Symptoms and causes of Dissociation.
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Dissociation is a mental process in which a person will disconnect from their thoughts, feelings, memories, or sense of identity. Importantly, however, everyone’s experience with dissociation is unique.
Short-term dissociation is a common occurrence in anyone. For example, when someone drives a familiar route and then has no memory of the journey, or when someone gets absorbed into a film, game, or book and loses their awareness of their surroundings, including the passing of time. Additionally, during a period of fatigue or stress, short-term dissociation may occur. It is vital to understand that dissociation is a natural response to a traumatic experience. Due to the fact, that we may not always be able to physically leave harmful situations, the brain will detach itself from the moment to protect us from distress.
Long-term dissociation occurs when the person continues to dissociate after the traumatic event has ended. This can happen if the person does not fully process the experience during previous dissociation episodes. This becomes problematic when dissociation happens frequently and in situations where it is unhelpful, such as affecting concentration, learning, and relationships. If a person experiences trauma as a child, dissociation may be the only coping mechanism they can learn to deal with trauma. This is because as a child a person's brain and personality are still developing, making the ability to learn other coping mechanisms difficult. In the case of childhood trauma, dissociation can be seen as an adaptive response because dissociation helps reduce the overwhelming stress caused by trauma. However, if dissociation persists when the danger is no longer present, it becomes a maladaptive response. In these cases, an adult will automatically respond by disconnecting themselves from the situation, without taking the time to determine if the perceived threat is a real danger to them.
What are the types of dissociation?
Dissociative Fugue is where a person may travel a long distance and then when they become alert they are disorientated as to where they are or how they got there. A person may also forget details about themselves during this time.
Dissociative amnesia is a type of amnesia that differs from fugue and is not explained by normal forgetfulness. In the case of dissociative amnesia, a person will forget important life events. Possibly including forgetting abuse or incidents or periods of time. These periods can range from minutes to years. As a result, the person will have gaps in their life, which causes them to be unable to remember information about themselves, and their life or produce a cohesive narrative. Moreover, it may manifest as a person finding objects they forgot they owned or struggling to perform once-easy tasks.
Derealisation is a type of dissociation in which a person experiences a sense of detachment from their surroundings. This can present as a feeling of the world being foggy and lifeless, this may also feel as if the person is viewing the world through a veil of a plane of glass, creating a disconnect between the person and the world. Furthermore, it may exhibit to the individual as the feeling they are watching a movie, playing a video game, or living in a dream. This altered perception can affect the way objects appear, causing objects to change in size, shape, or colour.
Depersonalisation is referred to as an “out-of-body experience”. In this state, a person may feel as though they are watching themselves from the outside or floating away. The boundaries between the person and others may become blurred, making it difficult for them to distinguish themselves from those around them. In addition, they may feel disconnected from their emotions as if they are only observing them. A person may even feel disconnected from their own body, to the point of alienation from their body where they do not recognise their face or body in a mirror.
Identity confusion is where a person may find it difficult to define the type of person they are. They may feel their beliefs, opinions, thoughts, and tastes change a lot.
Identity alteration may make a person feel as if they are losing control to “someone else”, they experience different parts of their identity at different times and switch between parts of their personality. They may act like different people, including children. They may use different voices, names ranges of language, tones, or facial expressions. A person may also experience distortions in time, place, and current situation. The person may be able to confirm the experience of identity alteration, but often the part of the self that presents for therapy is not aware of the existence of dissociated self-states. If identity alteration is suspected, it may be confirmed by observation of amnesia for behavior and distinct changes in affect, speech patterns, demeanor and body language, and relationship to the therapist.
Each type of dissociation has its respective dissociative disorder. However, if you have Dissociative Identity Disorder you experience all types of dissociation. Due to this fact, the diagnosis of DID takes precedence over any other dissociative disorder diagnosis, and you will not receive a diagnosis of both DID and another dissociative disorder.
What causes dissociation?
Experts believe trauma is the underlying cause of dissociation. The theory as to why this occurs is if you are young or are in a situation where you cannot enact the fight or flight instinctive response your body will react passively. Often linked to dissociation, the freeze response is a passive reaction to danger, in which your body becomes immobile. The fawn response is another form of passive response, this is where the person will try to please or win over the source of the threat to prevent harm.
Dissociating during a traumatic event serves as a way to separate parts of the experience so they can be dealt with separately. This may cause a person to have their actions, feelings, thoughts, sensations, perceptions, and memories feel separated. Amnesia is caused when these traumatic memories are stored in areas that cannot be accessed day to day. Alternatively, a person may remember what happened but not remember or feel the emotions or sensations that were part of the experience.
In DID, a person may feel as if different memories or sensations happened to different people, which is often referred to as having different identity states. This coping mechanism helps the brain deal with overwhelming experiences during childhood, but it can make developing a clear and unified identity as an adult challenging.
International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation.
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