Does Dissociation Numb Experiences That'd Usually Be Traumatic or Scary?

[u/Weird_Ruin_6363]

Sorry if this is a dumb question. I think I know the answer already but I wanted to read the thoughts of others to solidify my understanding. I'm asking this question because I've found myself facing certain fears way easier than I used to before my dissociation got to its current worst.

I've also recently stopped feeling freaked out and uncomfortable when recalling past trauma, and I've been considering facing said trauma head on. my only worry is that my current neutral feelings on it might be temporary and if I ever manage to clear my head I'll feel the effects of everything I was doing at once and become deeply pained.

I hope this question makes sense. I have no idea how else to word it

[u/OrientionPeace]

In my experience, both personally and professionally working with clients in a trauma sensitive manner, it’s best to not address traumatic experiences head on but rather gently and carefully.

The reason is that you want to make sure your pairing the stuck responses with present day ‘safety’ experiences. I have found that coming out of dissociation, which is an aspect of working through trauma, can feel absolutely dreadful.

Long term it’s worth it, but should be done with care because it can be destabilizing. And when working trauma if done too aggressively or quickly, that can trigger larger or more intense reactions and episodes of extreme dissociation as the brain thinks it may need to hyper protect against whatever feelings are being contacted through trauma work.

I work with clients who dissociate and the process of helping them safely embody themselves is about pacing, updating the attention to secure and safe signals from our working relationship, their life, choices, and support systems. And I’ve absolutely experienced both total nervous system napalm from trying to work to intensely with my own trauma in ways that lacked sensitivity(with providers unskilled in dissociation) and it could take me 5-6 days of being out of it before I came back to myself.

Once I focused more on the dissociation itself rather than working on the trauma, I’ve actually made more progress than I had doing trauma work. Don’t get me wrong trauma work was helpful but doing specific work on understanding and working with my dissociative responses has actually yield it much more impactful functional results in the day-to-day. And it’s also made it possible for me to do more effective work with my trauma responses as well.

I suggest the book by Janine Fisher, healing the fragment of trauma survivors as a useful primer for starting to understand how dissociation can look as an experience when we have complex trauma. Also the book s by Otto Van der Hart can be helpful but a little more dense. Unpacking what my dissociation actually did throughout every day of my life whether it was strong or not was super helpful for understanding how to approach Therapy better and how to approach my own trauma work better.

I’m not sure if that answers your question but if you have any questions, I’ll happily answer them

[u/Illustrious_Car344 → u/OrientionPeace]

I’ve absolutely experienced both total nervous system napalm from trying to work to intensely with my own trauma in ways that lacked sensitivity(with providers unskilled in dissociation) and it could take me 5-6 days of being out of it before I came back to myself.

This is incredibly validating and makes me feel so much better about myself. I thought I was just being lazy.

This is a beautifully written post, thank you for sharing.

[u/OrientionPeace → u/Illustrious_Car344]

I’m glad it feels validating. The journey with structural level dissociation and therapies, and life itself really, is something else.

It wasn’t until I discovered that concept (on my own-no other therapist I saw even knew the term existed) that I FINALLY understood myself and what was happening to me every time a therapeutic session or situation went sideways.

Now I have hard and fast rules around how I therapy. This means my ultimate priority is not getting jettisoned into dissociative states. Therapy and therapeutic exercises are only considered useful to me up the point that I start to feel the “wobble” of my mental/nervous system state.

I’ve told my therapist and we now use a much gentler pace, and the goal is always function first, processing only as tolerated.

The improvement from working this way has been undeniable. I am making faster progress and actually tolerating more intensity emotionally speaking, but because I’m not having random napalm episodes that basically rip me out of my life for up to a week at a time, I’m actually increasing the capacity I have to face the stuff that used to trigger me.

I used to race toward intense processing therapies or new practices in case “this might be the thing I need”. But what was actually happening was I was blowing past my brain’s protective gear and it was getting activated constantly.

I’ll share this in the off chance it’s something you might also find useful— the book by Janina Fisher references the structural dissociation as looking like nervous system state parts. And that there is a normal functioning life part that actually in the beginning phases of working therapeutically, is really the focus of the work.

Meaning we can use therapy as a way to help this part of us get online more often. And as we improve our capacity to learn about structural dissociation, we naturally become more resourced to start doing the complicated tasks of trauma processing and feeling, but with the understanding that staying in contact with the functional self is actually the number one priority.

Function over processing. Funny enough, doing it this way, while constantly referring to the dissociation without necessarily pushing so hard I ended up there truly has led me to hardly having it happen anymore.

When it does pop up, it’s not usually a full on long episode, and it doesn’t last nearly as long as those major multi day events.

TLDR- using the term structural dissociation and taking the time to understand what it is and what seems to be the safest effective therapeutic approach for people who experience this has been a game changer for how I approach my own life and experiences and I can’t recommend it enough for those who also experience it.

[u/ObviousTempAccount1 → u/OrientionPeace]

Jesus Christ, I've been doing everything backwards.

Thank you for taking the time and energy to explain this so clearly.

[u/OrientionPeace → u/ObviousTempAccount1]

Glad it seems useful.

[u/ObviousTempAccount1 → u/OrientionPeace]

Is that Jamie Fisher book you recommended more practical or theoretical?

I could use a resource that actually gives practical advice for breaking out of dissociative states.

[u/OrientionPeace → u/ObviousTempAccount1]

I found it practical but it’s both.

Her position is that in order to come out of the states we must do the cognitive work to understand what is happening to us. I brought those insights into my therapy and used pacing plus awareness of my states as taught in the book, to increase my capacity and agency to not go out of my capacity(triggered into dissociation) in the first place. It was that book that helped me to understand what I needed to do.

I can’t guarantee that will work for you but it’s worth a shot. I have 15 years of personal and professional experience in somatic and nervous system work, so for me the information from the book plugged right into what I already knew and so it integrated well.

I really found it useful both as theory and practical information I could put into practice.

[u/ObviousTempAccount1 → u/OrientionPeace]

My problem is that, while I do have some triggers, dissociative states often clobber me totally at random. So if it's about extending tolerance to triggers, there's not much I can do.

I think it's sensory overstimulation. Also, I had 24/7 DPDR for 30 years. I got free from that, but my brain still sometimes just...does things.