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Content warning: This blog mentions abuse, specifically childhood abuse throughout.
Due to childhood trauma, I developed dissociation as a coping mechanism. This led to something called maladaptive dissociation. Dissociation is an adaptive, reactionary response to survive trauma. Essentially, dissociation is the act of disconnecting from reality. Lots of people will experience this in their lifetime, however, if the trauma is ongoing or dissociation is over utilised, it can cause compromised consciousness, fragmented memories, and loss of your sense of identity.
Dissociation is a complex subject, and I even though I experience it, I am in no way qualified to cover it all here. Everyone’s experience of dissociation will vary, but here’s mine.
I first started dissociation around the age of 6 when the trauma I was experiencing became worse. Around this age, I developed the beginnings of what would turn into an eating disorder, and daydreams so vivid – I couldn’t always tell which reality was the real reality. Over the years, dissociation would become second nature to me. The traumatic experiences I went through as a child didn’t stop from my primary abusers until I left home around 16. Like many children of abuse, I had no frame of reference for a loving, stable relationship, and so quickly found myself in the arms of an abusive partner just two years after leaving home. The trauma continued, albeit different to what I had experienced in childhood, all the way into my mid-twenties. I am now in my mid-thirties, and I have only recently discovered just how much of my life I have spent dissociating.
I find dissociating so hard to describe. It’s something I was not aware of until recently, it was a seemingly hard-wired coping mechanism from baby me and something I’ve always done. I describe it as ‘zoning out’. Usually, it just happens when I am doing my day-to-day activities. I will just fall into my day-dream state and sometimes I can stay there for a long time. I am still me, I can still do things, but mentally, I am not present in this moment.
Processing the trauma through therapy is how I’ve become aware of it. I have discovered that I dissociate around 50 times per day.
This means that when I try to recall memories, they are often skewed, distorted, and timelines are out of order – because I wasn’t really ‘there’ for most of it. Sometimes, I have slipped so far into my dissociative state, that I have been unable to pull myself back and this usually leads to me chasing the daydreams. Sometimes, I will be so deep that it isn’t until I ‘wake up’ from it, I’ve realised I’ve been living in the other reality, whilst physically still in this one.
I find coping mechanisms developed because of trauma absolutely fascinating. It’s incredible what our brain will do to try and keep us safe. However, I can’t help but feel a sadness. How many moments have I missed out on because I wasn’t there. How much of my life did my abusers take, directly or indirectly?
It also serves as a reminder that we are all going through something. You do not know what is going on in someone’s head. No one knew I was dissociating, least of all me. Every supermarket trip I made, every relationship I was in, every wedding I attended or the new baby I held – I was half here and half not.
Dissociation is something I’d like to raise awareness on, it certainly isn’t something most people understand. But the bottom line for me here is a reminder of how life altering trauma is. Childhood trauma in particular, will set the direction for the rest of someone’s life. Regardless of how big or small, long or short the trauma is perceived to be. It changes our brains. It changes the path of development. Instead of developing health relationships, they will develop coping mechanisms.
This blog is my first step in raising awareness of dissociation – but more than that, it’s reminding us all about abuse. Abuse happens everywhere, can happen to anyone, and changes a person. So many of the disabled community are either disabled as a result of abuse or are abused because they’re disabled. This affects us deeply and needs to stop.
- Equal Lives member
Support for abuse:
More info on dissociation:
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