Dissociative Disorders
Dissociative Disorders are mental health disorders which are often a result of a severe traumatic event/s. Individuals with Dissociative Disorders often dissociate (check out) in order to escape the present because functioning in daily life can feel overwhelming, scary and be anxiety provoking. Many dissociative disorders are involuntary and can affect one’s daily function immensely.
What is Dissociation? Dissociation is when an individual becomes disconnected from their thoughts, feelings, memories and/or surroundings. Individuals often feel as if the world is unreal, sometimes not feeling present and finding themselves checked-out or detached from the world or reality. Sometimes individuals see themselves from up above or from a distance and sometimes feel they are in a trance. Often individuals will report having a ringing in their ear, hearing white noise in their head, someone talking to them in their head, seeing black images or other distorted images or a recurring song playing that is outside the normal “tune stuck in my head”. You are NOT crazy. This is commonly seen in Dissociative Disorders.
Dissociative Disorders commonly seen at Irimiya Trauma Therapy, Inc:
Depersonalization/Derealization Disorder:
Feeling detached from one’s mind, thoughts, feelings, memories.
Feeling disconnected from your body or the world around you.
Feeling outside of one’s body as if they are watching themselves in a movie.
Feels as if things around them are unreal, distorted or not really there.
Dissociative Identity Disorder
An existence of 2 or more entities or alters, as if you are different personalities many times and don’t have control over what you say or do.
Having gaps in memory about everyday things and traumatic events.
Reports from others that you were acting differently, unusual or unable to recall events others report to you.
Dissociative Amnesia
Unable to recall an event or period of time.
Unable to recall a specific aspect of an event within a certain amount of time.
