What is dissociation? We think we know don’t we, have an idea.
Isn’t it where you go a bit blank when someone is talking to you or
zoning out when driving? Well yes it is all that but there is a huge
scale from one to ten when it comes to what it means for each
individual and how extreme or mild it is.
What you can say is
that dissociation is caused by traumatic events. In the case of
trauma caused by
abuse if done in childhood, even pre-verbal, there
is a dissociation from the abuse in order to survive. Many survivors
encounter spending most of their childhood out of their body and on
the ceiling. For some they split and blank out going into a state of
almost euphoria, leaving the body as a child or an adult because
being in it is too painful.
Then there is the
leaving of the mind and the perceived self where one abandons oneself
altogether. This state of splitting is highly addictive and I myself
had to make a strong pact with myself to stop doing it and to stay
present at all times because I knew that in that state I was
vulnerable. I also did not want to abandon myself as my own parents
had done. I thought of zoning out and splitting as leaving a
vulnerable child on their own and it soon stopped me.
Unfortunately in
severe cases of dissociation films have been made that demonised
survivors who literally become other personalities within the same
body. Forgetting time and what one was doing, dressing, speaking,
acting differently with the core self left behind. They used to call
it multiple personality disorder. There are so many ways one can
abandon the self, some are extreme some not.
This splitting can
also happen when you are abused as an adult. Where you adopt a
personality to fit into the needs and desires of the abuser. Even
when you leave your abuser the personalty can still remain and it is
often the reason why people end up with similar abusers to the one
they left. Some forget who they are and without the abuser who held
up that faux personality it becomes hard to function.
This is a huge topic to cover and I would recommend studying it to help yourself. For example one could also have feelings of unreality and a detachment from self others and one's surroundings. This is called derealisation or depersoanlization. Both of which I have experienced.
So let me tell you
what happened to me because my own experience is all I have other
than reading and researching the subject. It is not an easy thing to
talk about as in describing it one is already judged as insane or mad
and I can tell you I am neither. But make of it what you want because
it does not change my experience nor what happened to me. I only
re-tell it so that others who are suffering too can understand this
awful yet sometimes amazingly creative legacy of abuse.
I had a terrible
childhood, everything about it was appalling from where we lived,
what we ate and how my parents and family neglected me. I was
sexually abused all my childhood but only when I reached adult life
did the extent of it all come flooding back. During flashbacks to my
childhood I wrote in dialogue to my inner child only to discover that
there was more than one. In fact there were 36 of them! all with
distinct names and personalities. I was not afraid of this, well OK
maybe some of them were a bit scary, because I trusted the process. I
knew my mind was releasing old things that would help me to grow and
heal and so I allowed it.
I was not in therapy
when this happened it was an instinctive thing to do. I worked hard
for four solid years talking to these parts on my own and I went back
and rescued them from the past and integrated them. I knew they were
part of me, pieces stuck back in time that had been hurt so much they
could not cope. All these parts had saved me from going completely
mad, and knowing that, I loved them all back to life.
Eventually it all
stopped and I got on with my life. I so missed talking to them all.
But it changed me profoundly and also my whole life after. I was not
the same person. My life as I knew it slowly fell apart because it
did not work to begin with.
I thought it had
ended and that I was whole again but as time passed yet other traumas
happened to me and I became aware that when I was triggered, or
became down, that my persona, body, speech, thinking etc were
changed. It was as if I were in that moment of misery becoming
another person. I don’t mean that I lose time because I am much too
aware of myself due to decades of meditation, but rather that I
dissociate due to the stress and had not been aware of it. I see it
now and it has made me much more compassionate towards myself and
others who experience this.
I have a very strong
core self due to previous work on myself and so can observe it
happening. But I know that many people are not even slightly aware
that this is happening to them. The reason that I am writing this is
to bring awareness to this phenomena which when known can actually
help you in your life. The main thing is to not be scared of
yourself. Not think you are mad. You are in fact amazing because your
mind is so incredible that it can do these things to protect you. The
problem comes when you are not aware of it. In those times you can
act out as if you were indeed another person and be quite
inappropriate.
To work with it you
have to first know it is happening. You can journal or actually
dialogue with this part of you. Imagining you were talking to a
wounded child. Being kind to this part of you rather than angry.
After all if you love every part of you you will not reject that in
others or project it onto others.
I have successfully worked on myself with all these factors and have lived and survived despite it all. I know how to mould my life around it and to take time out if I need to. It is something I will always live with but it does not ruin my life totally because I know that my inner core is strong enough to with stand everything. I continue to this day working on myself and that is what I call healing. Knowing that my life's path is just that, a path of self knowledge and growing, always.
If you want to read
more about my story or how I worked with dissociation you can read it
in my books which are available worldwide from Amazon.
Goodreads Author Page
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