Dissociation Homework 1.1

So I downloaded this book called "Coping With Trauma-Related Dissociation", which was recommended in the Complex PTSD book that Zeke lent us, to help people with freeze responses, which I've been realizing I have A LOT of. And there's homework after every chapter, and I'm going to try to actually do it, and I'm going to try to do it on here, because that feels really good and safe and nice and helpful and will help keep me accountable and also you two can share your immense fabulous trauma healing wisdom with me as I go on this journey.

Here's the first chapter homework:

Reflect on what you have read in this chapter about dissociation.

• Notice and write down what may or may not fit your experience.

• Notice and write down any any thoughts, emotions, concerns, fears, questions, or other experiences that come to your mind. 

• Notice if you tend to want to avoid the topic, and if so, how you avoid.

I definitely think that dissociation is a concept that helps me understand my experiences, especially some of the hardest and most frustrating aspects of my experiences. Dissociation starts when something so overwhelming happens, and there is no way to fight it or flee it, so a really intense freeze response takes over and you retreat from the present moment inside yourself as a way to get through the experience. This happened to me in the hospital when I was two, and then all the subsequent traumatic experiences that couldn't be fought or run from also contributed to strengthening the freeze/dissociation response, so that now...it's such a ubiquitous part of my every day life, I didn't even notice it or realize that it wasn't normal before this. Maybe in times of extreme distress, when it kicked in so hard I felt like I could barely move or speak, I noticed - but I didn't see how less intense forms of that were going on all the time, every day. 

And having chronic illness has contributed to this cycle too, in multiple ways - from the ongoing trauma of being sick and not knowing what to do about it, to lacking the energy to properly fight or flee so much of the time that the freeze response became even more ingrained, to this dissociation response getting tangled up in the brain fog neurobiological executive function problems of Lyme disease. It all goes together and is tangled up and feeds off each other and keeps the dissociation ball rolling.

So with all of that, every time I'm faced with something that feels stressful - school, work, taxes, insurance, even cleaning or doing the dishes, fucking everything about being externalized in this world - I dissociate before I even know what's happening, and that makes all of those things TEN TIMES HARDER TO DEAL WITH, because on top of them already being stressful and difficult, I'm trying to come at them from a dissociated state unconnected with the present, and parts of me are screaming at me to stop everything and freeze or I won't be safe. Uuuggghh.

Feeling the Isabella wisdom of loving these scared frozen places, though. Because another side of this cycle is that when it turns on like that, I get SO ANGRY at those parts of me that feel like they're blocking me and hobbling me and keeping me from being able to do the things I want/need to do. And that just makes those parts more scared, which makes the other parts more angry, etc etc etc

How does it feel to dissociate? I want to try to be with it more, so I can really pinpoint exactly when it starts happening and how it starts. It happens really fast. I think it feels sort of like losing focus, becoming really foggy or fuzzy all of a sudden, and suddenly having a much harder time understanding what I'm looking at and responding to it. It might involve me suddenly becoming really involved with things going in my head. I'll have to see if there's a pattern of the kinds of things I start thinking about. Mainly, I lose touch with my body. I might find myself staring at the same spot for awhile. It might feel really hard to move or speak. And I frequently find myself pulled into things like social media, or a book I'm reading, or a movie or a TV show, or a game on my phone, so strongly that I can't resist it, even if other parts of me are telling myself that I need to be doing other things. And then I find it really hard to stop doing those dissociative things once I've started, it's like a compulsion.

And I definitely tend to want to avoid the topic. I realize that I tend to dissociate when trying to access self-help type resources, when trying to act on self-healing advice, or do homework and activities associated with healing. Which has always felt so strange and confusing to me, like I should be able to make use of these things and I get really frustrated when I can't. I'm doing it now though! I think because I'm finally really getting to the root of this. Which feels really liberating and fills me with hope, because I feel like if I can learn to heal these dissociative parts of me, I'll be able to do and access so much more of the things that have felt so mysteriously hard before. 

Love you both. Thanks for holding me.

<3 Alia