Quotes About Dissociation
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I understood these things intellectually, the way I understand that the world is round or that gravity is a universal force. But it took me a long time to truly grasp what Dr. Summer had told me many times before: "To survive a violent childhood, you created aspects of your consciousness that held information about the violence away from you. That's why you remember it as if it happened to someone else. You have many ways of being you. ~ Olga Trujillo
When people are unable to integrate their traumatic memories, they seem to lose their capacity to assimilate new experiences as well. It is as if their personality stops at a certain points and cannot enlarge any more by the addition or assimilation of new elements. Unless they become aware of the split off elements and integrate them into a story that had happened in the past but was now over, they would experience a slow decline in their personal and professional functioning. ~ Bessel A. Van Der Kolk
There is something servile in the interpretation of sin as crime which infringes the will of God and calls for legal proceedings on the part of God. Sin is dividedness, a state of deficiency, incompleteness, dissociation, enslavement, hatred, but it is not disobedience and not formal violation of the will of God. ~ Nikolai Berdyaev
Each alter personality had a common goal and raison d'etre, namely my survival. They didn't all realize that though, and so were at odds with each other much of the time. So I continued to be fragmented and divided. ~ Carolyn Bramhall
Shortly after I began work with Teresa, I acquired another MPD client, a supposedly schizophrenic young man I will call Tony. He called in to the clinic on a day I was on telephone duty, saying he was having flashbacks of "ritual abuse." I did not yet know what that was. Tony became my client. He could be quite entertaining. I have a vivid memory of him as a three-year-old, "Tiny Tony," standing on his head on my office couch, and running down the hall to try unsuccessfully to make it to the bathroom. He had in his head the entire rock band of Guns'n'Roses, and I got to know Axl, the band leader, quite well. I remember the time Tony was in hospital and I went to visit him; Axl popped out and said, "Remember, we're schizophrenic in here! ~ Alison Miller
I could no longer discern what was real and what was fake. Everything, including the present, seemed to be both too much and nothing at all. ~ Clemantine Wamariya
Specific parts of you personality may be angry and are usually easily evoked. because these parts are dissociated, anger remains an emotion that is not integrated for you as a whole person. Even though individuals with dissociative disorder are responsible for their behavior, just like everyone else, regardless of which part may be acting, they may feel little control of these raging parts of themselves.
Some dissociative parts may avoid or even be phobic of anger. They may influence you as a whole person to avoid conflict with others at any cost or to avoid setting healthy boundaries out of fear of someone else's anger; or they may urge you to withdraw from others almost completely. ~ Suzette Boon
I find that I cannot be in the here and now. ~ Jake Wood
Instead of showing visibly distinct alternate identities, the typical DID patient presents a polysymptomatic mixture of dissociative and posttraumatic stressdisorder (PTSD) symptoms that are embedded in a matrix of ostensibly non-trauma-related symptoms (e.g., depression, panic attacks, substance abuse,somatoform symptoms, eating-disordered symptoms). The prominence of these latter, highly familiar symptoms often leads clinicians to diagnose only these comorbid conditions. When this happens, the undiagnosed DID patient may undergo a long and frequently unsuccessful treatment for these other conditions.
- Guidelines for Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder in Adults, Third Revision, p5 ~ James A. Chu
Managing your terror all by yourself gives rise to another set of problems: dissociation, despair, addictions, a chronic sense of panic, and relationships that are marked by alienation, disconnections, and explosions. Patients with these histories rarely make the connection between what has happened to them a long time ago and how they currently feel and behave. Everything just seems unmanageable. ~ Bessel A. Van Der Kolk
The self is a smokescreen. ~ Kris Kidd
But as much as this is a soldier's reason d'etre, it is not often that you hear a soldier explicitly talk about 'killing'. The k-word as a verb is instead often disguised and supplanted by any number of other euphemisms. In precise and technical military parlance, reflecting the ever more precise and technically removed means of killing, the 'enemy' becomes the 'target'. But for the soldiers who personally 'engage' these 'targets', these objects are colloquially 'slotted', 'dropped', 'hit', 'fragged', 'sawn in half', 'smashed' or just plain 'shot'.
Then the soldier will have achieved the noun of a 'kill'.
The author's supposition is that such words are used by the soldier in combat as an attempt to mentally dissociate himself from the reality of his actions, so he can continue to operate as a soldier - and perhaps, when all is finally said and done, as a human being back home. ~ Jake Wood
Girls are genius at getting through sexual abuse. Often the only way to get through is not to feel. And that is exactly what these fantasy worlds allow: They give girls a place to go so they don't have to be present in their violated bodies. Brilliant. ~ Patti Feuereisen
The most chronic and complex of the dissociative disorders, multiple personality disorder, was renamed multiple personality disorder, was renamed 'dissociative identity disorder' in 1994 in DSM-IV (American Psychiatric Association). The rationale for the name change, was among other things, to clarify that there are not literally separate personalities in a person with dissociative identity disorder; 'personalities' was a historical term for the fragmented identity states that characterize the condition. ~ Colin A. Ross
Trauma dissociates us from the parts of our body that are wounded, so we have to leave our whole body. It's a journey you take your whole life, that coming back in, re-landing in your body, in your self, on the Earth. I think one of the reasons it's been so easy, in a way, for us to violate both women and the Earth is this profound dissociation that exists in everyone. ~ Eve Ensler
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) also has dissociative symptoms as an essential feature. PTSD has been classically seen as a biphasic disorder, with persons alternately experiencing phases of intrusion and numbing... [T]he intrusive phase is associated with recurrent and distressing recollections in thoughts or dreams and reliving the events in flashbacks. The avoidant/numbing phase is associated with efforts to avoid thoughts or feelings associated with the trauma, emotional constriction, and social withdrawal. This biphasic pattern is the result of dissociation; traumatic events are distanced and dissociated from usual conscious awareness in the numbing phase, only to return in the intrusive phase. ~ James A. Chu
Patrice had long since buried the particulars of events so painful that they caused her to resolve only to see good. With such a stance, such as dissociative split, she could walk with evil and believe it did not exist. She was Joe's perfect mate. ~ Judith Spencer
Many people with Dissociative Disorders are very creative and used their creative capacities to help them cope with childhood trauma.p55 ~ Marlene Steinberg
The criteria of agency and ownership distinguish structural dissociation from other manifestations of insufficient integration such as intruding panic attacks in panic disorder or intrusions of negative cognitions in major depression. ~ Onno Van Der Hart
Do You Have DID?
Determining if you have DID isn't as easy as it sounds. In fact, many clinicians and psychotherapists have such difficulty figuring out whether or not people have DID that it typically takes them several years to provide an accurate diagnosis. Because many of the symptoms of DID overlap with other psychological diagnoses, as well as normal occurrences such as forgetfulness or talking to yourself, there is a great deal of confusion in making the diagnosis of DID. Although this section will provide you with information which may help you determine if you have DID, it is a good idea to consult with a professional in the mental health field so that you can have further confirmation of your findings. ~ Karen Marshall
The DID patient should be seen as a whole adult person with the identities sharing responsibility for daily life. Despite patients' subjective experience of separateness, clinicians must keep in mind that the patient is a single person and generally must hold the whole person (i.e., system of alternate identities) responsible for the behavior of any or all of the constituent identities, even in the presence of amnesia or the sense of lack of control or agency over behavior.
From p8
International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation. (2011). Guidelines for treating dissociative identity disorder in adults, third revision: Summary version. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 12, 188–212. ~ James A. Chu
Starting with the hypothesis that all the characters in Women in Love suffer from acute dissociation of sensibility, it becomes clear that psychological reintegration is no longer possible for them, and complete divorce between reason and emotion, mind and body, is imminent. As a result, the characters become mental or physical in basic nature and are symbolically presented accordingly. ~ John E. Stoll
The unconscious is not a demoniacal monster, but a natural entity which, as far as moral sense, aesthetic taste, and intellectual judgement go, is completely neutral. It only becomes dangerous when our conscious attitude to it is hopelessly wrong. To the degree that we repress it, its danger increases. But the moment the patient begins to assimilate contents that were previously unconscious, its danger diminishes. The dissociation of personality, the anxious division of the day-time and the night-time sides of the psyche, cease with progressive assimilation. ~ C. G. Jung
I feel no emotional connection to these outwardly human gestures.
I am not there, because I never left Afghanistan. ~ Jake Wood
Dissociation of the mind into logic-tight compartments is by no means confined to the population of the asylum. It is a common, and perhaps inevitable, occurrence in the psychology of every human being. Our political convictions are notoriously inaccessible to argument, and we preserve the traditional beliefs of our childhood in spite of the contradictory facts constantly presented by our experience. ~ Bernard Hart
Thought moves like a dissociation of leaves across a lawn in a breeze. ~ Greg Bear
Once I had found the courage to tell Rebecca about the children in my head, it wasn't so hard in the coming months to tell Roberta.
On the train from Huddersfield one day in May I made a roll call of the usual suspects: Baby Alice; Alice 2, who was two years old and liked to suck sticky lollipops; Billy; Samuel; Shirley; Kato; and the enigmatic Eliza. There was boy I would grow particularly fond of named limbo, who was ten, but like Eliza he was still forming. There were others without names or specific behaviour traits. I didn't want to confuse the issue with this crowd of 'others' and just counted off the major players with their names, ages and personalities, which Roberta scribbled down on a pad. Then she looked slightly embarrassed. 'You know, I've met Billy on a few occasions, and Samuel once too,' she said. 'You're joking.' I felt betrayed. 'Why didn't you tell me?' 'I wanted it to come from you, Alice, when you were ready.' For some reason I pulled up my sleeves and showed he my arms. 'That's Kato,' I said, 'or Shirley.' She looked a bit pale as she studied the scars. I had feeling she didn't know what to say. The problem with counsellors is that they are trained to listen, not to give advice or diagnosis. We sat there with my arms extended over the void between us like evidence in court, then I pushed down my sleeves again. 'I'm so sorry, Alice,' she said finally and I shrugged. 'It's not your fault, is it?' Now she shrugged, and we were quiet once more. ~ Alice Jamieson
How much of what we think of as an admirable response to trauma - the "stiff upper lip" - is actually dissociation, the mind's attempt to protect us from experiences that are too painful to digest? I can recall the facts, at least some of them. But I don't feel very much. At least, the feelings I have are not kind. They are not sympathetic toward my fifteen-year-old self. It happened. It happens to a lot of women. I survived. Most women do. I am "strong," but in those moments of strength, I don't feel. I will admit that I am very afraid of one thing. Not just afraid. Ashamed. I am afraid that I am incapable of love. (11) ~ Jessica Stern
000-x02 Dissociative reaction
This reaction represents a type of gross personality disorganization, the basis of which is a neurotic disturbance, although the diffuse dissociation seen in some casts may occasionally appear psychotic. The personality disorganization may result in aimless running or "freezing." The repressed impulse giving rise to the anxiety may be discharged by, or deflected into, various symptomatic expressions, such as depersonalization, dissociated personality, stupor, fugue, amnesia, dream state, somnambulism, etc. The diagnosis will specify symptomatic manifestations.
These reactions must be differentiated from schizoid personality, from schizophrenic reaction, and from analogous symptoms in some other types of neurotic reactions. Formerly, this reaction has been classified as a type of "conversion hysteria. ~ American Psychiatric Association
I had no pain--my hunger had taken the edge off it. In its stead I felt pleasantly empty, untouched by everything around me, and glad not to be noticed by any one. I put my feet up on the seat and leant back. Thus I could best appreciate the well-being of perfect isolation. There was not a cloud on my mind, not a feeling of discomfort, and so far as my thought reached, I had not a whim, not a desire unsatisfied. I lay with open eyes, in a state of utter absence of mind. I felt myself charmed away. ~ Knut Hamsun
Snow girl was glad she had left her own feelings behind. ~ Rene Denfeld
It's as though I'm sitting in the audience caught up in a well-made film. ~ Joan Frances Casey
Identity confusion is defined by the SCID-D as a subjective feeling of uncertainty, puzzlement, or conflict about one's own identity. Patients who report histories of childhood trauma characteristically describe themes of ongoing inner struggle regarding their identity; of inner battles for survival; or other images of anger, conflict, and violence. P13 ~ Marlene Steinberg
I wanted to just sink into my media downloads for a while and pretend I didn't exist. ~ Martha Wells
Switching is the term in dissociation theory used to refer to the change of state, or moving from one part or alter to another. Some writers use the word splitting when referring to switching, creating a further confusion. ~ Donald A. Price
I'm back in the basement of the Ascension Catholic Church, Francisco. And Little Suzie is here. She's lying on an alter, and they're hurting her. The bastards. They're hurting her. There is blood all over the place. There are candles burning and people chanting." I could hardly believe what I was seeing and I cried out, "What is this? I don't understand. What the hell is this?"
"Ask your unconscious mind to tell you, Suzie," he responded, ever so gently. "Ask."
I did ask. And the answer swept over me with a force so strong that I felt as if I had been knocked backward.
"Lord! Oh, Lord. This is satanic ritual abuse, Francisco. That's what this is! That's what this is!" I screamed. "Satanic ritual abuse. And they're using Little Suzie as part of their goddamned ritual.
p150 ~ Suzie Burke
Jenny couldn't believe herself a multiple. She was a mother, a nurse, not that screwball who appeared on the screen like some dysfunctional figment of her imagination trying to find a life. Still, she was coming to a realization that accepting who she was would be the jailer's key to liberate her from this cuckoo's nest. ~ Judy Byington
Complex PTSD consists of of six symptom clusters, which also have been described in terms of dissociation of personality. Of course, people who receive this diagnosis often also suffer from other problems as well, and as noted earlier, diagnostic categories may overlap significantly. The symptom clusters are as follows:
Alterations in Regulation of Affect ( Emotion ) and Impulses
Changes in Relationship with others
Somatic Symptoms
Changes in Meaning
Changes in the perception of Self
Changes in Attention and Consciousness ~ Suzette Boon
Dissociation is the ultimate form of human response to chronic developmental stress, because patients with dissociative disorders report the highest frequency of childhood abuse and/or neglect among all psychiatric disorders. The cardinal feature of dissociation is a disruption in one or more mental functions. Dissociative amnesia, depersonalization, derealization, identity confusion, and identity alterations are core phenomena of dissociative psychopathology which constitute a single dimension characterized by a spectrum of severity.
Clinical Psychopharmacology and Neuroscience 2014 Dec; 12(3): 171-179
The Many Faces of Dissociation: Opportunities for Innovative Research in Psychiatry ~ Verdat Sar
Now, though, there was a second part, an artifact of his recent illness, as if his melancholy had, in a universe adjacent to this one, claimed his life. As if he was his own ghost, standing slightly behind himself, observing. ~ Garth Risk Hallberg
-If I somehow possessed a set of videotapes that contained all the most significant events of your childhood, in their entirety, would you want to see them?
-Absolutely. Right this very second.
-But why? Don't you think some of the tapes would be very sad?
-Most of them, yes. But if I could see them, then I could have them in my brain like regular memories-horrible memories, yes, but regular memories, not sinister little ghosts in my head that pop out of some part of me I don't even know, and take the rest of me away. Do you know what I mean?
-I think so, If you have to remeber, you'd rather do it in the front of your brain than in the back. ~ Martha Stout
But after all the years, her husband and children have come to accept that, once every few weeks, their usually warmhearted and approachable Camisha will get into her Honda Accord at the beginning of a seemingly random day, and disppear until well after supper, when she will return home and go directly to bed. Her family has learned never top ask her where she had been on such a day, because the most she will ever say is, "Out. I just went out for a bit."
Also, they learned long ago never to express irritation or anger of any kind against Camisha, because when they do, her reaction is to become mute and exit to the garden, where for several hours she will sit cross-legged on a favourite flat stone, her back to the house. Slender, straight-backed, and unmoving, at these times she resembles nothing so much as an elegant ebony carving, exquisite but not quite alive. Watching her is almost unberable, and so is the guilt. Or if the weather is not suitable for the garden, she will simpily go to her bedroom and lock the door. Then as a matter of course, without comment during or after, her husband sleeps on the sofa in the den. In the morning, Camisha is usually her old self again, just as if nothing had happened. ~ Martha Stout
Further evidence for the pathogenic role of dissociation has come from a largescale clinical and community study of traumatized people conducted by a task force of the American Psychiatric Association. In this study, people who reported having dissociative symptoms were also quite likely to develop persistent somatic symptoms for which no physical cause could be found. They also frequently engaged in self-destructive attacks on their own bodies. The results of these investigations validate the century-old insight that traumatized people relive in their bodies the moments of terror that they can not describe in words. Dissociation appears to be the mechanism by which intense sensory and emotional experiences are disconnected from the social domain of language and memory, the internal mechanism by which terrorized people are silenced. ~ Judith Lewis Herman
Dear little ones, I know this might be scary and confusing right now, but my name is Jade and I'm here to help. ~ Jade Miller
Based on theoretical analysis, clinical observations, and some research findings (e.g., Kluft & Fine, 1993; Nijenhuis, Van der Hart, & Steele, 2002; Putnam, 1997; Reinders et al., 2003, submitted; Steinberg, 1995), as well as on 19th and early 20th century literature on dissociation (cf., Van der Hart & Dorahy, in press), we propose that traumatization essentially involves a degree of dissociative division of the personality that likely occurs along the lines of innate action systems of daily life and defense - what has been called structural dissociation of the personality (e.g., Nijenhuis et al., 2002; Van der Hart, Nijenhuis, Steele, & Brown, 2004). Dissociation of the personality develops when children or adults are exposed to potentially traumatizing events, and when their integrative capacity is insufficient to (fully) integrate these experiences within the confines of a relatively coherent personality. ~ Onno Van Der Hart
This original tie with the body as with something "peculiarly one's own" is the basis of all individual development. Later the ego relates to the body, to its superior powers, and to the unconscious - with which its processes are largely identified - in a different and even contrary way. As the higher principle working through the head and consciousness, the ego comes into conflict with the body, and this conflict sometimes leads to a neurotic, partial dissociation which, however, is only the product of a later overdifferentiation. ~ Erich Neumann
SELFHOOD AND DISSOCIATION
The patient with DID or dissociative disorder not otherwise specified (DDNOS) has used their capacity to psychologically remove themselves from repetitive and inescapable traumas in order to survive that which could easily lead to suicide or psychosis, and in order to eke some growth in what is an unsafe, frequently contradictory and emotionally barren environment.
For a child dependent on a caregiver who also abuses her, the only way to maintain the attachment is to block information about the abuse from the mental mechanisms that control attachment and attachment behaviour.10 Thus, childhood abuse is more likely to be forgotten or otherwise made inaccessible if the abuse is perpetuated by a parent or other trusted caregiver.
In the dissociative individual, 'there is no uniting self which can remember to forget'. Rather than use repression to avoid traumatizing memories, he/she resorts to alterations in the self 'as a central and coherent organization of experience. . . DID involves not just an alteration in content but, crucially, a change in the very structure of consciousness and the self' (p. 187).29 There may be multiple representations of the self and of others.
Middleton, Warwick. "Owning the past, claiming the present: perspectives on the treatment of dissociative patients." Australasian Psychiatry 13.1 (2005): 40-49. ~ Warwick Middleton
Practically from birth - or so it seemed to him - he had been aware that the elegant, filigreed, eminently reasonable world around him was destined to collapse under its own weight, like some elaborate architectural folly; the obvious response, to any sensible observer, was to have as little to do with such a world as possible. ~ John Wray
In my view, the spurning of DID is highly connected with knowing and not knowing about child sexual abuse. Side by side with denial of childhood trauma and of severe dissociation, is an unmistakable cognizance of dissociative processes as they are embedded in our language. We regularly say things such as, "pull yourself together", "he is coming unglued", "she was beside herself", "don't fall apart", "he's not all there", "she was shattered", and so on. ~ Elizabeth Howell
I don't know
what I'm feeling. Existing like I'm on auto pilot.
I've put my Armour on now. Limiting everything getting
in but also not letting anything out. ~ Tina J. Richardson
On its own, my internal dissociated part now came to the surface, and I found myself hiding from everyone. I still was not connecting it to the dream I'd had. At one time I had thought I could control these sudden episodes, but I was apparently mistaken. I had grown very unsure about every facet of my mental health. A disturbed part of me was taking over and I was terrified. I began to wonder if Big Suzie would completely cease to exist. ~ Suzie Burke
He had lost that privilege of simple nature, the dissociation of love and pleasure. Pleasure was no longer as simple as eating; it was being complicated by love. Now was beginning that crazy loss of one's self, that neglect of everything but one's dramatic thoughts about the beloved, that feverish inner life all turning upon the [loved one]. ~ Thornton Wilder
DURING THAT YEAR, and especially in the winter months, he found himself returning more and more frequently to such a state of unreality; at will, he seemed able to remove his consciousness from the body that contained it, and he observed himself as if he were an oddly familiar stranger doing the oddly familiar things that he had to do. It was a dissociation that he had never felt before; he knew that he ought to be troubled by it, but he was numb, and he could not convince himself that it mattered. ~ John Edward Williams
I haven't been disingenuous in what I've said describing my perception of "truth" and "reality." Certainly, I understand what is generally meant to be the "truth," I understand this notion, but it's not something I trust in, OK?
The only answer that feels true (I said feels, not is) is that yes, the character Minnie is me, but she is not me. She is a projection of some tumult which originates within me, but she is not me. I use elements of myself, including my likeness, for the character, perhaps as Cindy Sherman uses herself in her work, but like Sherman's photographs, the work itself is not any more about the creator than it is about everyone. I won't deny that Minnie does things I have done, and that things happen to her that have happened to me, but she, unlike me, having been created, is who she is and will remain so, unchanged now. I make no attempt to create "documentary." There is a process of dissociation that takes place when I make a story, I make creative decisions in a fugue state that I could hardly describe to you, but the end result is, I hope, a story with some meaning or resonance, something created, with a beginning, a middle and an end, an encapsulation of feeling and impression, but in no way a documentary of anything other than an "emotional truth."
If I told most interviewers that my work is "true" and that it is based on real events that occurred in my life, they would more readily accept this than they do the explanation I try to ~ Phoebe Gloeckner
Some people give theirselves a certain number of white weeks once in a year, when they do not drink a single drop of alcohol. It is really wise. I myself have a few weeks per year, let us call them white or black, when I am not interested in the world around. When I come back from this isolation of the news, I realize that I have missed nothing significant. We live in the rain of disinformation and rumors, where the truth is a very small number. In those weeks of dissociation I seek for knowledge that lies within me. ~ Henning Mankell
Some dissociative parts of the personality, living in trauma time, may experience the same emotion no matter the situation, such as fear, rage, shame, sadness, yearning and even some positive ones just as joy.
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Other parts have a broader range of feeling. Because emotions are often held in certain parts of the personality, different parts can have highly contradictory perceptions, emotions, and reactions to the same situation.
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This explains many feelings, emotions, and doubts about the unknown haunting us at times.
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Awareness and discovering the inner world may help, tremendously. ~ Suzette Boon
Why does the nature of the traumatic event exert so much influence over whether what happened will be remembered in words? It appears that sudden, fast events completely overcome any defenses that a small child can muster. Long-standing events, on the other hand, stimulate defensive operations - denial, splitting, self-anesthesia, and dissociation. These defenses interfere with memory formation, storage, and retrieval. When the defenses are completely overrun by one sudden, unanticipated terror, brilliant, overly clear verbal memories are the result. On the other hand, when the defenses are set up in advance in order to deal with the terrors the child knows to be coming, blurry, partial, or absent verbal memories are retained. The child may even develop blanket amnesia for certain years in the past. ~ Lenore Terr
Joe knew that for some, really for most, the derivations of belladonna that blurred their vision and caused their hearts to race would, as well, hasten their forgetting of detail. They would not recall, not readily, any sense of pain or shame or doubt or threat of danger.
[]
There were always children to be used. Members were obliged to offer their children, although not necessarily every child in a family was used. Some were found to be not suited for the rigor. Some were left alone so that if the involved children in a family were to attempt to tell, siblings could not corroborate their experience. ~ Judith Spencer
One form of insecurity of attachment, called "disorganized/disoriented", has been associated with marked impairments in the emotional, social, and cognitive domains, and a predisposition toward a clinical condition known as dissociation in which the capacity to function in an organized, coherent manner is at times impaired.
Studies have also found that youths with a history of disorganized attachments are at great risk of expressing hostility with their peers and have the potential for interpersonal violence as they mature (Lyons-Ruth & Jacobwitz, 1999; Carlson, 1998). This disorganized form of attachment has been proposed to be associated with the caregiver's frightened, frightening, or disoriented behavior with the child. Such experiences create a state of alarm in the child. The parents of these children often have an autobiographical narrative finding, as revealed in the Adult Attachment Interview, of unresolved trauma or grief that appears as a disorientation in their narrative account of their childhoods. Such linguistic disorientation occurs during the discussion of loss or threat from childhood experiences. Lack of resolution appears to be associated with parental behaviors that are incompatible with an organized adaptation on the part of the child. Lack of resolution of trauma or grief in a parent can lead to parental behaviors that create "paradoxical", unsolvable, and problematic situations for the child. The attachment figure is intended to be the s ~ Daniel J. Siegel, M.D.
I got sloppy and lazy at work, emptier, less there. This pleased me, but having to do things became very problematic. When people spoke, I had to repeat what they'd said in my mind before understanding it. ~ Ottessa Moshfegh
Programming is the act of installing internal, pre-established reactions to external stimuli so that a person will automatically react in a predetermined manner to things like an auditory, visual or tactile signal or perform a specific set of actions according to a date and/or time. ~ Alison Miller
I was a cloud stuck inside a person I didn't choose to be. ~ Cyrus Grace Dunham
The freedom to dissociate from people, ideas and ways of life you're not compatible with is one to cherish. That simple choice to walk away empowers the free being to pursue contentment. ~ Innocent Mwatsikesimbe
I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
this brokenness inside me might start healing.
Out here its like I'm someone else,
I thought that maybe I could find myself
if I could just come in I swear I'll leave.
Won't take nothing but a memory
from the house that built me. ~ Miranda Lambert
Switches among identities occur in response to changes in emotional state or to environmental demands, resulting in another identity emerging to assume control. Because different identities have different roles, experiences, emotions, memories, and beliefs, the therapist is constantly contending with their competing points of view. Helping the identities to be aware of one another as legitimate parts of the self and to negotiate and resolve their conflicts is at the very core of the therapeutic process. It is countertherapeutic for the therapist to treat any alternate identity as if it were more "real" or more important than any other.
Guidelines for Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder in Adults, Third Revision ~ James A. Chu
Those who attempt to describe the atrocities that they have witnessed also risk their own credibility.
To speak publicly about one's knowledge of atrocities is to invite the stigma that attaches to victims ... .
Denial, repression and dissociation operate on a Social, as well as an individual level. ~ Judith Lewis Herman
Dissociation can enable us to withstand pain and loss under which we would otherwise break. It enables us to survive and pull through. But, a habit of continual dissociation – especially after the trauma has passed – leads to the shut-in feeling I was experiencing. While I imagined I was being strong in the face of pain, in reality, I was merely hiding. ~ Sarah Hackley
Once the individual has learned to dissociate in the context of trauma, he or she may subsequently transfer this response to other situations and it may be repeated thereafter arbitrarily in a wide variety of circumstances. The dissociation therefore "destabilizes adaptation and becomes pathological."[6] It is important for the psychiatrist to accurately diagnose DDs and also to place the symptoms in perspective with regard to trauma history. ~ Julie P. Gentile
Shamed and enraged, I sit by the side of the road and cry.
Eclipsed by a sense of disgrace, my emotions feel momentarily stifled and disconnected. Instead of anger, I feel dishonored and exposed. I cannot even formulate my thoughts, much less speak them. My integrity and humility have been violated. I have only my own indignation to spur me on. ~ Holly A. Smith
Had I not been dissociative, I never would have survived. ~ Wendy Hoffman
We propose that BPD involves secondary structural dissociation. Consistent with this, Golynkina and Ryle (1999) found that patients with BPD encompassed a dissociative part of the personality that seems to represent an ANP (a coping ANP) and more than one EP (abuser rage, victim rage, passive victim, and zombie). Some patients with BPD have severe dissociative symptoms, and may actually border on DDNOS or DID. Our clinical observations suggest that dissociative parts in BPD patients have less emancipation and elaboration, and less distinct sense of self than in DDNOS or DID. ~ Ellert R.S. Nijenhuis
Watching these happy beings for whom weeping was impossible, he had become incapable of grief; watching their inconsistencies, he had become incapable of knowing right from wrong; disregarded by them he had become incapable of disappointment. ~ Sylvia Townsend Warner
The little girl's dependency on her father made [his] abuse more insidious. ~ Joan Frances Casey
The capacity for dissociation enables the young child to exercise their innate life-sustaining need for attachment in spite of the fact that principal attachment figures are also principal abusers. ~ Warwick Middleton
I don't know what or who we are. Days I feel like a human being, while other days I feel like a sound. I touch the world not as myself but as an echo of who I was. ~ Ocean Vuong
I was dizzy in that room. I felt faint with disbelief. I held on to the seat of my chair to stay upright. I knew what was going on, but I couldn't absorb any of it. ~ Sonali Deraniyagala
The darkness in me could not stand the light any longer. It wanted to escape, vanish without a trace to a place where it could not be seen. But I could not let it happen; I could not let it run, I'm giving it no choice. It was going to ride itself out and face the truth it doesn't want to know. It was to face itself in the mirror of hope, of despair. I gave the darkness no choice. It was to turn back into the light. ~ Mi-ran Isaacs
This book is a memoir - not of specific life events, but of the processes of dissociation, and of re-enlivening emotions that are shameful to admit or even to feel. It is an account of the altered states that trauma induces, which make it possible to survive a life-threatening event but impair the capacity to feel fear, and worse still, impair the ability to love. (292) ~ Jessica Stern
This new co-consciousness brought me to a state of awareness in which my core personality was directly able to experience "her" personality. Being co-conscious with her, he explained, would stop me from experiencing the feeling of leaving my body or dissociating. ~ Suzie Burke
Also, look for "floating alters." These are not deliberately created parts of the system, but alters that were accidentally split off at the same time as others. ~ Alison Miller
Life does not proceed by the association and addition of elements, but by dissociation and division. ~ Henri Bergson
When you study the wrongs you have committed before you study the wrongs done to you, you have no choice but to label yourself inherently evil, and be forced to dissociate emotionally to avoid the horrible pain in this lie. ~ Daniel Mackler
Dissociation (being split-off from one's deepest truth) mimics enlightenment – but it isn't enlightenment. People who are dissociated live in great peace. But this is only because they have blocked their negative feelings. The enlightened person resolves his negatives feelings, and thus his peace is not false.
People who are dissociated do not suffer. But this is only because they have abandoned their healing process and numbed their pain. Enlightenment grows from the fertilized soil of suffering.
People who are dissociated call themselves enlightened. But this is only because they have they have no conception of what enlightenment is. Enlightenment is the polar opposite of dissociation.
People who are dissociated feel they have mastered forgiveness. But this is only because they completely deny the harm done to them – and the damage remaining. The enlightened forgive spontaneously and without effort because they have fully embraced their damaged parts and grieved every honest ounce of their misery. ~ Daniel Mackler
Civilized life today demands concentrated, directed conscious functioning, and this entails the risk of a considerable dissociation from the unconscious. The further we are able to remove ourselves from the unconscious through directed functioning, the more readily a powerful counterposition can build up in the unconscious, and when this breaks out it may have disagreeable consequences. ~ C. G. Jung
Life is not a mixture of matter and energy but energy in matter, bound in such a way that dissociation is impossible so long as the living process continues. ~ Alexander Lowen
Family secrets can go back for generations. They can be about suicides, homicides, incest, abortions, addictions, public loss of face, financial disaster, etc. All the secrets get acted out. This is the power of toxic shame. The pain and suffering of shame generate automatic and unconscious defenses. Freud called these defenses by various names: denial, idealization of parents, repression of emotions and dissociation from emotions. What is important to note is that we can't know what we don't know. Denial, idealization, repression and dissociation are unconscious survival mechanisms. Because they are unconscious, we lose touch with the shame, hurt and pain they cover up. We cannot heal what we cannot feel. So without recovery, our toxic shame gets carried for generations. ~ John Bradshaw
There's so much misinformation about dissociative disorder treatment out in the world, and especially on the internet. ~ Richard A Chefetz
Many freeze types unconsciously believe that people and danger are synonymous, and that safety lies in solitude. Outside of fantasy, many give up entirely on the possibility of love. The freeze response, also known as the camouflage response, often triggers the individual into hiding, isolating and eschewing human contact as much as possible. This type can be so frozen in retreat mode that it seems as if their starter button is stuck in the 'off' position. It is usually the most profoundly abandoned child - 'the lost child' - who is forced to 'choose' and habituate to the freeze response… Unable to successfully employ fight, flight or fawn responses, the freeze type's defenses develop around classical dissociation. ~ Pete Walker
In this paper I propose the existence of two distinct presentations of DID, a Stable and an Active one. While people with Stable DID struggle with their traumatic past, with triggers that re-evoke that past and with the problems of daily functioning with severe dissociation, people with Active DID are, in addition, also engaged in a life of current, on-going involvement in abusive relationships, and do not respond to treatment in the same way as other DID patients. The paper observes these two proposed DID presentations in the context of other trauma-based disorders, through the lens of their attachment relationship. It proposes that the type, intensity and frequency of relational trauma shape - and can thus predict - the resulting mental disorder.
- Through the lens of attachment relationship: Stable DID, Active DID and other trauma-based mental disorders ~ Adah Sachs
when evoking personal recollections, patients with depersonalization often complain that memories feel as if they really didn't happen to them ~ Mauricio Sierra
Dissociation leaves us disconnected from our memories, our identities and our emotions. It breaks the trauma into digestible components, so that different aspects of the trauma get stored in different compartments in our brain. What happens as a result is that the information from the trauma becomes disorganized and we are not able to integrate these pieces into a coherent narrative and process trauma fully until, hopefully, with the help of a validating, trauma-informed counselor who guides us to the appropriate therapies best suited to our needs, we confront the trauma and triggers in a safe place. ~ Shahida Arabi
Trapped within the confines of his mind, he is too aware of every thought passing through it, as if he were outside, looking in. At night he often lies awake ruminating endlessly about what's wrong with him, about death, and about the meaning of existence itself. At times his arms and legs feel like they don't belong with his body. But most of the time, his mind feels like it is operating apart from the body that contains it. ~ Daphne Simeon
It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable. ~ Seneca.
Parts of you are phobic of anger and generally terrified and ashamed of angry dissociative parts. There is often tremendous conflict between anger-avoidant and anger-fixated parts of an individual. Thus, an internal and perpetual cycle of rage-shame-fear creates inner chaos and pain. ~ Suzette Boon
However, we have to acknowledge that living with DID presents huge challenges; it is complex and complicated. But our diagnosis was the key to us accessing services and funding, which has enabled us to return to life within the community and to have a positive future. We can see constructive, productive elements in our life, and our faith plays a strong part in this. ~ Carol Broad
For those in whom a local mythology still works, there is an experience both of accord with the social order, and of harmony with the universe. For those, however, in whom the authorized signs no longer work-or, if working, produce deviant effects-there follows inevitably a sense both of dissociation from the local social nexus and of quest, within and without, for life, which the brain will take to be for 'meaning'. ~ Joseph Campbell
During this hour in the waking streets I felt at ease, at peace; my body, which I despised, operated like a machine. I was spaced out, the catchphrase my friends at school used to describe their first experiments with marijuana and booze. This buzzword perfectly described a picture in my mind of me, Alice, hovering just below the ceiling like a balloon and looking down at my own small bed where a big man lay heavily on a little girl I couldn't quite see or recognize. It wasn't me. I was spaced out on the ceiling.
I had that same spacey feeling when I cooked for my father, which I still did, though less often. I made omelettes, of course. I cracked a couple of eggs into a bowl, and as I reached for the butter dish, I always had an odd sensation in my hands and arms. My fingers prickled; it didn't feel like me but someone else cutting off a great chunk of greasy butter and putting it into the pan.
I'd add a large amount of salt - I knew what it did to your blood pressure, and I mumbled curses as I whisked the brew. When I poured the slop into the hot butter and shuffled the frying pan over the burner, it didn't look like my hand holding the frying-pan handle and I am sure it was someone else's eyes that watched the eggs bubble and brown. As I dropped two slices of wholemeal bread in the toaster, I would observe myself as if from across the room and, with tingling hands gripping the spatula, folded the omelette so it looked like an apple envelope. My alien hands wo ~ Alice Jamieson
When I was a kid I used to wonder if, just maybe, the world existed only for me. If rooms ceased to exist when I stepped into the hallway and people disappeared once they left me, the rest of their lives imagined solely for my entertainment. ~ Robin Wasserman
I do not think the long-range bullets I fire provide the mark of a man; I am only dimly aware that they are dehumanising me.
They are my opium tto see me through my time here. But with each hit they give, they only provide a feeling respite from the past I cannot escape from and thre present I have chosen to mire myself in. And, grounded as I am in the reality of this hill, I do not yet fully appreciate how this addiction is infecting my future with malediction.
With this clinical, psychopathically detached behaviour considered as normal, proper and expected on this hall, I cannot yet stop to think - because I cannot allow myself to here - of how hese respites may be blackening my soul in all the time I will have left on my own back Home - should I even live through the remainder of my months here, in some other corner of this Hell of a country. ~ Jake Wood
Dissociation is numbness and nothingness; it is a feeling of being lost; it is floating on a cloud that threatens to suffocate; it is automatic speech and action without awareness or control; it is looking at the world and blinking to try to remove the blurry fog; it is hearing and seeing the immediate world and simultaneously feeling very far away; it is raw fear; it is unfamiliarity in familiar places; it is possession; it is being haunted everyday by unknown monsters that can be felt but not seen (at least not by others); it is looking in the mirror and not knowing who is looking back; it is fantasy and imagination; and, above all else, it is survival. Dissociation is all of these things and none of them at once. ~ Noel Hunter