Women and Dissociation

There's a lot of confusion around dissociation. The SMNTY team clears some of it up while honing in how it impacts women. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Okay, this is Annie and Samantha, and I'm not going
to Stephane never told your protection of iHeart Radio. Yeah,
so at the very beginning here because I have a feeling.
But usually when we do these episodes any we get

(00:25):
a pretty good response, and you guys really relate to this.
So I have to put some disclaimers up in this
at the very top. While we were working on this episode,
I did have a full breakdown trying to decipher the
difference between disassociation and dissociation. So if you can't tell,
that's what our episode is about today, women in dissociation.

(00:47):
But my pea brain really has a hard time saying
the word dissociation, So I don't know why I have
used that term always. I've never really used the term
dissociation under dissociative um. So please don't judge me and
the likelihood of me using it, and I'm going to
try to correct myself because I know it is the

(01:07):
correct way of using it. It's pretty high, so please
don't at me or judge me too harshly. Because they
are actually synonyms, with dissociate being a more popular word
over disassociate as of recently, both have the meaning of
quote to remove from or cause to break the association
of thank you for your dictionary dot com. However, when

(01:29):
it comes to the psychological level, they are not created equal.
So this is why I say dissociative. Did you hear me? Struggle?
And I really am trying. I'm trying, so please don't
count how many times, although now that I've said it,
you may actually start counting how many times I do
this today. I've done that before. Yeah myself, Yeah, yeah,

(01:50):
I'm kind of scared to come back. I'm sure Christina
is already dreading it. Our amazing producer who's like, I'm
not to cut this out. So many times you can
keep counting so to let us know how many women
make an announcement. So what we were talking about is
the psychological level. So that term would be the associate,
which refers to quote a split within a person's psyche,

(02:12):
a defense mechanism used by trauma survivors to remove themselves
from a threatening situation within their own minds. Again, I
may use the term interchangeably, but will work really hard
to use the correct term in relation to our topic.
Go ahead and with that out there, because I know
people are gonna be like, but you didn't say the
right word. I know I'm trying to going to be

(02:36):
a struggle, but we're going to do our best. Yes.
I actually texted Annie as we were working on this
episode because I was like, I just went down and y'all,
not only did I go down an our links of
the rabbit hole, because I sat here and stared. I
couldn't even figure it out because it kept correcting auto
correcting me when I was putting disassociation for dissociation and

(03:00):
I kept saying, no, there's not enough syllables. Wait, there's
not enough letters to be made this word. What is
what is happening? Really? I dissociated At that point in time.
I had to have my partner come and look at
the word for me. I'm like, what is this word? Right?
And finally figured it out. But it took me a
good hour into this to figure this out. And I

(03:22):
finally had a breakdown and sent you this text. Was like,
oh my god, my mind is finally fried. This is
the one that did it. But with that, also, we
want to put a content warning here. We are going
to talk about a bit about trauma, sexual and physical assault,
and a childhood abuse as well as abuse in general.

(03:44):
So if that's something you don't want to dig too
deeply into, you may want to skip this episode for now.
Because when it comes to dissociation, there's a lot of
correlation to other UH diagnosis such as anxiety, depression and PTSD.
So if that's something that you're not ready to go through,
put a pause on it and come back. But we're

(04:05):
not going into specific cases. We're going to just mention
studies and what their studies look like. Yeah, and it's
it can be. I'm going to put this out here.
It can be surprisingly triggering actually because I I knew
about this. I thought about it before UH and I

(04:25):
found myself like getting upset thinking about it. So just
be very careful for sure, especially when you realize that
the story is about me. This is definitely oh I
I don't want to put that. But yeah, as you

(04:47):
like the like we we laughed because you like some
dramatic movies to be I'm like, what are you doing
to yourself? You're like, but it's got so many emotions,
but you love it and I'm on it and I'm like,
oh hell no, I'm good. Why did you do this
to me? UH studies like this where I discovered an
explanation of what I've done makes me go oh as

(05:08):
where other people like, no, this is this to me? Yeah,
you're exactly, but also traumatizing still, but also traumasizing still.
I mean, it is good to know, like I found
it very It's good information, but it is certainly something
where I was just like suddenly crying when I was
walking the other day, like, oh my god, what is happening?

(05:29):
What is happening? Yes, I get that. Okay. So now
that we've given our content warning, we've summarized definition. What
exactly is dissociation? Well, according to medicine net dot com,
it is a quote perceived detachment of the mind from
the emotional state or even from the body. Dissociation is
characterized by a sense of the world as a dream

(05:50):
like or unreal place, and maybe accompanied by poor memory
of specific events. Um, and here's another one from better
help dot com. Dissociation is the process whereby an individual
feels disconnected or begin to disconnect from their memories, emotions, thoughts, feelings,
and even their identity. And if you want it more clinically,
which you know we do, here are the four different

(06:13):
types of dissociative disorders according to psychiatry dot org. Right,
let's start off with Biggie dissociative identity disorder or d
i D, which is associated with overwhelming experiences, traumatic events,
and or abuse that occurred in childhood. Now, this specific
disorder is the more again dramatized one, I guess, and
was previously known as multiple personality disorders. And I know

(06:35):
a lot of like Crime TV loves to use this
um and it is controversial because there's definitely a back
and forth about belief and acting. There's a lot of conversation.
And some criteria for dis diagnosis from psychiatry dot org
include the existence of two or more distinct identities or
personality states. The distinct identities are accompanied by changes in behavior, memory,

(06:59):
and thinking. The signs and symptoms may be observed by
others or reported by the individual, ongoing gaps in memory
about everyday events, personal information, and or past traumatic events,
and the symptoms cause significant distress or problems in social, occupational,
or other areas of functioning. Hello Moon night. Um. And

(07:20):
though more women are diagnosed with this disorder than men,
and I didn't actually know that until I was researching this,
but that may have something to do with how false
diagnosis happens with men, and we've talked about this before,
um how it might look differently from men, or they
may not report all of the symptoms. This might be
why the numbers are so drastically higher with women. But

(07:41):
we're not going to dig too deep into this specific disorder.
Would probably be another episode on its own, because we
can talk about specific cases and conversations. Again, though, we
are just generically talking about dissociation, so we're not necessarily
talking about specifics in itself, but specifically, I know a
lot of people be like, oh, we're not getting into

(08:02):
this one, so yeah, not today, not today, not today.
But we do want to talk about the other types
of dissociation, including dissociative amnesia and fugue and depersonalization disorder.
So dissociative amnesia, and this is coming from NAMMY, our
National Alliance of Mental Illness, includes the main symptom of quote,

(08:23):
difficulty remembering important information about oneself and may surround a
particular event such as combat or abuse. Are more rarely
information about identity and life history. And with that quote,
there is no average for age, onset or percentage and
a person may experience multiple episodes throughout her life, and

(08:44):
within this category, there are four different types of amnesia
and seeing a pattern. Localized quote for a time has
no memory of a traumatic event. Selective, which is when
someone has quote patchy or incomplete memories surrounding a traumatic event. Generalized,
which refers to when someone has trouble remembering details of
their quote entire life. It felt weird to quote. It

(09:05):
was a quote, but it felt strange. Systemized, which is
when someone has a very specific memory loss, like maybe
a person um. And then dissociative fugue, which is also
called psychogenic fugue, is from Better Health Quote the person
suddenly and without any warning, can't remember who they are

(09:27):
and has no memory of their past. They don't realize
they're experiencing memory loss and may invent a new identity. Right.
I think that's lesser talked about, possibly because it's rare
um kind of like this upcoming one that we're going
to talk about, which is the depersonalization of disorder. Again
from NAMI, it says quote involves ongoing feelings of detachment
from actions, feelings, thoughts, and sensations, as if they're watching

(09:50):
a movie or depersonalization. Sometimes other people and things may
feel like people and things in the world around them
are unreal, which is also de realization, which is a
part of that how it goes interchangeably, A person may
experience the personalization, deualization, or both. The average onset age
for this it was around age sixteen, uh, though can
start much younger, like an early to mid childhood. You

(10:13):
don't see this typically for those twenty years and older.
The only of the people are diagnosed at the age
of twenty or older. So that's definitely seen in younger childhood.
So I think that's something to know. Again, Like I said,
when we talk about it, this is a little more
rare outside of d I D which we talked about earlier. Um,
but because of it seemingly happens more likely hit in childhood.

(10:39):
As one study puts it, dissociation is a complex trans
diagnostic phenomenon which comprises a wide range of symptoms. It
is broadly defined as a discontinuity or disruption of usually
integrated functions such as consciousness, perception, attention, memory, and identity.
Psychological symptoms include subjective detachment from the own person, deep personalization,

(11:00):
or the environment de realization, which may be perceived as unreal,
blurry movie like, or lacking significance. Memory disruptions can range
from a diminished ability to access normally amenable information to
dissociative amnesia. Right, So when we were looking into the study,
there's a lot of variations, so I feel like that

(11:20):
should be on a spectrum as well. Um, when we
talk about diagnosis, and again we probably need to come back,
and we will come back, because I think this is
really important talking about the double edged sort of diagnosing someone.
It's good and bad, but there's a lot of complications
to this specific disorders and the types of disorders because
it can be ranging. You can't grow out of it,

(11:43):
as some people would say, and you can change, uh,
and you can get treatment and it's different. But yeah,
that that one specific paragraph from a study really did
kind of put it together, like, Okay, here we are,
this is the overarching this is what we're looking at.
So it's good to remember that it is kind of
level of spectrum of like it can be one of
these things, it could be all of these things, and
it could be sometimes not all the time. So now

(12:06):
let's take a look at how this affects women with trauma,
and this is what we're going to focus on, y'all.
So what are the correlations of women with trauma and dissociation?
As we spoke about a bit earlier, women are more
likely to be diagnosed over men. Again, much like many
other situations we've talked about in regards to diagnosis, in
the accuracies of these studies could be misleading, as many

(12:26):
men in these studies either deny their symptoms or misidentify
their symptoms, such as instead of nieta or checking out.
Men are volatile and angry, so they may black out
angry and they misdiagnosed that. And by the way, I've
been there to um, so that may be a misdiagnosis
of like having rage or just angry issues, alcoholism, all

(12:47):
of those things I did. We don't mention it at all,
but I will put in here. Um, there wasn't a
high correlation of drug use and substance abuse with dissociation,
oddly enough, so it wasn't necessarily like they associated and
become an alcoholic, you know what I mean. Maybe the
other was an outcome due to whatever uh they're using,

(13:07):
but that's not necessarily this level of dissociation, so just
to put in there, but nonetheless, the difference in the
results is pretty significant. According to one study in regards
to women and trauma with dissociative disorders, women were twice
as likely to achieve high scores on the dissociatives Experienced skill,
which was a measurement used in any of the story
studies in regards to dissociation and dissociative disorders. And this

(13:32):
specific study we're talking about was completed in two thousand
five and it was titled Prevalence of the Dissociative Disorders
among Women in the general population. And in that same study,
quote female to male ratio of nine to one has
been reported in a clinical series of dissociative disorders. So
that was pretty big numbers. Again, it may have everything
to do with that they were looking at specific traumas,

(13:53):
but this was in the general population and women in general.
So and within that same study, those who were diagnosed
with this those of disorders quote reported all types of
childhood abuse and neglect more frequently than did non dissociative women.
And beyond that, quote, sexual abuse, physical neglect, and emotional
abuse predicted a dissociative disorder right, Because dissociation oftentimes is

(14:28):
linked with trauma, we see a lot of quote co
morbidities such as PTSD and depression. In a study based
on rape survivors in South Africa, they looked at the
correlation of PTSD and trauma, dissociation and resilience. Within that study,
they found quote dissociation following trauma may be used as
a coping defense mechanism when confronted with future traumatic events.

(14:51):
This suggests that past association e g. Following exposure to
childhood trauma can increase the likelihood of a dissociative response
with future trauma and dissociation it may become a form
of resilience for immediate coping uh And just to know,
this study was not necessarily about dissociation as being positive
or negative defense mechanism, but more so that it may

(15:12):
be a way of predicting PTSD and other disorders and
how to build resilience and treatment for survivors. And another
interesting and for me, unexpected finding was that they quote
did not find a significant relationship between childhood trauma and disassociation,
PTSD and depression. This finding is in contrast with the
previous findings, so this one was a little different said wait, wait, wait,

(15:34):
it may not have anything to do with this, but
does go on with a possible explanation, saying, quote, it
is possible that the endemic problem of child abuse in
South Africa, in the context of daily exposure to violent
crime and social economic disadvantage, contribute to building resilience rather
than fostering maladaptive coping mechanisms. For example, dissociation resilience may

(15:56):
be strengthened by sharing of common traumatic experiences. It's been
suggested that childhood trauma survivors develop more effective coping strategies
if they successfully resolve and integrate the trauma, leading to
greater resilience and a lower risk of developing PTSD. Now
let's go ahead and put in here. Yes, the study
was in South Africa. We're I don't know where they

(16:18):
were in South Africa because we know that this seems
very like stereotyping of South Africa in some of the comments.
This is a funny sifting study, but it may have
something to do when they went to the population that
had the most trauma to do this study. So I
just want to put that in a reminder. Um. But
the same thing he does go on to conclude that quote,

(16:38):
traumatic dissociation at two weeks post rape was a significant
predictor of early PTSD and depression, but not resilience, early
childhood trauma or prior dissociation. Dissociation at a specific time
point related to specific trauma was therefore predictive of PTSD,
s D and depression among female rape survivors, and not
childhood traumas or prior tendency to dissociate. So the level

(17:02):
is when did it happen? Was it based on child
and trauma? Not necessarily, dissociation was a mediator in the
relationship between a resilience and PTSD, And these findings highlight
the importance of screening for traumatic dissociation and early and
intervention among female rape survivors. So there's a lot of
conversation about Yes, so childhood trauma may not have as
much to do with it as much as current levels

(17:24):
of the associative disorders that it has happened. So I
found that interesting, But a lot of confusion, a lot
of in and ounce, a little bit conflicting. One study
was two thousand and five, the other study was twenty,
but it was in different places. So yeah, questions yeah,
questions indeed, and a specific study completed in the US

(17:45):
and nine focusing on rape survivors as well, which, yes,
this is a bit outdated, so need to be we
need to take it with a grain of salt. But
there were some things in there we thought were interesting.
One is the seven major function of dissociation, which are
number one, the automization of certain behaviors to efficiency and

(18:07):
economy of effort. Three the resolution of irreconcilable conflicts for
escape from constraints of reality UH, five the isolation of
catastrophic experiences, six the cathartic discharge of certain feelings, and
seven the enhancement of herd sense or the one identity
going to a group identity. And to that they added

(18:29):
the ability to ignore pain. And specifically, for this study,
they wanted to take a deeper look at when victims
would make statements like feeling as if they were having
an out of body experience UM during their assaults and
investigate dissociation for women who have been victims of sexual
violence and its relation to PTSD. Unfortunately, though, they were

(18:49):
able to look at the correlation of some of the
cases of PTSD to dissociation and how to predict and
possibly treat PTSD with other comorbidity ease. But due to
the type of study being traumatic as well as not
getting enough volunteers, they didn't get a lot of information
from all of this. Right, So again, this was one
of the first studies that happened based on the association

(19:12):
trauma and rape survivors. They had very little information, so
they put in there the questionnaires that used Obviously that's
outdated as well now, um, and there's a lot of
conversations about this. They use the term engender a lot
um So there's a lot of different things that happened
in the study, but they couldn't get the amount of
information they needed to really have a good study. Now,

(19:33):
don't get me wrong, they still pay published like thirty
pages worth of conversation and trying to do a scale
and trying to do a measurement, and they were able
to get a few things here and there, just kind
of like overall, uh, conversations, but they weren't getting able
to get solid numbers, and I don't think they were
comfortable in coming out with results. So they said, this
is what can happen, and this is how we can

(19:53):
do a better job. In studying it for the future.
But I think it's at least that they started somewhere.
I can't believe it tick to though. Yeah, there's a
lot of things, a lot of studies, especially involving women,
where I'm like, really, right, interesting, Okay, cool um, And
just a reminder, as we are talking in relation to
women and trauma, and this can include veterans and combat

(20:17):
and soldiers and warriors and those who have gone through like, uh,
natural disasters, large disasters, all that, we're not talking about
that right now, and we're not trying to exclude them
on purpose, but we're just really kind of focusing specific
to women's trauma when it comes to things like sexual assault,
violence and abuse. Again, we might come back to that,
but this is very very specific to this, right, which

(20:40):
is why you won't hear us mention it. But just
you know, just so you know, we do we are
aware that that can be a factor. They do talk
about it some, but these are the specific studies that
we wanted to look at. And as we were looking
into these different studies, we stumbled upon specific triggers or
trauma triggers related to dissociation. So we actually got a
list from Safe Supportive Learning dot A d dot gov.

(21:00):
So we did want to talk about that a little
bit because I will say, this is the part that
I may have been a little bit triggered by because
I was like, Oh, that's that's familiar with what do
with that? But we did want to talk about it
because I think it's it's important because we don't always
think about the deeper. We just think about a few
like this is. Oh, I didn't realize that could be
related to this kind of thing, So we wanted to
kind of talk about that. UM And according to another

(21:23):
case study here, which is what they uses for, we
are talking about triggers. So we're talking about quote, sensory
stimuli connected with persons trauma and dissociation as an overload response.
So some of the triggers may include darkness. Uh so
sitting in darkness, specific smells, colors. For me, taste is

(21:43):
one of the big ones since of being ignored, which
actually as a person who has abandonment issues, it does
aggressive behavior, loud noises, and again this is kind of
combat conversation, like people who have gone through war or
been in warlike situations, natural disasters, all of that. UM
anniversaries even and so much more. Yeah, I'm a big

(22:08):
anniversary person. And with that, here are some signs of
distress and responses. Emotional response like anxiety, fear, helplessness, or anger,
Physical such as holding one's breath, headaches, nausea, sweating, stomach aches,
behaviorals such as crying, spacing out, being startled, being argumentative,
Cognitive such as fragmented memories, forgetfulness, inability to decide, or

(22:31):
inability to respond right, And I think like when I
talk about inability to decide, that's a huge one. I've
seen people have melt downs because there are scared to
death that are going to make a wrong choice. So
I feel like this is one of those big was
and not realize why it's so bothers them for them. Yeah,
I agree. And in these triggers and reactions, dissociation helps

(22:55):
to hide feelings and reactions as you mentioned earlier, and
can look like someone who has just sponing some thing
so they don't have to deal with the feelings or
emotions to Also, being completely non responsive and when used
in the short term, can be helpful and even can
help react efficiently under stress or threat, but the overall response,

(23:15):
if constant, can cause people to detach or even harden
their emotions and be unable to connect with people. Right,
And we are talking so much about this, and again
we came into this, uh talking having a moment as
a you and I any about something that we were like, oh,
this is a bigger conversation about our trauma and then
go back to our trauma series where it all began. Um.

(23:39):
But you can hear what we're talking about and some
of the experiences that we went through and realizing what
this is and what this was. And I actually had
a moment with my therapist that got a new therapists
I don't know if I've told you this yet who
is more in line to my transracial adoption issues as
well as identity, which is wonderful. But she did have
a moment asked me do you dissociate? And my ommuniates no,

(24:02):
not really um. But then as she's asking me how
I react to so, I had a panic attack. A
lot of life changes is happening for me right now,
and I had a panic attack in that moment, uh,
feeling unsteady, and I was like, She's like, what do
you do? And in order to not go into the
full blown panic attack, and I say, we'll have to
do a B, C and D, which includes meat laying

(24:24):
down and or stopping and just putting my like distracting
myself from that moment um and realizing when I was uh,
when I do have full blown panic attacks, which I
did not realize. In my anxiety, I go blurry and
I fade and I can't hear people like everything, Like

(24:46):
she asked me, what happens, everything kind of goes out
and that blurry feeling of like I'm not actually here
and can't be present is very real. And I was like, oh,
that's association. Big a realization that I really didn't think
that was something that I did, but it is one
of my trauma responses in which I was like, Okay,

(25:07):
there's one. I talked about the fact that I have
when I get so stressed out and overwhelmed, I don't
remember and sometimes I get cruel. So this angry this
is what I talked about. When I get angry and cruel,
I don't realize that I've said things out loud. I've
actually been called out by a friend who was like,
so can we talk about the other day And I

(25:28):
was like, what are you talking about? She's like, you
said this to me. I was like, no, I didn't.
I was like, and I had to admit I thought it,
but I would never say that out loud, and she
was like, you did. And I literally cannot place that conversation.
I don't know where we were, I don't know what happened,
and I had of course, it came back with a

(25:48):
profuse I am so sorry because obviously if she she
can't read my mind, I had to have said it
out loud, so I had to profusely or apologize. But
having that moment of like, wow, oh wow, I was
trying to cut you out, like not purposely, but because
we were getting We're close, and sometimes I have a
panic moment when I get too close to people that
I was like, whoa that was I'm so sorry. I

(26:13):
did not mean it was very cruel and I'm so
sorry I said that out loud to you, which, of course,
like we were able to bypass if I thought it.
But but there were so many moments of realizing I
actually do this, and I didn't realize and I would
never because in my head, dissociation is such a bigger

(26:34):
category like the D I d S what I think
of or completely blacking out or or moon night, like
that's exactly what I would have associate that with. But
that level of trauma was like oh, and also I
could see it in other people because this is how
it began because I kind of said that to you.
I was like, oh, you dissociate and you were like what, Yeah,
I guess and I was like, you did. I'm sorry.

(26:56):
Can we do this into that episode pretty much back?
But yeah, having a moment like it happens to me too?
And then where do we look at this list of
triggers and reactions? And in here um for anyone who
actually wants this link or goes to find this link,
just so you know, there is a descriptor at the

(27:16):
bottom of a case study of a sexual assault UH
and a child abuse UH survivor. So that might be
triggering and you might not want to read into that,
but it does kind of have a breakdown about how
she reacts to UH what how that it is explained
as dissociative, but it really was so similar to like
I do that. I do that the whole headaches, the

(27:38):
holding of my breath. I don't realize to do it
until I can't. I'm like, oh, what's just happened? Until
I'm almost con um or that's a reaction to a trigger.
As well as I have fragmented memories of my childhood,
I have, I completely dissociate, I cannot remember. Of course,
I may have something to do with the fact that
a lot of our childhood memories not do our correlated

(28:01):
with what we remember, but what people tell us to
which those pictures and celebrations, and do you remember this
so it keeps it in your mind. I don't have
that because I don't have any connection to anyone, uh,
when I was seven or younger. But that tells me
a lot and that I honestly can't remember anything, like
I can't remember people. I can't remember, not even just

(28:23):
remember faces, but the existence of people or the existence
of time. I can't tell you other than like the
fogginess of it all. But there's a lot of things
that made me go, huh, okay, I guess if we
really were to look at the textbook, but which which
is what we're looking at? Research of it? I have
a sort of associative disorder in that realm? Now is it?

(28:45):
Could I be necessarily diagnosed with that? Right now? I
don't know, because I've not had quote unquote episodes of
anything or symptoms of it anything recently. Yeah. I mean

(29:09):
it's interesting because I was like you where I had
sort of the bigger image that we see in media
of what this is. But it was one of those
things where I was reading over this and I was like, Okay,
well then I've already talked about this on the show.
Because that's how like my memories. When I read that
fiction story of like the knocking on the door, I

(29:31):
literally created another version of me where that didn't happen,
and I became so destabilized when my mom mentioned in
passing something that threatened that false reality that I had created,
right that it's like I don't even remember how I
got home when she after she said that, I just
was like I stopped and then hours passed like I

(29:56):
don't And so I definitely created the things. If I
try to remember, because this was like my traumatic period
in high school, I created this version where that didn't happen.
If I try to remember what actually did happen, it's
like someone slams the door and it goes dark, Like
my brain is like, no, we're not going to think
about that we're never going to think about that, and
I don't know why you want to be right, And

(30:18):
that's been my one of my biggest things in therapy
is I'm avoiding it in therapy, but every time, like
we try to do it, my brain is like, no,
we're not doing this, and it's become really I'm kind
of going through a similar destabilizing period right now where
I'm like questioning the everything I've thought to be true

(30:39):
and whether or not it's true. And that actually started
at the beginning of the pandemic because a good friend
of ours I told him we were having like a
very heart to heart moment and I told him like,
I'm worried. I'm worried everything I think is false and
everything I am as false, and that that's what people
are going to remember is that I was just fake
because I have these memories that I know aren't true,

(30:59):
and I have other memories I can't remember, So it
just it gives it it's very hard to convince yourself
of like the truth, and that can become very important,
um because memories can get really messy. But he wrote
very kind. It sounds messed up, but he wrote a
very nice you as I did, I was, well, no,

(31:22):
I was just kind of saying, like what old people saying.
My eulogenie was like, here's so it's not just like
you're dead. But no, yeah, I think this is a
conversation where I feel the same way about my childhood.
I am petrified because the things that I feel like
I do remember I may have made up because I
don't know for sure. There's not no evidence outside of

(31:44):
my triggers, my reactions to things, my body just being
like nope, that made me think this had to have happened,
because these are the memberies that have and this is
how my body reacts to Therefore, but I don't want
to say that loud because I maybe lying and people
are not gonna believe me, and so I I lessen
it in order to nonsensationalize it. And I don't want

(32:05):
to be called a liar and that couldn't have happened
type of conversation. But like, but these are the things
that I remember. This is the reason why that the evidence. Honestly,
one of the biggest triggers that I've had studying social
work is when we talked about reactions and types of
diagnosis and types of symptoms essentially, or or statements that

(32:26):
are like yeah, you maybe these are things me having
that is that's me. And so having those moments, having
that moment like did this happen to me type of
conversation because I can't remember it. I just know it
was traumatic, and it was traumatic enough that I shut
it down. I cannot remember except for two things to
a few things here and there that I shut it

(32:47):
down so hard. Um, but I can tell you, like
moments of feeling a man's gaze on me made me sick,
uh and nauseous, like just staring looking at me maybe not,
but then also feeling like they didn't want me like that,
Like even when I talk about it, I get to
you like just saying someone they don't actually want me

(33:08):
to be here, I don't belong has been something that
triggers me. And there's no necessarily like obviously I have
abandonment issues. I was left in an orphanage, so so
many layers to that, but there's so many moments that
I'm like, but was it true? Was it as bad
as I thought? Type of conversation in my head Because
also there's a part of me that has that defensive
of like I don't need to remember my body, my mind,

(33:29):
my body shut it down for a reason. Let's leave
it there. Yep, right, yeah, yeah, I I feel like mine.
I mean again, we're seeing all these kind of media representations.
I definitely have like the movie remember, I remember the
things I can remember from a third person, right, and
she feels like a different person to me, which is

(33:50):
part of why I created that story. But it is
like it's the slamming of the door. I feel like
I have the memories of my brain is like, we're
not going in that door. We are not going in
there is bad news is And then I definitely had
like the blacking out I had when I was kind
of at the height of this, a friend of mine
pulled my ponytail. I don't know what happened, but I
got like sent to the princip's principal's office. I was

(34:12):
blacked out. Um, and so a lot of this, yeah,
I was just connecting to. And then another thing when
I was I was taking my morning walk, I had
just watched the newest episode of Moon Night, which I'm
not even talking about the whole thing that's going on there.
I'm talking about the abuse that happened, um, and I
started crying, and I was like, what if there can
be no Sinnaben role? What if everyone's right? Oh my god.

(34:36):
But that was a big thing for me, was the fictional.
I would just kind of sit in my room and think.
And I know you all have heard this, You've heard
me talk about this on the show, where it was
just like I had to believe these things. I had
to believe someone could go through this and come out
the other side. Um. And that was a big it's

(34:56):
it's it sounds so silly and I feel ridiculous, but
that's I gotta said about this kind of like fiction
all idea, because that's how that's another way I would
do it, was I would be this person and that
helped me feel like I had worth, um because I
believe that they did. And that's the problem is that

(35:17):
we fight with ourselves and it from where I'm hearing
you that that's not ridiculous, that makes absolute sense. And
it is a moment of like warning and processing that
like if this is not true, then this is the
correlation for me, right right? Um, And I think so

(35:37):
many things that I'm hearing you say, and I'm hearing
myself say is something that we hear in this conversation
of sexual assault and sexual trauma. And I'm not saying
like it's not true at all because we're speaking honestly,
but of the like kind of it couldn't be that bad,
or what if people don't believe me? Like we're saying
a lot of that kind of stuff, um, which is

(35:59):
a setting, but that is how I felt like. I
just I also thought like, there's no evidence of a
lot of this, so what if my mind just the
one I said? Fun, like you start questioning yourself, right, um,
even though they feel so true and you have those
embody like emotional physical reactions, right, And that's exactly That's

(36:20):
the thing, is like we can't control any of that,
m h. And why would I why would we want? Right?
I've had the moments where I've had to prepare people,
so as I'm diving into my for me, my career
and identity trying to kind of figure some things out. Again,
my experience is a little different from some Like I know,

(36:40):
a lot of adoptees were brought here as infants, so
they don't necessarily know the association to or have an
association to Korean flavors and like they have never tasted it,
they've never remember they wouldn't remember it necessarily. Um. Again,
there are several who have they were older. For me, UM,
I have memories and taste and smell is such a

(37:01):
trigger to me that as I'm trying this process, I
had to wait till almost late I mean in late thirties,
early forties for me to even be like I can
do this. But I still come to the point of
telling people, hey, this might happen to me as I'm
preparing them, Like I might have a triggered moment, and
I might just associate now that I know, like I
might associate whether it's for me like just fogging and

(37:23):
literally blanking and becoming unresponsive, which is what happens with
the panic attack. I've become unresponsible, also can't breathe, but
those are two different things. But I still don't remember
what happens in that moment. Everything becomes foggy. Um. This
is that same level ish where I have a react
of visceral reaction that I can't control. UM. But I

(37:47):
want to have those moments and try to find the
good of it and reredo redo those moments and and
enjoy it and it's not necessarily bad, but it just
brings me back to a place that I felt unsafe
even I can't tell you why. But yeah, there's so
many things. And again, this is why I want to
talk about it, because I also think this battle we

(38:07):
have in ourselves and recognizing some of these things, we
don't want to talk about it as if we're victims.
But it's also kind of a relief to know that, Okay,
there's a name for this um what I want to
be identified the associative disorder. No, because some would be like,

(38:28):
do you have fifteen personalities? Which one are you now?
Because that's the one we think of oftentimes even those
the least likely. Honestly, like, there's not too many cases.
There are, don't get me wrong, but they're still It's
like it's not as common as people wanted me to
get out to be, which is also why maybe this
sensationalized because it is so different. But I think it's

(38:48):
fascinating to talk about it because it does affect so
many women dealing with daily life, dealing with relationships, like
trying to be in dating and thinking that this is
the normal, that's all they have to do and then
therefore if they don't love every part of it, then
there's something wrong. Um, and there are reasons but to

(39:10):
this and for me, actually, I would use this what
I would do as me saying I have this is
my survivors instate, this is my you know, survivor mechanism,
like this is what I have to do in order
to survive. It's hard for me to let go of. Yeah,
I agree. I mean that's probably what I would have

(39:30):
before we did this and I knew what it was,
I would have said that because it was something my brain,
my brain and my body just did because I I
mean that sounds terrible, but essentially like it was like no, you,
we don't you. You are going to break completely now
and if we think about this, we're just not gonna
think about it, right, And that's how I survived, right,
And that's kind of the level of the psyche for

(39:51):
any associative disorders, is that kind of like I can't
handle this trauma right now. So this is what my
body is going to do. This is what my mind's
gonna do, This is what my mental health is gonna do.
This is my psyche what it's gonna do. Whether it's
to do the extreme of having four different people inside
of me or just forgetting it, just forgetting um and

(40:12):
hopes that I'd never have to dig it up again.
But it always talks to you, obviously, because there's still
triggers there. Um And And though we are talking about
sexual trauma and abuse, I did kind of want to
mention also attachment theories there. And we talked about attachments
before women attachment issues. We've also talked about parentification before
and this is all correlated. Um. There is another study

(40:36):
that was titled the Associative Experiences of Women Child Abuse Survivors,
and it actually goes into this whole conversation about the
different experiences for young for women who had again child abuse, UH,
whether it's emotional abuse, whether it's physical, whether it's sexual.
They talk about the level of how attachment, because we've

(40:58):
talked about the results of how you react or attached
to people has a lot to do with how you
interact or what has happened in your childhood and who
you trust and who you can see is safe and secure.
Part of that attachment level in our conversations before, but
how that correlates was the dissociated especially when it becomes
one extreme of another. And one of the big things
I talked about, which we mentioned earlier, was emotional abuse

(41:21):
and emotional neglect and neglect in general, so not even
the physical or sexual abuse where it's all physical, just
the mental abuse in itself can cause dissociative disorders or
diagnosis or symptoms as well. And something to remember because
again we do talk about the extreme levels of the
movie Sibyl was based on a pretty severe sexual abuse

(41:44):
physical abuse case way back when, and it became a
huge kind of beginning in this conversation, and that's what
we think of and not that this doesn't happen, it
absolutely does. But when we talk about emotional abuse, when
we talk about attachment theory and attachment issues, this can
be going. This can go hand in hand. And that's

(42:04):
what we want to recognize. That it's not what you think.
It's not abnormal, it's not necessarily that it's detrimental. It
is that it exists, and what you are doing is
something that's trying to protect yourself. You already knew this,
we said you said that just now, even before we
talked about what dissociative disorder was, and it's many symptoms
or diagnosis. You were like, this is my self defense mechanism,

(42:25):
and that's what we call it. But in but in reality,
this is kind of that level of trauma that has
a lot taught us to cope this way. Is it
help always help me? No? Can we talk about the
fact that it can be debilitating, yes, but does it
exist yes? And can we talk about the fact that
attachment theories when extreme neglect or extreme abuse or pronification
where the expectation is laid upon a child to raise

(42:49):
the parent, or raise other kids, or become the parent
in the family, it can cause a lot of trauma. Again,
we talked about that earlier, and I think it's something
to know that these studies are talking about why this
can be a problematic and how this can occur. So
it is a result of and not necessarily something that
you're born with necessarily, which I don't know if that's

(43:12):
There's so many things to that we know when it
kind of diagnosis, it's like trauma versus biology. So but
some people are more susceptible. We know that this is
This is the thing about these types of disorders and diagnosis.
It's complicated, and it's called conversation that can go in

(43:34):
too many directions. It can, And before we get into
our final direction, I actually want to make a very
strange note. I just realized some people might be listening

(43:56):
to this show for the first time because you're interested
in this topic. If you didn't know, a cinnamon roll
is a trope about a character it was very sweet,
very pure. They go through a lot of trauma but
are just like sweethearts. Right, So if you're listening to
this and you're like, another thing to add is one
of Annie's way of of distancing herself and just kind

(44:18):
of giving herself self care. Fan fiction it is her love, right,
absolutely absolutely. I wrote so much fan faure the last
night I needed to go to sleep, but I had
an idea which we love, which we love for her sleep. Okay, yes,
all right. I just wanted to make that note for

(44:38):
anyone who was listening to that very serious to stop you,
to remind you that the people who listening to this
one may not be listening to the versa. So but
love this is my favorite trope. Yeah all right. Yeah.
We had a recent review. Someone was like, I love
Annie's love for all these nerd things, and I love
Smith this love for social justice and social She was like,

(45:01):
I'm the boring one here. But moving on, So as
we're talking about TRABA, let's kind of come out of it.
We're going to talk about dissociatives, disorders, dissociation and today
because there's been some things that's been talked about again,
social media has kind of made things rampant. We use
words like impaths, and we use dissociate or disassociate as

(45:24):
we like to say, because I all, I'm sure Christina
has made it sound wonderful, but many times we've had
to go back and forth on that word has been
a lot, a lot. I was gonna say, Christina fort
at the end, you just want to put a supercut
of us cursing, trying to figure out the right word.
Go ahead, or you can just make a little announcement
how many times we messed up. So recently in twenty nineteen,

(45:47):
there was a whole new phenomenon in which a bus
State article came out titled the smartest women I Know
are all dissociating um and it was written by emm
Align Klein and which she kind of talks about the
phenomenon Fleetbag, which was a huge hit. I've never watched
this show. Have you ever watched this show? Did you

(46:08):
like it? Yeah? I did? Okay, would you recommend for
me and watch it? Or that? Just all cringe and
I'm gonna have to ignore it. Um, I'll have to.
I'll get back to you on that way. I think
probably ignore it for you. But yeah, it's very good.
I like right. So Caroline from Unladylife, former co host
of Stuff I've Never Told You, she loved it, as
well as so many others. The show Girls was also

(46:29):
mentioned in this article, and she kind of talks about
a new term she has created, which is dissociative feminism,
in which she states is quote simply refuses sustenance and
lives sometimes within and sometimes outside the craggy body society adores,
subsisting on miss lustful gazes and other women's jealous ones.

(46:50):
So essentially the cool girl. We've talked about the types
of girls in movies and or stereotypes. She's talking about
the new form of the cool girl, in which she
referenced fleabag, the main character who just kind of goes
with the flow, does whatever, may make a comment about it,
but essentially just does what it is to appease men

(47:13):
or to appease that nature, whether it's body dysmorphia, whether
it's drinking in order to forget, or whether having sex
and then just zoning out in that sex like which
is a whole other conversation we've had about enthusiastic consent
and this would be the opposite of it and what
women will do. So she has this whole article about

(47:34):
women are dissociating now in this way from feminism. So
it's kind of interesting, and I was like, I don't,
I don't really, I don't really know if I understand
this article any that you had a chance to read it,
What did you think explain to me what I'm missing
on this one? Okay, So I think that as someone

(47:57):
who has seemed flee back, I think the points she
was trying, well, the point they were trying to make
with this article is that kind of this nihilistic attitude
is a response and method of dissociating in a society
where there's so much misogyny and patriarchy and all this
toxic stuff. There's a whole scene, there's a really moving

(48:21):
scene because basically what happens is, like Phoebe bridget Wall
Fleabag is playing with the fourth Wallly. She'll look at
you and say something um and then turn back, and
then that's sort of the uh in quotes association she's
talking about, I think UM. And then at the end
there's a very powerful moment where she's like, no more,
I'm not going to do this anymore. But she has
this conversation where essentially she's talking to this guy that

(48:44):
she wants to date that she might actually love, and
she says something along the lines of like I want
agency until I just don't want it anymore. Like I
can't take is too much. It's too much to have
this weight. I want someone to make the choices. I
want someone to do this. Um. I personally, when I

(49:06):
read it, like, I mean, maybe maybe I could see
it being dissociation, but it was more like the we've
talked about this to this sort of glorification of like
self destruction and these sort of self destructive characters. I'm
not saying like everything she did with self destructive, but
a lot of it was a lot of self destructive,

(49:26):
and I think that's different than dissociation. Right, So essentially
what we're talking about nihilism versus dissociation, I personally think,
so I think we're talking about like she maybe it's
kind of like throwing up her hands. I'm just going
to get into fights and drink a lot because this
world sucks, versus like actually dissociating. Okay, all right, so

(49:49):
this is okay. So soon after, I guess maybe people
had questions like me, because I've never seen the show necessarily,
so I don't quite understand. I get the premise of
it essentially was like self de ricating humor in order
to figure out oneself, and that's typically through a relationship
and or relationships, so I assumed it was something like that.

(50:10):
Girls kind of seemingly was along the same lines, except
a destruction of friendship. A destruction of friendship as well,
which maybe I've never seen anither one of these shows. No,
neither one of the shows I have ever really kind
of like interested me. However, like I said, I think,
because yeah, I would as a person who was researching
these things, and we talked about these things and saw

(50:31):
the bigger like D I D level of dissociation, it
didn't make sense, like that's not the same thing, and
we're not the only ones. There was another article written
advice by Kate Mooney, who counters some of the points
made in buzz Feed article, but again kind of like
us trying to remind everyone what dissociation actually is, and

(50:52):
she was like, there's a difference. At one point she
talks about being a difference between zoning out and giving
up versus dissociating um, And she writes in her article, quote,
according to Bethany Brand, a clinical psychologist and expert in
trauma and dissociative disorders, quote, all of us dissociate to
some extent, so it's not too often. The problem, she said,
is that there's a confusion over what that means, even

(51:17):
among psychologists. Again, this is where I kind of come
back to the whole level. But it needs to be
a spectrum. But it feels like dissociating. It's not necessarily
a choice but a response. Right. That's yeah, that's kind
of been my vibus. It's your body being like nope yea,
which I just remembered one time somebody somebody kissed me

(51:37):
and I just like collapse and I was like a
dead body. I know, I couldn't moved wo okay, So yeah,
so I just used the terms zowed down again, and
that's not the same thing as what you're talking about,
because I'd like this, I do not want this. That's
not I think it could be a form of I
guess this might be a disassociate eight. This might be

(52:00):
where the term disassociate comes in. Maybe she should have
said disassociative feminism is that dissociative? Maybe we just found
a solution here at the end of all of this.
I found that interesting and her Mooney's article, I felt
like that a good point in reminding this is a
bigger picture than you think. Right. So Mooney goes on

(52:22):
to say, quote, dissociative symptoms often accompany anxiety disorders. During
panic attacks, people may experience de realization, or the world
around them appears foggy or surreal. The most severe expressions
of dissociation stem from trauma. Victims of sexual assault might
have an out of body experience and see themselves in
the corner of the room or floating above themselves, either

(52:42):
during the assault or when we're calling it later. Children
who experience abuse learn to numb themselves emotionally and physically
to block out painful memories, essentially to survive what's happening
to them. Brand explained. Dissociation may develop as an adaptive
technique to cope with severe distress, but can also become
a conditioned habit that can carry with them into adulthood,

(53:02):
where it can present a wide range of problems, from
difficulty staying present enough to function on a daily basis
to an inability to truly experience one's emotions right now. Good.
She does say that it could be a habit, so
there's an overlapping, but I think using it in the
term that Klein used, it could be a disservice in

(53:22):
when we're talking about dissociating again, I think we should
say disassociating for that one, because I found I found
a way. But all these conversations did bring to light
like what is happening today? How do we look at it?
What do we look at And I'm honestly interested in
car of course we don't have to study about because
I was trying to find dissociative behaviors with the pandemic

(53:46):
and quarantine, because that has brought out of a whole
new level and not just zoning out, not just being distracted,
but truly dissociating, and maybe we can find it if
y'all have know anything about it, maybe someone has talked
about it during their therapy session, please let us know.
But we didn't want to end with that, although that
again kind of a big conversation, but we didn't want
to talk about possible treatments for it. And again, this

(54:08):
is one of those that has to be something that
should be professionally talked about, whether it's through UH, a therapist,
a doctor, even maybe being able to see someone on
the professional level. But once some of the treatments that
they said UH could be of help is psychotherapy or
talk therapy, stress management maybe. And I can see that

(54:30):
the panic attacks that I was talking about, I had
to find a way to calm my triggers, so I
don't get into that state of being looking at treatment
of other disorders. So when we're talking about the quote
comorbidities such as anxiety depression PTSD, those could be underlying
ways of treating dissociative behaviors and dissociative diagnosis and symptoms
as well. Again, you wouldn't want to talk to a

(54:52):
professional about this. Some things that may help that go
beyond that is having just a safe environment, which owns easy.
But I know it's hard. It's hard to find that. Again.
I don't even know if I've found that completely, but
I found more ways of finding that for myself at
age forty, late thirties, and that could include getting away

(55:14):
from your family, no contact, or staying away from situations
that you know can cause you that level of stress
or triggers. I stayed away from Korean culture for a
while because of my fears of that of the trauma. Um. Yeah,
so some ways to looking again. Talk to people if
you have an opportunity to get to a therapist or
psychiatrist is a great thing to do. And just a

(55:36):
reminder that yeah, you're not alone as what you are
telling our stories. It's more common than you know. Uh,
but it definitely should be talked about more. Yeah, clearly
a lot of confusion around it, as we've explained throughout.
But yeah, that's that's what we have to say about

(55:56):
it for now. Um, if there are any listeners, if
you have any thoughts or experiences, any resources we should
look at, any halucidations, please let us know our emails.
Stephanite your mom Stuff at iHeart media dot com. You
can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast or
on Instagram at Stuff I Never Told You. Thanks as
always to our super producer Chris Data. Bet she's probably

(56:20):
just associating herself from us right now, oh no. And
thanks to you for listening Stuff I Never Told You
this production to I Heart Radio for more Podcast in
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