Do you feel disconnected from yourself or your surroundings? Or do you find yourself in a different location without remembering how you got there?
If yes, you might be experiencing dissociative disorder!
It’s an escape from reality & a disconnection between thoughts, identity, consciousness, memory, & sense of self.
Approximately 7% of the population may have suffered from this condition at some time.
It usually develops after experiencing trauma, especially in childhood. It can be abuse, neglect, violence, where escape feels impossible. However, women are more likely to experience this as compared to men.
Moreover, individuals in this state often struggle alone due to stigma or misunderstanding.
In this article, you will get to know about dissociative disorder, its types, risk factors, and how it can be treated professionally.
What are Dissociative Disorders?
Dissociative disorders are misunderstood mental health conditions that cause a loss of connection between thoughts, memories, feelings, surroundings, behavior, & identity.
The word “dissociation” means disconnected from others! It severely impacts every area of life and often occurs after experiencing traumatic events.
However, it occurs as a reaction to shocking, distressing, or painful events that help split difficult memories.
Symptoms & signs of Dissociative Disorder
- Loss of memory
- Out-of-body experiences
- Mental health issues, such as depression, anxiety
- Thoughts of suicide
- Emotional numbness
- Self-identity
- Thoughts that the world around is not real
What are the Types of Dissociative Disorders?
It has mainly three types, which include Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), Dissociative Amnesia, and Depersonalization/Derealization Disorder.
However, there are some other types as well, such as specified and unspecified dissociative disorders.
1. Dissociative identity disorder (DID)
Individuals experiencing dissociative identity disorder experience two or more personality states, with different traits and memories. It is formerly known as a personality disorder.
People in this state have no control over their behaviors and thoughts & often experience major gaps in their memory. The identity issues come through as different ages and different genders & each personality has different memories, which cause conflict in the mind. Moreover, it causes issues in everyday life activities such as work, relationships, in social gatherings, or may also lead to suicidal thoughts.
2. Dissociative Amnesia
It is a type of dissociative disorder that causes memory loss. People in this particular state have difficulty recalling information about their personal lives. It’s one of the common disorders that affects 1.8% of people around the world.
It is a severe condition where a person travels and may take on a new identity with no memory of their past. Moreover, Amnesia also impacts day-to-day life, such as relationships & professional life.
It usually lasts for a short period or several years and occurs suddenly.
3. Depersonalization/Derealization Disorder
A mental health condition in which people become detached from themselves & their surroundings. It is characterized as an out-of-the-body experience in which individuals watch themselves in a floating river or in a movie.
Moreover, people in this state get disconnected from the real world & feel like objects around them have no existence.
One may feel like they are connected to dreams, flashbacks of leaving the body, disconnection, and have blunted emotions.
4. Unspecified Dissociative Disorder
It is a condition in which a mental healthcare expert does not specify it as a dissociative disorder, but the symptoms consist of dissociative disorder. People experiencing this condition have disruptions in memory, identity, emotion, perception, behavior, and sense of self, which impact everyday life activities. Individuals in this state do not fully meet the criteria of a dissociative condition & also have the symptoms of other mental health conditions.
5. Specified Dissociative Disorder
People in this state have the symptoms of dissociative disorder, but do not fully meet the criteria of the main dissociative conditions. A mental health expert diagnoses it when there is an identifiable cause that is not necessarily typical of other dissociative disorders.
Individuals have mixed symptoms; they have identity issues due to brainwashing, or being subjected to torture, or abuse. Moreover, the symptoms last for a few hours or less than a month.
What are the Risk Factors of Dissociative Disorder?
It usually starts as a way to cope with distressing or traumatic experiences. People do mental escaping to get through a shocking, distressing, or painful time.
Some of the common risk factors that increase the vulnerability of developing dissociative disorders are as follows:
1. Trauma
People who have lived in a toxic environment where they have gone through violence, psychological, or verbal abuse for a long time are at high risk of developing this condition. Moreover, children who have witnessed frightening experiences in their lives, such as a fight between parents, abuse, or violence, can also develop dissociative disorder.
The trauma can be of any type, such as natural disasters, wars, kidnapping, torture, extensive early-life medical procedures, or other events.
2. Severe Stress
Individuals who are facing extreme stressful life events, such as sudden life changes, the loss of a loved one, severe financial issues, or the end of a relationship, can also contribute to the development of DID.
How to Cope with Dissociative Disorder Professionally?
Diagnosing this condition can be tough, and it requires specialized knowledge. A mental healthcare professional can diagnose the condition after examining the medical history, life history, & symtoms.
They conduct some questionnaires with the individuals to know the symptoms more deeply. A mental health professional uses the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5) criteria to get an accurate diagnosis & recommend treatments that suit the best.
Note: If you or a loved one has symptoms that may be a dissociative disorder, contact a mental health care professional for help.
It is highly manageable with the right combination of medications and therapies. However, it requires consistent long-term & approaches.
Medication
Some of the common medications that can help manage the symptoms are as follows:
- Antidepressants
- Antianxiety
- Antipsychotics
Psycotherapies
Psychotherapies are talk therapies in which a mental healthcare expert talks to the individual who is suffering from this condition. Therapy can help people gain control over their symptoms. Psychotherapy may be intense and difficult as it involves remembering and coping with past traumatic experiences.
- Cognitive behavioral therapy is the best way to help individuals; it changes the negative thought patterns into positive thoughts. CBT intervenes in the thoughts and provides coping strategies to reduce the symptoms.
- Hypnotherapy is also a helpful technique that helps in reducing traumatic memories. When you’re getting hypnosis therapy, the intense level of concentration allows you to ignore everyday distractions. It helps you be more open to guided recommendations to make changes to improve your health.
- Dialectical Behavioral Therapy also helps in managing distressing thoughts and emotions. It helps in focusing on skill-building & self-destructive behaviors.
- Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy helps treat traumatic experiences and involves moving your eyes a specific way while you process traumatic memories. EMDR’s goal is to help you heal from trauma or other distressing life experiences.
However, the overall treatment requires patience and consistency as it’s a long-term process. The treatment helps build stabilization, confronting and working through traumas, and combining the identities. People with this condition remain isolated from the world. Joining support groups can also be helpful. In a Support group, individuals meet people with the same disorders, which eventually reduces the stigma and provides encouragement for the treatment.
Begin your wellness journey at Orange Coast Psychiatry
We understand living with a dissociative disorder can be exhausting, confusing, and at times intensely isolating. But you are not alone! We walk beside you in this journey.
At Orange Coast Psychiatry, you will get compassionate, evidence-based care. Our top-notch team of experts provides exceptional care with holistic approaches. Whether you’re just beginning to explore symptoms or looking for treatments, our highly expert team is here to support you every step of the way.
You can also get psychiatric medication management and telepsychiatric services from the comfort of your home
Contact us today for a happy & healthier well-being.
To wrap it all up
Dissociative disorders affect the feelings, thoughts, surroundings, memories, behavior, and self-perception of an individual. It has 5 types listed in the DSM-5-TR, and each one is connected to traumatic experiences & stress. It can occur at any age and have the symtoms of memory issues, out-of-body experiences, depression, anxiety, thoughts of suicide, emotional numbness, and self-identity. The main causes of developing this condition are stressful life events and traumas.
However, it can be managed with the right combination of medication and therapies. A mental healthcare expert recommended medication and therapies according to the severity of the condition. Therapies include CBT, DBT, EMDR, Hypnotherapy, and support groups, & medications like antianxiety, antipsychotic, and antidepressants are also helpful with the combination of therapies.
