Pynk Spots

I Feel Like a Ghost - Am I Disassociating?

February 06, 2021 Nic
Pynk Spots
I Feel Like a Ghost - Am I Disassociating?
Show Notes Transcript

Today I am flying solo for my first Pynk Spots advice episode! I answer a question from Anonymous (she/her):

My depression and anxiety have been exacerbated by quarantine. I’ve heard disassociating and disassociation in mental health communities but haven’t researched it much. 

In a conversation with a friend, I mentioned that I have been having a hard time and feel like I’ve been disassociating. She immediately told me that is not a term I should use for ‘zoning out’ (not what I said) because it’s a mental health condition that her sister has and it’s really serious and scary.

I thought it was a broader term than the symptoms she described that her sister has so now I’m confused, and I’m also hurt that she felt the need to jump in and focus on that instead of being with me in a vulnerable moment. I often feel like a ghost when I’m alone for an extended period of time, or when I’m feeling very depressed I find myself disconnecting from how my body feels.

I know you have talked about disassociating before and was wondering if you would be comfortable talking about your experiences and help me to understand if this is what is happening to me, as I don’t want to appropriate the term if it’s not. Also, am I right in feeling hurt about my friend taking that time to have an educational moment with me?

We dig deep on disassociation, what it is and what it looks like, what causes us to disassociate, and I give a lot of personal testimony along the way.

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Nichole [00:00:11] Welcome to Pynk Spots, a queer anarchist space where we smash the patriarchy by celebrating what is strong about being soft. Here we'll explore what is vulnerable, raw, hurt, healed, sensual, queer and controversial. So join me and my friends from around the Internet as we talk about deep shit and prove, as Janelle Monáe said, that pink is the truth you can't hide.

Nichole [00:00:46] Hey everybody, welcome to Pynk Spots Advice. As I've mentioned on recent streams, I really want to move more towards an advice model. It's what I get the most satisfaction out of, and I think it allows us to explore some really interesting topics together. So I'm really honored today to have an amazing, vulnerable, really intense topic to start off this series with. Before we get into it today, I want to say that I am going to talk about disassociating a lot. That's what the research was that I did. However, I'm not going to get into dissociative disorders as much, and I'll talk about the distinction later, but it is a really important one. So I just want to say that off the top. We have a lot to cover today, I'm very excited for it, so I just want to thank everyone who's tuning in live, everyone who's listening to the replay or the podcast. I'm just very excited to be here today, back in the advice chair feels really good.

Nichole [00:01:52] So to kick us off, I had a question submitted by Anonymous. And Anonymous asks, or I guess states, first of all, for context, my depression and anxiety have been exacerbated by quarantine. I've heard disassociating and disassociation in mental health communities, but haven't researched it much. In a conversation with a friend, I mentioned that I've been having a hard time and I feel like I am disassociating. She immediately told me that that is not a term I should use for zoning out - which is not what I said - because it's a mental health condition that her sister has and described some incidents that her sister's experienced and said, you know, described it as very serious, very scary.

Nichole [00:02:42] I thought it was a broader term than the symptoms that she described that her sister has, so now I'm confused and I'm also hurt that she felt the need to jump in and focus on that instead of being with me in a vulnerable moment while I was talking about things that I'm concerned about. I lately have often felt like a ghost when I'm alone for an extended period of time, or when I'm feeling very depressed, I may find myself disconnecting from how my body feels. I know you've talked about disassociating before and was wondering if you would be comfortable talking about your experiences and help me to understand if this is what's happening to me, as I don't want to appropriate the term if it's not. Also, am I right in feeling hurt about my friend taking the time to have an educational moment with me?

Nichole [00:03:32] So amazing question. Before we get into all of this, I feel like I have to have a bunch of disclaimers. So before even that, I have to say I respect this shadiness of this question to be like I have a legit mental health question, but also isn't my friend being an asshole? So, loved it. I do think your friend's being an asshole, we'll get into that. So anyway, I just wanted to show some respect for the question.

Nichole [00:04:04] But, you know, second of all, I of course have to have the disclaimer that I am not a medical professional in any sense. This is Internet research I did. It's really me talking about my own experience and just using the information out there to maybe help all of you know if this is something that you might relate to and to consider if it's something you need to seek professional help for. So major disclaimer on that.

Nichole [00:04:31] Third of all, and this is where I'm going to get shady as fuck. Usually when I do episodes like this where there's like a lot of research and it could be something that's very academic, people will come out of the woodwork to tell me that I've done or said something wrong and to try to like, almost shame me for talking about this subject. And typically, you know, I'm always open to that I might have gotten something wrong, especially if it's not my field of expertize, something I don't have training in. However, typically when I follow up with these comments to be like, well can you tell me, you know, what I did wrong? I'd be happy to have a retraction. Often they're like, well, it's too complicated to explain to you, you just need to have me on your show.

Nichole [00:05:25] So I just want to put a giant fucking boundary up, because especially around this topic, because I have, especially doing this research, like I think I actually have a dissociative disorder. I have tried to get help for this many times in my life, also with autism, and have not been able to get help from any of the fucking medical professionals I went to. So I am not going to be kind or patient if someone pops up in my mentions and tries to be gatekeepy around this sort of thing. Everything I'm going to tell you today is, again, either of my own personal experience or is off websites that you can go to yourself and I'm going to, you know, verbatim give you the information. So I just want to put that up, because I do find it's really, really infuriating to me that there's a lot of like academic or medical people who want to make sure that no one else talks about this stuff except for them. And again, the gatekeeping around this shit is ridiculous and I will not stand for it.

Nichole [00:06:36] Also, I forgot to put stuff in the show notes, but I will do that right after this airs. So if you want in the description box, Devon Price is someone I follow on Medium, a writer and a psychologist - a sociologist, I think actually. And they just wrote a really amazing essay called "Therapy Isn't for Everyone. Let's talk about the people harmed by mainstream mental health." And I found it extremely validating. This is written by someone who's trans, who's queer, and who also has formal training in this field. So they have an inside view to how therapists are trained and why so many therapists, regardless of what they actually look like, behave like middle class white women when treating patients. Because there is like a very homogenous and very normie-focused, we could say, way of training therapists on how to treat their patients.

Nichole [00:07:42] So I think for any of us, you know, here right now who have felt really lost, misunderstood, grappling with certain identities, and we've tried to seek help from professionals and then end up feeling actually more traumatized or more lost afterwards, there's a good reason for that. And that's not some malign mental health care, like I have in some ways benefited from therapy. But I am also processing a lot of anger and a lot of trauma from the ways that therapy actually reinforced things that I was already struggling with, and then left me feeling like I was just wrong. Or like there was just nowhere to turn because this was supposed to be the person helping me, and they're the ones telling, you know, reinforcing, you know, neurotypical behavior or strait behavior or cis behavior or whatever it is. Not being able to understand or connect with me on being someone raised in poverty, not being able to understand or connect with me as being a disabled person.

Nichole [00:08:56] So I just wanted to kind of like, this is something I think I'm going to do an episode about in the future. I've talked to a friend about potentially, you know, exploring our anger at not getting the help that we needed. But I wanted to also include that here because, like, this was another topic that researching it, I was like, jesus christ. You know, like this is another thing I can look at and just be like, fuck, this is something I've struggled with my whole life. And I've been really afraid of it because my mother also has, she has dissociative identity disorder, which used to be known as multiple personality disorder. And so, you know, I've talked about this in the past, but a lot of these symptoms that I have scare me because they mimic some of the things that she used to do. And so I've been really afraid to fully bring it up in therapy or to really talk about it openly. But I've definitely hinted at enough that I just feel like someone who was paying attention... You know, I feel the same way about my autism. I've said enough things that someone should have maybe had some kind of inkling that I was neurotypical or something, you know?

Nichole [00:10:22] So anyway, there's a lot of anger and frustration there. So I feel very good about putting this information out there and letting you all do whatever with it that you want to do. And just, you know, empower you all to not listen to people who want to gatekeep things like diagnoses or information from you. Because we can go our whole lives and know that something's off and ask for help and still not get it, you know. And sometimes it takes us stumbling into the information through some silly podcast or a live stream or something before we get that answer that finally makes things make sense.

Nichole [00:11:06] So there's that. Content warning, obviously we're going to be talking about mental health issues, specifically relating to disassociating. I'm going to mention types of trauma that would perhaps cause you to disassociate or develop a dissociative disorder. I'm not going to go into any details about anything, but if that general topic is uncomfortable, you may want to skip this one. And then you may have picked up on it, but as I mentioned, this is something that I have myself, my mother has. It was very traumatizing to me growing up so I may get emotional today. I don't know for sure, but I can kind of feel it. So just know, if I get emotional, I'm OK. And if at some point I'm not OK, I promise I will, you know, step away, take a break, do whatever it is I need to do. But I just don't want anyone to worry if I get a little intense today.

Nichole [00:12:09] So, jesus, are we ready? You know, it's a good topic when you have to do like 12 minutes of warm up to it. So, disassociation. So again, I'm going to largely talk about disassociating or disassociation. And then when I'm talking about a dissociative disorder, I'll make that very clear because there is a big difference. And again, we'll go into that later.

Nichole [00:12:37] So going back to the question, I laughed my ass off because the first website that I found that was like really good, really in-depth and comprehensive, the first fucking paragraph was like, many people disassociate during their lives. And though it's usually categorized by a feeling of detachment or as if the world around you is unreal, it's different for everybody and there's a lot of different categories of disassociation that you can experience. So it can last for minutes or hours or it can actually last weeks or even months, which that was really surprising to me, I didn't realize that.

Nichole [00:13:21] Disassociation, I think we know, is a way for the mind to cope with stress and trauma. So you can choose to disassociate as a way to calm down or to focus on a task. So you may daydream, that's a common form of disassociation. You could get lost in a book, you can get lost in the work that you're doing. I actually do this when I present, not when I live stream, but when I actually, like in my former life as a corporate trainer. Often when I would give presentations at a conference or, you know, in the office, I would almost adopt this persona. I used to have to do this for conferences because I'm an autistic introvert and conferences are a fuckin hell scape for someone like me.

Nichole [00:14:14] So I would yeah, I had like conference Nikkie, that's what I would call this person. And it was this way for me to be able to withstand, you know, these conferences would be anywhere from three to five days and it was like nonstop. Like it would start at breakfast and it would end with like drinks at 10 or 11 or 12pm, like midnight. So you know, huge, massive, long days nonstop. And as an employee, I was expected to be on all the time. And then I would also have to give presentations, which I would have to be very, you know, on, and I would have material that I memorized. So I adopted this persona and that persona allowed me to pretend that I was some fuckin neurotypical extrovert for three or four or five days, and then I would go home and I would be sick for a month. But that's what I had to do to get through it because if I actually stayed present in myself, in my body, in my needs as an autistic person, I would not physically be able to perform and I would have lost my job.

Nichole [00:15:29] So it is a very common thing that we can do that can be outside of - I think there's a misconception, and I certainly had this as well, that you only disassociate in response to trauma. So you can develop the tendency to disassociate because of trauma, but you can, everyone disassociates in some way, and it's not always because of trauma. It can be just because of everyday shit. And it doesn't exactly necessarily have to be a negative thing either. I think that's kind of the point. So you can also disassociate as part of spiritual or religious rituals. So you could even say that like praying can sometimes be a form of disassociation or even listening to a sermon, things like that. Any time you feel like you're kind of taken out of your body and sort of like moved in this way where you're not fully present and inside yourself.

Nichole [00:16:31] You can also disassociate as a side effect of drugs or alcohol or some medications, sometimes coming off from certain medications will cause you to disassociate. And it can also be a symptom of mental health conditions such as PTSD, depression, bipolar disorder, et cetera.

Nichole [00:16:52] So before we get, I kind of wasn't sure what order I wanted to do this in, but I think before we get into more of what I want to say, we can stop and talk about what disassociation is, what it looks like. And I think for a lot of people, this is going to be like, holy shit. It was for me at least. So we can see how might I experience disassociation. It can happen in lots of different ways. So one of the ways is having difficulty remembering personal information. You might have gaps in your life where you can't remember anything that's happened. You may not be able to remember information about yourself or things that happened in your life. So this can be called dissociative amnesia.

Nichole [00:17:44] Traveling to a different location or taking on a new identity without remembering the identity that you took on. Or I think while you're in that identity, you don't remember your own identity. And this is called a dissociative fugue. So for anyone who's watched Breaking Bad, this is what Walt was saying that happened to him in that one particular episode. Feeling like the world around you is unreal. So those two are pretty extreme, pretty intense. I think the next few are far more common.

Nichole [00:18:23] So you might feel as though the world around you is unreal. Objects change in shape, size or color. The world might seem lifeless or foggy, and you might feel like other people are robots, maybe even aliens, even though you know that they're not. This is called derealization. And then feeling like you're looking at yourself from the outside, you might feel as though you're watching yourself in a film or looking at yourself from the outside of your body. Kind of like, I always, this category I identify with a lot, unfortunately. So I often feel like it's almost like I'm in a vehicle that someone else is driving. Like that's how far removed I feel, is like I feel like I'm in a vehicle which is already kind of a separation from my body. And then I feel like, it's not like I don't have autonomy, but it's almost like I'm kind of along for the ride in certain ways. It's just very bizarre feeling.

Nichole [00:19:29] You may feel as if you're just observing your emotions. This is something that happens to me a lot as well. Sometimes I can even be in a great deal of pain, but it's almost like I'm feeling empathy pain for someone else and not feeling the emotion directly. Sometimes I'll find myself crying, but I'll also be sort of outside of my body, almost observing myself crying. And it's very weird. It's a very weird feeling. Feeling disconnected from parts of your body or your emotions. Feeling as if you're floating away. Sometimes I feel very untethered is how I describe it. I just feel like there's nothing like rooting me here. And it's almost like I'm, whatever makes me me might just like blow away at any given moment. And then feel unsure of the boundaries between yourself and other people. So that was very self-serving. But this is what I personally identify with the most and this is, these experiences are called depersonalization.

Nichole [00:20:37] You might have a feeling that your identity is shifting and changing. So you might speak in a different voice or voices, use a different name or names, switch between different parts of your personality, feels as if you're losing control to someone else, experience different parts of your identity at different times and act like different people, including children. So this is identity alteration and this is what I think connects into that dissociative identity disorder, which Hollywood loves to go crazy with and create movies about and completely misrepresent.

Nichole [00:21:21] I know for myself, I don't really identify with this one too much except for this part, which is switch between different parts of your personality. And I think it's just interesting going through these things also as a neuroatypical person, because to me that's also maybe like masking. And so it was just interesting to me to think about masking in terms of disassociation and wondering like how much of a connection there is and if, you know, I wasn't able to find it yet, but if there's been any real research on people who, you know, have to mask to navigate everyday life.

Nichole [00:22:03] Because I've often felt, and I've actually had people comment on the fact, one boyfriend in particular who was very controlling. So he would bring up that I act different around different people, you know, in a really derogatory way. But to me, it's just more like who makes me feel safe to be what? And then that part of myself will come out. So to me, it doesn't feel fake. It just feels like this person allows me to lean into this one aspect of myself. And it's something that I've mostly made peace with but sometimes I do wonder if it's a bad thing, you know what I mean? Like, I don't know. It's something that still kind of pops into my head and gives me pause sometimes.

Nichole [00:22:51] So anyway, I just wanted to point that out because I think a lot of us do this, I think it's probably a pretty normal thing to do, so I wouldn't take this one too seriously. I think it's like if you're really, truly like a totally different person in different situations. Like I'm always myself, it's just aspects of me will come out more strongly than other places. It doesn't necessarily have to be like a concerning thing is my point. Although who knows? Again, not a doctor, maybe this is a huge sign of dysfunction. Who the fuck knows?

Nichole [00:23:32] Difficulty defining what kind of person you are. So you may find it difficult to say what kind of person you are. I have definitely met people like this where they sort of have a hard time, like describing themselves to you, and you may feel as though there are different people inside of you. So this is identity confusion. So, yeah, let me take this out.

Nichole [00:23:58] So now maybe some of us are like, whoa, this is me. I have some of these symptoms. I mean, most of us have probably done some of these things before. So as you can guess from these examples, disassociation is extremely common. I read that up to a third of people say that they sometimes feel like they're watching themselves in a movie, and as much as seven percent of the population may have a dissociative disorder. It's hard to tell because it's very, they tend to be very hard to identify. And people may go undiagnosed for years, may never be diagnosed.

Nichole [00:24:43] So if you disassociate for a long time, especially when you're younger, you may develop a dissociative disorder. So, so far we've just talked about disassociation. It could be a singular event that happens. It can be something that happens and it's not overwhelmingly concerning. However, a habit of doing this over and over can lead to a dissociative disorder, especially again if it was established in childhood as a coping mechanism.

Nichole [00:25:20] Dissociative disorders are characterized by experiencing disassociation regularly and having these episodes be severe enough to impact your daily life. So again, we're talking about something that could be as innocent as daydreaming or getting lost in a book or me adopting a persona for a conference. And then we're talking, that's disassociation, then we're talking about with a disorder, this is something that is impacting your day to day life. It's making it so that you can't really function, you know, out in the world. And this is what my mother had. You know, my mother got to the point where she was not able anymore to hold down a job. She wasn't able to be a parent. It really did just completely - and she had comorbid issues as well. So it wasn't just this, but it was very clear that she got to the point where any even small stress, any small trigger would cause her to just completely black out and lose time. So, you know, she wasn't able to be a parent because if something annoying happened or we talked back to her or anything like that, she would just disassociate and lose time. And, you know, it just really impacted her ability to function in the world.

Nichole [00:26:53] And so for some, disassociating becomes such a common way to deal with sustained or unresolved trauma that it becomes a coping mechanism for any and all stress. So, again, that's what happened with my mother, is, you know, she had an extremely traumatic childhood, she coped by disassociating. And then as her adult life continued to be shit, thanks Dad, she just got to a point where she was no longer able to deal with any stress without disassociating.

Nichole [00:27:33] Dissociative disorders are often caused by experiencing any or all of the following as a young child. So physical abuse, sexual abuse, severe neglect, which is what I experienced, and emotional abuse, which is also what I experienced. We've heard, this is really interesting, so we've heard of fight or flight, right, as a response to trauma, but there are other trauma responses that a person can have and some of these can trigger or lead to disassociation. So freeze is one and flop is one that I had not heard of before doing this research. And these are two that are very rarely talked about. I feel like freeze and fawn are becoming somewhat more discussed. And I think when Catherine and I do our episode together, we'll probably talk about fawning because it's something that she discusses a lot, was really empowering for her to learn about as a trauma response.

Nichole [00:28:37] But for this conversation today, freeze is when your body releases chemicals that make your body and mind feel numb and you become paralyzed or immobile. So in the face of trauma or a threat, you just freeze up. Flop is where lots of your thinking processes in the brain just shut down and your muscles go lax. And in this state you just do what you're told without protest, or if someone say is pulling you along or trying to physically move you, you just go along with it without any resistance. So you just kind of become, it's almost like you're like a DOS screen, I shouldn't laugh, with, you know, someone can just like enter a command and you just do it. You lose your ability to kind of have any sort of autonomy in that situation. But you are responsive in the sense that you do go along with whatever someone is telling you to do or physically pushing you to do or go.

Nichole [00:29:42] So these are very common responses to trauma. I think these are the kind of responses that a lot of people feel... feel a lot of guilt and shame around. You know, everyone wants to think that in a dangerous situation that they would fight, right? But for the most part, I mean, most of us have a different response to trauma. And especially if these things are happening to us when we're small children, then it's highly unlikely that fight is going to be our response. In this, like, patriarchal structure that we have, it's like even, we kind of even instill these values into small children of like, yeah, if someone's trying to do something to you, you should, like, beat them up or somehow physically overpower them. But obviously we're fucking little kids and that's not always possible. And especially, I think when the abuse you've suffered, too, can be things like neglect, like you can't overpower or neglect, you know what I mean?

Nichole [00:30:50] So anyway, I just think it's really important to understand that these are very valid, very uncontrollable responses to danger, you know, just as much as flight or fight is. Like even people who do have a fight response, it's not something they control, it's just something that they have. And no one is better than any other. So, you know, if you recognize it in yourself, that if you've frozen or you flopped in your life, you know, there's no shame in it. It's just what your body did. And there's no way that you can willpower your body over a response like that because chemicals take over and it's just what is happening to you.

Nichole [00:31:38] So, this is a front of the brain versus back of the brain type of reaction. The front controls language, it controls our feeling of connection to our body, storing memories, which is often why you might not remember chunks of your childhood or you might not remember chunks of a traumatic event. Understanding where we are in time and place. So you can see that when a trauma response happens and the front of the brain kind of shuts down and the back of the brain takes over, why we would have these very specific dissociative types of responses to trauma. Why we might feel like outside of our body or unsure of where we are in space and time. It's because the front of our brain handles that and the front of our brain isn't driving right now.

Nichole [00:32:31] So things that might preclude you to disassociating, things that might... I'm trying to, there's a word that I want and I can't think of it. But things that might cause you to disassociate. So this list to me was very fascinating. Abuse or neglect that begins at an early age, because the younger you are, the harder you'll find it to cope with traumatic experiences without disassociation. It's specifically [coughing], I'm sorry, choked on my own spit. I'm blaming it on autism. So it's not exclusively a thing that small children do, but if you're very young, you're not going to have any other way, most likely, to deal with trauma, right. You're too little, you probably can't even articulate what's happening to you or fully understand it. So disassociation is kind of an inherent coping mechanism that we have as kids.

Nichole [00:33:49] Abuse or neglect that's severe and repeated over a long time or by many people. So it's the repetition of it can be pretty instrumental in you developing a dissociative coping mechanism. Abuse or neglect, that's painful and makes you scared. And that makes sense because we, in those situations, would want to be detached from our emotions and our bodies. If there's no adult that you have a good relationship with and is able to provide comfort and help you process and deal with the trauma. So, you know, for some people, you may have experienced trauma as a young child, but perhaps you had another family member or someone who was able to provide you a sense of safety. Maybe you were taken to counseling and maybe the counselor was able to help you identify your emotions and come up with coping mechanisms for them.

Nichole [00:34:49] So if you didn't have this as a kid, then you're more prone to disassociate. If the child's parents or caregivers disassociate themselves, hello, hi Mom. Abuse or neglect that's done by someone you feel attached to. If the abuser tells you that things didn't happen or you were dreaming. So long time listeners will know I have a fucking rage boner for gaslighting of any form. And this is just another reason to hate it so much. So if you experienced abuse where you were gaslit, where you were told things weren't happening, it can cause you to disassociate because you, that alone makes you sort of lose grip with reality and have to sort of disassociate from what you feel like you know or have experienced versus what someone is telling you is the truth.

Nichole [00:35:50] So if things are different at different times, for example, things may seem normal during the day, but then at night you're abused. So, you know, I think in the case of sexual abuse, this is very common where you may have this picture perfect family setting during the day, and then at night the abuse is occurring. And there seems to be just a massive disconnect between these two realities that you're experiencing. I noticed on one of the sites that one of the things that would maybe make you more prone to disassociate was emotional dysregulation, and that's a big factor. So again, if you're young and you are prevented from being able to really understand what your feelings are and find ways to self soothe or to process those feelings, then you may, you likely have emotional regulation issues and therefore would be much more likely to disassociate.

Nichole [00:36:57] So this is another place where I kind of wondered about neurodivergent people because emotional dysregulation is a big hallmarker of a neurodivergent person. We tend to have trouble moderating our emotions. Things can be really intense for us. So it's another thing that made me wonder if, as a neurodivergent person, if I was also more inclined to disassociate because of that as well. You know, I noticed today I have been in hell, not to be dramatic, but they've been doing work on my building for almost a year, like a literal fucking year. Every, like five days a week. And I've had a really hard time with the noise, but also the pervasive feeling that there's just always like people around. And it's made it very hard for me to go outside on a regular basis or do things that I need to do.

Nichole [00:38:08] There was like, you know, a week where they were working on the - oh, and by the way, all the construction is for new tenants. They're not doing anything that helps people who already live here so that's also infuriating. But, you know, they were doing work on the outside like windows and stuff. And yeah, there was this week where, like, you know, I would go into my kitchen and not really be paying attention, and then I would look and there's like a guy right there at the window, you know . And I would just like yelp and like run into my bedroom. So it's just made my living situation feel unsafe and it already feels unsafe because I know they're going to raise the rent as much as they're legally able to all the time. And I know like my ability to afford to live here is running out. And I have noticed, like I noticed today, my upstairs neighbor is also very loud, like I literally don't know what they're doing all the time, it just sounds like they're jumping up and down on the floor constantly and it like, literally rattles my apartment.

Nichole [00:39:18] So I'm saying all this because I've kind of realized that to deal with this stuff, I've been disassociating a lot in my home. And, you know, given that we're in quarantine, I'm home all the time and it's concerning. Like I'm a little worried about myself. So it was kind of a big revelation today, having been thinking about this topic and having done this research to kind of realize. Because I was doing yoga, and my upstairs neighbor just started making so much noise and I remember just feeling like I had to just like come out of my body as a way to deal with like, because I get this, like, impotent rage and it makes me feel like I'm dying. Like it's like physically painful, how angry I am and also how I feel like there's nothing I can do about it. And I noticed I just like kind of shoop, you know? And I was like, fuck, I think I'm doing that a lot. I think I'm doing that all the fucking time.

Nichole [00:40:20] And I think it explains why I've just been so addicted to TV, so addicted to video games, just having a really fucking hard time. And I wanted to put that out there because, you know, a lot of us are in lockdown and a lot of us are probably experiencing sensory input that we're not used to. And we may be dealing with it in these ways and not even be fully conscious of it. So I don't know what I'm going to do about it. Like I already have to sleep with earplugs in. I don't want to have, like, earplugs or headphones on all the time. And the noises are so loud I can hear them through my ear plugs, like they wake me up in the morning. So I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm glad that I at least have the awareness that this is something that I'm doing on a regular basis and it's coming from this external source and this like feeling of helplessness and this feeling of just feeling trapped and uncomfortable and unsafe in my home, which sucks. It sucks no matter what. It especially sucks during quarantine.

Nichole [00:41:25] So there is that. I've also noticed that I have disassociated during sex a lot. And especially there was one particular relationship I had where I was expected to have sex every single day, no matter what. And the sex was not satisfying, as you can imagine. Someone who has those demanding expectations is probably not very good in bed, the dick was trash. So I would just disassociate because I didn't want to be doing it. And he was very clear about the fact that he did not care if I was enjoying myself. This was the Catholic boy. So probably not shocking to anybody that he basically saw it as my womanly duty to, you know, sexually pleasure him every day and like, who cares if I am enjoying myself or not?

Nichole [00:42:29] And there was quite a bit of gaslighting, I think, in that situation as well, because he would claim that like we were never having sex. And it got so, and I was like, I know that we are though, because I hate it. So it's like I know every time that we're doing it because I don't want to be doing it. It got so bad that I actually made a Google calendar called Sex Tracker and I would track every time we had sex or I gave him head, so that, like when he was claiming that we were like never having sex, I could like look and be like, we're having sex five to six times a week, like, what are you talking about? And, you know, all of that, including my continued relationship with him, is all like a massive trauma response, right. Like, the whole situation was so horrible and awful.

Nichole [00:43:28] And I remember we even had this conversation where he... I forget what he was saying, but it was something very porn like. I think I was like maybe making fun of porn and like the dolphin shrieks, you know, and all of that. And he just said like, well, I don't care if it's fake, I just want you to, like, perform. And I was like, so even if you knew that I was faking it, you wouldn't, that's what you want? And he was like, yeah. I was just like... And I felt, I was very kind of financially trapped in this relationship. That was a big part of it. So it just... It took me a long time to realize that I had really deep trauma from that relationship because for a long time it was just like, oh, this is just like bad sex, right. And that's an episode I would love to do at some point is like bad sex versus like sexual assault or trauma.

Nichole [00:44:31] Because, you know, now I can kind of see it as something definitely more than just bad sex. It was a sexually coercive relationship and I had a lot of shame around that for a long time because, it's not like he was physically threatening. I could have fuckin destroyed him, like if I ever wanted to. He was not a physically threatening person, but there was something about the situation that I felt - and I've researched and autistic people are particularly vulnerable to things like this. We tend to be kind of black and white about stuff. And we tend to believe people, you know, if people are in a position where we feel like we should be able to believe them or trust them, we do. And it can take a really long time to understand that someone's abusing us. We're easily tricked into things or coerced into things in certain ways. And it's not that we're necessarily naive, but we just, I think a lot of us are very kind of ethical or moral in certain ways, too, and we just don't realize that other people aren't.

Nichole [00:45:51] So it took me a long time to realize that this predilection to coming out of my body during sexual situations where I was not comfortable wasn't OK. You know, it wasn't OK for me to - and I mean, this is the patriarchy too right? Like this is what porn teaches us. This is like what toxic masculinity teaches us. And tune in on February 14th for me, Mexie and Catharine's live stream about sex and the patriarchy to hear more. But you know, this is something I've been thinking about a lot. And it is like women are conditioned to think like this is normal for me to just have to like, like this such a running joke to be like, oh you know, when we're having sex, I'm just making my shopping list or my to do list for the next day. That's disassociating and it's not OK. And it is normal in the sense that it happens a lot because a lot of people are having sex they don't want to be having. But it's not normal. Like it's not healthy, it's not OK.

Nichole [00:47:08] So hopefully that was in too triggering for anyone. But I just, it's something I'm really like processing right now that I used to think of myself as someone who hadn't experienced like any form of sexual assault or sexual trauma. But in looking back, I can see three relationships in particular where I definitely did. And it's inside me, you know, and it's affected me. And so I'm trying to... And this wasn't even the sexual assault that I did actually experience. So it's something that I'm trying really hard to, like, process and be aware of and see. And I think it's a lot of us. I think a lot of us have had trauma in this way, and so I wanted to talk about it to say, you know, disassociating during sex, I think is a very common experience for people of marginalized genders, and it's not OK for us to feel that way. So that's what I have to say about that.

Nichole [00:48:15] And more to come on Valentine's Day. So that all, as I mentioned, was disassociation in general. Dissociative disorders, again, so these are when you're disassociating frequently and it's severe enough that it impacts your day to day life. So I mentioned a few times these include the dissociative identity disorder, which again used to be called multiple personality disorder. This is the one that Hollywood absolutely can't get enough of. Derealization and depersonalization disorder. They're categorized as like one disorder. That's what I'm pretty sure at this point, that I have. Dissociative amnesia, dissociative amnesia with fugue. Other specified dissociative disorder, and unspecified dissociative disorder.

Nichole [00:49:14] So those last two, it's like when the symptoms don't fit, but they're pretty sure that you do have a dissociative disorder and the last one's like the diagnosis hasn't been given to you yet. And I guess this happens often in emergency situations, like maybe you were taken to a care facility and they're trying to help you out of a, you know, urgent situation and haven't had the time. Because these are very hard to diagnose, so someone hasn't had the time yet to really sit with you and truly figure out what's going on and what you might have, but they're pretty sure that it falls into one of those categories.

Nichole [00:49:55] So I've mentioned a couple of times that it's important to distinguish traits or experiences from a disorder. This has actually been incredibly helpful to me. So I've mentioned a few times that I listen to Psychology in Seattle. I listen to like very specific episodes, deep dives that they do on occasion through their Patreon. And I listen to all of the deep dives on personality disorders because I find them really fascinating and I want to learn more. And I'm trying really hard to destigmatize, especially like narcissistic personality disorder and borderline personality disorder. And so I wanted to understand as much as I could about these conditions. And one of the things that, I think his name is Dr. Kurt or Kirk, I think it's Kurt, said, Kurt Honda I'm pretty sure. One of the things he said that really stuck with me is that we overuse the word disorder.

Nichole [00:51:09] He's like someone can have like narcissistic traits or someone can be behaving in a narcissistic way and that's actually not inaccurate. You know, like he's like we all have some measure of narcissism. We all have some measure of these things in ourselves. But for someone to be a narcissist, like have a narcissistic personality disorder, that's a whole different ballgame. So that's what I want to say here as well, is that all of us disassociate at some point in time, in some way. Again, a lot of us do it as something that's kind of almost positive, like daydreaming about the future or, you know, adopting a persona to perform at work. Although I don't want to say that one's positive because fuck capitalism, but anyway, you get my point. But for someone to have a disorder, that's a whole different thing, right.

Nichole [00:52:05] And so, hey you thought fifty five minutes in, I forgot, but coming back to the question, I think we can see that you are not using the term wrong. I think you definitely are disassociating. I think your symptoms are very clear, or your description of your experience is very clearly a dissociative experience. I think the fact that it's coincided with your increased depression and anxiety over being in quarantine and especially the fact that it coincides with a really bad depressive state or not being around other people for a long time, which is in and of itself a big stress for a lot of people. Not me, because I'm secretly a robot. But for most human people, not being around other people is very stressful. You know, I think it makes perfect sense that these absolutely are dissociative episodes, that you were using the term properly to describe your experience. And in that it's pretty clearly coming from your current situation and your brain is attempting to deal with this heightened level of stress that you're experiencing and this is the way that it's doing it.

Nichole [00:53:28] So hopefully that's validating. Again, not a doctor, but I think it's just crystal clear that this is definitely disassociation you're experiencing and that, you know, it sounds like your friend's sister may have a dissociative disorder. And perhaps that's why she was so defensive about you using the word. It sounds like her sister has very specific episodes that sound a bit more severe and like those that may impact your day to day life. I didn't put it in the blurb, but she described her friend saying that her sister would be like driving and she would suddenly feel like her arms were someone else's arms and just feel completely disconnected and it would be really scary.

Nichole [00:54:21] So to me, that sounds like, you know, that's something that could impact your ability to drive, like you may have to stop driving. So that, to me, sounds like she may have a disorder. And there, again, is always so much confusion around when we're talking about an experience or a trait versus when we're talking about a disorder. So she may have felt like you were appropriating dissociative disorders where you were just trying to explain, you know, these isolated incidences that you've had in response to increased stress and trauma that you're experiencing.

Nichole [00:54:58] So to answer your question that you didn't ask, is my friend a fuckin jerk for snapping at me while I was trying to talk about something very scary that was happening to me? I would say yes. Not to come down too hard on her, but I do think that.. I just, y'all, I have so much to say, I'm not going to go into it all here. But I just have so many difficult feelings around this culture and environment we have of thinking that you have to correct someone in the moment when they say something, quote unquote wrong. Because half the time it's not wrong, or it's not wrong depending on who you ask, right. And then the other half of the time, maybe not half of the time, because sometimes people are just wrong and being jerks. But a lot of the time, someone's just being sincere. You know, like someone might be saying something that's actually very positive or very supportive of a certain community and then they may just fumble the language a little bit. And I've just seen people like snap in and be like nyah, you know, like you used the wrong word.

Nichole [00:56:07] And it's like, well, let them finish their fucking thought because they're actually, like being supportive. And then we'll have that discussion later, you know? And I think especially if you're trying to explain fucking trauma or trauma responses that you're having, if you're trying to describe to someone that you're in a bad way, I definitely agree that that is not the time to jump in and try to correct someone's language. Some people may disagree. I might be hashtag canceled. I honestly don't care at this point because I just think, especially like being a neurodivergent person, this is one of the things that I have experienced legit trauma around in like SJWs spaces on the Internet. Feeling like, you know, I can't even like have, like if I'm not saying everything perfectly, no one will hear what I'm saying. And then someone is just going to snap in and correct me, I'm going to lose my train of thought. And then if I don't respond in this perfect way, I'm going to be labeled as fragile.

Nichole [00:57:13] I mean, there's just so many scripts we have around this kind of behavior. And I just think it's really ablest, honestly, and it's also just really not productive. If you have someone who's sincere about, like their support and who's sincere about learning, then just let a person talk and then you can clean up stuff like as you go after, but like let them talk. One place I would say that I do think jumping in and correcting can be a good practice is with people's pronouns or names. I do think it's good to, if someone gets deadnamed or if someone uses the wrong pronouns for a person, I do think it's pretty important to jump in in that moment and just give a gentle correction. So I will say that caveat because at that point someone is being actively harmed by the mistake. And I think it's just like a sign of solidarity too to just be like, oh hey, let me like, correct that person so you don't have to.

Nichole [00:58:16] So yeah, there's that. I just, yeah, I have your back on this one. And, you know, I'm sure your friend like has trauma around her sister having this disorder and being scared for her and - well, assuming she has a disorder - for her sister, grappling with these situations and being scared for her and seeing firsthand how it's made her life difficult. So I can definitely, obviously have a lot of sympathy for that. But I do, it's also just the gatekeeping around stuff. I've seen so many of these types of people where it's like, I have trauma or someone close to me has trauma, so if anyone tries to even say that they might have a similar type of trauma, I'm just going to be like, you don't even fucking know. Right? Like, it's just always this weird thing where it's like, I'm the more traumatized person and no one else gets to use this label. And it's just very weird to me.

Nichole [00:59:15] Again, I can kind of sympathize where it comes from and sort of understand it. But I know that for myself, part of why I am nearly four centuries old and just now being able to even name some of my trauma is because of that type of rhetoric and behavior from other people. Because I'm the type of person to be like, I already downplay my own trauma. I already downplay my own experiences. I already think that they're not bad enough to justify me having any kind of like feelings or ongoing issues about. So I'm very susceptible to people. I've even experienced this in therapy, like I've tried to talk about my childhood neglect, and then my therapist would start talking to me about someone who had been like sexually abused by a parent, and I would just think, well I'm a piece of shit. You know, like I didn't go through that, I just had parents who didn't take care of me. And for a long time, like, I really genuinely thought that being, like, badly neglected as a child was not a big deal.

Nichole [01:00:33] So I just think, like, all of us can do a little bit better. All of us can be a little more gentle with other people. And I really like in the last episode, you know, how Christopher Sebastian talked about that, like trying to take a step back and interrogating, "Am I reacting out of trauma right now?" I think it's a good question for all of us to be asking. And it sounds to me like maybe that's what your friend was doing. She was reacting out of some trauma and a bit of gatekeeping and it wasn't the right time. You know, you're her friend and you're telling her you're having these scary experiences and in a bad place, and she should have been able to just be with you in that moment and then maybe later we could have talked about if that was the right way to explain what you're going through. Although she was wrong, so there never would have been a right time for her to be wrong. You know, like, yeah, that could have been a different conversation for another time.

Nichole [01:01:34] And I guess to end this off. I wanted to talk a little bit, again just for disassociating as an experience versus a disorder. With a disorder, you're going to need professional help. I think I read that like, EMDR is helpful. Certain types of therapy are helpful. But if you're just noticing that you tend to be disassociating more than you would like to, like myself, although I'm pretty sure I do have an actual disorder, things that can help are journaling, visualization exercises, specifically around ways to cope with stress that are not disassociating. So I was reading, they were saying like, you can picture yourself with like armor on, or you know, just some other things that you could call upon if you're starting to notice you're having this trauma response. And then it can be stuff that makes you feel like I can stay here in my body because I can do it. You know, I can protect myself in this situation.

Nichole [01:02:49] Meditation, grounding techniques. I like, you know, people have made fun of me before, but I do find little things like hot tea or a hot bath or a hot shower actually help me a lot. Those are things I find incredibly pleasurable. And they help me feel, because they're kind of an extreme sensation, they make me feel more present in my body. I even, because thank god it's been chilly here, I have no way to cool down my apartment so I hate when it's hot here. But it's been chilly, you know, for the most part. And so I have a little electric blanket and I put that on my bed and I put it under my weighted blanket in between my sheet and my blanket. And sometimes I'll turn it on and I'll sit in my bed with the weighted blanket and the electric blanket and it just feels so nice and so grounding.

Nichole [01:03:51] So it doesn't matter, like it's not like the tea itself. One thing is that it gives you something to do when you're upset, right. These also help with depression to an extent, it can help take the edge off and ground you a little bit. It's not the tea itself, but it's the having something to do and then it's just the physical sensation. So you could drink hot soup, you could do whatever. It's really about just something being comforting and something being such a physical sensation that you're able to be more in your body and feel more grounded. Like I like the hot too versus cold because you feel more like grounded, right, and relaxed and soothed. It's like all about that just getting back into your body, but in a way that is comfortable and comforting.

Nichole [01:04:42] So again, weighted blanket has changed my life. I love it. The typical sleep, diet, exercise, whatever feels good to you, it's good to do those things on a regular basis. I'm very shit at that. So I'm a fucking mess. Hello. And talking to other people who have similar experiences. That's a big reason why I was so excited to do this episode today is I'm really hoping that it helps anyone else who maybe hasn't really heard somebody talk about these things in a straightforward way, to just be like, oh fuck. Like this is real. You know, the things I've experienced are real or they're valid or whatever.

Nichole [01:05:24] I know for me, I have not really talked about my struggles with depersonalization and derealization because I was really scared that that meant that like something was really wrong. And I know that's kind of ableist, I don't really know how to frame it in a way that maybe isn't, but it's a fear that I have and I'm just trying to be honest. So to read this stuff and to hear from this listener and to understand that... I do think it's serious. You know, I do think it's serious and something that I need help with. But I also am really relieved to find out that it's not as weird and like, severe as I thought.

Nichole [01:06:15] You know, this feeling of being outside my body or feeling like the world around me isn't real. I kind of feel like more I'm not real then the world is not real, if that makes sense, but I think it's a similar feeling. To find out that like a third of people report feeling the same way, at least sometimes. You know, it makes it better and it makes me feel like, OK, I can stay tethered to this world a little bit and acknowledge the scary thing that's happening and not think it means like, that I'm just doomed to be like rattling around in my apartment by myself, forgotten by the world. Which is a fear that I have, I'll just be honest.

Nichole [01:07:04] So, yeah, and I think, unfortunately I haven't been able to keep up with the comments, but I think there are other people in the community who have experiences with this stuff as well. So look at this fuckin segue, are you ready? She's back to being profesh. I'm happy to announce officially, I don't know if I've officially announced it on the pod yet, but I'm happy to announce that the Discord channel is like up, it's running. We've got some cool stuff going on in there. So again, I was a bad - actually, the Discord links might be in the show notes, I can't remember, or in the video description right now for the live stream. But Discord link will be in the show notes.

Nichole [01:07:52] I really encourage everyone to join because you can talk to other really cool people who have similar experiences as you. You could talk about disassociation. There's a channel in there for talking about podcast episodes like after they come out, so this would probably be a great one for people to go in and just talk about their own experiences with disassociating and form a bit of a community. Also, we have our first movie night on Friday, tomorrow. We're going to be watching A Promising Young Woman, it's just Promising Young Woman, together. We're going to watch it together and then we'll talk about it after. I'm going to do two screenings of it because we have, we're so international here on Pynk Spots. We have a wide range of time zones to try to accommodate. So I'm going to be screening at noon my time and then five p.m. my time, and it's going to be really fun.

Nichole [01:08:51] So I know it's short notice for a lot of people, but if you're interested in that, join the Discord. Get in on that. That will be great. We have an upcoming book club to read Revolting Prostitutes, which is about like sex workers and their exclusion from a lot of feminist spaces and sex worker activism to go along with our sex and patriarchy theme that we'll be having here. So a lot of great stuff is happening. If you feel like you need community, we're building one for you. So come on in and join it.

Nichole [01:09:28] If you liked this video today or this podcast episode, like, share, subscribe, leave me a review. I haven't been checking them on iTunes, but more reviews are always good. If you have a question that you would like answered, I definitely could use some more questions. Right now I'll just be doing this probably once a month, but eventually it will change over. I think either in April or May it's going to change over to being the full time format of the show. So I could really use some more questions. You can send them to pynkspots@gmail.com. You can also submit them via social media if you follow me anywhere, that's cool too.

Nichole [01:10:11] And then I just want to say on Sunday, I'm collabing with Hillary, who those of you on the live stream and in the community may know, and we're going to be talking about friendship stuff. So we're going to be talking about what friendships are like as you get older. We're going to be talking about friendship breakups and how much they fucking suck. So I hope those of you who can will join us for the livestream on Sunday and then the rest of you can listen to it as a replay, after.

Nichole [01:10:41] All right everyone, we're going to go do a little happy hour party. So to the rest of you, I will say goodbye.

Nichole - Outro [01:11:02] Hey Pynko, thanks for tuning in. If you enjoyed the show, consider supporting it by making a monthly contribution on Patreon by going to patreon.com/pynkspots. You can also make a one-time donation on Venmo to @pynkspots or on PayPal by using the link in the show notes below. Your donations help support a disabled neuroqueer anarchist live off her creative work, and that's pretty damn cool.