Posted by lucie lu on December 8, 2008, at 10:34:50
In reply to Re: Dissoc disorders, not easy to muffled and Luci, posted by Phillipa on December 7, 2008, at 20:21:56
Hi Phillipa,
Just wanted to add one thing to clarify something that can be confusing. By itself, dissociation is not a disorder, nor necessarily pathological. Dissociation is just a state in which we are temporarily disconnected from our immediate experience. In "normal life," this could include daydreaming, mind wandering, or highway reverie. And you can really space out, too. For example, once I was daydreaming, in there really deep, while I was driving. At some point I looked up and there was a very angry cop in a cruiser behind me, lights flashing. I thought he was after the car in front of me, which looked something like my car. But no, he pulled me over and man, was he mad! According to him, he waved me down around a work site several blocks back; he said I looked at him and my eyes widened and I took off. He gave me a ticket and said I was lucky he didn't arrest me for failure to stop. Now why a middle-aged woman with a clean driving record would suddenly go on the lam is beyond me, but I guess not to him. I was really mad too but I couldn't defend myself because I honestly wasnt aware of what had happened. Later, I thought of several brilliant Law-and-Order style defenses - like I was wearing dark sunglasses, how could he see my eyes widen? But just then, I had felt really helpless - I just didn't have the relevant information to show him he was wrong. Was that dissociation? Yes. Was it pathological? No, probably not, but it sure as hell was maddening and darned expensive to boot.
Dissociation capability be be connected to brain structure and function. Some people naturally dissociate more easily than others. Ive been told it can be an inheritable trait that may also be related to hypnotizability. My daughter's T tried a test one time on both of us in the office. I don't remember the particulars but it was something like she instructed us to imagine a table in the room, put some things on it, imagine walking around it and looking at it from different views, what it would look like if we came through one door or the other, etc. I gather it was easy for both me and my daughter. Pretty interesting. I think it may have something to do with brain wiring, maybe right-left brain stuff. I have seen it suggested that the use of dissociation is a creative and adaptive response for surviving very harmful life experiences, that is used by people who may innately be good at dissociating. I don't feel comfortable commenting on any of this because of my lack of knowledge but I do think it's pretty interesting as a phenomenon.
Also, in some cases, childhood amnesia need not be a consequence of adaptive forgetting. It can also be a function of the brain's partial inability to encode early memories, which can happen for reasons besides trauma. I thought that was interesting too, since I have childhood amnesia. You can tell I've been reading a lot ;)
Anyway, I dont mean to get all pedantic, just wanted to say that dissociation itself is not a disorder. So you probably neednt worry if you find yourself doing it in the absence of any other symptoms of dissociative disorders. Maybe you just need a vacation! Hope this helps.
Lucie
poster:lucie lu
thread:867169
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20081205/msgs/867461.html