Imagine having a deep, unshakable feeling rooted in your chest that your mind is disconnected from your body and has become numb to your surroundings. In some cases, this might feel like being a ghost and observing your own body. This is the most common symptom of a disorder called depersonalization. This disorder, which only one to two percent of the population have lifetime experiences with, can potentially affect a person's emotions, memories, and physical being in different levels of severity. While it is not a fatal disorder, it can have a huge impact on a person’s life, especially if left undiagnosed. Depersonalization is a dissociative disorder defined as “a state in which one’s thoughts or feelings seem unreal or not or not to belong …show more content…
She also suffers from depersonalization, with depression and anxiety as the root of the disorder. Clark has suffered from this disorder since she was seventeen and only recently received a diagnosis. In her youtube video ‘depression, anxiety, depersonalization’, she explains exactly what the disorder is for her. In texts to friends, which she reads out in the video, she explains feeling as if she isn’t there or that she is constantly drunk. She says, “I can’t talk to anyone because I’ve forgotten how I usually talk. I don’t even look like me and everything is so wrong and weird and scary. I honestly think I’m going mad.” Despite this, she goes on to say, “here’s the thing. I am alive, I can breathe, and I can eat and talk and sleep and see and feel, so I should be okay, and objectively I am fine, so why am I not?” After this, she mentions deciding to go home to her family in search of feeling normal and being around things and people that are familiar to her. For Dodie Clark, depersonalization affected both her own life in the way she thought and acted and the lives of those around her when she started being unable to properly communicate and interact with them. It forced her into feeling a little insane, and as she said, she felt unable to properly talk to her own friends. However, even feeling like this, she points out that she can still act normal and do normal things; she can still function as a human being. She still experiences the symptoms of depersonalization, as there is very little that can truly be done to treat it, other than therapy which is currently unavailable to
She lived in constant paranoia; finding it hard to make amends and rebuild trust with friends and
Denise Gilmartin, a 26 year old female, exhibits behaviors which meet criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder. Denise exhibits unstable intense interpersonal relationships characterized by idealization and devaluation (Criterion 2). She has a history of brief tumultuous relationships and friendships. They start of with quick intense attachments and are described by Denise as “wonderful” and “incredibly special” (idealization); however, these feelings quickly devolve into “contempt” and “loathing” (devaluation). Additionally, Denise displays an unstable sense of self (Criterion 3). Her unsteady employment history is partially explained by dramatic shifts in interests. She switched from marketing to legal work to waitressing. It is also important to note that interpersonal issues underly most of her
Disco Di have shown these symptoms during her time when she ran away from her parents because they would not pay attention to her. She got into drugs use, had many promiscuous relationships with boys. Her relations with these boys were full off passion and chaotic with many violent arguments. She would seek out excitements such as getting drunk and go dancing where she would leave with strange men then have intercourse. After being admitted to a hospital, she would always expect and demanded that people would always have to pay attention to her. Also, I believe this because in the journal “Histrionic Personality Disorder” it stated “Histrionic PD is indicated when people exaggerate their emotions and go to excessive lengths to seek attention” (Crawford et al, 2007) and this is indicated when Disco Di ran away from home because she believed her parent did not pay enough attention to her. Next, the diagnostic feature of her other disorder, borderline personality disorder, is that mark of instability of mood, unstable relationships, chronic feeling of emptiness and recurrent threats of
Dissociation can occur any time in our life and there is two kinds of dissociation, childhood and adulthood. Child dissociation is different from adult dissociation. Child dissociation occurs when the child is actually experiencing some sort of trauma, like abuse. Adult dissociation happens in situations like stress or family related issues. Another difference is that child dissociation does not last very long (usually a hour), but adult dissociation lasts for a longer period of time. Dissociation occurs when something so painful is happening that the mind leaves the body to go elsewhere. In Martha Stout’s essay “When I Woke up On Tuesday, It Was Friday,” she defines dissociation as the mind leaving the body and transporting our awareness to a place so far away, it feels like the person is watching from outside their body. In her essay, she tells her audience about the dangers of dissociation, such as blackout, unable to relate to others, a sense of not knowing who one is, and the sense of lost time. She also includes some of her patient’s stories and experiences with dissociation, how they struggle for sanity and how she helps them see a new meaning of life. She tells her audience that often when patients or people dissociate they have lack of self-control and self-awareness. Dissociation can happen to anybody in a dire situation, for instance a child getting abused or some other traumatic event. Martha Stout has her audience/reader rethink about dissociation particularly the harmful side of it. She has help me see that although dissociation is helpful, it could lead to suicide thought, accidents, loss of identity and sanity.
3. Walker is battling with dissociative identity disorder (module 12). This disorder presents two or more distinct personalities. These personalities can take over your cognitive awareness and create voices and opinions in your head. Some symptoms that are common are: anxiety, mood swings, amnesia, depression, self harm, etc. Dissociative identity disorder is very serious illness that disrupt daily activity and progression. Behavioral psychologist (module 1) research the learning and behaviors of individuals according to environmental influences. Behavioral psychologist can identify common symptoms of DID, which can help Walker become more aware of his disorder. Dissociative identity disorder has commonly been correlated from traumatic events from the past. Discovering these events can be beneficial to the source of this disorder. Memories of these events will be embedded in Walker's temporal lobe (module 2). In the temporal lobe, which is located above ears, it is the primary organization of sensory input. The temporal lobe is important for long term memory. Research has proven that a
depression” as presented by the National Institute of Mental Health these are all actions and symptoms of Dissociative Identity Disorder, DID,.
Dissociative Identity Disorder, also known as Multiple Personality Disorder, is a psychological disorder that can be caused by many things, but the most common cause is severe childhood trauma which is usually extreme, repetitive physical, sexual, or emotional abuse. A lot of people experience mild dissociation, which includes daydreaming or getting momentarily distracted while completing everyday tasks. Dissociative identity disorder is a severe form of dissociation. Severe Dissociation causes a lack of connection in a person's thoughts, memories, feelings, actions, or sense of identity. Dissociative identity disorder is thought to stem from a combination of factors that may include trauma experienced by the person with the disorder.
There are four more different types of dissociative disorders: the first one is Dissociative Amnesia which is when someone blocks out certain information, normally being from a stressful or traumatic event. Second on the list is Dissociative Fugue; fugue is the Latin word for “flight” and those with dissociative fugue temporarily lose their sense of personal identity and can impulsively wander or travel from where they are currently located. Depersonalization disorder is the next one on the list. When depersonalization disorder happens, the person persistently or repeatedly has a sense that things around them are not real; they get the feeling that they are observing themselves from outside of their bodies. Next is dissociative disorder, which happens normally when you get lost in a good book or a movie. But in this case someone with dissociative disorder can escape reality in many different ways that are invol...
Dissociative identity disorder, a condition that has plagued and altered the minds of those who were diagnosed for many years, represents the condition in which an individual displays multiple personalities that overpower his or her behavior around others and even alone. Such personalities or identities can have staggering differences between them even being characterized by a disparate gender, race, or age. One of the sides of them can even be animal-like and display feral qualities. Also, the disorder severs the connection between the victim’s sense of identity, emotions, actions, and even memories from their own consciousness. The cause for this is known to be a very traumatic experience that the person had gone through previously and fails to cope with it, thus they dissociate themselves from the memory in order to keep their mental state in one piece. All these results from the disorder do not begin to tell of the rest of the horrors that gnaw away at the affected human.
Diana Miller, 25 was diagnosed with major depressive disorder and borderline personality disorder after being rushed to the hospital following another suicide attempt . Her symptoms and background are outlined in her vignette and will be examined in detail throughout the paper. The purpose of this essay will be to explore the possible additional diagnoses for Diana’s behaviour as well as look deeper into the feasible explanations of how and why her behaviour turned abnormal. Therefore through analyzing the diagnostic features, influence of culture, gender, and environment, in addition to outlining paradigm explanations and possible treatment methods, one can better understand Diana Miller’s diagnoses.
What is Dissociative Identity Disorder? A proper explanation of DID necessitates a dissection of the name itself. Dissociation is “a mental process, which produces a lack of connection in a person's thoughts, memories, feelings, actions, or sense of identity.”1 In other words, there is a disruption in the way in which these usually integrated functions communicate. Daydreaming, highway hypnosis, or “getting lost” in a book or movie are all examples of very mild dissociation.
...ed with extensive amounts of individual psychotherapy. Free association must be applied in these therapy sessions; free association is when the therapist has the patient describe any thought, feeling, or image that comes to mind (Comer, 2011). Nina will hopefully relive past repressed feelings from her childhood, this is called catharsis, and it is extremely important for the progression of treatment. Catharsis is paramount for Nina to settle her internal conflicts and overcome her problems. Hypnotherapy should be applied during regular therapy sessions to combat Nina’s dissociative identity disorder. Her sub-personality must be integrated and merged into a single personality, before other sub-personalities appear.
There are many symptoms of depersonalization that patients with this disorder have to deal with. J.C. Dixon studied the symptoms of DPD and found many recurring ones that people explained they had. Examples of this were: other people seemed changed or unfamiliar, things a person was used to seemed strange, body seemed detached, no self- awareness, and no difference between self and not-self (Trueman 2). These are not the only symptoms, another one is a type of obsession, like OCD. A patient may resort to obsessing over their symptoms. They may keep looking at their hands to decide if they look any more or less real than an hour ago, or may repeatedly check hundre...
According to Barlow, Durand & Stewart (2012), Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is one of several dissociative disorders in which a person experiences involve detachment or depersonalization. They go on to explain that people with DID ha...
~ Mysteriously and in ways that are totally remote from normal experience, the gray drizzle of horror induced by depression takes on the quality of physical pain ... it is entirely natural that the victim begins to think ceaselessly of oblivion. ~William Styron (1925-2006)