There are five main ways in which the dissociation of psychological processes changes the way a person experiences living: depersonalization, derealization, amnesia, identity confusion, and identity alteration.
Dissociative Amnesia
localized – unable to remember an event or period of time (most common type) selective – unable to remember a specific aspect of an event or some events within a period of time.
In the most extreme situations, you might have lapses of memory or “lost time.” Schauer & Elbert (2010) refer to the stages of trauma responses as the 6 “F”s: Freeze, Flight, Fight, Fright, Flag, and Faint.
You might experience dissociation as a symptom of a mental health problem, for example post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder.
Triggers are sensory stimuli connected with a person's trauma, and dissociation is an overload response. Even years after the traumatic event or circumstances have ceased, certain sights, sounds, smells, touches, and even tastes can set off, or trigger, a cascade of unwanted memories and feelings.
What is anxiety dissociation like? When you experience dissociation caused by anxiety, you may feel detached and disconnected from yourself. Your perceptions may change and time may seem to go faster or slower. You may feel emotionally numb, and the experience may seem unreal, flat, or dull.
The four dissociative disorders are: Dissociative Amnesia, Dissociative Fugue, Dissociative Identity Disorder, and Depersonalization Disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 2000; Frey, 2001; Spiegel & Cardeña, 1991).
Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder) A mental health condition, people with dissociative identity disorder (DID) have two or more separate personalities. These identities control a person's behavior at different times. DID can cause gaps in memory and other problems.
Dissociation Symptoms
Memory loss surrounding specific events, interactions, or experiences. A sense of detachment from your emotions (aka emotional numbness) and identity. Feeling as if the world is unreal; out-of-body experiences. Mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, and thoughts of suicide.
If you've had disturbing experiences over and over, you may get severe forms of dissociation known as dissociative disorders. You may leave your normal consciousness, forget things, or form different identities within your mind.
Many times, people who are dissociating are not even aware that it is happening, other people notice it. Just like other types of avoidance, dissociation can interfere with facing up and getting over a trauma or an unrealistic fear.
Dissociation involves disruptions of usually integrated functions of consciousness, perception, memory, identity, and affect (e.g., depersonalization, derealization, numbing, amnesia, and analgesia).
Eye contact is broken, the conversation comes to an abrupt halt, and clients can look frightened, “spacey,” or emotionally shut down. Clients often report feeling disconnected from the environment as well as their body sensations and can no longer accurately gauge the passage of time.
There are no drugs licensed to treat dissociation specifically. Your doctor might offer you psychiatric medication to treat other problems you may experience alongside dissociation. These problems may include depression, anxiety and panic attacks, suicidal feelings, hearing voices and OCD.
While dissociation is not a symptom of ADHD, the two are closely related because they are often comorbid. 123 People with dissociative disorders may also show symptoms of ADHD and vice versa.
Some grounding exercises that we find most helpful include giving the person in a dissociative state something to taste or feel. Ways you can do this is by giving them a candy and asking them to describe the taste and sensation.
Periods of dissociation can last for a relatively short time (hours or days) or for much longer (weeks or months). It can sometimes last for years, but usually if a person has other dissociative disorders. Many people with a dissociative disorder have had a traumatic event during childhood.
Dissociation can occur in response to traumatic events, and/or in response to prolonged exposure to trauma (for example, trauma that occurs in the context of people's relationships). Dissociation can affect memory, sense of identity, the way the world is perceived and the connection to the physical body 3.
Symptoms of dissociative disorders
feeling disconnected from yourself. problems with handling intense emotions. sudden and unexpected shifts in mood – for example, feeling very sad for no reason. depression or anxiety problems, or both. feeling as though the world is distorted or not real (called 'derealisation')
If you have a dissociation problem, stress or boredom can cause the following: your head feels filled with fog or sand and you can't think straight. you feel very tired or even struggle to stay awake.
If someone is experiencing dissociation during a therapy session, it may show up through a certain eye expression or through shallow breathing. Or when the attention fades or there is agitation, or other behaviors.
Some of the symptoms of dissociation include the following. You may forget about certain time periods, events and personal information. Feeling disconnected from your own body. Feeling disconnected from the world around you.