Hi Hopeful83,
My therapist noticed that I was disassociating in our sessions together quite a lot. I had, to my knowledge, never been through that before, but I recall in therapy that airy feeling of not being quite there - of talking about what happened and feeling like the experiences belonged to some other person. It was the strangest feeling.
Disassociation (aka, dissociation) is a defense or coping mechanism for the mind. It is also described as part of the diagnostic criteria for BPD to exhibit "transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or
severe dissociative symptoms." and we have daily examples of our BPD loved ones exhibiting behaviors where they disconnect (or dissociate) from their own feelings or experiences. I see "projection" as an example of dissociation; you "disconnect" from your own feelings and attribute them (project) to someone else.
In the aftermath of my BPD relationship break-up, I dissociated or "disconnected" from a great deal of my own emotions. For a long time I couldn't even *identify* some of my own emotions. I was only aware of the physical signs (e.g., faster heart rate, oppressive feeling, low energy, inability to sleep, etc... ) of these emotions (if that). I found that when I was obsessively thinking about my exBPDgf, this was a way of disconnecting from my own pain (don't know if this is exactly dissociation).
As I see it, when the emotions or experience becomes too overwhelming, the mind finds a way to give you a break from being overwhelmed; and dissociation is one of those ways. A classic example, is someone who after being in an awful accident or disaster, "sees" themselves from a third perspective as if watching the event happen to someone else (just as you describe); it can be an "out-of-body" experience.
I think for many of us, we have experienced multiple sources of trauma in our BPD relationships. Trauma bonding occurs when we have to deal with crises (often instigated by our BPD loved ones) or the high intensity and frequency of the push-pull/on-off cycles. Some of us experience physical and emotional abuse. And in the end, if we are discarded, I think we can experience an abandonment (or betrayal) trauma.
At times I feel like I wasn't even with him, it's that surreal to me. When the magnitude of what happened hits me it just feels like it was a awful, awful nightmare that I just could not wake up from. It leaves me with that horrible feeling you do indeed get when you've had a bad nightmare and you wake up and wonder what it was all about.
I wonder if this nightmare feel to the break-up is somehow related to disassociation in some way. It's like even though I *know* what's happened happened to me and it was indeed very real, there's also almost like a protective mechanism in place that prevents me from fully acknowledging it as real life, even though I've done a massive amount of processing now.
When the relationship is finally over is perhaps when our mind finally feels it is safe to start sorting through all these experiences; and working through all the different kinds of hurt and pain can be very overwhelming. I remember many occasions when I woke up from dreaming and *forgot* that the relationship was over. Then I remembered and all the pain came rushing back again.
I think when we dream, that is a big part of how/where the mind tries to "rehearse" and process the big feelings and experiences. I believe the current understanding is that we "dream about" the memories which have the most emotional charge associated with it in an effort to "de-escalate" the emotional charge. There's a part of the brain that de-couples our memories from our emotions; it is a part of the brain that is suspected to be dysfunctional for people experiencing PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) - they relive their memories rather than de-escalate these memories.
The "end goal" is to integrate our most painful memories with the rest of our memories. Just like with people dealing with painful grief, the loss "becomes a part of us" and eventually becomes not so painful. This is also called "acceptance." It doesn't happen over night. And the more emotionally charged our memories are, the more time and effort it will take to integrate them.
In my experience, running away or avoiding the pain is not an effective strategy. But you must also limit the occasions in which you feel overwhelmed. You bite. But not more than you can chew.
Hope this helps.
Best wishes,
Schwing
