HOW TO KNOW IF YOU ARE EXPERIENCING DISSOCIATIVE COPING
Dissociation is considered an interference or disruption in our consciousness, memory, identity, emotions, awareness and motor control. These can be experienced as feeling detached from our bodies, thoughts or emotions; feeling like we are in a dream or that things around us are not real; gaps in our memory of things, especially if these are connected to stressful or traumatic events; becoming very preoccupied with something internal or external so that you are not aware of what is happening around you; changes in your view or experience of ourselves associated with intrusive voices or not being aware of what we are doing; impact on motor control, how we perceive our bodies and/or pain. These types of coping can be put in two categories: detachment [depersonalization and derealization] and compartmentalization [amnesia, somatization, identity alteration].
If the above mentioned symptoms are present when you feel under stress and even more so if you have had repeated traumatic experiences. It is often difficult to talk about these symptoms as you might feel that it reflects poorly on you. It does not. It really indicates that you have been significantly stressed and even traumatized and this is one way that your brain is coping with these very difficult threats that your brain takes seriously.
To learn more about whether you are having dissociative coping symptoms you could ask your primary care physician or a therapist, if you are seeing one, to administer a checklist evaluation tool. Two of these are the DES [dissociative experiences scale] or the DES-II. If these seem to confirm that you are dissociating then your physician or therapist can ask you about these experiences to help you determine how much they are interfering with your life. It is important to remember that these represent ways that your brain is trying to protect you from stressful situations and thesse protective responses of your brain occur very rapidly whenever your brain detects the presence of a potential risk for you.
As I have previously indicated in another blog, there are therapies that can help you to not have to keep coping this way and there are medications that can help as well .
