situations. Severe isolated traumas or repeated traumas may result in a person developing a dissociative disorder. A dissociative disorder impairs the normal state of awareness and limits or alters one's sense of identity, memory or consciousness.
There are traumas within one's home, either emotional, physical or sexual abuse or grief we feel after the death of a family member or loved one.

Amnesia is the inability to recall important personal information. Creation of a new, either partial or complete, identity to replace the personal details that are lost in response to the trauma. A person with this disorder will remain alert and oriented, yet be unconnected to the former identity. Dissociative fugue may also be characterized by sudden, unplanned wandering from home or work,
feeling that one is going through the motions of life, or that one's body or self is disconnected or unreal. Mind or body may be perceived as unattached, seen from a distance, existing in a dream, or mechanical. Such experiences are persistent and recurrent, and lead to distress and dysfunction. Chronic depersonalization is commonly accompanied by "derealization," the feeling that features of the environment are illusory. However, severe depersonalization is considered to be present only if the sense of detachment associated with the disorder is recurrent and predominant.

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)- distinct, coherent identities exist within one individual and are able to assume control of the person's behavior and thought.
Hidden nature of the dissociative symptoms and the coexistence of depression, anxiety. depression, mood swings, anxiety, inattention, transient psychotic like states, and may self-medicate with drugs or alcohol, they are frequently diagnosed as having solely bipolar disorder, major depression, anxiety disorders

Self injury and Dissociation:
* Functioning Adult, Juggling everyday life effectively.
* Adult triggered by -Traumatic memories, intrusive thoughts or images, feelings, bodily sensations, senses (smell, sound), and/or outside influences.
* Overwhelming feelings and emotions -"Adult" feeling crushed, and life becoming impossible to juggle effectively.
* Dissociation -"Adult" and "Child" parts splitting, and "Adult" becoming non-functioning. Coffin signifies death of the "Adult".
* Dissociated "child part" in control -"Child" part sitting looking down on the earth below, wondering how to get back down (ground self in the here- and-now/reality), and reconnect with "Adult" part.
* Self-injury (taking action) -With the purpose of terminating frightening "floaty" feelings and reconnecting "Child" and "Adult" (road back to association).
* Functioning Adult back in control -"Adult" able to juggle everyday life again, but with wounds/scars on arm as evidence of self-injury taking place as a way of coping with dissociative episodes.

Children and adolescents who have been abused cope by using a variety of psychological mechanisms. One of the most effective ways people cope with overwhelming trauma is called "dissociation." Dissociation is a complex mental process during which there is a change in a person's consciousness which disturbs the normally connected functions of identity, memory, thoughts, feelings and experiences (daydreaming during a boring lecture is a good example.
Avoid conscious awareness of a traumatic experience while the trauma is occurring, and for an indefinite time following it. For some people, conscious thoughts and feelings, or "memories," about the overwhelming traumatic circumstance may emerge at a later date.

PTSD inevitably experience extremes of recall regarding traumatic circumstances: intrusive memories of the event (hypernesia) or avoidance of thoughts and feelings about the event (amnesia).
Some people say they are "haunted" by memories of traumatic experiences which intrude on and disrupt their daily lives. They often can't get the "pictures" of the trauma out of their heads. They may have recurring nightmares, "flashbacks," or they may even relive the trauma as if it was happening in present time.
It is also common for traumatized people to make deliberate efforts to avoid thoughts or feelings about the traumatic event and to avoid activities or situations which may remind them of the event. In some severe cases, avoidance of reminders of the trauma may cause a person to have "dissociative amnesia," or memory blanks for important aspects of the trauma. The younger the child is at a time of the trauma, the less likely the event will be remembered. Events with pressure towards secrecy are more likely to induce forgetting as a dissociative defense.

Child victims coerced into silence about repetitive, deliberately caused trauma such as incest or extra-familial physical, emotional, or sexual abuse. Another factor that contributes to memory disturbances is the double-bind felt by children trying to make sense of living in abusive relationships on which they depend for nurturance. Doctors or therapists can have an indication of dissociative amnesia if there are gaps or blank periods in a person's autobiographical memories.
Even the conditions at the time of the telling of a memory can change the form of the memory, influencing its content and belief in the truth of the memory in the future.

Scientists believe that traumatic memories are different from ordinary clinical memories in the way they are encoded on the brain. There is evidence that trauma is stored in the part of the brain called the limbic system, which processes emotions and sensations, but not language or speech. For this reason, people who have been traumatized may live with implicit memories of the terror, anger, and sadness generated by the trauma, but with few or no explicit memories to explain the feelings.

Sometimes a current event or experience may trigger long-forgotten memories of earlier trauma. Often when this happens, the person may be "flooded" with implicit sensorimotor memory: he or she may have just the picture, the feeling, the physiological panic aroused by the memory of the traumatic event without the facts that would explain the meaning of the sensations. There is often intense psychological distress when a person is exposed to events which in some way resemble or symbolize the past trauma.

"The body cannot lie." If a person spontaneously sees a flashback and feels terrified, the feeling can be trusted, especially before an implicit memory has been discussed and possibly contaminated.

One must learn to stabilize your current functioning. Memory loss related to traumatic experiences may serve as a protective function, which should be respected. "Digging up" the past will not alleviate your current difficulties.

Dissociation is the disconnection from full awareness of self, time, and/or external circumstances. It is a complex neuropsychological process. Dissociation exists along a continuum from normal everyday experiences to disorders that interfere with everyday functioning. Common examples of normal dissociation are highway hypnosis (a trance-like feeling that develops as the miles go by), "getting lost" in a book or a movie so that one loses a sense of passing time and surroundings, and daydreaming.

Faced with overwhelming abuse, it is not surprising that children would psychologically flee (dissociate) from full awareness of their experience. Dissociation may become a defensive pattern that persists into adulthood and can result in a full-fledged dissociative disorder.
Parts of the self assuming separate identities.
The dissociated memory is alive and active--not forgotten, merely submerged.

PTSD-DDNOS is the most frequent diagnosis in survivors of childhood abuse. These survivors experience the flashbacks and intrusion of trauma memories, sometimes not until years after the childhood abuse, with dissociative experiences of distancing, "trancing out", feeling unreal, the ability to ignore pain, and feeling as if they were looking at the world through a fog.

symptoms include (1) recurrent depression; (2) anxiety, panic, and phobias; (3) anger and rage; (4) low self-esteem, and feeling damaged and/or worthless; (5) shame; (7) self-destructive thoughts and/or behavior; (9) eating disorders: bulimia, anorexia, and compulsive overeating; (10) relationship and intimacy difficulties; (11) sexual dysfunction, including addictions and avoidance; (12) time loss, memory gaps, and a sense of unreality; (13) flashbacks, intrusive thoughts and images of trauma; (15) sleep disturbances: nightmares, insomnia, and sleepwalking; and (16) alternative states of consciousness or personalities.

One must see as dissociation as a creative survival tool, which it is, rather than a disease or stigma. The treatment frame for DID includes developing acceptance and respect for each alter as a part of the internal system. Each alter must be treated equally, whether it presents as a delightful child or an angry persecutor. Mapping of the dissociative personality system is the next step, followed by the work of internal dialogue and cooperation between alters.

The survivor can reclaim self-worth and personal power and rebuild life after so much focus on healing. *The journey is painful, but the rewards are great.*