Dissociation & Dissociative Disorders
When disconnection creates safety.
Trauma Therapy in Syracuse, NY
Dissociation is one of the many ways our minds learn to protect us from experiences that are too overwhelming. It can create distance from our emotions, our bodies, our surroundings, or even parts of ourselves. Dissociation is at the heart of complex trauma work, and is a protective strategy that deserves to be met with respect and understanding.
Sometimes surviving means learning how to not be fully here.
When something feels threatening, overwhelming, or inescapable the nervous system may use disconnection in order to preserve our emotional well-being. For many people, this shows up all the time in common and familiar ways. Think… when you feel foggy or far away, going blank in a conversation, functioning on “autopilot,” or getting completely immersed in a day dream.
But dissociation is not one thing. In the examples above it is showing up as a response to something. A moment of disconnection. For others, dissociation can become a more persistent way for which they experience themselves, other people, and the world around them. This might look more like….
Feeling chronically unreal or like you’re living in a dream
Big gaps in memory, from childhood or even present day
Feeling as if you are observing yourself from outside your body
Experiencing different versions of yourself that take over in different situations, or know that there are versions you can’t seem to access at all
Dissociation makes sense when we understand how it protects us.
When we rely on dissociation repeatedly, particularly during childhood, our nervous system can become remarkably good at disconnecting from experiences that feel like too much.
The problem is that the body doesn’t always know when it’s safe to stop protecting us this way. So what begins as a very adaptive survival response can become an automatic response to anything our nervous system perceives as overwhelming.
And often, we don’t even realize it’s happening.
Recognizing dissociation for what it is, and getting familiar with how it shows up in your system, is where our work often begins.
The things we learned to do to survive don’t simply disappear just because we’ve gotten older.
Healing doesn’t mean getting rid of dissociation.
Dissociation is information. It tells us exactly where your system is still carrying old wounds, and gives us the trailhead to where our work begins, ends, and deepens. Our goal is never to get rid of it completely, but rather, to work with it and help to update your system so that it no longer has to rely on dissociation quite so much.
When working with dissociation, slower is faster. We take our time getting to know your protective system. We learn what sets off the alarms, how disconnection shows up, and what your system needs to feel safe enough to stay present.
There isn’t a road map for exactly how this will look because your nervous system sets the pace. Through attunement, parts work, grounding, and somatic practices we can help your body work through old experiences while building new ones.