Posted by happyflower on October 27, 2008, at 22:04:03
In reply to What does dissociation mean?, posted by Kath on October 27, 2008, at 19:50:39
It could mean a lot of things, we all do it to some degree. Mild dissociation is like sometimes when you are driving and you arrive and not remember is you stopped at the stop light. For me I see mild or moderate dissociation like "being in your head with so much thought" or daydreaming while not being totally aware of things around you. When you are in serious dissociation, a lot of times you are completely unaware of things around you, you loss time like hours or days, and you don't know what you were doing during that time.
Ever have your mind wonder while someone boring talking to you? That is a mild form.Some that have had abuse issues, sometimes go into dissociation to take them away from the current situation of abuse. Like for me when my mom was abusing me, I would think of myself safe in the woods, it helped me with the very hard physical and emotional memories of the abuse while it was going on. Normally you are not aware of doing this, it happens automatically when your body senses danger. Sometimes when the trauma isn't treated, we can be triggered into dissociation by any of the senses that remind us of a past trauma, even if we are currently really safe. Our body remembers even when our mind doesn't.
Don't know if this helps, and I explained it how i understand it, although others have their own way of explaining it that might be different than mine.
poster:happyflower
thread:859540
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20081018/msgs/859562.html