This adventure of sharing what I like about myself is taking some interesting twists and turns. Some things are obvious, others not so much. This morning as I was driving to work I thought about when I worked in the computer labs at the university. Semester finals was a time of dread and computer head aches....many of them. This is when I discovered that in the midst of great turmoil I would remain calm fixing computers, answering questions, giving encouragement almost totally unphased by the turmoil swirling around me. I still remember one semester I walked in the computer lab and was greeted with the firm command of "I get her first." Computer problems resolved one after another. People asked me how I did it, I shrugged my shoulders and kept working. I didn't know then that how I did it was dissociation at an extreme level. This type of dissociation is considered a mental illness but it was this quality of dissociating all emotion from a high stress situation that made me good at what I did. Counseling shook this up. For awhile after integration I couldn't dissociate at all. I was terrified of breaking into pieces again. Now thankfully I realized I am choosing daily to stay as one. Dissociation is now a tool I can use as needed. I also recognize that it is temporary, a few hours but not more than a day. The ability to put my emotions on hold during a high stress time can have some advantage. The greater advantage is I don't stay that way. I can access my emotions when needed to make a decision that has emotional impact. But sometimes things just need to be done with the smallest amount of effort possible since there are a bazzilion small things that need to be done. I am thankful for the power of dissociation when I need to use it and even more thankful I learned to set it aside when it is interferring with the joy of the day.
3 comments:
I will disassociate when I have a big stressful project hit me. There were many times at one of my jobs where a project would come up and I would only have a short period of time that usually wasn't adequate for the job. I would push the stress and emotion aside, get the work done, then let the stress and emotion have it's turn. I found that if I let the stress and emotions have their turn first, I would shorten further my time for the project and put even more pressure on myself.
Really interesting how you can control dissociation at this point Ruth. I know dissociation is very useful - that's why you and I learned it so well after all, we're not stupid. :-)
My problem with it is I don't have control, so it is harmful. Hoping that will change.
I noticed the same thing Marsha. Sometimes hard to do.
Ellen for a time I embraced the dissociation and allowed it to happen. Very tough time for awhile. Then I stopped it altogether. That was also tough. Now I am working at using it as a tool to help me instead of hinder.
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