The Danger of “It’ll Be Fine”: Understanding Dissociation

Introduction to Dissociation

Speaker 0:01

Good day. This is Dr. Jana Price-Sharps from Mindpilot. Today we're going to talk about an interesting topic that just impacts a lot of people. It's called dissociation. And today I'm with Dr. Matthew Sharps, who is finishing his book on dissociation. And so I thought this would be a good introduction to the topic. Dissociation tends to influence pretty much everybody, and it influences people in different ways. But one of the problems with dissociation is it often will lead to decisions that aren't in our best interest. And so I invited Dr. Sharps on again because I want you to clearly understand what dissociation is and how it may be impacting you. So thank you for coming on, Dr. Sharps. Thank you. Once again. And could you help people understand what is the definition of dissociation? Dr.

Speaker 1 1:08

Sure.

Defining Normal Dissociation & Its Purpose

Speaker 1 1:09

We started writing this book, and Dr. Dr. Jana Price-Sharps is my co-author on this book. The title is Dissociation and Belief. But it has a subtitle, The Psychology of Why Things Go Horribly Wrong and What to Do About It. Because dissociation is a very understudied psychological phenomenon, and it's extremely important. Dissociation effectively allows us a bit of respite, if you will, from reality. It's where we are not focused on our physical reality around us. We sort of take a break from that. Now a lot of people don't understand this. You'll even see people in the medical community, oh, you're talking about dissociative identity disorder, right? What used to be called multiple personality. Well, that does exist. It's a terrifying disorder where the fra p personality fragments into in some cases separate personalities within the same body. But that's not all there is to dissociation. Dissociation is something that all of us are capable of. Over the last few years has become an increasing understanding that we are all capable of there is such a thing as normal dissociation. Now, what does this mean? Well, a very low level example of dissociation where you're thinking in your own mind about something and you drive past your turn off and you don't take it. You can see that in a way as a kind of dissociation. But it seems like you know, being that remote from physical reality, how could that even have developed in the human species? Because it comes in very handy if you want to create or invent something. If you want to write a science fiction novel about creatures of another planet that don't exist, you'd better get a little bit outside of reality, hadn't you? And in more practical terms, consider, go ahead and consider, some light metal, some sticks, and a pile of women's underwear. Now, why in the world would you want to consider that at all? You look at that from the real world perspective, it's nothing. But Orville and Wilbur Wright looked at these ideas, okay, and they realized, hey, the metal is now we now have good enough light metal alloys to form this to get an engine that we can fly, okay? Wooden sticks will wind up being light structures, and believe it or not, a kind of cloth that at the time was used to manufacture women's underwear primarily, turned out to be the best cloth for the Wright Flyer, the first aircraft. You can go to the Smithsonian today, look up at that aircraft, that's exactly what you're looking at. But the point is this, that until Wilbur and Orbill Wright got a little bit out of practical reality and thought in those terms, there was no airplane. The problem is that you can do the same thing very much to your disadvantage in seeing a world that doesn't actually exist, and seeing a world that I think things work this way, so it'll all be all right. And it turns out that that world doesn't exist and things are very, very far from being all right.

Speaker 3:51

Awesome. I uh often hear people say things like, Oh, I'm sure it'll be okay. Kind of what Dr. Sharps was saying,

The Danger of "I'm Sure It'll Be Okay"

Speaker 4:02

right? And until you start breaking that down, if you just shut your brain off, then somehow it just feels like it's magically gonna be okay. The problem is you have to go one step further and go, hmm, what if it's not? What if maybe I'm not seeing things clearly? What if I'm shutting off my brain because I don't want to see what's really happening? Now, I'm not saying you spend all your time in what is the worst case scenario and what is the worst thing that could happen. That isn't what I'm saying at all. What I am saying, though, is if you're having that feeling like there's part of your brain almost tapping you on the shoulder and saying, you need to wake up, there's something going on here. Don't tell that part of your brain to shut up. Really think about, hmm, I wonder why it's giving me that feedback. I wonder why I'm having more anxiety or more irritability, or I'm feeling like I want a distance from everybody. A lot of times our brain communicates in very different ways. As I've said before, if you have a knee injury, you know you have a knee injury. I mean, it hurts, you know, if you uh go jogging, it's going to tell you to knock that off, you know, that kind of thing. The brain, though, communicates in different ways. It, you know, it communicates through panic attacks or nightmares or irritability or depression or anxiety. It communicates in a bunch of different ways. And I've seen so many people over the years that are saying, yeah, I'm sure it'll be okay. And if they go one step further, they get really bad anxiety. They don't want to think about it and they shut down. And that should be a red flag to you that maybe you want to think about it just a little bit more because there may be more going on. And it's better to catch that early than wait until it's a huge mess. I have a really very close friend. And years ago he was getting married and I didn't know him at the time, but he ended up in this terrible, terrible marriage. And he had taken a picture of himself in the mirror, and he looked like he was going to a funeral. And I said, What was going on in your life when you took that that picture in the mirror? And he said, That was my wedding day. And I said, Your brain was telling you something and you aren't listening, right? And we all do this. I'm not just saying this one person does this. This is very, very commonplace, I think with probably almost everybody. So, Dr. Sharps, what are some remedies for dissociation? What can you do if you know that's happening?

Speaker 1 7:11

Yeah, well, we've studied dissociation in a variety of different areas, all right? And we find, for example, that more dissociated people are the ones who are more likely to believe, for example, in the paranormal,

The Remedy: Feature-Intensive Processing

Speaker 1 7:22

and they're more likely even to perceive things as paranormal. We've even seen it in the sciences where people are interpreting things in the real world that are completely different, that's trying to be completely different from what they really are. Now, when you do that, though, there's a tendency to have to depart, to divorce the mind from the details of what's out there. And it turns out that one way you can combat dissociation very nicely is to focus on those details in a specific way. We talk about gestalt processing, where you just tend to process everything, you know, without really looking at the bits and pieces and saying, Oh, I'm sure it'll be all right, exactly what we were just talking about. But then there's feature-intensive processing where you say, wait a minute, exactly how much money will this be? Can we do this? Is this a good idea, okay? This person I'm about to marry, is that a good idea? What will this be like under, you know, across the breakfast table for the next forty years? Things of that nature. Well, let me give a brief anecdote here. One of our studies of dissociation in the paranormal realm uh came from an accident, actually. I wound up I was taking photographs down the Southwest Desert for a different project, and some of the photographs wound up because of an error with two little dots, two little pieces of dust got into the camera. They looked kind of like flying saucers, right? Well, so we found out that guess what? People who tend toward dissociation, etc., tended to see those as UFOs, and people who didn't didn't. But that's not really what matters here. What matters is the one question that got them to stop saying these are flying saucers. That question was not wasn't could these be spaceships, could be these space, could be could these be the other thing? It was could one of these dots up there be the shadow or reflection of the other one? Now lots of people, especially the dissociated, looked at that and went, hey, it's a gamma issue. Okay? People who have tended toward dissociative tend dissociation, or whom we actually gave information that might lead them to start thinking in paranormal terms. They're going, oh, it might be spaceships, might be spaceships. But when we asked that question, could one of these be a reflection or some kind of shadow of the other one? That means you have to do feature-intensive processing. You have to start thinking, okay, wait a minute, how would that work? Could that become maybe water droplets in the air? Wait a minute, is that like a rainbow? How does a rainbow work? Well, it's nothing like how a rainbow works, but it would make you start thinking in terms essentially of physics. In terms I don't mean formal physics, you know, people who aren't formally trained, but how could it reflect? Could it be a shadow? Where is the sun? How how about the refraction of the air, something about refraction? I remember learning that in school. They start thinking in feature-intensive terms, and all of a sudden they're going, yeah, I don't think that's the Klingons or the Romulans or the Star Wars or the Star Wars people or whatever it is. Suddenly they're back in reality. It's a way, if you will, to wake-up call. So in answer, a long-winded answer really to a relatively simple question, but at the end of the day, what you want to do is force the mind back into physical reality, and the way to do that is to focus on the details, on the features, feature-intensive processing. Now, if I'm in the middle of writing a science fiction novel, or if I'm if i if if I'm writing Alice in Wonderland, okay, and I want to start talking about caterpillars smoking hookahs and rabbed white rabbits that can talk. Well, it may be useful to be creatively dissociated a bit. But under circumstances where we're trying to design an airplane, or we're trying to understand, is it a good idea to be married to this person, or trying to decide, is shouting at my boss a good idea? Okay. That kind of feature-intensive processing can give you a framework for understanding that can prevent a disaster.

Speaker 10:54

So one of the things that I have noticed is when people are dissociated about something, if somebody asks them a question about whatever it is they're dissociated about, they often will get angry because again, just like what Dr. Sharps was talking about, when you start to question something, it forces that feature-intensive analysis. And so if people are very dissociated, they often will get angry because they're like, I don't want to talk about this. And that's a common statement they make. I don't want to talk about this, I don't want to think about this. Do you have to keep bringing this up? And usually when you find somebody is saying comments like that, they're probably shut down or at least somewhat shut down. And you bringing it up is irritating because you're pulling them out of that dissociative response. Why is this important? Well, for one thing, if it's a friend of yours or it's your spouse or significant other, that gives you some clue of kind of what's going on with them. But also, if somebody asks you a question and you immediately get defensive, you might take a step back and go, huh, I wonder why I'm getting defensive about this. Is this person really talking about something that, you know, is irrelevant or they shouldn't be talking to me about or whatever? Or is there something going on with me that I don't want to think about this? And the points that they're bringing up are really important. And that gives you kind of an end to deal with your own s dissociation. Is there anything else that you can kind of piggyback on with that?

Speaker 1 12:52

Well, I think that's absolutely very, very true. People have val people place valuation on arguments for a variety of reasons. One of the most common is cognitive dissonance, where you've already invested a lot in this opinion. And if it's if the opinion is somewhat shaky, okay, you may have spent some time making sure you don't do feature-intensive analysis. You know, I'm sure it'll be all right. Well, I'm sure this is a wonderful person, I'm sure I'm sure whatever it is, okay? Well, then somebody comes along and pulls you out of that. That investment, that cognitive dissonance, is actually quite defensive because if you become I mean, defensive in the sense of defending you, because if you become defensive in the normal sense, how dare you say that, it puts you into a state of higher arousal. And that in turn reduces some of the resources you would normally send to centers of the prefrontal cortex of the brain. That's where we do most of our thinking, all right? And suddenly you're not thinking as well. All you know is you are really, really mad at this person, and how dare they, you know, say things that don't agree with that. Now you're not going in your mind, but wait a minute, what is my level of cognitive dissonance here? You're just going, you know, I want them to stop doing this. So long-term opinions like that can do that, but

Cognitive Dissonance and Emotional Investment

Speaker 1 13:59

so can also so can relatively short-term opinions. You met the most wonderful person in the world last night, okay? Now, how much alcohol was involved may not be uh in your mind here. You may be going, how dare you be calling into question my my wonderful new new love who has, by the way, somehow my wallet has disappeared. I don't know why, okay? But ultimately, we have a variety of ways of investing in these things. And someone questions them and they pull us out of that what for us at the moment is our emotionally optimal state. And we don't like that, and especially if we have an investment in the opinion. We are likely to enter a state in which we're not thinking clearly, and that allows us to return right back into dissociation.

Speaker 14:41

Absolutely. I see this all the time with people that are in uh abusive relationships. And when I say that, I don't necessarily mean physically abusive, although that can certainly be part of that. Um as many of you know, I treat predominantly men. Um, I also treat some women that are first responders. And sometimes people will get into relationships where they kind of have lost most of their rights somehow over time. Uh I often ask people, I hear what you're saying, but in your life equation, where are you? Because I'm not hearing where you're at. I'm hearing where everybody else is, I'm hearing what you're trying to do for everybody else, but I'm not hearing much about you. And, you know, when people are consistently put down or they're physically attacked or they're verbally attacked, uh, you know, people start to just kind of shut

Dissociation in Relationships & Setting Boundaries

Speaker 15:50

down. And so when I ask people, how are you taking care of you? a lot of times what I hear is, oh, I'm okay. I'm okay, you know, but I need to work on this person and this person and this and this and this and this. Yeah, but what about you? Oh, I I'm fine. I'm fine, right? And so coming back inside for a lack of a better way of saying it, and going, huh, what is going on in my life and how am I feeling about it? And is it okay? Is it is it making me a healthier person, or is it not? And if it's not, then what are some things I need to do to change it? Now, I'm not saying I want to be very clear that you just have to leave that person right now. Although if they're severely abusive, that might be uh an option. But I think it's really important to kind of find out what's going on in your own life. If you feel like you've been shut down for a really long time, you need to ask yourself why. And then you need to start taking small steps to mediate the situation and to start taking action, whatever those actions are that are healthy for you, that are not gonna harm you. I'm not saying harm anybody else, but I am saying that sometimes you just have to tell people no. Sometimes you have to say things like, please don't yell at me. I'm happy to have this conversation with you. But if you're gonna continue to yell, I'm gonna disengage. Or, you know what, I'm gonna go take a drive. I'm I'm getting really overstimulated. I can't think, I need to take a break, and I can come back. And if you want to talk about it with both of us, calm down, I'm happy to do that. Things like that is what I'm talking about. But you have to recognize what's actually going on first. So if you're not happy and you feel disconnected from your life and you're just enduring life rather than living life, then you might really want to take a step back and ask yourself, what are some things that I can do that will make my life better? Not necessarily at the expense of somebody else, that isn't what I'm saying, but there might be some boundaries you need to set. You might need to tell people no. And sometimes you need to get some time and distance to allow your system to cool down so you can think. Because, as you know, if you've been listening to this podcast for any length of time, the more adrenalized people get, the less they think, the less feature-intensive analysis they can do, and that's when they start to dissociate and make mistakes in their own personal life. So I hope this was a helpful podcast on dissociation. We're gonna have a couple more just because it's such an important topic, and it's something that it will help you if you understand it, how to navigate it, walk through it, and become more engaged in your life so you have a healthier, happier life. Because you do have the right to be happy. You do have the right to be healthy, and you have the right to be part of your own life equation. So, thank you for joining us. Thank you, Dr. Sharps, for being here.

Speaker 1 19:23

Thank you.

Speaker 19:24

And you have a wonderful day. This is Dr. Jana Price-Sharps on MindPilot.