The triple D's of trauma: Dissociation, depersonalization, and derealization

La versión en español de este articulo

I have complex PTSD along with all the traits of histrionic and borderline personality disorder due to having been abused by my narcissist parents, Karen Sandman and Sandeep Mulgund, for 21 years before being kicked out of their house in January 2022 and screwing off to Mexico, where I read about the long-term effects of gaslighting and suddenly realized that they're the problem, not me. This article is on dissociation, depersonalization, and derealization as trauma responses.

Part 1: Dissociation

If you know me in real life, you probably know me as something of a space cadet, always on the verge of zoning out and missing half of a conversation or having no idea what you just asked me. Well, it's not actually me being spacey or not caring about listening to you; it's dissociation, a response to complex trauma in which you become disconnected from your surroundings and enter into a different realm of consciousness where you're securely trapped within your own thoughts. 

Emotional dissociation is when instead of dissociating from your surroundings, you dissociate from emotions that may be too painful or overwhelming for you to fully experience. If you experience long-term abuse, it will eventually become a default reaction to distress. This Reddit comment puts it perfectly:

The general definition for dissociation is 'any of a wide array of experiences from mild detachment from immediate surroundings to more severe detachment from physical and emotional experiences. The major characteristic of all dissociative phenomena involves a detachment from reality, rather than a loss of reality as in psychosis.'

The dissociation that exists alongside CPTSD is considered a ‘trauma response’. If dissociation is your predominant trauma response, you will still have the detachment from reality that is characteristic of dissociative disorders, but it starts out as a reaction to traumatic stress and gradually becomes your default reaction to stress.

Example: as a child, you have a parent that regularly verbally abuses you. This type of treatment is incredibly traumatic to a growing child since you depend on your caretakers for safety and emotional security, so at a certain point your brain goes into trauma-mode in order to protect you from the incessant, inescapable pain of caretaker betrayal. This trauma mode forces a dissociative response (or a fight response or a flight response; but since you asked about dissociation I’m going to stick with that one). What ‘dissociative response’ means is that when faced with inescapable trauma, your brain goes into survival mode and shuts off access to the painful emotions associated with the abuse, effectively allowing you to disconnect yourself from the overwhelming pain of the situation. This dissociation is a natural evolutionary advantage and defense mechanism, and as such, it allows the traumatized child’s brain to feign a false feeling of safety, so over time it becomes the default reaction to stress. If the abuse never stops, like it didn’t for so many of us here, that child will continue to dissociate every time they experience anything fearful or anxiety-inducing. 

I tend to dissociate from emotions such as sadness, shame, anxiety, fear, and guilt. At first, in response to stressors, I will feel these emotions very intensely due to emotional dysregulation. But at some point, if I'm overwhelmed enough, my brain will simply shut off my access to emotional pain, and I'll be left with nothing but adrenaline and gleeful rage-hatred. When I'm in this state, I become incredibly impulsive and ready to fight or act out. If you know me and have seen me like this... You probably know what I'm talking about.

During mild or moderate emotional flashbacks, I just feel like shit unless I get drunk or high all day. During stronger emotional flashbacks, I feel like shit for a little while, then emotionally dissociate and turn into The Monster. It's preferable to feeling awful but can result in words and actions that I regret later on, to say the least. It's like I have dissociative identity disorder and my alter who deals with severe emotional flashbacks is the craziest and most sadistic bitch you could possibly imagine. (She isn't an alter, though, she's me, xoxo).

I usually find it impossible to get back on track once I've fallen behind. On schoolwork, for example. I always thought that it was just me being lazy or having undiagnosed ADHD. It turns out that it's actually school stress causing me to dissociate. If I get the slightest bit behind in school, it's as if I'm paralyzed and literally can't get to work or even make a to-do list of my assignments. I've always experienced a great deal of envy and self-hatred over the way that other people can procrastinate until the night before an assignment is due and then just get their asses in gear and finish it, but for me, procrastination will result in stress that causes crippling dissociation and can lead to a complete and total downward spiral. 

The lack of structure and accountability on a day-to-day basis in college classes, compared to what my high school classes were like, is why I was usually a good student at ABRHS despite all the gaslighting impairing my mental capacities, but an incredibly inconsistent college student, either maintaining a perfect semester GPA or going on a downward spiral and failing everything. In high school, I kept up with my homework and studying because people would notice right away if I didn't. On the other hand, in college, it's far too easy for me to fall slightly behind and, as a result, never catch up.

Part 2: Depersonalization

Depersonalization works in a similar way to dissociation, but it's your physical body rather than your surroundings or emotions that suffers a severed connection with your mind. 

I don't currently experience depersonalization, but I frequently did when I was younger. I believe that that's why I had such bad body dysmorphia and developed an eating disorder starting when I was 14 that lasted until I was 18, although I remember obsessing over the size and shape of my body as early as at age 11.

The vast majority of adolescent girls and young women experience some level of body dysmorphia. It's rare for us to not be insecure about our bodies or have zero desire to look more like the images we see in advertising and pop culture. The difference between people who do and don't develop [long-lasting] eating disorders is that the latter group doesn't experience the truly debilitating body dysmorphia that follows from depersonalization and motivates you to starve yourself or binge and purge to lose weight, whereas the former group lacks the mind-body connection that you need in order to have respect for your body and not feel driven to destroy it.

Part 3: Derealization

Derealization is another complex trauma response. When you experience it, it's as if everything around you suddenly isn't real, like you're living in a simulation or a video game. I haven't experienced it in a while, but I remember derealizing fairly often when I was in high school. I would go into catastrophic thought spirals where I got incredibly confused over whether or not everything around me was actually real, or puzzled over how things like life, language, and consciousness can possibly exist.

I believe that I derealized so often due to wishing that everything was a simulation. I didn't want everything that I'd experienced to be real; I found a lot of solace in the idea that my entire life was actually just some kind of simulation or dream that I would wake up from eventually. Despite being so disorienting, derealization was comforting because of how painful it was to accept that this was indeed my life and I couldn't change anything about it. 

Part 4: Healing

I've already transformed a lot after cutting contact with my abusers and dropping acid at parties and festivals with random people in Mexico. More on this coming soon. Stay tuned 💞