Dissociating might not always be the best word to use (Credits: JDawnInk)
At 6am on a Monday morning, assaulted by the big light in my bedroom and barely able to sit up, I texted my best friend: ‘I can’t face the commute, I’m literally dissociating right now.’
But was I though?
The term ‘dissociating’ gets banded around a lot. And while I might have been feeling tired and overwhelmed, I was okay. I had my coffee, shook off the cobwebs, and went to work.
While using mental health terms in conversation can encourage more open dialogue around conditions such as anxiety, depression, OCD, and ADHD, it can also mean we forget to assign adequate weight to serious conditions.
There are currently 113,000 posts on TikTok using the hashtag ‘dissociation’, and while some of them offer genuine clinical advice, others are memifications of a serious mental health issue.
According to the NHS, dissociative disorders are ‘a range of conditions that can cause physical and psychological problems’.
Symptoms might include feeling disconnected from yourself and the world are you, feeling uncertain about who you are, or forgetting certain time periods and events.
Currently, data shows that approximately 1% to 3% of the UK population suffers from a form of dissociative disorder.
What are dissociative disorders?
The NHS states that there are three main types of dissociative disorder:
Depersonalisation-derealisation disorder. People who experience this report that people and things around them feel ‘foggy’ or ‘lifeless’. It might feel as though you’re existing outside of yourself.
Dissociative amnesia. This disorder is categorised by having periods where you can’t remember information about yourself or your surroundings. You might forget a learned skill or trait. Much more seriousness than forgetfulness, some people might also arrive at random destinations, having no recollection of how they got there.
Dissociative identity disorder (DID). This used to be referred to as multiple personality disorder. The most distinctive characteristic of DID is the presence of other identities, with their own voices, mannerisms, and personalities.
People may use the phrase ‘zoning out’ (Picture: Getty Images)
Why do so many of us relate to the idea of dissociating?
So if the majority of Brits don’t actually have a diagnosable dissociative disorder, why do so many of us relate to the concept?
Dr Lauren Lebois is a cognitive neuroscientist, and a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
In her opinion, the reason why we might say we’re dissociating, is probably because we actually are.
In the same way that there’s a difference between feeling anxious and being diagnosed with anxiety disorder, dissociative disorders also work on a spectrum, and most people are likely to be experiencing a more ‘normative type’ of dissociation.
She tells Metro: ‘Most people have had the experience of becoming so absorbed in a task or a thought that you lose awareness of what’s happening around you – it might happen with a riveting book or driving home.
‘These types of dissociation don’t typically impact your daily functioning in a negative way.
‘But it’s when these trauma-related dissociative experiences persist well beyond the moment, into your routine day-to-day, and become responses that you’ve lost control over and they interfere in your work, school, relationships, is where we enter the land of complex dissociative disorders.’
While Dr Lebois understands that this can be ‘confusing’, she emphasises the importance of using the term ‘dissociating’ correctly.
She says: ‘We need to be careful that our use of the word “dissociating” to describe more mundane absorptive experiences, doesn’t minimise the more severe and distressing experiences of those with dissociative disorders.’
What does ‘normative disassociation’ feel like?
Matt Bordonada is the deputy clinical director at the Clinic for Dissociative Studies in London.
He tells Metro that dissociation is in many ways a ‘normal human reaction to situations that are stressful, overwhelming, frightening, or even just boring.
He says: ‘It’s about the mind and body disconnecting and coping.
‘For example, you might get on a bus or train and arrive at your destination, and it feels like time has disappeared, and you can’t remember the journey. This is normal.’
This tends to be where people lean on the phrase ‘zoning out’, Matt explains.
‘Some people talk about feeling like they are floating away from their bodies, or like the world around them doesn’t feel real, and like they are in a video game,’ he says.
Ever been on a train and forgotten the journey? That’s normal (Picture: Getty Images)
How do you differentiate between anxiety, depression and a dissociative disorder?
Dr Lebois shares a very basic analogy, which describes the difference between anxiety, depression and a dissociative disorder.
She says: ‘Imagine you’re driving a car through a tense intersection. Anxiety is gripping the wheel too tightly with sweaty palms slipping on the wheel.
‘Depression is feeling like you don’t want to drive anymore and maybe all the other cars would be better off if you weren’t on the road.
‘Dissociation is feeling as if you’re in the backseat watching yourself drive. In more extreme cases, dissociation is like being in the backseat watching yourself drive – but somehow that person driving feels like they are someone else.’
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