Why Dissociate?

[Deleted member 20978]

I've been reading about dissociation, and realizing I have experienced it more than I thought. I am understanding what it feels like and what sorts of things can trigger it, but I haven't come across any threads explaining why it happens. That is, how is it an adaptive response? I have only read as much elsewhere as it "protects" the person, but I don't think I understand this. I associate the phenomenon with things that do more harm than good, or at best, causing one to freeze when there is real danger. Can't see why that is useful, so wondering what the theory is about why this happens.

I also am wondering about tools to prevent it from happening. I read another post (can't remember where) of someone saying after multiple rounds of exposure, she was able to choose not to dissociate when triggered. Since I've only ever had this symptom at more extreme periods of instability, it isn't something I've had to really contend with often enough to know how to cope with it when it does happen.

 

[Chava]

My understanding is that it's a numbing response created by the autonomic nervous system. Under high stress, the sympathetic nervous system goes into over drive (adrenaline surges, heart rate increases, senses become more acute)...allows for fight or flight. Once the stress is over, the parasympathetic nervous system helps us come back to calm. In extreme stress with no outlet, like being trapped, the parasympathetic nervous system can actually attempt to override the sympathetic nervous system...both are activated simultaneously, like having one foot on the gas pedal and one foot on the breaks. This creates the "freeze" response. It is adaptive...and yet maladaptive if it becomes a chronic pattern. But the freeze response is really there to enable survival. Dissociation is supposedly connected to the freeze response.

A couple examples would be the baby bunny who freezes to not be noticed. It is actually highly alert...it's sympathetic nervous system is in high gear and it will dart the second it feels it can or needs to. It is tuning out almost all info except for what it is perceiving as threat. A deeper level freeze would be if the bunny were picked up by a dog. It would likely go limp, even before dying. At this stage, the little nervous system understands it is fully trapped and the body is flooded with numbing chemicals to prevent the animal from painful death.

I wish I could cite all this but I've pieced it together from so much reading in different places. But it helps me understand dissociation. I numb to various degrees. In therapy sometimes things get blurry and I'm staring without seeing, but my hearing becomes very acute. My therapist can help me get out of this. Eventually I can respond to her. Only a couple times have I gone limp and nearly passed out and she quickly caught that too (this has also happened at the clinic and the nurse and doctor quickly caught it as well and grounded me). Basically the parasympathetic nervous system is trying to get us down from our arousal by numbing us out. But it's not the ideal, where "normal" people would come into nervous system balance. Either both ends of the nervous system are over-firing simultaneously or the parasympathetic has gone too far and numbs us out as if we are trapped and ready to die.

For grounding, touch helps me in therapy...or some kind of compression if on my own (wrapping up tight in a blanket or wrapping a limb or two in athletic tape). Sound also helps me a lot...helps keep me present. Different things work for different people, but generally involving the senses and reorienting to the present here-and-now helps. If I can get beyond the really immobilized stage, going for a walk further helps me snap out of it.

 

[Friday]

It's super useful in an emergency.

Disassociation exists on a spectrum. Using my own spectrum:

- The rest of the world falls away & only the single part right there that you have to deal with is present. No pain, no hunger, no fear, no tiredness, no sense of time... Only this moment... And whatever pieces your brain feels are important to focus on. In an actual emergency, where there are things to focus on? Like moving the hell out of the way? (First here, then there, never moved so fast in your life kind of thing). Or the very immediate task at hand (the next hand grip, toe hold, hand grip, toe hold... Until you've scaled the cliff). Or running toward/away for days (the forest fire/ enemies/ flood waters/ whatever it is that doesn't allow for hunger/sleep/etc. normal course of a day stuff to supersede hauling ass). Or in dealing with grief or other emotions would simply be unable to (haul ass, move out of the way of the bear, etc.). Or, or, or. There are hundreds of examples which would make people who could set aside the worries of the world (physical, emotional, "noise") aside survive, while those who are stuck in the regimented version of reality, simply couldn't make it. Or -having worked in situations where I'm constantly dragging whining ass complainers along by their damn collars, or beating them up until they're more afraid of me than stopping/continuing -as the case may be- not without (sometimes literally) having others who can carry them.

In this version of disassociation?
Actual emergency = Clarity.
No emergency = Fog.
(Nothing for my brain to latch onto; world fades ...but but but...).

***
There are other versions of disassociating, but talking about it tends to make me start zoning out. So just gonna share this link:

((Aargh. Can't find it. Used to be under articles in the Vault? I had it bookmarked under Disassociation Explained, I think, but those keywords aren't pulling it up :meh: Vexing. Anyone got it?))

 

[Deleted member 20978]

@Chava thanks that helps some. The part about sympathetic and parasympathetic wrestling each other makes sense given what I've experienced recently. I've had sudden numbing out, much as I've seen described, but plus severe shaking.

@FridayJones link? Beating up whiners? What? I think I understand other stuff you're sharing. So the adaptive aspect is not trying to process what there's no winning hope of processing. Something like that?

 

[lostforgottensoul]

I've been reading about dissociation, and realizing I have experienced it more than I thought. I am under...

Im going to reply without reading responses because I disassociate ALOT. Basically i grew up in a Satanic like cult; i was forced to prostitute, to kill small animals as a sacrifice, have sex w/ large dogs, 45 men had sex w/ me in about 6 hrs and more (worse) things; i made up a world i would go to in my mind, my body was there, my mind wasnt. I would also disassociate into tv shows like at the time 7th Heaven, i put myself in the show, my mind was there, my therapist says to be "loved" in a family. I made up identities and named them, Allie was the prostitute and Brady did the rest; that way my child self could say it was happening to someone else and im 34 and im still very much seperated from it and numbed to it though these "identities" as i still call them dont have names anymore; it is more of my feelings & emotions & pain; pushed down and supressed in the day so i can work and function though anxiety is super high; emotions have to be all supreased so i dont disassociate at work, i cant, i have to fix people's internet and PCs or they will just die lol. At night my "child self" comes out who feels the pain, the lonliness, the fear & terror. Also to calm the anxeity at night as a child i would suck my thumb and i never stopped; though i never do it in front of people, dont flount it like you see on some sites if you google "adult thumb sucking"; its one of the only ways i can calm my terror at night and sleep and my therapist said he'd rather i do that than cut or huff duster (which i havent huffed for a few yrs) i think its my child self coming out at night. I dissaciate to my "safe world" in therapy all the time and my therapist has to same my name to get me to come back to reality. Its a coping mechisim to seperate from your pain and go some place safe and very common w/ sexual abuse victims and the worse the abuse the more common and more often it happens.

 

[Friday]

Link Removed link? Beating up whiners? What?

If we're clearing a village in front of an opposing force? (Instead of meeting the force, and civvies can fend for themselves or not) or flood, fire, etc.... Anyone who is left behind is dead. There are people who will sit down (and either want the entire group to stop & wait for them -no f*cking way-, or say they'll catch up -they never do, you find their bodies later, or they simply go missing and their family never hears from them), because their feet hurt. I don't f*cking care about your feet. Wear them down to bloody stubs sloshing in your shoes for all I care. Get up. Get up now, or I will hurt you until your feet are the last thing you care about. A blister versus your life?

Could list of hundreds of ridiculous things people who don't kick into survival mode worry about in an emergency. Things that stop them. Their priorities are all f*cked up. Their sympathetic nervous systems don't turn on, endorphins don't flood them, whatever. So they die over stupid shit. Like blisters. That offends me at a level I cannot even express. Especially because most people? They're just soft. All they need is a little bit of time to harden up, and they'll be outstanding. More than capable. But emergencies don't leave that wiggle room in the beginning. I hate pointless death. f*cking hate it. Die doing something useful. Not because your feet hurt, or you left the lights on, or you haven't eaten in a few hours, or you're ashamed you aren't modestly dressed, or what the f*ck ever you're whining about. Move! Move now! And keep moving. Cry later.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

If we're clearing a village in front of an opposing force? (Instead of meeting the force, and civvie...

What are you talking about? Im confused about what this has to do w/ dissacissation? If i was in made up world in the forest and it caught fire; id snap out of it faster than boo and id run over you getting out or push you along or hold on to you cuz you can run faster than me lol.

 

[UnKnown-Self]

The way I understand it is dissociation runs along a spectrum from normal, where you are driving home from work and go on auto pilot so before you realize it, you're pulling into your driveway. To not recognizably normal, where due to repeated trauma during developmental years the nervous system or "Parts" take the trauma and the memory away because it is too much for the developing brain to make sense of. The earlier the trauma starts and the longer it continues, the more dissociation becomes the primary coping skill. I purposely said "not recognizably normal" because I personally feel the body is taking care of itself as it was made to in abnormal situations.
The "Parts"?
I can only say what I know from my experience, which is not much since I spent decades in denial. I know they exist and are more than memories of traumas or thoughts or feelings. They have all those things but they also have individual purpose, opinions and personalities. They are Who not what and their voice deserves to heard and their experiences deserve to be validated.

:stop:(Okay Alice, step off the soapbox and no one will get offended) :stop:

There is so little known about the brain and how it works and why it works the ways it does. The understanding of dissociation is in its infancy and anyone whose life is disrupted by it can hopefully embrace it, learn from it and grow as a person because its all part of the Journey.

 

[Deleted member 20978]

@FridayJones thanks for clarifying. Sort of. I'm working on not letting my own triggers mean anyone is trying to trigger me -- the imagery you describe sounds horrifying. I hadn't realized you are active duty (yes?) Speaking of which, I've read some diaries here but steer clear of those who haven't told me to read or otherwise given okay. Would you be okay with my looking at yours? Actually not sure I would at the moment anyway, as I'm trying to find my calmer place. But I would at some point if that's okay with you.

 

[Deleted member 20978]

The earlier the trauma starts and the longer it continues, the more dissociation becomes the primary coping skill.

This has disturbing implications for me. My first trauma, which is still with me, was when I was 6-7, and yet to the best of my knowledge, I've dissociated maybe once every 5 years until recent traumas made this happen more frequently (a few periods where it was happening daily, including last couple weeks). Have I been spending less and less time sleeping? Have I become Tyler Durden? That thought freaks me out. My ex claims she loses a lot of time, which I believe because that explains a lot.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

The way I understand it is dissociation runs along a spectrum from normal, where you are dri...

Ive never driven one place and ended up another without remebering except when i was driving to another state; 36 hrs without stopping, hit Nashville, TN at around 2 am and St Louis, MO around 7am & dont remeber the in between which scared the hell out of me but i think it was lack of sleep as i was up hrs earlier packing so i dont think that counts. I diaassciate at home, in therapy, in scary for me places but never driving except that one time.

 

[UnKnown-Self]

I find this thread fascinating because I think every answer is on point. Everyone experiences it differently. There is no right/wrong way to survive a situation. Just Survive!
Figuring it all out later... the Journey

This has disturbing implications for me.

@Jemini What I posted was only my understanding from my experiences. So please, when you read, take what feels right and leave the rest. I hope you have a good therapist who can help you figure it out.