Can I recover from a dissociative disorder? Yes. If you have the right diagnosis and treatment, there's a good chance you'll recover. This might mean that you stop experiencing dissociative symptoms.
Can dissociative disorders go away without treatment? They can, but they usually do not. Typically those with dissociative identity disorder experience symptoms for six years or more before being correctly diagnosed and treated.
It's a temporary mental state in which a person has memory loss and ends up in an unexpected place. Because dissociative disorders appear on the trauma spectrum, many people with a dissociative disorder may have co-occurring trauma-related mental health conditions, such as: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Treatment for dissociative disorders can take time, several weeks at least. For some people it can take much longer to restore memories or to eliminate additional identities.
While there is no absolute cure for dissociative identity disorder (DID), therapy can reduce your symptoms and improve your quality of life. DID is a rare condition where you have two or more distinct personality states. The symptoms are often lifelong, but treatments can help you cope.
There are a variety of triggers that can cause switching between alters, or identities, in people with dissociative identity disorder. These can include stress, memories, strong emotions, senses, alcohol and substance use, special events, or specific situations. In some cases, the triggers are not known.
Living a normal life after experiencing a mental health condition, like dissociative identity disorder, is possible. People who learn ways to healthily cope with dissociative disorders can increase their chances of living what they consider to be a normal life.
Feeling like you're looking at yourself from the outside
Feel as though you are watching yourself in a film or looking at yourself from the outside. Feel as if you are just observing your emotions. Feel disconnected from parts of your body or your emotions. Feel as if you are floating away.
Too much dissociating can slow or prevent recovery from the impact of trauma or PTSD. Dissociation can become a problem in itself. Blanking out interferes with doing well at school. It can lead to passively going along in risky situations.
Answer: Famous people with dissociative identity disorder include comedienne Roseanne Barr, Adam Duritz, and retired NFL star Herschel Walker. Walker wrote a book about his struggles with DID, along with his suicide attempts, explaining he had a feeling of disconnect from childhood to the professional leagues.
Dissociative amnesia is rare. It affects about 1% of men and people assigned male at birth and 2.6% of women and people assigned female at birth in the general population. The environment also plays a role. Rates of dissociative amnesia tend to increase after natural disasters and during war.
Dissociation involves disruptions of usually integrated functions of consciousness, perception, memory, identity, and affect (e.g., depersonalization, derealization, numbing, amnesia, and analgesia).
If someone with major dissociation does not seek help, Dr. Hunter says it could get worse over time. She explains that you may find it difficult to feel safe or maintain a healthy long-term relationship.
Lots of different things can cause you to dissociate. For example, you might dissociate when you are very stressed, or after something traumatic has happened to you. You might also have symptoms of dissociation as part of another mental illness like anxiety.
While dissociation is not a symptom of ADHD, the two are closely related because they are often comorbid. 123 People with dissociative disorders may also show symptoms of ADHD and vice versa.
Zoning out is considered a type of dissociation, which is a feeling of being disconnected from the world around you. Some people experience severe dissociation, but "zoning out" is considered a much milder form. Daydreaming is the most common kind of zoning or spacing out.
Eye contact is broken, the conversation comes to an abrupt halt, and clients can look frightened, “spacey,” or emotionally shut down. Clients often report feeling disconnected from the environment as well as their body sensations and can no longer accurately gauge the passage of time.
Some signs your therapist can sense if you're dissociating:
They feel confused. They feel numb. They feel like you've gone somewhere else. Things don't add up.
Awareness of yourself and what's going on around you can be compromised during dissociation, which might feel like an unwelcome and frightening intrusion into your mind. On a psychological level, dissociating can be an involuntary means of coping with acute stress, such as physical abuse.
Dissociative disorder clients typically spend many years in treatment. Many are hospitalized repeatedly over time.
People with dissociative identity disorder can still have successful relationships. Consistent therapy is the only treatment, and can help them and their partners manage the anxiety, depression, and confusion that tend to come with the condition.
“You aren't born with DID, but you can have a genetic predisposition to dissociate, so we are also looking for genetic markers.” But Kaufman stressed that people with DID should not give up hope. “It's treatable.