Dissociation --> Integration

I have a superpower. I am an adult who can dissociate. 'Normal' kids lose this ability growing up, say the Textbooks and Researchers, but it seems to me that 'Normal' kids (even those in adult bodies) use dissociation like most defenses: transiently and flexibly to protect themselves from overwhelming pain.

Perhaps I was one of those children with a 'natural talent' because if you were to compare triggering abuse (and you shouldn't) my original trauma isn't really so bad. I read recently that 40-60% of ALL CHILDREN are sexually abused. My dad simply tossed me across the room a few times, hit me, and yelled at me. I don't really know how much, because I only remember the first time. The blank spaces in my memory for the remaining years of young childhood should probably be something other than empty. But really, dissociative amnesia is the least important bit.

I responded to his physical and verbal threats by dissociating. And I know precisely where I learned to do it; it was reinforced by my vacant, unresponsive mother -- a character who seems to be the key ingredient in all stories of dissociative disorders.

That is where the similarities end. The DSM is not a guidebook to dissociative disorders. There is an incredible lack of detail about the many ways dissociation can be used to protect against pain (much like any defense can be used to protect against pain). Previously I lacked the confidence to stand up for MY WAY, but now I know enough about the mental health system to know it does not consist of people sitting in thrones deciding what you are and what they can do to change you.

So this? This is my formulation of sorts. This is my best interpretation of how dissociation simultaneously protected and broke me into pieces.

First, I had precocious self-sufficiency due to unresponsive and abusive caregivers.

Second, despite the above, I managed to get my needs met in a rich social environment filled with family and friends. I was okay. Until...

Third, my parents took me away from all of that, stripping me of my security, my defenses, and my identity. We moved 3000 miles and then 3000 miles again, and I got no support in coping with this massive loss. So...

Fourth, dissociation became the most effective defense for getting my needs met. And we aren't talking about the flexible defenses of a strong, resilient child. We're talking about entrenched, unwavering defenses of a disturbed child who desperately needs help.

Fifth, fat chance about getting help. Dissociation works because it makes everyone believe everything is fine. I was always very good at pretending. Now I was learning it was the way to survive. It became my primary way of interacting with difficult experiences.

For me, dissociation isn't about having alternative personalities that I could switch to under pressure. Dissociation is about cutting off parts of myself and burying them as far away as possible so I am free to be the parts that are needed. Indeed, the scariest part of this pseudo-formulation was realising how much choice I actually had (how much desire I actually had) in wanting to cut off, let go, and dissociate my past experiences to avoid the suffering, pain, grief.. eventually all emotions. A huge, massive, integral chunk of myself.

Moving seems to be the biggest trigger. When I first moved, that was the critical split, the one I've always focused on. But therapy rumbled me into pulling away from Drew and the moment I let him go, I pushed through a dissociative split I wasn't even aware was there.

I split when I moved to England.

And that is what I am coping with today: fully facing the part of me that didn't want to move to England, that was happy rebuilding a relationship with her family and discovering herself, that liked her friends and her job and her prospects. That part of me is part of me. I didn't want to move. I was happy and healthy then. I am not happy nor healthy now.

However much I want to project this blame on to Drew, I made the choice to move. I betrayed myself. Where I am today is a result of my choices. It is my responsibility. That's a heavy burden.

And so you can see, we're a bit at odds here. Drew facilitates the dissociation just by being who he is in my life. I split partly to protect him from emotions I felt would be unacceptable -- emotions incompatible with moving another 3000 miles and getting married.

"Why did you do it?"
"Why did you marry me?"

Drew pleads with me to answer, but I am no longer sure which part to ask. The newly-integrated (but still very separate) part of me turns her back. I wonder if there is anything I can do, we can do, to seduce her into my life as it is today.

I say her, but I mean myself. I mean seducing myself to falling in love with Drew, to wanting this life, to accepting where we are today, to letting go of my now-impossible desires. I made my choice. As wrong as it was, it was my choice. It's a choice that now defines me.

And I'm at odds. There is an emotional part that chose to move, that loves Drew, that is excited about studying psychoanalysis. The cognitive part of me is of course completely invested here. My career path is here. There is a lot tying me to Here, and some of it is desire.

It is my choice what to do.

This is the reality of integration: facing unfulfilled, impossible, or unwanted desires that tarnish or attack the facade of our current identity. They are emotions which remind us that we are multi-dimensional, that feelings are not pure but mixed, making even the most beautiful experience complicated and painfully unfulfilling. Integrating means facing the grief that is embedded in normal human development: a grief we weren't allowed to experience as a child.

So yes, when each boyfriend tried and failed to make me happy, when they wondered why it was I was so sad and empty all of the time, and when I moved from place to place, trying to find my way home... all the while, home was chasing me in a cloud of grief. And the only way to find it is to step into that cloud.

I will be sad. I will allow myself to be sad. It is sad.

It is sad; it is me. Me and me and me and me... and one day just me. No one else is going to give me room enough to grieve these extraordinary experiences. So I have to make the room for myself.

This is me, making room. Even if I lose everything, everyone in my life, who cannot possibly understand or accept it, I refuse to lose myself anymore. At the end of the day, no matter who shares my bed, I fall into my own heart and I wake up in my own mind and I experience life in my own body. I am accountable to me.

For the first time in my life, I am holding myself accountable to me.