Discussion Topic
Is disassociation a choice?
Posted on 06/26/08, 01:44 pm
My therapist is beginning to think that dissociation is a choice. What do you think? I'm not sure of the answer. I had a horrible experience last Thursday. I had to go into the ER. MY therapist and a friend met me there. They didn't want me admitted into the psyche department. My friend told me I had to "act normal" so I'd only have to stay there for 3 hours and not 3 days. When I heard that I knew I in NO way wanted to stay 3 days and I worked my arse off to stay present & not dissociate. Was this a choice, was it luck, or what was it? I'm terrified of loosing my therapist because I keep dissociating and the last time I did I got myself into very serious danger. Do I have a choice in dissociating? I feel so scared and lost. I never thought I had a choice. What do you think?
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Reply #1 06/26/08 2:36pm
i think that mostly dissociation is not a choice, but sometimes it can be!!! i think you can work really hard to not dissociate adn sometimes it will work and others it won't!!! maybe it was luck - who knows???? -
Reply #2 06/26/08 2:45pm
Well, the simple answer is we always have a choice. We can choose therapy and what kind, choose whether or not we let people know what's going on and what's being struggled with. We have the choice of how we approach life and how to deal with these things. Some choices are simply harder than others.
As far as choosing to dissociate or not, it actually can be done depending on the situation and severity of what's happening. I've seen my ex bring herself down just from pure will power alone, to keep herself together for a night out. Even on the best of times it's never easy though and always took alot out of her. Though in a really bad moment there was nothing she could possibly do to change her perspective on things. Though what she showed suggested it could've been possible if she would've expanded her skills along with the right therapy.
Not to say that "forcing" things should be the only way to do things. If ya had some success with "acting normal" as yer friend put it I'd say it's something to discuss with yer therapist if nothing else. Could be a sign of improvement and/or something to build upon. Something like that should always be handled along with current therapy's or meds rather than replacing any other treatments.
I'd say it wasn't luck cause it sounded like ya put too much effort into it to just be lucky. It's also not a simple internal switch either that let's ya turn it off otherwise ya wouldn't have had to work so hard. If nothing else I'd call it a simple matter of an experience you had with this. Talk to yer therapist about it and see what they have to say about things. Even if it was a one time thing it sounds like a great basis for a good therapy session sometime soon.
-Gil -
Reply #3 07/04/08 5:37am
I am new to DID/MPD but it seems to me that while I can delay dissociation for a while eventually I lose and whoever is trying to get out comes out. At that point I seem to have no control at all and while I can fight to regain control, it can take hours and hours for that to happen.
I get really scared by some of the emails I have sent and some of the things I have done while dissociated. -
Reply #4 07/11/08 1:01am
The â??simple answer,â?? isnâ??t always the best or the correct one. We do have choices and some control but not always and never perfectly. To say someone who dissociates has a â??choice,â?? is like saying an alcoholic or other substance abuser has a â??choice.â?? The â??choiceâ?? comes long before the behavior, it is part of a larger process, and that way dissociation is similar to addiction. Like an addict people who dissociate are usually unaware of what precipitates an episode, or what their particular triggers are. Unlike addictions however dissociation does not always require a long chain of events where the individual makes many choices, sometimes it is a single event. It can be as simple, and unavoidable as an odor. So, the task becomes either learning the triggers and desensitizing the individual to those triggers or getting the internal mechanisms in agreement on how to deal with triggers. So, the long and the short of it is, sometimes it can be avoided and Earswithfeet should be proud to have been able to pull a rabbit out of the hat and avoid a very unpleasant situation. It wonâ??t happen every time but it shows you can do it provided youâ??re aware it may happen and I would even go so far to say that you had support.
You should talk frankly with your therapist about it and ask directly if your dissociation is jeopardizing your continuing therapy with him or her. If it is endangering your continuing then ask what he or she suggests to help you gain control. My therapist has suggested that I allow it to happen during times when Iâ??m safe, it is very frightening when it happens at work but if Iâ??m home itâ??s not particularly dangerous. His idea is that if I â??allowâ?? it to happen when itâ??s okay it might help keep it in check. I have used that exact strategy with grief, when I felt it bubbling up but was in a situation where it would be embarrassing I stuffed it and promised myself that later I would allow it to surface. When I â??allowedâ?? it I wallowed in it, I gave it full rein but only for a specified time, then I would â??put it away,â?? until the next time, usually the following day. It was very difficult at first but I kept reminding myself I wasnâ??t denying it, I was delaying it.
Iâ??ve not had the same success with dissociation but it is a learned behavior like driving a vehicle with a standard transmission. Although you CAN drive it if you donâ??t practice for a while you get rusty, but in an emergency you suddenly can drive it. And, you have no difficulty driving an automatic, but if you begin switching between the two youâ??ll be stepping on the clutch in the automatic and taking your foot off of the clutch in the standard. Itâ??s the same thing with dissociation, you get confused and when youâ??re really stressed you will revert to using it.
Itâ??s not easy to stop using such a wonderful defense, after all it served us very well. It saved our sanity and perhaps our lives when we were truly defenseless. It is a matter of finding ways to reduce depending on it and forgiving ourselves when it does happen. Now that I accept it, which I thought was an impossible request from my therapist, I find I do it less often and it creates much less chaos in my life. I hope your therapist understands and supports you in this and isnâ??t about to toss you to the curb.
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Reply #5 08/23/08 11:01pm
Very interesting... -
Reply #6 08/25/08 11:43am
I believe that dissociation isn't really a choice, but a really good coping mechanism. When I have to act 'normal', and not dissociate I have about five alters that can act just like 'me', and that is what they are there to do. We can pretend pretty well if we have to, to be normal so we aren't thrown in the hospital. It may have been luck, but perhaps it may have been dissociation without even knowing it. Perhaps.
Gretchen et al. -
Reply #7 09/05/08 6:02pm
When I had my first episode I really wish I could have killed that bastard. But instead, I dissociated & watched it all happen. I believed everything I was told by him. Believed it for 30 years then went to a therapist who started the whole process of admitting what had happened.
No it is not a choice. If doc/therapist believe it is, fine another one now. -
Reply #8 09/12/08 2:57pm
As the Boss, when my alters have wanted out, I've forced them to put on what I call "Oscar-winning performances" at times when my being adult, competent and responsible was called for. -
Reply #9 09/15/08 10:28am
For me, I dissociate when I experience a particular emotion to an extreme. I don't think I have control over when it happens or not. At least you have a supportive therapist who will meet you in the ER when these occurrences happen. I was in the ER after one of these episodes and I had no one there for me. I gave them my therapist's phone number and they called only to get an answering machine like always. I refused to sign for a psych evaluation and was refusing to even be there, explaining that I had to get to work. BTW, I was hauled there against my will and against my wishes from a doctor's office where my dissociation happened. In this case my emotion was fear. The office staff did not know how to handle my situation so they called the police who tricked me into believing they were taking me home. I was finally released and was able to make it to work on time. -
Reply #10 09/16/08 1:44pm
i do what is called stroking out. i learned the term recently. i won't recall what happened if it is extreme -- extremely good or extremely bad. other things affect it as well like extreme cold and extreme dry because i have head injuries as well. warm humidity especially seated in a room with a humidifier will actually make me totally normal. a couple of my friends discovered this during college and thought perhaps they were geniuses and had really "discovered" something but i think the head injury world already knows this? lol.
i don't think it is a choice, unless choosing the temperature of a room is a choice or what part of the world you live in that is healthiest for you is a choice.
i actually recall once, i had a GREAT day. i wanted to recall it because it was superiorly great and high profile i was going to be on tv and i wanted to be able to watch it solo to work on this recalling thing. i walk into my condo. it wasn't cold or anything inside and it all left, like sand going through one's fingers. i couldn't stop it. and then it was just me and my condo and a normal day and i don't think i recalled watching the tv at all, i went out with friends instead. all stress gone. just a normal day out. the pro's around me couldn't believe it and were like, you didn't even WATCH it?
i also think part of it was training. i grew up where my life was highly divided and i was expected to instantly conform and perform at each sector and the only way to do this was to block out everything else. i think my brain automatically does this even when i don't want it to. a lot of performers do this as well, using self-hypnosis and then go on stage, and they too won't recall being on stage until they watch it afterward.
i also think that children should not live that way. if an adult chooses to live like that fine. but for a kid, it is too much, maybe homeschooling would have been a more solid way to go to keep it all streamlined. the big thing when i was growing up is that i have all the "normal" upbringing stuff. there is no such thing as normal. switching from one life to the other and having to explain that to people that don't understand anything about having a job because they are children is just MORE stress. sports alleviate stress. being around kids who even as adults are still kids (i've met some of them later) does not help anything. in fact, i think it is one of the main things that caused this. that, bad managers and being stalked by various kinds of predators...i really hate that side of the arts, it ruins the whole thing
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