Dissociation

(The following is an excerpt from Rebuilding the Garden: Healing the Spiritual Wounds of Childhood Sexual Assault by Karla McLaren. Those interested are encouraged to read the book in its entirety. Though out-of-print, it can be found from on-line used book-sellers.)

*Survivors are encouraged to first read the warning by the book's author and publisher at the bottom of this page.

In the broadest explanation, dissociation is an alteration in consciousness that occurs in response to extreme physical or emotional stimuli. It is thought of as a protective mechanism, and ranges from the simple act of fainting in response to sudden or overwhelming sensations, to the complete splitting seen in people with multiple personality disorders (who, it is interesting to note, are almost exclusively survivors of childhood sexual trauma). Dissociation at this level is purely unconscious - it is a reaction that may help to insure survival in the face of uncertainty. Dissociation, though, can become a learned response, especially in unbearable physical and emotional stimuli are repeated.

Survivors of repeated childhood sexual assaults are often masters at dissociation, and in this they resemble, strangely enough, prisoners of war and kidnap-torture victims. The symptoms all three types of survivors experience are remarkably similar. These can include night terrors and flash-backs, phobias and delayed stress reactions, suicidal depressions, weight, drug, and eating problems, and an uncanny ability to traipse headlong into dangerous situations and relationships.

Here's my theory: during childhood sexual trauma - when any real sense of safety and "self-ness" disappears, when Gardens are defiled - the conscious minds of molested children simply leave the world as we know it. This leaves the unconscious to deal with and record the trauma. Coming back into their bodies afterwards, these children soon find that the somewhat simple world they once knew is no longer available. From that moment on, they learn to survive as best they can, without an anchor, without a net, without a childhood, and without a center. Their center, or their Garden, becomes the unconscious storehouse for their trauma.

Because they have no "home" to go back to, these survivors usually learn to use dissociation as a matter of course - as an all-purpose protective device. In their after-event lives, molest survivors will often unconsciously seek traumatic relationships and situations that help them to trigger their dissociative abilities. This after-event dissociation acts as a stress-relieving tool that keeps their attention off of their inner selves and helps them to maintain a safe distance from their remembered trauma. Getting close to their center, and focusing attention back on their bodies, is usually too scary and intense. For many survivors of deep trauma, the process of dissociating actually relieves their pain and tension.

Dissociation is a very powerful and life-altering event, one that can insure survival in the face of danger and suffering, but without conscious awareness of their ability to dissociate, survivors of trauma may set up a post-assault life which approximates their trauma. If they do, they can utilize the wonderfully powerful escape-hatch of dissociation over and over again. People stuck in this kind of endless, uncontrolled loop don't even realize that they are not living in the present, or in their bodies.

The present - where the sun is shining and doors are unlocked and hands do not grasp at them - has very little impact on dissociated people. Because they have split off and abandoned part of themselves to their nightmare, they cannot move away from their life-altering trauma.

No matter how much forgetting they try to do, or how much "getting on with it" they attempt, split and dissociated people cannot get away from the terror. They cannot get back to their ruined Gardens, and cannot find their way back to sunlight. These people are stuck in a raw, unconscious survival mode. The unconscious cannot possibly forget what happened, but the conscious self refuses to remember, and probably seeks dissociation on a daily basis.

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This splitting is the only way many trauma survivors can function; they live beside their pain, outside of their trampled Gardens, and away form their fearful memories. The part of them that experienced the trauma in its entirety is left utterly alone and unhealed while they float above and apart and play at being normal. This normalcy, though, does not last for very long, because the unconscious must and will throw the stored energies forward. The symptoms (flashbacks, panic attacks, suicidal depressions, the inability to create a non-traumatic life) which trauma victims abhor as unpleasant and even insanity-producing are, in my experience, signs of incredible health and activity.

Follow me on this one. Recent research has proved something people have long guessed: that people in altered states such as anesthesia or coma are still recording everything that goes on around them. Many surgery patients, when put into a hypnotic state, have been able to recite verbatim the conversations they heard while they were completely sedated. Add to that the fact that coma patients, when revived, can sometimes recall the dates and times loved ones visited, and you've got a rather good case for a much larger definition of consciousness than we generally allow.

When we disassociated and left our bodies, or floated above the room in our minds, or went to a fairy-tale world, we still experienced our assault. The part of us that holds the memories (and, as you will find, many, many other parts of us) needs our help - just like it helped us when we needed it, by letting us split off and leave the pain behind.

The flashbacks, the day and night terrors, the constant replay of assault memories, and the surprisingly assault-like jobs and relationships we find ourselves in - these are not signs of chaos and insanity! These are the articulate and inarticulate pleas of the part of us that recorded every moment of our assault. These are calls for help, for healing, and for wholeness, but unfortunately, they tend to drive our consciousness even further out of our bodies.

If I constantly leave my body (which in non-trauma situations means that I am emotionally unavailable and essentially unreachable), my view of the world is that there is only fear, threat, pain and loss, against which I must constantly defend. I may let some love and tenderness through, but I still remain poised, armed against some dreadful future event. I stay separate from most people, because I am protecting myself (or them) from my chaos. I wait and watch, constantly reliving (or trying to eradicate) my painful past, or dreaming of a brilliant future where I find the perfect love and the perfect career, become fabulously rich, and cure all disease. I do not have time for the meaningless boredom of the present. I am very well defended, but I am not alive.

If I do by chance enter my life, I see that I am going nowhere and am in unbearable pain. I am desperately lonely, ugly, inherently flawed, unable to re late... so I leave again and dream of the future, but make no real, in-the-body plans to get to that future. Sometimes, I will institute an amazing flurry of positive changes, followed by an equally amazing an inventive series of sabotaging actions and counter-moves. I may even choose a relationship where my struggles toward health threaten my equally ill partner. My life is in a constant limbo.

But, if I try to live in my world, it hurts too much. I remember my assault in bits and pieces, and I see in living technicolor that there is no protection - no avenging God who rescues tiny children from evil. Leaving doesn't work, staying doesn't work, living doesn't work, and the assault never, ever goes away.

Listen: sexual assault memories don't go away because they shouldn't go away - not until there is something to replace them, some way to heal them, and some way to understand them. The replay, the memories, the physical shadows of touch; none will go away until they have your attention and your help. The psyche, which includes and oversees your conscious and unconscious selves, constantly strives for balance and wholeness. It will replay the moment balance and wholeness were lost until it has answers.

Your psyche will allow you to dissociate for only so long, and then it must re-create wholeness, re-attach your spirit, and find workable answers. When it has answers, your psyche will go on to other issues, but the only way it can get its answers is if you get your consciousness back into your body, listen to yourself, and stop the constant, numbing replay of your trauma.

Creating a satisfying end to flashbacks and replays will make it easier to remain in your body, especially if you have the support of our first energy tool in the Garden class: a meditation center and sanctuary called the room in your head.

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Dissociation