- Today I'm gonna teach you
about the five most common forms of dissociation
and what we can do to prevent them
from continuing to happen.
Now we're gonna learn about the following five types.
Number one is dissociative amnesia.
Number two, maladaptive daydreaming.
Number three, depersonalization.
Number four, derealization.
And number five, dissociative identity disorder.
If you're watching this video,
you likely know what dissociation is,
but precisely it is when we disconnect from reality a bit
when our nervous system becomes overwhelmed.
First it's important to know that dissociation
is incredibly common and research shows
that half of all adults will experience
at least one dissociative episode in their lifetime.
It's that common because dissociation
is a result of us going into what's called our freeze state.
Now I have an entire video about our stress response,
otherwise known as fight, flight, freeze and fawn
and I'll link that in the description,
but for the sake of this video,
know that we go into freeze
when we feel a threat to our emotional or physical safety.
And when we feel that threat, we can't fight
or run away from it, so we freeze or play dead.
It's like our brain pulls the rip cord from reality
when we're in freeze state as a way of protecting us
from what's actually going on,
which causes us to only partially
experience the upsetting or harmful event.
And because the level of overwhelm or stress
can vary from person to person
and of course, situation to situation,
the levels of dissociation will vary as well.
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Okay, let's get back into the five forms of dissociation.
(soft chiming)
The first form of dissociation I want to talk about
is dissociative amnesia.
And I want to talk about it first
because it's part of almost all dissociative episodes.
And this is when we are unable
to remember important information about our life,
and it's usually the result of a traumatic
or incredibly stressful event.
It can be localized,
meaning that we can't recall events
during a specific period of time.
Like maybe we don't the months surrounding that time
when we were abused, which is honestly the most common,
but it could also be more general,
and we can struggle to remember
much of our life's history.
And generalized amnesia is incredibly rare,
but it can lead to us forgetting about things
that happened in the world during that time,
or even how to do certain basic tasks,
and even who we are.
Dissociative amnesia differs from someone
having a spotty memory or being forgetful
because we're usually unaware,
or at least mostly unaware of our memory loss.
It's like we never knew it happened,
so we don't even know that we don't remember it.
Does that make sense?
Whereas someone who's forgetful
can be frustrated with their inability
to remember that person's name.
Right, it's on the tip of my brain.
Ugh.
Or, you know, maybe we can't remember
the directions to our old home.
It can be super frustrating,
because we know that we used to know it
and we're aware of that fact,
but just can't quite pull it out of our memory.
And it also differs from permanent amnesias
due to brain damage or things like that,
because it always has a potential
to be retrieved through talk therapy
and other mental health treatments.
(soft chiming)
The next form of dissociation I want to talk about
is maladaptive daydreaming.
This isn't something that's listed in the DSM,
and therefore it's often overlooked,
but maladaptive daydreaming
is when we spend a lot of our time every day in a daydream.
And I don't mean that we're just spacing out
or thinking about how being on a beach in Hawaii
would be so nice right now.
This type of daydreaming is more realistic than that,
and it gets in the way of us doing
what we need to do each day.
We put together another life in these daydreams.
We can imagine that we're in our dream home
or our dream relationship and piece it together
in our mind in extreme detail.
We can have entire life storylines going with other people.
And if someone in our real life tries to talk to us
while we're in that daydream,
we can struggle to snap out of it.
I have heard from members of our community
that because of COVID and working from home,
they found themselves staying in these daydreams for days
and even weeks on end.
And while we're in these daydreams,
we can still do simple things in our life
like eating or going to the bathroom,
but we aren't really present or able to think clearly.
We can stumble when we walk
or say something that doesn't make sense in our real life.
And when we do come out of it,
we may not have any memory of what was going on
in our real life during the daydream.
Maladaptive daydreaming can be something
that we used when we were younger
to help us survive an abusive home
or to better deal with bullying,
and it worked at the time.
But as we get older and move out on our own
or are no longer in school, we can struggle to stop.
And when we get stressed out
or have something scary happen to us,
we can quickly return to that daydream
where it just feels safer.
Also if we don't know how to soothe ourselves
so that we feel safe enough to return to real life,
we can find ourselves kind of stuck in a daydream
for an extended period of time,
and it really impairs our ability to function in our life.
(soft chiming)
The next type of dissociation is depersonalization
or derealization disorder,
but I'm going to break it into two parts
because depersonalization is a bit different
from derealization.
Depersonalization is when we experience
a disconnect from our own thoughts, feelings,
sensations, body, or actions.
We can feel numb.
Like we're watching ourselves go through life
and not actually experiencing it.
It can even feel like we aren't in control
of what we say or do.
And because of dissociative amnesia,
we can struggle to remember the times
when we're in this state.
Many of you have shared that when you are depersonalized,
it can feel like you're a robot
or that you're aware of what's going on,
but you don't feel anything in regards to it.
It's like we have emotions, we just don't feel them.
And this disconnect protects us from feeling
those intense emotions that are associated
with the situation or even a memory of a bad experience.
And even though we are disconnected and kind of spaced out,
we're still in touch with reality.
We just lose track of time
and can feel really emotionally and physically numb.
Now in the DSM, they also mention
that people can feel like their head
is filled with cotton
or that our thoughts may not feel like our own.
And obviously, as with any mental illness,
everyone's experience is going to be different.
So feel free to leave your own in the comments down below.
How does it feel for you?
Moving on to derealization,
this is when we are disconnected from our environment,
meaning that we feel detached from the things around us,
and it can feel like we're in a deep fog
or everything around us can feel like it's fake
or kind of like we're on the set of a movie.
I had a patient once describe it
as if he was in a cartoon version of his world
and everything he touched felt fake,
or like it was made out of plastic
and he didn't even recognize anything that was around him.
And many of you have shared that this disconnection
can make everything kind of look black and white
or really blurry.
It can also affect our sensitivity to noise,
making something seem louder or more quiet than usual.
And just like with depersonalization,
this is done to protect us from the perceived threat
to our emotional or physical safety.
And since we don't feel like we can run away
or fight back against the threat,
we go into freeze and disconnect
to save us from having to be present
when the scary or dangerous thing happens.
And yes, this can happen as a result of flashbacks
or trauma triggers in our environment.
It doesn't to be a real threat.
Our nervous system just has to perceive
that there's a threat
or think that there's something out there
that could be threatening.
(soft chiming)
And finally, let's talk about
dissociative identity disorder or DID,
which used to be called multiple personality disorder.
Now this form of dissociation
is characterized by us having two or more
distinct personality states.
And I'm just gonna read you a little bit from the DSM.
Because "This change in our identity is marked,
meaning that there are clear alterations
in our affect or behavior, consciousness,
memory, perception, cognition, and overall functioning.
These changes can be reported by others in our life
or something that we share
with our mental health team ourselves."
And they call these different personalities alters.
Now, when we have DID,
we too can struggle with remembering the times
when we were in another personality state,
because those states are similar
to us being disconnected from self,
or depersonalization, remember?
Many people with DID share
how they feel powerless to stop themselves
from going into another alter,
and once they're in that state,
they don't really have control over
what they say or do either.
Many report that it's uncomfortable
to feel like you don't have control
over what you say and do,
and even worse,
because we may not even remember it later on.
This can take its toll on our relationships
and make it hard for people to know
how to communicate with us effectively.
And these splits of personality
are usually born out of trauma
and done as a way to protect us from the pain
that we're going through,
which is why it's very common for those of us with DID
to have an alter that's a protector.
This personality could be more assertive
or aggressive than we normally could be,
and they stand up for us.
They argue back and can even shout or fight
at the people who get in our way or seek to harm us.
There can also be a childlike version of ourselves
that emerges as an alter,
and this is the softer, maybe even the version of us
that was abused in the past.
And just like all mental illnesses,
everyone's experience is gonna be different,
but because more than 70% of those with DID
have attempted suicide,
it's really important that we get into
how we can better manage
any form of dissociation that we can struggle with.
(soft chiming)
When it comes to dissociation as a whole,
grounding techniques and specific therapeutic practices
can be the most effective ways to manage it.
And using grounding techniques is gonna be
your best go-to way to cope.
Grounding techniques are things that help
bring us back into our bodies and environments.
And one grounding technique that I've used
with many of my patients is called counting colors.
This means (exhales)
we breathe, we take a minute,
we look around our space.
We count the number of things that are blue, brown, red,
and go through as many colors as we can.
Focusing on the things around us
and trying to decipher their color
and keep track of how many there are
can help keep us in our bodies and environment
when maybe a trauma memory or situation
tries to make us dissociate.
And this can be done-
Another way to ground is to change our body temperature.
And this could be done by taking a cold or hot shower,
splashing cold water into our face,
or even holding onto an ice cube.
And if you live somewhere cold,
you could step outside for a moment without a jacket on.
And one last grounding technique is called the ABCs.
And this is where we go through the alphabet
and try to come up with things in the room
that start with the letter A,
then the letter B and so on.
Again, this pulls our focus to where we are
and helps keep us connected to our current experience.
Along with using grounding techniques,
working in therapy to process and work through any trauma
or intense upset we have experienced
is gonna lessen our brain's urge to dissociate.
Since it's a protective mechanism,
it's only gonna pull us out of self or environment
if we feel threatened.
So if we can process what we going through,
then our hyper-vigilance will slowly go away
and we won't be so reactive to our environment.
And finally, if we struggle with DID,
it's best to work with a therapist who understands it
and specializes in trauma.
The goal of DID treatment is to process any past trauma
and to get our alters to work together in harmony.
This will allow us to live more calmly
and minimize any of the painful
or undesirable symptoms caused by our alters.
And this can also allow us to feel a sense of control
over when we switch to another alter.
In some cases, people with DID
can get their alters to reconnect
and kind of fuse back into one personality,
but that's not the goal for most people with DID,
but it is another possible outcome.
As I previously stated,
everyone's experience is going to be different,
so if you feel that I missed something
or didn't offer a coping skill
or goal that you think is important,
please feel free to leave that in the comments down below.
Thank you so much for watching.
I hope you found this helpful, and I will see you next time.
- [Man] She's on the move.
- I'm one the move.
I'm going places, Sean.