The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization
Submitted by Sarsha on Sat, 07/31/2010 - 11:28pmThe word gets thrown out there to reference so many experiences. What is the common thread that links these experiences into this word? I wanted this book so badly because I thought my non-understanding came from ignorance. This book confirmed for me that dissociation can mean spacing out, the splitting of a personality, a defense mechanism, or even more broadly into any number of alterations of consciousness. Whats in a word though, right? It lacks specificity? So does "hot dog" or "stuff" or "house". Words are flexible to respond to context.
But what does my psychologist mean when she says I'm dissociative? And does she know when my psychiatist meant by the word when she wrote it on my records? Do they mean the same thing by it? Are we all even taking about the same symptom, I wonder.
For me this question strikes particularily close to home when I have such a wide range of symptoms that can land in the vast land of dissociation. Spacing out. who doesn't, though. The feeling that yourself/the world is fake or a dream. Losing time. Some level of personality splitting. And what about my "inner hallucinations"? daydreams/spacing out (dissociative) that look more real/as real as the rest of the not real world? Couldn't that be due to dissociativeness?
And what is hypnosis then, is it guided dissociation? Just curious.
This book wants to propose a limit to the definition of dissociation. It is the fragmenting of a consciousness, the most simple happening in the case of PTSD where we have a split of the autonomic defense personality (in other words the part of you that does the behaving when you get triggered) and the more complex functioning daily life kind of peronality. The most severe is Dissociative Identity Disorder. There are mid-level ones. I am self diagnosing myself as Dissociative Disorder NOS. I could be wrong, but none of the other boxes they put me in make any sense.
I am really digging this book. It makes a lot of sense to me although I wonder then what word we are using for all of the symptoms that the writers cut loose from the dissociative categorization? I am only half way through Chapter One and it has really made my little wheels turn.
Dissociation...
Sounds like an interesting book and your points are very interesting...I guess as I turn away from psychiatry as a tool for self-understanding I am kind of rejecting any scientific attempts to quantify or qualify my experiences of the world and of myself. And as well, I think any such scientific attempt, while a worthy endeavor, is perhaps doomed to failure in that we are talking about things that are highly subjective and cannot really be touched, let alone measured. Yeah, I know there are specific criterea in the DSM, but in the end it all seems really subjective to me.
So I've only recently started using the word dissociation about myself. Can't remember where I picked it up, but my pdoc has never talked about it with me. It just drives home to me how little she really has gotten to know me in the past 13 years, because I feel it's something I do all the time. I feel unreal and I feel that I'm not really here, I barely exist. I think I was actually doing it so much that I had no sense of it. It was such an accustomed state since childhood that nobody, including myself, was aware of it any more. It's just recently, when I started doing it less, that I became aware of it. I am very interested in this topic, anything that is going to bring me more understanding. But is it helpful for me to be told, Oh, you're not dissociating? It's just a word, as you said. Words are just some way of taking an idea which is not tangible, and pinning it into the tangible world, like the string on a kite. But if someone says, oh, you're kite's not really there, it's not valid, it's not accurate, does that mean I'm just going to let go of my kite and let it fly away? It's just a useful tool to combat loneliness, in a way, to lump my experiences in with other people's, to say, oh yes, we share this experience.
Interested to read more of your thoughts on this book, Sarsha. Definitely of interest to me...is this the one you said was really expensive? I was wondering recently, is there a scientific term for not dissociating, ie a word for being in the moment and existing as your authentic self? Does the book have any words to discribe this mental state?
dissed on the sociating.
Pheepho,
I love your thoughts/questions about this. Lets see so many things I am thinking, but I can only say one thing at a time....
Well. First of all on a side note I read more and realized I was misunderstanding the writing-they are not redefining "dissociation" as a word, but creating/concentrating on a new term: "structural dissociation" to focus on one aspect of dissociating.
Language is something I struggle with. Because you are SO right when you say that scientific attempts at describing these experiences fall short, the DSM in my mind is alot of bull dooky. Yet I feel the intense need to language what is in existence only in my subjective experience, to connect with other people who experience it, to create a common language. Why I don't know but it feels good, right and healing. I love your image of the kite- and I think when other people say that your kite isn't there it is crazy making. 13 years of seeing the pdoc and she doesn't recognize your depersonalization stuff? I am sorry to hear that. How goes it with your new therapist, do they strike you as more informed/more able to hear you?
I like your question towards looking for a term that describes the state of non-dissociation. I will be on the look out for that as I read more of this book, but I spoke with my therapist recently about dissociation and she mentioned Thich Nhat Hanh's books and his discussion of Mindfulness. I don't know that that is a scientific or psychological word but it seems to me to be the opposite of dissociation, something everyone can aspire to do more of, especially us professional dissociators. I will look for a good book and post it when I find it.
The Haunted Self is the expensive one I mentioned- it was $43.00 on amazon. I checked abe books but it was more there by ten buks. $40.00 was on sal. uh oh my key board is acting funny. Its weird, sometimes it functions perfectly and sometimes only a couple of keys go out an thn th whol boar. see what i mean? My "e" section is fading in and out. huh.
More on dissociating
I've cruised on into chapter 5. This is what I've learned so far.
Structural dissociation is a type of dissociation involving the splitting of the personality. Although commanly restricted to the symptoms of DID, the authors of The Haunted Self (researcher psychology people) propose that this splitting occurs in even simple ptsd, and is the basis for an array of other symptoms experienced by traumatized people. To clairfy these distinctions the writers propose three levels of severity with structural dissociation: Primary Structural Dissociation, Secondary Structural Dissociation, and Tertiary Structural Dissociation.
The splitting that occurrs in any case of simple PTSD is called Primary Structural Dissociation. It is made up of one Apparently Normal Personality ( the part of you that functions on a daily basis, has skills and stuff) and one Emotional Personality (the part of you that gets triggered when scared/upset- holds the emotional and physical resonse to trauma so that you don't have to constantly live with it). For example, a war veteran goes to work everyday (the ANP) and then hears a car backfire - the EP reacts. While the ANP may remember too little of the traumatic experience or remember it as if from a distance or as if it were happening to someone else, having none of the emotional memory of the experience, the EP remembers the trauma too well, as though it were happening again. The EP is a primitive part that holds a certain feeling that is too intense for the whole personality to experience. The ANP is the majority stockholder, almost an entirely integrated personality.
Tertiary Structural Dissociation is what occurs in DID- the presence of more than one ANP and more than one EP. Secondary Structural Dissociation is somewhere in between and is what occurs in DDNOS (Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified). It consists of one ANP and at least two EP's. The EP's in secondary structural dissociation are more complex and autonomous than in primary structural dissociation. They may influence the behavior of the ANP or even gain full executive control.
Sorry to write out all the psycho-babble of this book but I need to write it out in order to make sure that I understand it and I need you to understand what is meant by structural dissociation before I get to the next topic which I think pertains to us all- how trauma makes structural dissociation and how structural dissociation makes an amazing ingly broad array of symptoms that have trauma as their comman denominator.
Stay tuned...
sarsha, this is really,
sarsha, this is really, really helpful, and I was going to ask, where is the obvious inherent connection between dissociation and spliting, and is that scientifically acknowledged or does it just make intuitive sense to me because it's inside me...? But now you're answering this, for me, and I'm pretty sure I'm DDNOS because I sense multiple selves but no unexplained memory gaps so only one ANP, if I am understanding you correctly. So I think for me I think of the trauma occuring over a really long period of time, in varying degrees, on various levels, and a number of key players in addition to one primary perpetrator (with various side-kicks and supporting roles), so I have this whole slew of selves existing at various ages and responding in various ways. I had an idea recently of a way to organize them as months, kind of giving them names, with October being my youngest self, and consecutive months representing other fractured selves in accending ages.
Just as a rough way of labelling them, so I can kind of write about my attitude about myself and the world at that age and help myself really see these parts...I guess no self is the most authentic, because even your youngest self doesn't represent all the development that makes you a whole person...want to read the book but meanwhile, thanks for this...need to be sleeping now
One last kind of creepy topic but I might as well get it out there...er...has anyone had the thought that there is someone living in you who is not yourself but in fact your abuser? Ugh. I had this sense one evening and it was a pretty panicky moment. Not that I am dictated by him or remotely compelled by his wishes and desires, but this kind of exsorcist sense of, oh god, he's there in my body and he's going to be there existing like a parasite or like this little hidden siamese twin in me until I somehow purge him. Ugh. Sorry if this is too disturbing. I would be relieved to find this written about somewhere.
Must. Turn. Off. Computer. Now.
Pheepho, The authors of
Pheepho,
The authors of the The Haunted Self include Abuser EP's as one of the commen types of EP. It's considered a type of Protector EP, and they call it the Persecutory EP. Here I'll just quote what the book has to say:
"Persecutory EPs tend to experience and present themselves as the original perpetrators engaged in the original traumatic actions. This nonrealization may reach delusional proportions, but is merely another substitute beleif. Persecutory EPs are often more inner directed, resondeding not only to external, but also internal perceived threat (e.g. the crying of an EP in fixated in traumatic memories). Without the ability to mentalize perpetrators, to create symbolic representations, children may "take in,", introject, the "bad" object of the perpetrators. Thus as EPs they claim they are the abuser, and not the abused, and have the affects and behaviors of a perpetrator to varying degrees. In this sense, these EPs often cannot distinguish internal reality from external reality. Many traumatized individuals are tormented by these internal perpetrators as though the abuse were contnuing. ... Like their actual perpetrators, these EPs do not have regulatory skills to manage anger and rage, or the pain, shame, needs, and fear that underlie much of their hostility. They must learn alternative ways to cope with intense feelings over the course of treatment. Both Fight and Persecutory EPs may intrude forcefully on ANP with self destructive behaviors such as cutting or purging, and may dominate consciousness. They may act out towards the therapist or others while the ANP is amnesic of such behaviors, or has awareness and no behavioral control." -page 82
So it sounds to me like a reaction to feeling extremely vulnerable at the time of an attack and a subsequent effort to regain a sense of personal power by denying that it was you that was abused (not you denying it, but the EP). If the EP is unable to deny the event altogether then who would you rather be, the one getting kicked or the one doing the kicking?
That must be really scary to deal with. And, it ocurred to me that it may be a reason why you are in a chronic state of depersonalization, what do you think? Because if the abuser is always there then your other EPs (or at least some of them) are probably aware of him and responding. For me I feel depersonalization only when I feel unsafe, although the definition of unsafe is broad to me and include things that are not always obvious as to why they would make me feel unsafe...I think I might not know everything that happened?? I have a Protector part too, but she is a third subtype of Protector, the helper. This is going to sound rediculous, but she is a 53 year old woman (I am 27 in real life) with no name called The Oracle because she knows everything, knows how to handle any situation with calm and grace. Unfortunatly I don't see her around much. : )
Hi, I am still having
Hi, I am still having internet issues...
One symptom of complex PTSD is having the abuser live inside you, yes. Well, really it is that you identify some way with the abuser's reality, like they live in you. So you might on some level believe the things they said about you or the world. It doesn't make "sense" to others because why would the person who was evil create some of your reality? But I think it is because our brains are trying to make sense of these people abusing us, so we accept their reality. It helps us to think "i am bad so that's why they do this". It can be very hard to get people with C-PTSD (battered women, incest survivors, hostages) to see that their abuser is not right. The abuser's reality defined a lot of our lives. I still believe a lot of the stuff the guy who raped me and then "made me his girlfriend" that I was dependent on for survival, stuff he said about who I am and my lack of value. And the horrible view my exhusband had of the world.
C-PTSD is something Herman in Trauma and Recovery created. It's similar to Borderline Personality in some ways, but is trauma based. It's trauma sustained over time by people who are trapped and dependent upon. Holocast surivovors, domestic violence survivors, etc. It is different than PTSD from a car accident or a single rape. It is what I was diagnosied with. My new therapist thinks I have regular old PTSD though. It doesn't matter, but thge sypmtoms of C-PTSD fit me very well, especially the feeling of being "different" from everyone. I don't feel like what I experienced is something others get and so I feel very alien from everyone. They don't know the feelings I have had.
Dossiciation is a new one for me - I NEVER thought I dissociated! Turns out I am always dissociated. My new therapist thinks that the reason EMDR hasn't worked for me is because I am too dissociated to be present when it is done. She sounds right. It's like if I am not disociated, I am flooded with emotions that are so huge and out of context - I look crazy. The level of terror I am almost always in when I am not dissociated is shocking. That's what makes me suicidal - not sadness but terror. It seems like a way to protect myself. I thought those emotions were bipolar before I identified I had trauma - it was last Aug that it hit me "These feelings are from what happened! They are for a reason!" It scares me though, I feel unfit for human companionship because who knows when I will switch and be hysterical over something no one else sees?
The opposite of dissociated is mindful. That's why the number one therapy for PTSD and anxiety is mindfulness meditation. It's weird how every therapist wants to do this, they all are Buddhists now. It works. I do mindfulness for a half hour every day. I just focus on my breathing - It's not to go blank. It's to seperate from feelings and thoughts, observe them. "Oh, I am thinking about that phone call I need to make. Exhale. Feel the air in my nostrals. Feel the air from the fan. Hear the noise of my cat. Be here now. Oh I am feeling anxiety about that conversation I had, there's the inhale, feel the lungs. I am not focusing on my breath, I spaced out and thought about that guy I met, that's Ok, I am being judgemental and thinking I am failing at this meditation, back to the breath, inhale..." Some people count their breaths, some people see their thoughts like leaves falling or washing by in a river. Another mindfulness thing is the 5 5 5. Notice 5 things - 5 green things or 5 round things, whatever, then notice 5 noises, then touch 5 things. Pay attention. It's a good fast one for dissociation.
However I cannot be mindful when there are people around. It just does not feel safe at all. I cannot do any group mindfulness, that's what is hard for me with anxiety suppprt groups. I feel like I need to be hypervigilant when anyone is near me, and to be in the present and my body - that's too scary, I feel vulnerable. I don't want to be in my body when others are around. I don't want to hurt. But I can meditate and do body meditations when I am alone. But when I am with people, I am so dissociated. Even in therapy - I don't know what I feel til I am alone. When I am withpeople I just read them emotionally very obsessively and adapt to their emotional needs to stay safe, or I shut down, or I am in the past emotional state. Hence it is very easy for me to lead astray and not know what my truth is when I am with people.
I think my new therapist will work out, she's a psychologist, she does EMDR, and she is trained in schema therapy - psychodynamic work about the patterns of behavior and then cognitive work about how to change them. She worked for ten years with street youth, so she isn't new to my stories. I am signed up for DBT group and overcoming trauma group starting in sept. I love DBT and highly recommend it - it is the only thing that has helped me in 19 years of psychoshit.
Debt- I have never had debt - I never had a credit card until a few years ago - they are much harder to get in Canada. I am terrified of debt. I say the only freedom in the USA is the freedom to go into debt. But I just used my credit card to buy rugs for the new house because the hard wood floors are killing me....
Will this humidity ever end? Love and hugs Awen
Thanks Awen
Hope you will be permanently online soon, we need you here. Sarsha, I hope things are ok with you, everything I said yesterday in response to your post just seems trite and inadequate to me this morning, but I hope you know I am thinking of you. I want to connect with you here soon, I am rushing around a lot this week. I think I have found a good therapist. A lot is changing. I want to have time to tell you guys about it. Awen, what you said I really connected with, and I want to share some stuff re that but have to walk the dog, I haven't given her enough attention lately. So glad it is soon the weekend! More later.
Sarsha, I didn't see your post above Awen's till now!
Wow, thanks for posting all that info from the book. Thanks to you guys, I don't have to do any reading myself! (kidding, I am actually reading the Herman book, but slowly). It was just a brief point one evening that I sensed that, my abuser inside me, and I was journaling something, and my handwriting went all capitals, how he used to write, which I did because I wanted to emphasize, but then I had this sense of mimicking him. There is so much inside me that just hasn't been addressed, and I am weaning my antidepressants, less than 1/3 now, so a lot is shifting in me at the moment and it's hard to keep track of it all. But, as I keep telling myself, I'm not depressed, so it's clearly not a matter of me needing them. I think in this area, it's that I carry a lot of guilt inside me, for a number of reasons, and that is why I have this sense of him inside me. He's not inside me. He's not and he never was, and I kind of have to say this to myself, and what you are saying makes sense, Sarsha, to identify with the abuser is a safer place to be, ugh, but it's pretty repulsive even to write that. I guess this is the power of knowledge, too, to know that this is a phenomenon others have felt, it kind of relieves the panic and guilt.
What you said about the 53 year old woman in you, Sarsha, reminds me of what I was thinking the other day...(and trust me, until a few months ago, my thoughts on stuff like this was very no-nonsense, scientific, so this is a real break for me) I wonder, if , not only are we dealing with our own trauma, but kind of channeling stuff through are bodies, through genetics, in a way, like ancestrally in my family if there was abuse or my ancestors were persecuted for their religion, or whatever, am I holding that in my body? And you, is this someone in your ancestral past? Are we, the "mentally ill", people who are sensitive to this stuff, and it chooses us to kind of be released? I wonder what you could do to tap into her more. Or will you become her, when you reach her age? Is she you, stopping in to help you along, so that you can truly become what it is in you to be? I would have laughed at this 6 months ago, but now in my mind, anything is possible.
Also, it interests me to hear about what a specific sense of your other selves you have. For me it is different, much vaguer, and I do recognize them as myself...it's like a house I've been living in for years, and I know it in detail, but suddenly I discover a whole new set of rooms that I guess has been there all along, but I never saw them for so many years. And like the "room of requirement" in Harry Potter, I don't always have access to these rooms, they just appear. When my personality shifts, I kind of sense, oh yes, this was my outlook at 14 years old, I remember having this point of view. But it has a real sense of Deja vu. This is I guess what gives me the idea that anything is possible. I don't know where it's leading though, is this just the beginning of something? Is this healing? Will I feel integrated? I feel like an imposter, I am not the real Paula, I'm just a shell that's learned to kind of go through the motions of being a personality, who has been adapting all these years and doing a pretty good job of integrating and blending in.
I am interested in how you experience it, if you ever want to explain more about how you experience their presence or how this has changed over time, if you're comfortable with talking more about it sometime.
delete
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Yeah, I just scrolled up and
Yeah, I just scrolled up and read what you wrote about "his" presence in me being why I depersonalize so much. I should mention that I don't always feel in this state any more. Ever since March, when I first felt "Her" waking up, I tend to spend more time as an authentic self er, not sure of my wording. I hesitate to use "mindful" as you suggested, Awen, because I am still a little confused...but, anyway. Back to your point. yeah, I want to come back to that and give it more thought. And I am going to do some more reading this weekend. I need to learn more. I am mostly really happy these days but the danger points are that I am volatile. I am emotionally reactive. My day job is in health care and can be emotionally intense, but I generally can remove myself enough. Lately, it's been difficult. Mostly lately it's anger, when things aren't done properly, and it's mostly that I get intensely angry at the doctors I work for. I think I am acting out some drama, like this sense of injustice from my abuse, and it unleashes at any perceived injustice in the present day. Atleast I don't fly at the people who work under me, I'd feel more ashamed of myself for that, but at the same time I need to get it under control because it does border on innapropriate, and I guess flying at authority figures isn't going to get me far in the workplace. :) I'm pretty sure this is typical PTSD, but I'm not really that informed about it...
Clearly, I need to do some reading, I'm sure all these sorts of dynamics are covered in detail. I plan to get more into the Herman book this weekend, so by Monday I'll have it all figured out, don't worry :)
Both of you said stuff here I really want to come back to, your feeling you discribed, Awen, that nobody gets what you've been through, that strikes a chord with me. Will hopefully have more time to post on the Weekend. Hope you are both okay.
Oh! Mary said she posted
Oh! Mary said she posted something that disappeared, and now I think that has happened to me here! Sarsha, I am sure I sent something in reply to this, and now I can't find it and I feel really bad. The order of the comments seems really muddled, too, so I think there're problems with the posts being printed. Sarsha, I had some thoughts about what you told me about your selves, but it looks like it was lost! It's getting late so I need to come back tomorrow, but I didn't want you to think I ignored your post, Sarsha.
Yeah, something weird is
Yeah, something weird is happening to the posts! Not to be melodramatic but this is seriously confusing for me because usuallyicarus is so concrete because i don't have to rely on my memory (and miss rememberings) for info, its all printed and stay put but now its not! Dang nabbit! I will contact a modulator for advice.
Ok, I'm going to come back
Ok, I'm going to come back to this later, I've just spent half my morning on another thread in here and I think it saved because it appeared in my inbox as well, so I can tag it down. This is one way to make crazy people feel crazier! ;)
I feel like I have so much to catch up with on Icarus, but if I spend too much time on the computer, it feels like I am living in an imaginary world and I think I need to force myself away to live my actual physical existance and try to relate to people in my physical world. I know you guys are not "imaginary" friends, but I guess I have to balance this if that makes sense.
That totally makes since to
That totally makes since to me, I' meant to go running half an our ago but I'm sitting here in my running clothes tracking down every thread obsessively instead. I saw your book and Awen your post too regarding meds and I will come back to that later. Now I will run.
But it occurred to me that maybe the computer got confused about this thread because it is long, so maybe continued discussion should be in a new blog?