While I do experience what one could call “dissociative episodes” where a trauma-holding part takes full control of our body for a period of time, most of the time I experience momentary episodes of dissociation, where a part only takes control of our body for a few seconds at the maximum. However, these can still be difficult and disrupting to my daily life.
These types of episodes are quite common for me—they occur several times a day, often clustered together in time. For that brief moment, my concentration is entirely focused internally, and I have little to no awareness of the external world around me. Simultaneously, my face and/or body may be moving in ways that I have no control over or awareness of. I may make noises, or mumble things, that are indicative of what’s going on internally. Internally, I am flooded by difficult emotions, such as fear or shame, along with an associated thought or memory. I perceive what I am experiencing internally as if it’s happing in reality. My heart rate may spike, and I may break into a sweat. And then, all of a sudden, it’s over, and I’m back to doing what I was doing before, unphased by what just occurred. These episodes can last from fractions of a second to several seconds, and occur several times a day. After they’re over, I can easily forget what went on during the episode or what triggered it. I describe one of these episodes in The parts I don’t know about still have control. Within DID language, I could describe such an event by saying that a trauma-holding part that I do not have full memory sharing with was triggered and briefly took over. These events seem to be triggered by either queues in my external environment or internal happenings that I, for the most part, seem to be unaware of.
From the outside, all of this happens so fast that if you blink you might miss it. Or, you may think it a tic, or a flinch. Personally, I try to hide them so they’re as undetectable as possible to the outside observer—I don’t want to inadvertently let others know what I’m experiencing.
From a therapeutic perspective, I’m supposed to try and connect with these parts, or take a moment to reflect inwards, when they come up. However, I’m so used to just moving on with my life after they occur, as I’ve been doing my whole life, that it has become habitual. I typically don’t even realize that I’ve had one of these dissociative intrusions because they occur so frequently for me that I perceive them as being normal, and I rapidly forget that they even occurred and move on with life. I have too many of these a day to stop and reflect internally after every episode. I still see these episodes as a nuisance, rather than parts that are surfacing into my consciousness because they need help, as I should if I want to encourage integration between my parts. Healing is difficult work.