Ones normal reaction towards trauma is to avoid it, however the objective reality towards consciously forgetting memories unknowingly strengthens them. In Martha Stout's, “When I Woke Up Tuesday Morning, It Was Friday" the broad concept of trauma materialized through activities such as dissociation, serves as a protective mechanism that stimulates a person to enter a detached state, in which an individual completely separates his or her thought processes and memories. Plainly stated in Stout’s essay, “It is the case that under certain circumstance, ranging from peasant or unpleasant distraction to fascination to pain to horror, a human being can be psychologically absent from his or her own distinct experience” (427). The small perception …show more content…
However, if everyone were to stop and take a gander to forget their failures, society would not recognize that each and every person has something better to offer than their accomplishments. It is evident that dissociation itself can be seen as a problem. For example Stout’s patients encounter it on a daily basis, and unfortunately this labels them as “abnormal.” Nevertheless with the biased perceptive of seeing her patients as weird, they are no different from the man that blacks out at the movie theater. “This perfectly ordinary man is dissociated from reality. Effectively, he is in a trance. We might label his perceptions as psychotic, except for the fact that when the movie is over, he will return to his usual mental status almost instantly. He will see the credits. He will notice that he has spilled some popcorn, although he will not remember doing so” (427). In sum, someone who society would see as a “normal man,” also experiences something that Stout’s patients take on regularly, all in the end just to loss the negativity in their …show more content…
As an individual feels the dread of time and goes through the process of depression, the idea of dissociating themselves comes into play. Stout describes this throughout her essay as leaving the soul or describing it as “flying away”. It may seem as if some individuals are secure with their own identity, however that is never the case for the traumatic events that force each person to fall into a state of desperation and lose their self-conception. Meanwhile in Karen Armstrong’s essay, she describes how through spiritual practices some abolish all the negativity that surrounds everyone just to find meaning. Yet still the idea cleansing your mind from all trauma, to reach a safe harbor, where you feel relaxed and comforted is never the brightest solution. Due to the fact that when you lose a memory, you are short yourself of an experience. In both Stout’s and Armstrong’s essay, the willingness to dissociate yourself from the harsh realities of society with ease comes into question. In the end when one interferes with the interpretation of traumatic events, the meaning behind life turns out be blemished and left
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Show Morebreakdown (Meltzer, 1992). What people do in these circumstances is to erect individual and institutional defences against the psychotic anxieties engendered by
Describing a course in history when isolation was highly adopted, Deresiewicz writes, “The mob, the human mass, presses in… The soul is forced back into itself—hence the development of a more austere and embattled form of self-validation…where the essential relationship is only with oneself” (par.8). Deresiewicz describes the time of urbanization, when country folks began flooding into cities. With so many people moving into the city, there was not any room to breathe because there was not any privacy or space—all the voices and thoughts were forced into one sector of society. This forced some people to advance past the crowd and focus on oneself, on the soul. When submerged by a sea of people, the best shelter is inside the body and mind, where one can reflect the internal self and external world in a serene environment. Extending on the importance of temporary isolation, Deresiewicz adds, “Solitude becomes, more than ever, the arena of heroic self-discovery, a voyage through interior realms” (par. 8). When engaged in the physical world, people don’t focus on themselves because there is too much stimulation occurring around them. But when alone in solitude, when there is no around except oneself—no noises, sounds, distractions—then a person is able to reflect on his or her character. It is important to immerse in introspection because mental health is as vital as bodily health. And by delving deeper into the psyche, individuals discover new information about themselves that wouldn’t have been uncovered with others because the only person that truly understands him or her is that
Neurosis is characterized by a retreat into ones imagination and alienation from reality. According to Freudian theory, this is also typified by believing a fantasy to be the truth. "Neurotics turn away from reality because they find it unbearable; the most extreme type of this turning away from reality is shown by certain cases of hallucinatory psychosis which seek to deny the particular event that occasioned the outbreak of their insanity" (Freud, 301). In this passage, Freud describes the psychological techniques that a neurotic mind uses in order to cope with a traumatic event. Instead of coming to terms with their trauma, the mind will alter the events and shape them around a delusion in order to produce a more pleasing conc...
In life, there will always be ghastly memories standing in one’s way from achieving eternal happiness. It is up to mankind to determine how individuals should overcome adversity so they can experience the blissfulness that life has to offer. In Joy Kogawa’s novel, Obasan, Naomi’s experience throughout her life reveals the conflict between man versus self. Naomi seeks to find balance between remembering and forgetting her tragic childhood. Kogawa demonstrates how eradicating one’s past, dwelling on previous experiences, experiencing trauma, and shielding another from trauma can lead to one’s corruption.
Dissociation is the disconnection or separation of something from something else or the state of being disconnected. Dissociation often occurs when people separate themselves from reality or a certain situation that they just don’t want to face. Being dissociated is like a mouse hiding out and waiting for the cat to leave; it’s like a person watching their own life through a lense. You’re living your life but you are not really apart of it, the theme of dissociation is exemplified in the two short stories: The Veldt by Ray Bradbury and For Esme with love.. by J.D Salinger. The parents in The Veldt and Sorgent X in For Esme with love and squalor exemplifies the theme of dissociation because they are all oblivious to their surroundings and are so separated from reality.
In life, there will always be ghastly memories standing in one’s way of achieving eternal happiness. It is up to mankind to determine how individuals should overcome adversity so they can experience the blissfulness that life has to offer. In Joy Kogawa’s novel, Obasan, Naomi’s experience throughout her life reveals the conflict between man versus self. Naomi seeks to find balance between remembering and forgetting her tragic childhood. Kogawa demonstrates how eradicating one’s past, dwelling on previous experiences, experiencing trauma, and shielding another from trauma can lead to one’s corruption.
In Pat Mora’s “Sonrisas,” A woman tells the audience that she lives in between two worlds: her vapid office workplace and a kitchen/break-room with family members or colleagues of her same heritage. Mora includes many sensory details to enrich our understanding of the speaker’s experience in both “rooms.” The speaker is content living in the “hallway” between the two rooms because she can put on a metaphorical mask, as mentioned in Jungian psychology, which fits what is acceptable to the different social society that is in each room of her life. Adrienne Rich on the other hand, is not content with peeking her head into the doorframes of the roles she must play in order to be accepted. In her poem, “Diving into The Wreck,” she pursues, in my opinion, a form of individuation by diving into the wreck of her inner consciousness to find who she is among the wreckage of the world and its effects on her. Both Pat Mora and Adrienne Rich explore the dangers of being defined by others and the rewards of exploring different worlds.
The idea of “Outliving Oneself” depends on the concepts of trauma and most importantly the self, in a situation where said trauma obliterates the self for an indefinite amount of time. Brison presents the self in three interwoven parts: the embodied self, the self as narrative, and the autonomous self. Any of these parts of self depend largely on the individual’s society, culture, and interactions with other people. The embodied self represents the self in conjunction with the physical body, which our society separates from the self, to intimate a soul or personality, and also assigns genders to certain traits. Trauma dissolves this separation of body and mind because violence brings the traumatized to face their own mortality. They have to see their body as an object because their assailant treats it as an object. Trauma is so damaging because the self cannot exert any power whatsoever; the interaction between the assailant and the victim, essentially a social situation, robs the victim of a voice, because the assailant ignores it, a personality, because it is of no consequence to the assailant, and a self, because the assailant uses the body as an object, and the body plays a more central role in the interaction than the self does. Brison quotes Cathy Winkler in saying a rape is a “social murder,” because the rapist’s part in the interaction defines the victim through their actions that take away the victim’s sense of self. Any control that the victim felt over their body gets taken from them by the rapist. The consequences of this trauma include a loss of control over physiological functions, such as emotion and incapacitation from anxiety; the body and mind are out of balance, which leads the victim to be stigmatized by societ...
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.
Kate Morrison is a well educated, independent woman with a decent job, supportive boyfriend and family. Externally, Kate has a life that some people might envy of but, internally, she isn’t as stable as she seems. Crow Lake, a novel written by Mary Lawson, leads the readers to the protagonist, Kate Morrison and the struggles in her life. Kate loses her parents in her early age and for this reason she lives with her siblings with some help from her neighbours and other family members. Despite the absence of her parents, Kate and her siblings seem to grow well. Although there is some crisis in the family, they seem to be inevitable consequences of not having an adult in the family. However, Kate spends an innumerable amount of time accepting and letting go of the past and eventually it causes another crisis in her present life. She continuously has some kind of depression, and she does not realize that her depression is coming from herself, not from anything or anybody else. Crow Lake contains a great message that shows refusing to face the past affects your future negatively. We see ...
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.
Simeon, Daphne, and Jeffrey Abugel. Feeling Unreal: Depersonalization Disorder and the Loss of the Self. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006. Print.
Mental health complications are common personal traits in human beings. However, there are those that are implausibly real, though they are quite rare to find. Such unusual features include voices, visions, and multiple personalities. According to psychiatrists who will be mentioned in this paper, these psychological disorders are caused by high levels of stress or traumatic situations that happen in the victims ' lives. Voices and visions are sometimes normal dissociations that fade away quickly without the need to see a mental specialist. Nevertheless, those who acquire prolonged dissociations are said to have mental disorders, which make the victim 's life quite a struggle. Although mental health aberrations are not easy to encounter, numerous
In life there are many people, things, or places that we experience that have influenced our lives so unique and powerful there unlike any other. Some women experience such alteration with the birth of a new baby. While for another person this life alteration may be making partner at a law firm. Though everyone experiences life on a different level one thing is for certain, not everything in life is a good experience. Everything in life is balanced, and with every joy comes some form of heartache. For some people it takes an emotional toll so incoherent that it never fades. After World War I many men experienced the let down affiliated with the war, and discovered there fight for admiration and loyalty led to nothing more than a expulsion of lost values, thus leading to the “lost generation.”
She continues in this sequel to talk about the abuse she faced and the dysfunction that surrounded her life as a child and as a teen, and the ‘empty space’ in which she lived in as a result. She talks about the multiple personalities she was exhibiting, the rebellious “Willie” and the kind “Carol”; as well as hearing noises and her sensory problems. In this book, the author puts more emphasis on the “consciousness” and “awareness” and how important that was for her therapeutic process. She could not just be on “auto-pilot” and act normal; the road to recovery was filled with self-awareness and the need to process all the pieces of the puzzle—often with the guidance and assistance of her therapist. She had a need to analyze the abstract concept of emotions as well as feelings and thoughts. Connecting with others who go through what she did was also integral to her