While a wide spectrum of possible symptoms exists, ranging from mild symptoms to more severe symptoms, symptoms may vary from one person to another. Other symptoms tend to manifest based on the specific type of dissociative disorder an individual may be experiencing. A feeling of physical detachment from one's body.Loss of memories involving certain places, people, or events.General symptoms known to accompany dissociative disorders include the following: Some of these mental health issues include:ĭissociative disorders are different from the "typical" dissociation as they can interfere with the work and other aspects of life of an individual. A study has shown that more people who have dissociation are persons who have issues with substance use.ĭissociation may co-occur with some mental health issues. Substance use may also cause a person to develop symptoms of dissociation. And it could occur after trauma-causing events like: When this occurs, it is referred to as peritraumatic dissociation. It may occur as a coping mechanism for an individual, to put some distance between themselves and the traumatic situation. Often, dissociation may occur as a response to trauma. However, certain factors contribute to the risk of individual developing symptoms associated with dissociation. The exact factors that may be responsible for causing dissociation are not known. A feeling of detachment from one's emotions.A feeling of numbness and disconnection towards one's environment.A blurred or distorted sense of reality.Losing memories about certain people, places, information, events, or specific periods.Inability to remember things for some time.Experiencing flashbacks of traumatic events.
Common symptoms of dissociation include the following: If an individual has any dissociative disorder or PTSD, they may have felt as if they are "disconnected" from themselves at some point in time. Symptoms of dissociation may range from just a mild feeling of detachment to more serious disconnection from reality aspects. Self-awareness and awareness of one's environmentĪ breakdown in these areas leads to symptoms of dissociation being exhibited by an individual.They may also lose their sense of time and a connection with identity and place.ĭissociation may cause disruptions in four areas of an individual's functioning, areas that would otherwise function together automatically and smoothly. An individual experiencing dissociation may feel as though things around them are unreal. Changes that have been noticed in how the brain functions may provide further explanations regarding the connections that exist between both conditions.ĭissociation can be best described as a condition characterized by a disconnection between the thoughts, sensory experience, personal history, or sense of self of an individual. According to a study, PTSD and dissociation are strongly connected. In instances where dissociation symptoms persist even in the absence of actual danger, it may extend the recovery from the trauma, or in a worst-case scenario, it may even prevent recovery from the trauma. This causes an individual to develop dissociation as a coping mechanism, a way of allowing them to create a distance between themselves and any trauma that may seem to be unbearable.
It has also been shown that the root cause of dissociation and dissociative disorders are long-term trauma. Several researches have attested that there is a strong connection between trauma, which primarily causes PTSD and dissociation.