Dissociation

What is dissociation?

Dissociation (Dutch: dissociatie) is the sense that you come loose from yourself or from the world around you, as if you are standing at a distance from your own thoughts, body, or surroundings. It is a way the mind keeps overwhelming experiences at arm’s length. Everyone dissociates now and then; with a dissociative disorder it happens often, for long stretches, and gets in the way.

How dissociation arises

At its core, dissociation is a protective mechanism. Thuisarts.nl describes it as the sense that you sometimes come loose from yourself or from your surroundings, where your memory does not work well and it can feel as if you are not yourself. That same source often locates the cause in childhood: if you feel for a long time and often that you come loose from yourself, it usually has to do with very distressing things you went through as a child. A young child cannot yet handle intense experiences well, and disconnecting is then a way to survive them.

That does not make dissociation an act, and it is not a weakness. It is an emergency brake that was once useful and that can keep kicking in later at moments when it is no longer needed.

How you notice it

Dissociation runs on a sliding scale, from perfectly ordinary to severe. The encyclopedia describes dissociation as a range of experiences running from mild detachment from your immediate surroundings to a heavier splitting-off from your physical and emotional experiences, and places daydreaming on the harmless side of that scale. The two best-known forms sit opposite each other.

• Depersonalization is the sense of standing apart from yourself, as if you are an outsider watching your own thoughts or your own body.
• Derealization is the sense of standing apart from your surroundings, where the world feels hazy, dreamlike, or unreal.

This often comes with gaps in memory: stretches of time you cannot fully recall. In the heavier forms it can feel as if you consist of two or more different people.

A familiar picture: someone who during sex is suddenly ‘gone’, counting the cracks in the ceiling or thinking about tomorrow’s groceries, and afterward does not quite know what happened. The body stays, the rest slips off for a while.

Dissociation and closeness

Why this is on a site about intimacy: dissociation can show up precisely at moments that come close. Someone can long for touch and at the same time drift away from it the moment it gets truly intimate, as if a glass wall slides in between the body and the moment. That is not unwillingness and not a lack of attraction. It is a nervous system that learned to leave when it became too much.

What helps then is the exact opposite of pressure: calm, predictability, and the freedom to stop at any moment. A good, safe experience, like an intimate togetherness, can give you a taste of how contact without danger feels. What it cannot do is replace treatment. Anyone who gets stuck in this should discuss it with a therapist who works with trauma.

Misconceptions about dissociation

“Dissociation is the same as multiple personality.” No. That picture belongs to the most severe, rare form. By far the most dissociation is milder: sinking away for a moment, a blank mind, a sense of distance.

“You dissociate on purpose.” Not so. It is an automatic response of the nervous system, not a choice. You usually only notice it once it is already underway.

“Feeling a bit of distance is automatically a disorder.” Also no. Brief daydreaming or shutting yourself off is perfectly ordinary. It only becomes a problem when it happens often, lasts a long time, and starts getting in the way of your life.

Where to find help

Dissociation belongs in the consulting room, not on a glossary. If you recognize yourself in the heavier symptoms, your GP is the first step. Thuisarts.nl explains that for treatment you need a psychotherapist, a psychologist or psychiatrist, and that talk therapy, medication, or EMDR can help; the mental-health practice nurse at your GP practice can also be a start. I am Victor, a gigolo, not a therapist, and nothing on this page replaces that conversation. What I can do: talk about it calmly and think along with you about what makes closeness feel safe for you again.

Sources

• Ik heb een dissociatieve stoornis. Thuisarts.nl. Supplies the description of coming loose from yourself or your surroundings, the memory that does not work well, the link with distressing experiences in childhood, and that treatment runs through a psychotherapist.
• Dissociation (psychology). Wikipedia. Supplies the sliding scale from mild detachment to severe splitting-off, and daydreaming on the non-pathological side of it.
• Depersonalization-derealization disorder. Wikipedia. Supplies the distinction between depersonalization, coming loose from yourself, and derealization, coming loose from your surroundings that feel unreal.

Related terms

• Fight-or-flight. The stress response that dissociation can be the third, freezing side of.
• Complex trauma. The long-lasting trauma that dissociation often grows out of.
• Trigger. The cue that can set off dissociation or a flashback.
• Grounding. Coming back into the here and now, exactly what helps when you sink away.
• Co-regulation. How another person’s calm helps your nervous system settle.
• Subspace. The altered state of awareness in BDSM, sometimes confused with dissociation but a different thing.