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Overview of Dissociation
Danielle, a perky blonde in her late thirties, made an immediate
impression as she strode into the staff meeting. Her smile brightened the room, and
she felt totally prepared with her contribution for the upcoming presentation. All was
going smoothly until her boss expressed his preference for some of his own wording rather
than hers. It was really no big deal, but she suddenly felt overwhelmed with shame in
front of her colleagues. Out of nowhere, words exploded in her head, echoing the hidden
pain of being yelled at by her mother and slapped around in front of her brothers.
"How could you be so stupid? Only an idiot would do something like that!" Unable
to control her tears, Danielle fled the meeting to pull herself together. In the safety of
the ladies room, her heart pounding wildly, she felt like the stupid idiot she had been
called as a child. How could such a simple suggestion from her boss elicit such a
disproportionate reaction? Danielle was a capable, intelligent woman, yet the slightest
criticism could send her into an uncontrollable, emotional nosedive. Who was this
that responded so irrationally? It certainly was not the same woman who stepped so
confidently into that meeting just moments before.
Living with dissociation
Your interest in reading this book is evidence that you want to be
informed and aware of a timely subject that is rapidly gaining attention. Whether you know
it or not, dissociation is happening all around you – possibly within you. Despite
medical or psychiatric assertions to the contrary, dissociation is surprisingly
commonplace and can be healed. Because so many live in dissociation, most of us
live with dissociation to some degree. This chapter will give you an overview of
dissociation. It will prepare the way for you to understand better the perplexity of and
unique challenges linked to dissociation. As you navigate through this book, you will come
to discover the hope that is offered, the very real solutions that are available, and the
wholeness that comes in the process of inner healing.
Notes
Trading Faces focuses on common dissociation, which primarily happens
spontaneously as a consequence of unexpected trauma. Except for a brief overview in
Chapter 4, this book does not detail the complexity of programmed mind control where a
perpetrator’s premeditated intention is to manipulate and control the behavior of his
victim.
A glossary is included at the end of the book to help you understand
various terms and definitions related to this topic. The first occurrence of a word or
term found in the glossary will hereafter be noted in the text as boldfaced
and italicized.
Grasping definitions
Simply stated, to dissociate means to
"dis-unite," or separate, from association. The prefix "dis" itself
denotes separation or parting from. If you dissociate from someone else, you
separate yourself from him or her. You discontinue association. You go separate ways. You
disconnect.
An individual may personally dissociate in the mind as the result of
trauma such as abuse, fear, abandonment, or parental abdication. The corresponding pain of
such an event may cause a person to disconnect mentally from that pain in order to
survive. Should trauma result in dissociation, an encapsulated and separate
identity splits off within a person’s mind that holds its own memories, thoughts,
feelings, attributes, and characteristics. Psychiatric terms for inner dissociated
identities include "multiple personality," "alter identity,"
"alter personality," or simply, "alter." An alter’s
primary role is to protect the person in order to avoid both hidden and present pain. Each
alter that forms may be experienced as having a distinct personal history, self-image, and
identity, including its own separate name. It seems that increasingly, psychiatric
disorders are pinned to some form of dissociation, for example Dissociative Identity
Disorder. This book will help you understand the limitations of a strictly
psychiatric perspective. (See Chapter 3)
The psychiatric use of the word dissociation may help explain the
concept of "double-mindedness." The dictionary defines double-minded
as "having different minds at different times; unsettled; vacillating; also,
deceitful." Dissociation is deceptive in appearances, causing an individual to
contradict himself by being one way at one time and distinctly different, even quite
opposite, at another time. A switch between these states may be prompted by
circumstances, by other people, by decisions that need to be made, and the like. Such a
person, being of two minds, may be perceived by others as confused, illogical, unreliable,
unstable, unpredictable, and even hypocritical.
The opposite of association
The mind normally functions by association, which is why people
remember a whole event, including sights, sounds, smells, feelings, and meanings.
Dissociation usually occurs when a person experiences extreme stress physically,
emotionally, or mentally. The mind then operates in a way to separate out things that are
usually kept together. The mental process of dissociation is a way the mind records,
stores, interprets, and retrieves information. For example, when a child is abused, the
event may be experienced in a state of shock, stored in a different part of the mind, and
recalled in fragments. Given the nature or focus of the stress, some information may be
dissociated, or disconnected, while other information is stored as a congruent whole. In
the case of severe abuse, part of the mind functionally "checks out" in order
for the person to tolerate the pain of the abuse. Correspondingly, the person’s mind
may fragment and form a distinct, alter identity whose primary purpose is to protect the
person from returning to that place of pain and being re-traumatized. This alter may hold
selective information that is recorded in a dissociated state in another part of the mind.
Mental data that may "go missing" might be detected later as the inability to
show emotion or to respond to pain in a normal, healthy way. This might even include the
threat of pain, as seen in Danielle’s exaggerated reaction to her boss’s
comments. Fortunately, the mind is so intricately made that it is capable of separating in
dissociation as the defense of choice in a traumatic event. Alternatives to dealing with
the trauma include insanity, suicide, and desertion.
The true person is the actual person who has been born
and presumed to be the "original" person in whose subconscious mind wounded
parts are hidden and alter identities have separated. When a person is traumatized, memory
data from the event will be recorded in a dissociated state in the subconscious mind.
Distanced from the conscious mind, it is as though a part of the person
"goes into hiding" at the subconscious level, holding the pain experienced
during the trauma. Functionally, this wounded part of the true person "stalls"
at that moment and in that memory, even though the person overall continues to mature. If
this stalled part is accessed, it will likely have the same name as the true person at the
age of the trauma. For example, the stalled part of Danielle may be acknowledged simply as
"six-year-old Danielle" and interacted with accordingly. Alter identities may
form to protect the stalled part in the subconscious mind from consciously reconnecting
with the pain linked to the trauma. An alter serves as a sentinel, on guard to prevent, if
possible, the pain from being accessed and the person from re-experiencing the trauma. To
carry out its duty, an alter may defend the true person by protecting, controlling, or
presenting – however it must – to help the stalled part avoid pain. It is
important to understand that alters are not separate people. There is only one true
person. Alters are merely "false images" of the true person, established for the
primary purpose of protection and to aid survival. Alters are typically self-focused in
their manner and limited in their function.
Problem or solution?
As the mind’s preferred defense mechanism, dissociation is a
mental, inner solution to pain avoidance. Any outer representation of that solution may be
maintained by an alter. At times, that representation may be incompatible with the
person’s basic nature. For example, an alter may help mask a person’s hidden
pain by habitually using drugs. It may be that the use of drugs is actually loathsome to
the true person and perplexing to others. Typically, family, friends, and professionals
will identify the drug addiction as the person’s "problem" and focus on
treating "the problem." Regrettably, the existing myriad of sophisticated
self-help techniques and styles of therapy will fall short if the real problem is
not dealt with: the underlying pain, lies, fears, and unforgiveness held tightly by a
stalled part of the true person and buried in the subconscious mind. In summary, what is
outwardly perceived as a person’s "problem" may actually be his
"solution" to cover, hide, control, manage, or in other ways prevent from
recurrence, the pain that is deeply hidden away in the subconscious mind.
There will usually be some kind of lie established that corresponds
with the trauma event. Danielle, who was repeatedly abused in early childhood, may have
wrongfully concluded, "It was my fault," or "I deserved this," or
"My life is ruined." No amount of logic or knowledge of facts will dissuade the
part that holds that lie from believing it as anything but truth. If a child is repeatedly
told she is stupid and as a competent adult feels disgraced by her boss, she may
unexpectedly find herself feeling like, even acting like, that stupid child she
subconsciously believes herself to be.
Trading faces
Why did Danielle react in the staff meeting? Because a present-day
situation unexpectedly tapped into the hidden pain of a past trauma event. The wounded
part of her true person, who holds the pain, was instantly alerted and responded. Any
number of triggers could have caused this to happen – a touch, a smell,
a visual cue, a sound, a voice. In Danielle’s case, the boss’s
"correction" ignited something inside of her that felt like the verbal
abuse inflicted by her mother many years before. Even though the boss was not abusing her
and even though she may not at the time have been consciously connecting this to her
childhood trauma, the feelings were the same. It was Danielle’s own reaction,
not her boss’s words, which really took her by surprise. Instantly, a protective
alter appeared to bail her out of the frightening situation. Unable to hold herself
together, Danielle "traded faces" and quickly excused herself from the staff
meeting and ran to find a safe place to hide.
In a similar way, as a child is being abused, the conscious mind
"looks away" while the rest of the mind retreats in search of safety. Even in
the ladies room she may not have connected her feelings to the childhood abuse.
Regardless, the original trauma was once again being subconsciously reinforced each time
this place of pain was mysteriously accessed. The first time Danielle was traumatized, the
natural response of her mind was to escape mentally and to dissociate. As an adult, her
solution was still to escape. However, until she was ultimately willing and able to go to
the place in her mind where the pain was held, she would defer to a false trust in an
alter identity to protect her, come to her rescue, and help her elude a threatening
situation. To the dissociated individual, this alternate "person" is very real,
even necessary – no matter how inappropriate, irrational, or even illegitimate the
behavior of the alter.
When the protection of an alter is respectfully bypassed in order to
get to and deal with the real problem of hidden pain and lies linked to the trauma,
inner restoration can take place. When a wounded part of the true person is
accessed at the point of pain, the mind returns to the "now" of what is
happening, and the person responds accordingly. She is suddenly in the crisis again,
connecting with the memory, feelings, emotions, and other circumstances surrounding the
pain. She may even experience abreaction, which may include reliving a
physical body memory of the trauma.
A trauma situation need not be long lasting or life threatening. More
likely, it will be some circumstance a child was too immature to cope with. But once
traumatized, a child is placed, as it were, on an ever-widening path of self-destruction.
From that point on, the person may experience repeated forms of sabotage.
Such acts of malicious injury will either replicate or reinforce the event linked to the
initial trauma and dissociation. When she least suspected it during a staff meeting, adult
Danielle found herself ensnared once again in the childhood memory trap of invalidation.
Worst of all, she did not understand how she got there.
Examples
Dissociation thrives on mixed messages. Imagine a child with a father
who loves, cares for, and plays with his child one minute and mercilessly beats him the
next. The immature mind of the child cannot reconcile the incompatibility of this, so it
dissociates. Consequently, the child will learn different ways of responding to the
"loving" father and the "cruel" father. When "loving" father
is around, the child may have no knowledge or thought of "cruel" father. But as
soon as the father becomes violent, the child switches, and the mind defers
to the functioning of the alter identity that knows how to react to "cruel"
father in order to protect the wounded part of the true person. As the mind continually
rehearses the double-minded activity around the unpredictable father, the dissociation
gets reinforced. This example also helps you understand how this child’s abuser is
likely acting out of his own dissociation and unresolved pain.
Over the years, I have spent thousands of hours with dissociated people
ranging in actual age from eight to sixty eight years old. I have interacted with wounded
parts linked to trauma-based experiences who are of a stalled age much younger than eight.
I have discovered the distinct purposes and presentations of countless alter identities.
For instance, once while speaking with a teenage alter of an adult man, he suddenly pulled
the glasses off his face and declared with astonishment, "I don’t wear
glasses!" And that was correct. The true person did not start wearing glasses until
he was in his thirties.
Alters may have dietary preferences, even restrictions. I recall being
with a group at a restaurant where I was sitting across from a woman I knew to be
dissociated and in whom several alters had been identified. I observed with interest a
personal battle that ensued as she argued with herself over which dessert to order. The
friend she had come with, irritated and embarrassed by her indecision, ordered for her
once the waitress arrived. The woman became sullen. In hopes of salvaging an awkward
situation, when the desserts were served, I looked at the unhappy woman – that is,
her presenting alter – and said, "What a fabulous looking dessert! You are
really going to enjoy that." Then, pointing to my choice added, "Look what
I’m stuck with." As I suspected, this tapped into another alter that really
wanted that particular dessert and was thankful she was not served what I chose. No one at
the table was any the wiser as to what had transpired, although I did sense relief on the
part of her friend that the woman’s disposition had happily changed.
Many more examples will be shared throughout this book to help
illustrate the diversity of dissociation as well as the inner healing and
restoration that are possible for those who live a divided existence.
Finding oneself
Inside each of us, the "real me" is longing to be revealed
and released. Years of my life have been devoted to helping people discover genuine peace
that comes from deep inner healing. People have come seeking help for various
"problems." As they learn that a perceived problem is actually their personal
solution to avoid hidden pain, they are eager to pursue resolution so their true person
might emerge and be made whole. The unique insights and style of guidance they receive
often put them in touch with their dissociation and connect them responsibly to wounded
parts hidden away in the subconscious mind. This self-awareness is key to
unlocking the doorway to inner healing. People frequently exclaim, "You mean I’m
not crazy?!" Expressions of joy as they come into healing include, "I
feel whole!"
But this work cannot be done alone. As you continue reading Trading
Faces you will become aware that I unapologetically rely on God to provide answers that
man simply cannot offer. Whether or not you affirm the presence and work of God in the
world, it is my sincere hope that your entire mind will be opened to understand and apply
truths found in this book. The outcome will be healing to hidden, wounded parts and
restoration of the soul. There will be renewed energy as the true person emerges and
indescribable peace comes to a formerly fragmented, troubled mind.
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