Difference Between Being Triggered And Dissociating?

[UnKnown-Self]

I think dissociation is on a continuum so it has many different levels. I am not always aware when I'm dissociating. Sometimes it's a foggy inability to concentrate. Other times it's experienced by being aware of my actions and following through in spite of wanting to do it differently. Good examples are buying things I don't need and eating when I'm not hungry.
If I am highly stressed about something I can become numb to the stress and avoid the situation until forced to deal with it. It's more than ignoring it, for me it ceases to exist. I had to move from the last apartment I shard with my spouse before he passed. Even with several months to pack a big bulk of the things didn't get packed until time constraints forced it. I simply lived out of the clothes in my dresser and never ventured near the closets where my husbands things were. Some days I would just wander from room to room forgetting each time my purpose for going there. There is an absence of focus and awareness.

Triggers produce feelings and the need to take action. That action might be dissociation but it could also be an unexplained anger response, the need to get away or becoming overly defensive.

Practicing CBT and DBT skills help awareness for both. There are probably articles here explaining them. If not a quick Google search will turn up information.

 

[Flower Power]

I know for me it is important to realize that "dissociation" means to disconnect from whatever I am associating with at the moment that I am unable to handle. The degree or depth of distancing of my awareness from myself and surroundings is directly related to my conscious or unconscious realization of "threat". The fear of more trauma, abuse or abandonment will trigger the appropriate depth that I need to disappear. This can become totally habitual with prolonged abuse. It is the training we have received at the hand of our abusers and it is appropriate for the abuse. Later when we are older, or safe we are able to begin to reawaken to the "allowance" of being human, having feelings, and to our own vulnerability, which is a definite awakening process. It is easy to create a lot of mental thought in trying to figure it all out, label it appropriately, which differs greatly depending on who you are reading etc. And can leave the best of us confused. What is important is that Abusers count on the labeling of their victims that there is something wrong with their abusees that justifies their abuse of them. If I was asked once, I was asked a million times by my abusive mother, "What the hell is wrong with you?." What was wrong was that she couldn't tolerate the scars mentally and emotionally that she was having to deal with in response to her abuse." A voiceless, emotionless, dissociated victim that knew they dam well better disappear because all hell was getting ready to break loose and I had only one defense, dissociation. It was all I had and it is all many of us had as any kind of defense system. So be grateful, It worked. It was perfect and now we can choose to change it. Acknowledge the numbness when it happens. Look and see what is going on around you that has triggered your pulling away? Is it truly necessary? Is the threat real in the hear and now? Or did something in the now trigger a memory from the past that awakened the old habitual response? Breathe into it bring yourself back, gently. Be your own soothing, compassionate, nurturing protector. Comfort that frightened child part of you. I would visualize taking my child self into my arms and gently holding her and then putting her behind me and as an adult tell her, "I got this." It is when we don't have a developed adult self that our wounded children continue to be out front taking the hits from the world and are so easily triggered.

 

[tontoe]

I think dissociation is on a continuum so it has many different levels. I am not always aware when I'm dissociating. Sometimes it's a foggy inability to concentrate. Other times it's experienced by being aware of my actions and following through in spite of wanting to do it differently.

Yes, that resonates for me, and so does the following, very strongly -

What is important is that Abusers count on the labeling of their victims that there is something wrong with their abusees that justifies their abuse of them.

...and I found the following really touched something for me - a message of hope

So be grateful, It worked. It was perfect and now we can choose to change it. Acknowledge the numbness when it happens. Look and see what is going on around you that has triggered your pulling away? Is it truly necessary? Is the threat real in the hear and now? Or did something in the now trigger a memory from the past that awakened the old habitual response? Breathe into it bring yourself back, gently. Be your own soothing, compassionate, nurturing protector. Comfort that frightened child part of you.

...thank you @Alice.in.Wonderland

 

[PreciousChild]

Awesome. Thank you all so much for your thoughtful replies. I've been really busy with work, with the holidays, and general stress. I want to reply when I have more time and have had a chance to reflect more. In the meantime, I can tell you that this is all very helpful. Your insights as sufferers tell me a lot more than even my T can offer.

Thanks and post again soon.

 

[PreciousChild]

Thank you again. I re-read these posts, and they have a lot of deep meaning. Ghotiff, if you're still following this thread, I just want to say that I want to think more about what you said in your post:

I'm certainly happy to try.

I still can't quite articulate my reaction, but it's giving me a lot to think about. The more archaic the pain, the deeper it goes. Perhaps I've reached some layers of that, but that there might be older parts/experiences that is there that I have not tapped into.

Thanks, Alice in Wonderland. You make some really good points. To address this quote:

Triggers produce feelings and the need to take action. That action might be dissociation but it could also be an unexplained anger response, the need to get away or becoming overly defensive.

My issue is that my experience of nothingness did not have this defensive, angry, or need to take action component at all. It was the complete absence of any of these things that made me ask about it.

This is good:

The fear of more trauma, abuse or abandonment will trigger the appropriate depth that I need to disappear.

Yes, that helps. It seems to me that I have different levels of dissociation appropriate to the depth I need to disappear.

My latest update is that I am convinced now that my experience in which I felt absolutely nothing at all - no anxiety or any underlying emotion - was a kind of dissociation. I felt completely lucid and "normal". But the moment came quickly after a quite distressing moment in which I was very emotional about my parents not having loved me. At the thought of 'I must have blamed myself and grew to feel unloveable'. all feeling left me instantaneously to the extent that I would not have even noticed if it wasn't for the fact that just a moment ago, I was feverishly distressed. I never noticed this kind of thing before. Usually, what I notice is when I'm triggered, I go back to the time my family abandoned me at home at around 3 or 4 years old all night and into the next day. My crime was chewing my food rudely. I have no idea what the hell my dad was thinking. Anyway, to a toddler, a family leaving you alone without a word feels like death. You can't see how you'll live another day. I was shocked, frightened, and filled with the deepest pain I've ever known. If I displease someone, I start to scrutinize something I've done that could have caused it, and I can always find something. I experience the same horror, and literally my mind goes on high alert and my eyes almost rolls towards the back of my head. I thought that at least I knew when I was experiencing trauma and dissociation. But now it seems there might be a level even more deep and devious where a part of myself is hiding such that I don't even seem to feel anything at all. Yet, I do think this is the case.

I'm noticing glimpses of it now - a fleeting feeling here and there. And tonight, I was watching a sci fi movie in which they were attacked by aliens that made you forget stuff. As I was watching one scene when they were erasing memories, I felt this subtle but distinct stirring in my chest. I think it's a calling.