Episode 12 - The Dissociation Situation

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Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Emotional Millennial. I'm your host, Annie, and in this episode, I'm going to talk about something thing called Dissociation. Wow, that was a mouthful. Dissociation. Great. Off to a great start here. I realized that lately I've been avoiding being emotionally vulnerable. And so that's something I'm going to try and challenge myself to do. And that's kind of what led me to do another episode on something mental health related. I'm someone who's constantly thinking about the way that I'm feeling and the way that I'm behaving, and I do a lot of constant self reflection. And so I guess based on the last few episodes of this podcast, I saw that I was, like, leaning towards only more medical type stuff, and that's great, and I want to do that. But I also really want this podcast to be a space for emotional vulnerability because I think that's so important. And that's the reason why I really wanted to start this podcast. So I'm trying to challenge myself. So I'm going to start out with simply defining Dissociation, like how it can present in some people, like, symptoms wise. I'm going to try to keep the medical jargon to a minimum.

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So I apologize for that in advance. If that becomes a problem, I'm going to talk about how Dissociation has showed up in my life personally, and how experiences that I've had have allowed me to see that, like, Whoa, I have experienced that before. I have a story from my younger years, I think, when I was in middle school or something. And then I also just have kind of everyday life and being in medicine and how Dissociation can show up there as well. I'm heading over to Mayo Clinic websites that we can get a legitimate definition, a real one. So I'm not just making things up, okay. Dissociative disorders are mental disorders that involve experiencing a disconnection and lack of continuity between thoughts, memories, surroundings, actions, and identity. People with Dissociative disorders escape reality in ways that are involuntary and unhealthy and cause problems with functioning in everyday life. But it can also be something that's not present, like in your everyday life. There are disorders where it's a more constant thing, or it's more of, like, really changing your life in that moment. For example, people can completely take on a new identity and have no knowledge of the life they were living before taking on that new identity.

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It's actually Super, super interesting. Probably just to me, though, because I'm literally interested in everything. Psychology continuing down.

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So these disorders usually develop as a Reaction to trauma and help keep difficult memories at Bay. Symptoms ranging from amnesia to alternate identities depend in part on the type of Dissociative disorder you have. Treatment is like talk therapy, psychotherapy. Yes, classic. Everyone go to therapy. That's my personal opinion. And medications. Enough of that. Actually. I'm just going to read off their symptoms because I think they're pretty good too. Signs and symptoms depend on the type of dissociative disorders you have that may include on a commercial memory loss, amnesia of certain time periods, events, people and personal information, a sense of being detached from yourself and your emotions. A perception of the people and things around you as disordered and unreal, a blurred sense of identity. Yeah, that's enough. That's good. So that's kind of like the gist.

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Of those types of disorders.

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You may have experienced some of those symptoms before, obviously. I know that I have. For me, it only really happens for a short period of time, like maybe five minutes, maybe. I don't know. I guess the most would be like three, 4 hours. So it's not like a consistent, consistent thing for me. It hasn't really happened to me in a while because I've been in a better head space mentally. But when I was super depressed not too long ago, I guess, like, maybe three, four months ago, I would find, generally speaking, that I was just, like, dissociated from my life and the world around me. So for me, at least, the more mild stuff that I'm talking about is kind of like you feel very blah about everything. Like, not necessarily really caring about what's going on around you. For me, it's like emotional detachment from whatever situation that I'm in. And when you're depressed, it's not like you really care about anything anyway. So it could be like a mix of just, like, intense depression. But I do believe there were times.

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Where I was very dissociated, where I.

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Would think to myself, like, I should feel this way right now, but I literally feel nothing. And super rare for me because I'm, like, always feeling a million things at once. So that was kind of like a red flag to me. And of course, I reflected on it, and I'm like, wow, I probably was dissociating. Okay, now I'm going to talk about the very first time that I had a dissociative experience. And luckily for me, it was the most intense one I've ever had in my life. So just starting out real big, I guess. So I'll set the scene. I was like, middle school, maybe early high school. Okay. 8th grade year old me going to, like, this really huge haunted house that was in the area. So I went with a group of friends. I don't know.

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Let's say there was, like, five or.

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Six of us waiting this long line. There's like, all this build up because it's, like, super scary. And I don't know, I remember there being something like, if you pee your pants, you have to Rego to the beginning. I don't know. There was some vague threat about peeing your pants that I really remember because I was like, Please, God, do not let me pee my pants and embarrass the hell out of myself. Okay? Anyway, so I'm getting really worked up, like, in the line. I'm getting anxious. Didn't know if this was anxiety at the time, but it was definitely anxiety that I was feeling. And, like, that anticipation, all the good stuff. We finally get into the haunted house, and it's obviously one of the scariest haunted houses ever. Whatever. Tons of flashing lights, loud noises. I'm, like, clinging on to my friends because I'm terrified, and I think I literally was closing my eyes the whole time. I'm, like, such a wuss. I just was not doing very well. And then suddenly, out of nowhere, I just completely stopped caring. I became a zombie. It was so freaking weird because, like I said, I'm a wuss.

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Like, I'm terrified and whatever. And then suddenly, I just was walking at the front, like, the six of us me, like, leading the pack, like, going through this haunted house, which I knew in the moment, too. I'm like, what the heck? This is so weird. Like, how come I just literally don't care? I don't even know if it's not caring, but it's just like I didn't feel as if I was in a situation that I was actually in the way that I explained it to my friends. Because here's another thing. I'm always verbalizing, like, the way that I feel with the people that I'm with, if, you know? And during the haunted house, everyone's, like, freaked out and obviously paying attention to.

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What we paid for here.

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And I'm like, oh, my God, I feel weird. I feel this. I feel that. And people are like, Annie, shut up. We're enjoying the haunted house. I can't listen to anything you're saying. Meanwhile, I'm trying to have some intimate discussion. Classic during the middle of this haunted house, but I remember telling them and trying to explain to them how I was feeling, and I told them that I felt like I was not in control of my body. I was watching a video game or I was playing a video game character. And it's not like my vision changed. It's not like I'm standing above myself suddenly, and I can see the room.

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That way, but I really felt that.

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There was, like, a physical space between where my eyes normally would sit and see things versus where they were. I don't know how else to explain that. I hope that was okay. I also had absolutely no reaction to anything coming out and scaring us. I'm, like, sitting there stone cold, zombie faced. All my friends are, like, screaming and clinging onto each other, and I was.

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Just ready for it to be over.

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Because I was so freaked out by my behavior, and nothing like that had ever happened to me before. And so I was just, like, honestly trying to walk as quickly as I could through it to just get out and feel like I'm in a safe space again. Once we were out, I tried explaining to my friends again, like, how I was feeling or what happened to me. And they all thought I was weird because they're like, what are you talking about? I've never had that before. And so I felt weird on the outside, and I was also scared about it because I was still feeling that way. I just felt like so disconnected to the things happening around me, and I didn't understand what was happening to me, and I wasn't really sure if it would ever go away or is this just the way that I exist now? And so I just like, really wanted to get home and be alone. But that's also like my coping mechanism. I just like to introvert in my room and I need space. And so that's basically what I wanted to do after this experience. It only ended up lasting like 3 hours maximum.

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And something else interesting is that I talked to my dad about it because I talked to him about literally everything. And he told me that he had a similar experience when he was young. And so at the time, I was like, oh, maybe it's just like something else experience in my adolescence, I don't know. But hearing that my dad had also experienced it made me feel better. Granted, we didn't know it was dissociation at the time. We both just attributed it to be. We both just attributed it to being like, over stimulated and having your brain just kind of like shut down and be like, Nah, I'm good. No more, please. And from that specific situation, I still do feel that way. I do think that's why I entered that dissociative state because there was so much going on. You know, the build up. Like I talked about feeling super anxious in the moment, all the lights, all the sounds, feeling so scared and clinging onto my friends, super anxious. And it's like almost that I reached a level of overstimulation that my brain was like, no more. I can't do this. And it completely shut off.

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And I feel that it is a protection mechanism. You just can't take it anymore. You don't have the capacity for this and to feel all these things right now. So we're done. We're just cutting it off. So maybe it's some type of relief for your brain. I'm good. Two other parts of dissociation I just want to mention really quick is like Depersonalization and Derealization, and I experience both of these things in that story I just told. So Depersonalization is being outside of yourself, observing your actions, feelings, thoughts, and self from a distance as though watching a movie. Definitely how I felt. And then Derealization is other people and things around you feel detached, foggy, or dream. Like, time may feel sped up or slowed down. And generally speaking, the world feels unreal. Definitely felt this way too. Everything around me. Like all the scary monster things, I was able to touch the actors and be just like completely unafraid. And it all felt fake. It was almost like I wanted to touch things because I was like, Is this real? My brain was asking myself like, wait, am I alive right now or am I in a dream?

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Super, super interesting. If you haven't experienced this before, you're probably like, what the hell is going on? But if you have experienced this, hopefully this can help you feel, like, related to in some way. Because I know that when I first had that experience, I felt super alone. Now I'm going to chat about kind of, like, my career in medicine and my current day to day life. That kind of leads me to dissociate or detach from myself. When I first started medicine in real life, in person, not just learning for the first two years of medical school, but being in the hospital, being on rotations, you see some really sad, dark stuff. It's kind of inevitable. And I think it's important to experience those things when you're training. So that when it's the real thing or when you're the one who's finally in charge, you're better at reacting to it so that you can think clearly. And so this kind of weaves into this hypothesis I have that as medical providers, I guess I can speak for myself, so that's what I'll do. But I've slowly over time with each exposure to, like, something traumatic or something that's new and makes me feel some type of way.

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I'm slowly learning how to not feel that and how to separate myself from the patient and their experience and the situation. It's interesting because we call it, like, numbing. Like, oh, you get used to it. Whatever won't affect you anymore. You see so many and it's fine, which is definitely true. I think you are getting used to it, but I think the reason you're getting used to it is because your brain has learned, like, how to dissociate at those times because it's, like, too much for us to handle it's. Like, if you allowed yourself to feel all those things, you would just be, like, burnt out way quicker than way quicker than most physicians burn out. You'd have, like, ten less years on you or something. So by the time that you are there in that really sad situation is happening, like giving CPR and, like, someone dies, like, that is really sad. I remember the first time that happened to me, and I think I cried. I went home, and I ended up writing about it and obviously talking to people close to me about it because it was way more challenging than I thought it would be.

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Anyway, I just got off on a little tangent, I guess. But as medical providers, I think that our brain learns to dissociate from those situations. I definitely have noticed that I have begun to dissociate because it doesn't impact me as much anymore. And also sometimes I'll be like, in the moment and something's happening, and I'm like, I ask myself, do you realize what's going on here? Why do I feel nothing? It's a really bizarre feeling, Especially for me, Because I have so many feelings And I really, like, take on the emotions and the situations of things happening around me. So when I'm in a really devastating medical situation, It's interesting for me to be sitting there in that moment and realize that I'm not affected by it. It almost feels like a superpower. Like I'm like, Whoa, I can handle this. Ha ha. But I think it's just like our brains learning to cope and learning when to turn that on. I'm sure it is a mixture of the numbing as well Because you get so used to it, you've seen so many and I just wonder, like, maybe it is good for us as physicians, as healthcare providers to have that ability to numb in the moment and stuff, but is it okay to not feel as much empathy in those moments, like when you're caring for your patient?

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I always really try to put myself in the perspective of my patients And I like, trying to, like, empathize with them and, you know, make them feel.

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Like they're cared about.

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But at what point will we be so good at numbing that we won't even be able to do that anymore? Does it, like, impact the healthcare that we're giving? Does it impact, like, the relationship between the patient and the physician? Food for thought. Let me know what you think. If you feel like you have some answers to those hypothetical questions of mine, I wonder if there's a way to, like, desensitize ourselves, like undo the dissociating numbing thing. That's super interesting. Maybe if you take a break and then you come back, you'll feel a little bit more, I don't know. Another great question for research, right? Okay, well, that is all I have for today's episode. I really hope that you enjoyed it And I really appreciate your time coming and hanging out with me and listening to this podcast. It really means a lot to me. All of the transcripts for my podcasts Are available on my website, so if you are hard of hearing, you can go there and that will spell it all out for you. My website is emotionmillennial.com. If you want to email me and reach out to me, I would love to hear from you.

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My email is the emotionalonial@gmail.com so like, T H eemotionleenial@gmail.com. Thank you again for listening. You are amazing and I hope you're have a wonderful weekend. Bye.