Dissociation

A memory: It’s a blustery winter evening and I have agreed to drive to the event at the museum downtown. The scene is a common one in my life: My husband is my co-pilot, and I am either lost, uncertain of where to go, or overwhelmed by (fill in the blank with as many city sounds and sights as you can imagine combined with a radio that I swear went up in volume).
I’m frozen.

“Tell me what to do.”
My husband helps me breathe, helps me find parking, and we get to the museum.

Flash to a memory: I am 18, I am behind the wheel of a Jeep. This is the first time anyone has attempted to teach me to drive a stick shift. I attempt to shift, the vehicle stalls. We are in the middle of an intersection. I’m frozen.

“Tell me what to do.”
(Note: This was the first of two attempts in my life to teach me this skill. On the second attempt years later I stalled the car again, though in a safe location this time, yet somehow managed to make the car unable to start for many many hours as a result of whatever I had done, hence the reason this was my last attempt).

At the museum, we settle into our seats for the show we’re there to see, having a hushed conversation with each other in a sea of hushed conversations in the theater before the show starts. I’m tense, I’m trying to pretend not to be tense so we can have fun which is what we’re here to do but I killed the vibe by shutting down over parking in the city (again. insert mean shamey thoughts to my inner tension). My loving husband is reassuring me in his soothing calm voice. Then he says, “It’s okay, there’s nothing wrong with you. You dissociate when you get overwhelmed. . .”

His sentence ended with something sweet and loving and insightful, I’m sure of it. But I was stuck on that part.

Me? Dissociate?
In hindsight, it makes me giggle that I was caught off guard by someone suggesting that I dissociate. Knowing what I now know about dissociation, I’ve been doing it my entire life. But I truly didn’t know until very recently, and only because my husband said that.

It wasn’t that I hadn’t heard of dissociation, but rather that I had an incomplete idea about what it was. I wasn’t wrong about what I thought dissociation was, but it turns out to be so much more than I had given it room to be in my small understanding of it. My small understanding of it had narrowed it down to something that people like me don’t qualify for.

Did she just say people like me?

I understood dissociation to be related to “trauma” which I put in quotes now as a nod to the fact that my understanding of trauma as a teenager was also limited and incomplete. I had friends and peers throughout my life who had lost parents, siblings, who had or still were enduring abuse or chaos and instability at home, were navigating mental health crises in themselves or their family members. The list goes on. So much heartbreak.

I had two loving parents at home who loved each other (still do, and just celebrated 39 years married last week!) They were supportive, present, unconditionally loving. They welcomed every friend my brother and I brought home with open arms. We went camping, dad coached my sports, had birthday parties and holiday gatherings and family reunions. I hadn’t had my heart broken by much loss at all aside from family pets. I understood myself, and still do understand myself to be privileged, lucky, fortunate, and so so so grateful. My teenage understanding of it was that people like me don’t have trauma.
People who grow up in love bubbles like that don’t qualify for dissociation. I felt certain that my overwhelmed shut down mode had more to do with me generally sucking at being a human. So when my husband suggested that the shut down was actually dissociation, I was incredulous (internally; externally still trying to pretend I AM A-OKAY. I am certain my husband knows when I am pretending but he can sense when calling me out on it is not the right move. Bless him.)
Me? Dissociate?

My mind immediately began to swirl with questions. What is dissociation exactly?
Beyond being a concept, what does is look like in action?
What things that I do are dissociative?
Is dissociation bad?
How do I stop?
What does NOT dissociating look like?
And on and on and on and on. The research began.

Embodiment
My last post introduced embodiment.
After my husband said this to me, and after enough internet research had me convinced he was right, I brought it to my therapist.
“I think…I’m dissociating?” A question. An uncertain claim.
Through our conversation, I was left with three things:

1. Acceptance that I do, in fact, dissociate
2. A need to be able to identify when it is happening, and
3. A general arrow pointing in the right direction: Embodiment. The re-associating with the body’s present moment experience.

I was new to my understanding of dissociation, and even newer to understanding its opposite; embodiment. I have come to see a pattern showing up in every field I study: From nutrition to psychology to exercise and beyond, the healthiest place to be seems not to be at one end of a spectrum, but dancing eternally around a middle point.

Dissociation is not bad. Sometimes dissociation is the only choice, the best choice. Throughout my life, dissociation was the name for what my friends and family and I saw as some sort of mysterious “skill” that I had; the ability to remain dead calm in moments of crisis or chaos. I reckon dissociation is how a whole lot of people get through the unpleasant things they have to get through in life.
Dissociation is also how I mustered up the courage to go on stage for every solo I sang on stage from elementary through high school. Frankly, I think little blips of dissociation are what helped me push through fear and travel around the world solo and around this country’s national parks solo. When my body is in a state of panic, or my mind paralyzed in a state of indecision, dissociation can sometimes be that which makes the call I feel incapable of making. Essentially, if my body won’t cooperate with the needs of the moment, I’ll do what needs to be done and the body will just have to deal with it. Push through. Power ahead. Dissociation can be helpful when duty calls, but embodiment is a helpful skill as well.

Whereas dissociation is a pulling of awareness away from the experience of the body, embodiment is the turning of awareness toward, or into the experience of the body.

Duty doesn’t always call. Sometimes we get so good at powering through crisis that we accidentally start powering through the body’s protests often and when it’s not necessary. Dissociation becomes habitual, the way we move through our day-to-day. Embodiment isn’t one thing I can add to my to do list as an actionable item to check off. Embodiment is something to explore always, because we want to be able to be present and in-body for the things we want to be present for in life and we want to gain resilience to life’s stressors so we don’t have to “check out” in some way to get through day-to-day moments. There has been one question I have returned to again and again as I learn to be embodied:

What is true about what my body is experiencing in this moment?

I’ll leave you to feel the answer to that in your own body, and encourage you to ask the question as often as you can think to.

With Love,

Christen