TraumaConversionTherapy.com

Trauma/Dissociative Disorders & PTSD

TRAUMA: There has been an increased focus on psychological trauma in recent years due to an increase in terrorism, crime, domestic violence, neglect and abuse of children, natural disasters, military combat, accidents, injuries and death of loved ones. Trauma is the negative impact on a person of something that is scary, painful, threatening, or horrific. When exposed to trauma, people often go into shock, feel dazed, and may dissociate. Many traumas do no long-term damage, but many do. In some cases the effects can last for a lifetime. What is traumatic for one person may not be traumatic for another. What is traumatic to someone as child may not be traumatic to him/her as an adult. It is a very subjective experience.

TRAUMA DISORDERS: I consider a trauma disorder to be anyone who has had a painful experience in their life, and it is still affecting them in a negative way. It can show up as a whole host of different kinds of symptoms, and can affect thoughts, feelings and behaviors. It is usually driven by some old pain that has gotten stuck inside, and leaks out anywhere from part of the time to all of the time. Simply put, I help people get rid of old pain.

DISSOCIATION: Dissociation is a normal tuning out of the outside world that people do on a regular basis. One example is daydreaming. It is subject to conscious control. People can start and stop anytime they want.

DISSOCIATIVE DISORDER: A Dissociative Disorder is a defensive or survival dissociating. Some people refer to it as “pathological”. I don’t. Anything that allows a person to survive is not pathological. It is also referred to as a “disorder”. There is nothing disorderly about it. It is predictable, understandable, and curable. It is not a “mental illness”, it is a “condition”, much like a broken bone is a condition, not an illness. It involves a structural splitting of the personality due to extreme trauma. It is not subject to conscious control.
  When anyone, a child, teenager, or adult, is hit with some kind of trauma, stress, or pain that is overwhelming to them, way more than their coping mechanisms can handle, they have 3 choices: they can die, go crazy, or split, meaning the personality can split. Fortunately the splitting is a survival mechanism that is built into the human mind that allows people to survive trauma or stress that otherwise would kill the body or destroy the mind. It is a normal reaction to an abnormal situation. It is how healthy minds handle overwhelming stress. It is an extreme avoidance reaction.
  When the individual is hit with the trauma or stress and starts going into overwhelm, a piece of the personality breaks off inside and forms a new individual, similar to how identical twins are formed in the physical world. The part that splits off has its own consciousness, memories, likes and dislikes, and skills. When it splits off it absorbs the trauma that is there, including things like physical pain if there is some, strong emotions like anger, fear, depression, etc., and some or all of the memories of the event. It then separates itself from the rest of the system so the rest of the system can go on functioning fairly normally. These alters (alternate personalities) also tend to build a wall of insulation around themselves to protect the rest of the system from the pain they are stuck with. They feel that pain 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It doesn’t go away, it’s always really big, and the only relief they get is when they sleep.
  Their whole purpose for being there is to protect the person from pain. Although they try to contain the pain, their efforts are imperfect at best. They essentially become reservoirs of old pain, and the pain leaks out anyway, from part of the time to all of the time. The person on the outside feels it anyway. The splitting is a child’s defense, and it works very well: the person survives. It can cause all kinds of problems though later in life, and affect thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
  Dissociative Disorders are not a big deal in that we understand them, we know how to fix them, and they are 100% curable. They are a big deal by the negative impact the pain has on peoples’ lives. People have all kinds of creative ways to deal with the pain. Obsessions, compulsions, addictions, and many more conditions are creative ways people have found to “self-medicate” against the pain. Although these all have negative consequences to them, they are worth it to the person to get even temporary relief from the old pain. The most common pains reported are depression, anxiety, and anger.

Dissociative Disorders listed in the DSM IV, TR:

Multiple Personality Disorder, now called Dissociative Identity Disorder, is the most popular Hollywood style Dissociative Disorder, but is not the most common in the real world. It involves “losing time”, not remembering what happened during chunks of time, anywhere from hours to days.

Dissociative Fugue involves traveling away from home and not remembering how he/she got there. It can be unnerving and distressful for family.

Dissociative Amnesia is an inability to remember things that have happened of a stressful or traumatic nature. The memories are split off and not subject to conscious recall.

Depersonalization Disorder is feeling detached from one’s body. Some describe it as feeling like they are in a dream or movie, or feel like a robot. It can involve feeling like an observer of one’s body or thoughts.

Dissociative Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified is in my opinion the most common occurring form of a Dissociative Disorder. I think of it as a milder case of Multiple Personality Disorder, where the person has separate functioning parts of the personality (alters), but does not lose time.

POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER: PTSD received its name during the Vietnam War era, but the condition has been around for a very long time. During the Civil War it was called “soldier’s heart” or “nostalgia”. During WWI it was “shell shock”. During WWII it was “battle fatigue”. Now from the Iraq war it is “combat stress”. PTSD by any other name is still PTSD.
  The condition is not limited to soldiers. It afflicts civilians who have been exposed to life threatening experiences or abuse. The symptoms include: re-experiencing of the events by flashbacks, nightmares, thoughts, distress, or overreactions; avoidance and numbing, amnesia, loss of interest in people and activities, belief they have no future; increased arousal like trouble sleeping, angry outbursts, hypervigilance, easily startled, and poor concentration.
Conventional treatments for PTSD have a low incidence of cure, in my opinion, primarily because it is treated as an anxiety disorder. When it is treated as a Dissociative Disorder it can be cured.