eli5 what is disassociating? Tried looking online but I don’t understand.
In: 3094
Comment
by from discussion
inNoStupidQuestions
I suffer from mental illness (PTSD) and I have a history of disassociation. I’ll try my best.
First, it’s helpful to understand why disassociation happens and I think it is best from an evolutionary perspective.
Suppose you’re in nature and a Jaguar attacks you. It starts dragging you back to its tree to eat you. In those moments, you could feel the pain of the initial attack, the blood, the fear, your impending death. You could feel every sensation and pain. It would be excruciating.
Or you can disassociate from the pain. Your brain shuts off various processing. Just like shutting down or pausing a computer program. Your know what’s happening. You’re not spaced out and unaware of your surroundings. You know you’re being prepared for a Jaguar’s meal. Yet, you don’t feel anything and you don’t really act as one might expect given the danger. You’re not thrashing your arms about trying to escape or yelling and screaming. Those are to a large extent unproductive and might even agitate the Jaguar to hurt you more. You’ll often see this on nature shows where a gazelle goes kinda limp after being attacked. It’s still very much alive. It’s just not doing anything as it knows it is gone. Believe it or not, if the Jaguar lets it go to fend off some hyenas, it’s possible the gazelle snaps out of it and runs away to safety.
That’s basically what happens to me when I face terribly painful events. I just accept it’s happening to me and go through the motions. Eventually I hope I snap out of it and then I can take action or something. It’s extremely frustrating because once you snap out of it, you obviously think… why didn’t I do this or that to get me out of the situation. You get a lot of regret.
It’s why even as a guy when a woman says she was raped and froze, I have a lot of empathy there. I know what that’s like. You very well might just disassociate and feel you have no choice in what is happening and just let the rapist go through the motions until it’s done.
Or a child who has abusive parents who beat them daily for the sake of it. That child might not leave or take ‘rational’ action. They might just disassociate from the daily beating and just take it and go through the motions. They don’t really process what is happening or decide to take action.
As a guy, I stayed in terrible situations, even abusive situations for way longer than I should have. I just disassociate from the pain. That’s what it is. It’s a coping mechanism I developed in childhood from abuse and violence.
I don’t think you’d want to do it. Your body can do it. You probably have the genetics to do it. If you’re ever in a truly horrific painful experience, your body will probably do it automatically. I guess you could try and put yourself in such a situation, but I wouldn’t recommend it.
Maybe there are drugs or methods to simulate disassociation, but it’s something I try to avoid, not do 🙂
On the other hand, people have said I’m oddly calm in emergencies. The one time I got caught in public disassociating was in a car accident where I got hit by a truck. I could have died I suppose. I just disassociated and went through the motions not processing the danger I went through. Everyone was panicking around me, I was just numb. Okay, lets get insurance… I texted my wife ‘Going to be late. Got in accident’ She got pretty upset I didn’t call or anything. But again, I’m in a dissociative state, just taking care of what is needed. My brain was just thinking. Report back to wife. Let her know reason. Very primitive thinking
Latest Answers