Where Was I When.... A Story of Dissociation

I have been running the Facebook page for my husband and I’s private therapy practice in our hometown.  It was pretty easy at first because I could relate to his clientele in many ways.  After awhile, I realized I needed to get a little deeper with the articles and a little wider with the diagnoses I portrayed.  I also feel this had some to do with the need to dig deeper into my own healing process and understand some things I still hadn't yet explored.  I had already posted a lot on the topics of accepting self growth, acknowledging the need for help, and stigma around mental health.  I had shared plenty about depression and anxiety, the differences between anxiety and stress, PTSD and cPTSD.  All of the topics that are becoming more "socially acceptable", more talked about, I covered. I wanted to find a way to go a little deeper.  While digging, I began to recognize and understand a few new things about myself, but one reoccurring term caught my attention… dissociation.

Dissociation is a mental health term which has begun to show more frequently on social media platforms.  Seen mostly in screenshot pictures of twitter posts, this word is often used very generally because many can relate.  Everyone has experienced the “zoning out” which defines dissociation only to be brought back to reality by someone saying, "Hey! Snap out of it!"  This experience, however, is not the only form dissociation can take.  Those few seconds or minutes you were “zoned out" or "daydreaming" are common.   People who use this as a coping skill for trauma tend to stay in this state (or go in and out of it) for hours, days, weeks, or even years at a time.  They don't have memories of those times because their attention was not active in the moment.  They checked out, escaping the reality of the life going on around them.  These people can be living normal lives, carrying on without you noticing a thing, and not remember a single moment of it. It is as if they are functioning on autopilot.

Dissociation usually starts in our youth.  It's a learned coping skill to protect yourself from uncomfortable moments, but can really disrupt the life of an adult.  I started evaluating myself, and I know I started dissociating at a very young age, but I think (after therapy today) I can pinpoint when it started to really effect my outside life.  In first grade, my parents divorced for the second and last time after my father’s two year recovery from alcoholism and mental illness relapsed back into domestic violence and substance abuse. The sexual abuse had already begun. I also experienced the death and loss of a disabled child of a close family friend. I know there was some dissociation taking place during those moments, for sure. I can barely remember anything before or during this time in my life. In second grade, my Uncle Dave, my VERY best friend, my protector, my favorite person in the whole WIDE world was killed tragically in a motorcycle accident.  My grades slipped, my teacher sent home notes that said I was "a good kid, but daydreamed a lot".  I remember my mom telling me this when she read my report card.  I remember us having a discussion about it. I don't remember the whole discussion, but I know I wasn't in trouble. She was just inquiring what was going on. But I do remember thinking, "Daydreaming? Do I daydream?"  I recall not remembering daydreaming.  It's because I wasn't daydreaming. I dissociated all the time. It started with books. I'm a book nerd to this day. I've been obsessed with books since I was very little, but more than obsessed. I would lose myself in them. I would get lost in their world to escape my own. It kept my mind busy.

My dissociation began causing problems in my relationships with family. Can you imagine how irritating it is to have a full conversation with someone that can't hear you because they are somewhere else entirely in their own mind? My family members can tell you how frustrating it can be.  Zoning out is an act of dissociation that we can all relate to, but when you take it to the level that it starts to cause family members to be angry with you, or it effects your school, people begin to take notice. They often take it personally. I wasnt trying to escape connection with the people around me. I was simply attempting to escape my feelings caused by my trauma.

 There are other types of dissociation, though.  For example, I would keep silly things like pencils and erasers, not from stores but people. I beat myself up about it later, not understanding why I did it or even if or how I did it. I was too embarrassed or afraid someone wouldn't believe me. I did eventually stop doing this unconscious behavior in about 4th grade. In 5th and 6th grade though, I started lying. I would make up people I knew, or places I had been, or experiences I had.  Sometimes this came from books, TV shows, or other peoples' stories. I would pretend to be someone else. My mom finally got through to me that lying was not healthy for me or my future. The thing is....I couldn't help myself, I didn't think about the things I said, I just said them. It did get better though after my mom had the talk with me, and finally, I stopped lying right before I got into high school. The compulsive lying stopped, but it turned into other ways of dissociating.

I began to just say things, do things, react.  I literally just reacted to everything around me. I didn't think of what I was going to do or the consequences, I just did it. I clung to friends and became who they were. Towards the end of high school, I started to realize the kids who were more mature, the ones who seemed to have boundaries and knew how to just be themselves. I watched them, envied them. I didn't have my own opinions or values. I knew it, but I didn't know how to develop these traits.  It was really confusing for me.  I did try to open up to people; Sometimes family members, sometimes friends, but it never worked out.  I could never properly express myself to my family. It was too sensitive of a topic. I was afraid to upset or disappoint them. I didn’t trust other adults. With my friends, I would talk about my traumas in such a disconnected way, even laughing about it sometimes, that I am sure they had a hard time knowing how to take it. 

Having a mixture of mental disorders as a teenager leaves you so open and vulnerable while being so closed off and disconnected at the same time.  I was lucky to have a very positive, non-judgmental, happy, and kind best friend for most of my high school years, but I know even she got fed up with my issues often.  She never loved me less for it, and I will always love her for that.  Looking back on my high school years brings me no joy. I had no direction. I had no real motivation.  I had no real future.  I just hopped from one thing to another hoping something would stick.  I remember hating it.  I remember knowing in the back of my mind that I was better, I could do better, I could be better.  I remember praying to God to help me know how to just. be. BETTER! 

 These things....these things that I did, which felt so NOT ME....so disconnected from who I am, finally make sense to me! I WAS disconnected. I was literally outside myself in a dream-like state. I was reactions only.  I have carried around so much guilt and shame for some of these things for years, but I had no idea how to put into words what I was going through at the time.  I was dissociating in so many different ways, all the time, from about 2nd grade until I was well into my 20s.  Its sad because I've never been me.  There never was a me. I have always kept me hidden under fake, hidden under escape, hidden behind a mask of my version of everyone else. 

I  still dissociate.  It's hard not to.  There is still a little girl inside me who is afraid of the world. Why wouldn't she be?  She doesn't deserve anymore darkness, though. Part of my biggest fear is that I will put this out there; I will become who I know God is calling me to be, to speak for those who don't know how to speak for themselves, to help the future generations to do and be better.....I fear I'll do all this and fail to be able to handle judgment and the pressure of the people who don't understand.  This is a new battlefield.  I am terrified I will fail to be strong enough to withstand the fight.  I fear it in my success, in my parenting, in my marriage, in my family.  So I dissociate.  I read my books.  I do the routine, mundane things on autopilot while not being there at all.  It's easier.  It's simpler.  But it's not okay. That is not the standard I have set for myself. It is not who God made me to be. For the last 12 years, the last 6 of those years in therapy, I have been working hard to change my thought patterns, to recognize my weaknesses and my strengths, to get outside my comfort zone and become who I am created to be despite my fears. 

Now that I am more educated about my dissociation, I will continue to improve.  My track record shows well back into my elementary ages that becoming aware of what I am doing is the first step to stopping it.  I was given darkness from people I loved without my consent. I definitely do not want to spread that darkness to others.  I want to snuff out the darkness with light while showing others how to do the same, and no matter how hard that journey is for me, I will make it.