What Is Dissociation?
Have you ever driven home from work and did not remember the journey? Or perhaps you’ve noticed yourself staring off into space only to see that minutes have gone by without your awareness?
These experiences along with others can describe a process of dissociation. What exactly is dissociation and how does it manifest itself in our daily lives?
What is dissociation?
Dissociation is a sense of being disconnected from yourself, your body, your surroundings, or reality as a whole.
While dissociative disorders are filed under mental health conditions in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), dissociation like many other things our minds and bodies experience exists on a spectrum.
On the lower end of the spectrum of dissociation we have things like daydreaming, fantasizing, staring off into space and “spacing out”. On the higher end we have folks who struggle to feel present to reality, losing their identity, cognition, memory and self-awareness in the process.
One key thing to know about dissociation is that this process that occurs in the brain is a brilliant defense mechanism that in many cases of trauma helps us survive.
Imagine a person who is in a car crash. They may later describe they felt as though they were floating above the scene, watching themselves, not really there. They were dissociating because their brain was doing what it does best - protecting them from complete and utter sensory, mental and emotional overwhelm. In the moment of terror and literal life threat their brain came to their rescue and took charge by letting them disconnect from reality.
In the case of complex trauma this may look like having a hard time recalling your childhood or its events. Feeling as though there is a big blank space where memories should be, or that to retrieve details from the past feels like wading through a sea of cotton balls. This process is sometimes also called dissociative amnesia.
What does dissociation feel like?
Dissociation and what it feels like varies from person to person based on many factors, particularly depending on the severity of their dissociative symptoms. However some common things that may describe dissociation are:
Losing track of time
Feeling “out of body”, like you are not really here
“Blanking” or not being able to focus or recall what was just happening/what you wanted to say
Feeling like there is a glass wall/film/barrier between you and the world around you
Not being aware of bodily sensations, e.g. not recognizing you are cold
Memory gaps
Difficulty recalling certain places, events, conversations or people
Feeling disconnected from your emotions
Feeling numb or frozen
Moving through tasks in a robotic fashion, being on autopilot
Why do we dissociate?
It’s important to highlight that dissociation is a normal process in the human brain. It is only when the symptoms become severe and begin to actively interfere in a person’s life that dissociation may become problematic.
I see dissociation as a helpful process to assist our brain in offloading the tasks that don’t require active presence. Hence the drive from work being autopiloted - your brain knows this is a routine process you don’t always need to be actively present to, so it offloads this task.
Same with the experience of “spacing out”: rather than seeing it as a negative thing, we can look at it as the brain’s way to create a pause and some room for the absence of thinking, rationalizing, analyzing and processing.
Recognizing dissociation & returning to the body
When people dissociate they tend to go still. There is a lack of movement in the body. The face becomes flat and emotionless. There is an emptiness in the person’s eyes, a sense they are not mentally here. Speech may become slow, sentences short. You may notice asking the same question several times, or reading the same line in the book over and over again.
In order to return to ourselves after dissociation, we need to come back to our body. This can be accomplished through:
Reminding the body of where it is physically located by engaging the sense of weight and presence. For example: wiggling your toes, feeling the ground below your feet, feeling the chair you are sitting on, feeling the body make contact with outside surfaces.
Allowing the body to perceive and experience reality: identify and name objects in the room around you, count all the orange things, describe in detail one item near you.
Engage the senses: name 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell and 1 thing you can taste.
Do any other grounding exercises you already know or the ones in this blog post here.
Remember to be kind to yourself and others when you notice signs of dissociation. It’s a natural process in the brain, and in many cases of trauma dissociation is a gift that helped someone survive.
Begin to pay attention to what your own symptoms look like and what are the circumstances when you notice yourself drifting off - environmental and relational clues can lead you to identify your own triggers.
And then, if it’s safe, gently begin bringing yourself back to your body by reminding it of safety, care and presence that you can now provide for yourself.