PART ONE On Dissociation And The Time I Thought I Had Died

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Transcript

Welcome to episode four of the faith filled therapy podcast.  It is the start of the summer holidays here in the UK. My husband has taken,  two of my kids and one of their friends out to the cinema to watch despicable despicable me for which I feel a bit left out because,  that is a film that I genuinely liked to go and watch at the cinema.  Probably not going to go and watch it by myself afterwards,  📍 but we'll catch up on some kind of streaming device once it's out. 

But anyway, I thought. I've got the house to myself. I have a cup of. Camomile tea. Nothing in the disco ball diffuser., I just haven't sorted that out today. If you've listened to previous episodes, you'll know that every episode. I like to tell you what I'm diffusing in my disco ball diffuser. My favorite at the minute is rose. 

I love the smell of roses. I'm that person who will stop in the street, , to smell roses in somebody's garden. I just love the smell of it.  Always say heaven will smell like roses to me. , so rose and lemon. I'm really enjoying that combination. , and I always left uranium, which has that kind of rosy type smell, but nothing in the diffuser today. 

Just me a cup , my microphone and today I thought let's talk about dissociation.  Maybe you've heard that phrase before. It's becoming more common as a lot of mental health terms are. And let's just begin to dig down what happens when we dissociate. What happens for us as a physical body, as a soul, as a spirit. I always refer to one Thessalonians 5 23 that talks about God. Making us holy and whole in our body. Our soul, our spirit, we know that we're try partite beings made of three.  Much to mimic the father, the son, and the holy spirit. 

As we see in the Trinity though, interestingly, the Trinity. In those words are never mentioned in  the Bible.,  specifically, oh, I've just got, I'm not going to stop recording and start again. So I don't add it this podcast. And every so often I say something that I think, oh gosh, that's going to open some flood gates. 

Let's just close those flood gates and say, we know that the Bible talks about God, the   father. God, the son and the holy spirit. And actually we go right to the beginning of Genesis and we see that there in the beginning was the word.  I've really gone into this now. Haven't I., but actually if you get into the semantics and the language around what that means, it's saying in the beginning was a conversation, a divine conversation. 

 But anyway, let's not go there. That is not what this is about. I sometimes just can't help be a bit of an armchair theologian. , and that's why I love to intersect theology and therapy, scripture and neuroscience as has become my calling card. But let's talk about dissociation now, before we go into the ins and outs of it, I want to tell you a story. 

I shared this.  Recently when I spoke at conference, then I shared it again at church and I find that the actually it's quite helpful for people because,   It really underlines what was going on for me in the moment, but in a way that sometimes people can relate to, if they've had a dissociative episode or they tend to dissociate. , so let me tell you the story before we impact specifically what dissociation is. 

So it was locked down. , we were probably a couple of months into lockdown and for me, lockdown really triggered some half anxiety stuff that I thought I'd nailed. , and it's no wonder is it, it makes total sense and here's always my main point. Is there. If there's something that you struggle with, if there's something that's a recurring issue for you. If you thought you dealt with something and all of a sudden it's cropping up and biting you on the boom again. It will make sense. 

Why. Of course, our anxiety was heightened for me and millions of other people throughout the pandemic, because constantly were exposed to talk about health and illness and statistics around death. And it just makes sense that even if we've dealt with some stuff or have some really good ways to manage how anxiety. That that constant rhetoric,, is going to trigger, ignite something for us again. Similarly, I went to the opticians the other day. And I've got a birthmark on the back of my eye. 

And so when I, I didn't even know that was a thing, but apparently lots of people have it, but when they bring up the picture of my eyeball, there was a big black mark. Well, it looks back. I mean, it's like tiny, tiny and reality. But when they blow up a picture of my eyeball on the,  on the screen, on the computer screen, I'm just faced with seeing this seemingly big, large black mark on the back of my eyeball. 

And even though I know, even though I've got. Techniques, even though I'm sat there doing my breathing exercises and trying to choon in with my physical body, trying to manage my mind. I still get that feeling. You know, where you feel like your bloods were in cold. If you've got, if, if, how things it, or any level of anxiety is a thing for you, I guess. Then you'll know that feeling of where you feel the shot of adrenaline. 

You can almost feel the cortisol in your body. Begin to make your heart. Pump faster, make you feel for me. I want to run out of there I go very much into sympathetic, part of my nervous system, which is fight and flight. So. I know within health situations. There's no good me trying to fight. So I'm like, I just need to get out of here. 

I need your mind. I.   So I get into that flight response. I can feel my stomach begin to churn. And I thought to myself, gosh, even though I have got great cognitive techniques to manage my mind, this stuff still shows up in my body.  Anyway, my eyeball is fine. , and actually the guy was just say wonderful. 

The. Thermology just the guy.  Titian. Ah, the optician.  Was just so wonderful. And I said to him, You are such an assuring calming presence. I think you have a really regulated, nervous system. And he was like, well, thank you. Sometimes I think I'm too relaxed, this wonderful guy and probably late sixties, early seventies. And, , I thought again, it's just, when you're feeling overwhelmed. That non anxious calming presence is just so helpful. , as he was explaining to me about what was going on with my eye and what you can tell through people's eyes. And also he's quite pragmatic as well. 

He said, look, you've had this for 10 years. We can go back through 10 years worth of scans if it changed or grown in that time. , then you'd probably be dead by now. I was like, okay, great. Tell it to me straight doc. Thank you very much. But he was regulated. And that's just your sign that if you're feeling particularly dysregulated, This is why God's just put us in community. Let's go put yourself with somebody who's regulated, go and find them and say, I just need to hydrate your nervous system a bit. 

Cause mine is all over the place.  Let me, if it's somebody, you know, in a comfortable to hug, hug them. If it's just being around a safe prep presence, being in a place, sitting next to somebody at church that, you know, Oh, you already grounded your, your emotionally, physically, spiritually regulated. Let me hop on your regulator, your regulated nervous system for a bit. 

But anyway, I digress as per usual. , and I was only going to do this as a really quick podcast, but let's carry on and move on forward. Anyway. In lockdown, I thought, okay. I know I'm dysregulated. I was going to S it mainly got bad. I was going to sleep and waking up with panic attacks, which again, is it. , all makes sense. 

It's a sign that I'm out of the regulated part of my nervous system in the dysregulated part. My body's feeling under threat. So I think, okay, I'm going to go for a walk. , because I know that's good to my mental health didn't know at the time that that's because of bilateral stimulation, that when we walk. 

So if you're listening to this podcast now and walking great, because you are activating. Both sides of your brain, , your left and your right hemisphere, anything that involves both sides of your body involves both sides of your brains. So. Walking swimming, knitting. Put punching, it's not called punching box.  I guess it is punching, but boxing is the official term crocheting. 

, I spoke to somebody lovely the other day at church who said that when she doodles, she does it with both hands. , she has a pen in both hands and doodles cause she knows she's engaging left and right hemisphere. So anyway, went for a walk, went onto the estate next to me and just got myself lost in this kind of Warren of houses, even though I've been there before. I was really lost and I began. I don't know if you've had a dissociative episode, you'll think, oh my gosh, I know that feeling, if not, this might feel really bizarre, but good for you to know. Is that as I was walking, felt lost. 

I began to think, oh my gosh, I'm dad.  That was, that was the logical. Conclusion that my brain came to now. From a brain point of view, neurobiologically you cannot make logical sound decisions when you're in your survival part of your brain, your brain, isn't interested in making logical decisions. It's just interested in keeping you surviving. 

So shut down the logic, shut down the sexual functions, shut down the digestion, which is why so often when we're dysregulated, it comes out in our gut and irritable bowel syndrome, acid reflux, and obviously there's medical causes there as well, but definitely link. , between emotional health and gut health and vice versa. , so I was like, oh my gosh, I'm dead. 

I'm dead.  And so I, cause I was like, I'm walking around. There's nobody around it's air. Really quiet. And then this guy comes past and he's jogging. And I go to him, , excuse me, excuse me. I can't find my way out of the state. Hello. Excuse me. And he literally just walks ahead and walks past me. I'm like, I knew I'm flipping dead. 

I'm dead. This I'm in some kind of weird. Purgatory, which doesn't even really fit, fit with my. Uh, theology at all, but anyway, let's not unpack that. , and so I'm wondering around getting increasingly panicked. Feeling increasingly like I'm in a dream completely detached from reality. And then God bless this guy. 

He's a guy he's a former church leader in our city. Good friend of ours. I'm very good friends with our wife, with his wife. He lives on the estate next. And he's called James and I, I find him and I run up to him and I grab him and go, oh my gosh, James, I'm so glad you're here. I thought I was dead and I'm lost. 

And he's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down. Are you okay? And I'm like, not really. I thought I was dead, but I feel okay now. Cause I know I'm not dead. Can you just tell me how to get out the estate? And he was like, Ah, I'm just our walk, your home. I'm going to walk you home. And I was like, no, honestly, I just thought I was dead, but now I know I'm not. 

So just give me directions and I'll be fine, but he absolutely insisted like the good holy mom that he was on walking me all the way home, making sure I was safely delivered back to my husband, having my husband had quiet little chat behind the doors. I went to go and get a drink. , probably just, uh, lamenting the demise of my mental health in that. In that season of life. , but, and. It was hugely dramatic for me. But I look back now and I can laugh because I think, okay. 

I was just completely dysregulated. My nervous system was utterly dysregulated. I'd gone completely into threat mode. I was panicking because I was in flight. And then I got so panicked that I went into complete shut down, , and that shut down part of our nervous system. Is, , where the dissociative responses left, where we feel totally frozen, totally numb, completely disconnected. And we can. Enter into different types of dissociation. 

So I imagine if you have ever. , experienced this. And haven't heard about like a bit of a logical normalizing of what was going on. I imagine that you can exhale some kind of breath right now, because so often we think that we are. , maybe having a bizarre spiritual experience that there's something really wrong with us, , with that. Maybe, you know, that horrible feeling where you think, gosh, I'm losing my mind. 

What am I going to do about this? And all that can put us into an even more shutdown state that panic. And into if you want the language where it, in terms of, , nervous system. It's our parasympathetic and dorsal vagal. , that's the state, that's the nervous system. Part of our nervous system that we're going into. 

And that's based all on the polyvagal theory that was founded by Dr. Stephen Porges. It's worth looking at his work, but just as a whistle-stop tour. And when you, and you're safe and spit social response, when you're feeling grounded, , you and your parasympathetic and ventral vagal when you're in fight or flight, which is two sides of the same coin, which is why often you'll have a big shout and then storm out, or at least you will, if you're in my household and that's your sympathetic nervous system. Uh, freeze or dissociate response is your parasympathetic and then your dorsal vagal. 

And then really interestingly is the foreign response, which is why we, where we try and protect ourselves by making everybody else happy and being hypervigilant to the needs of others and our external environment. That's a blended response between our sympathetic and our, and our parasympathetic nervous system. And just to kind of put this under scripture, because we always want to be putting all of this stuff under God's word. , and under his truth based on some 1, 3, 9, that he was the one that knitted us together. , that he created us that even now, as you listen to this, you're covered in the fingerprints of the creator. And we know that he didn't use any of that. 

God didn't use any of that language. , That, uh, there's nothing biblical in terms of, we don't read about a dissociative episode in Leviticus, nine verse 15, , or somewhere a deep in the book of revelation, but it's how God's created us. And so let's go back quickly to the two different types of dissociation. You've got deep personalization. 

This is where you feel disconnected from yourself. Almost like you're watching yourself from the outside, like you in a dream or that your body doesn't belong to you. So I've totally experienced that maybe you have to de realization is when the world around you seems unreal or distorted everything's foggy Destin. 

, you struggle to connect with your, , surroundings. That is very much the state that I was in at that point. Then we've got to associative amnesia and this isn't, this is just kind of an overview, like I said, a whistle-stop tour and that's where we have huge gaps in memory. Often when people say, I can't remember anything about my childhood, I'm like, huh, okay. 

Let's say more about that. , You can't remember him. And information about yourself or your life. I know. , when I've been pretty dissociative, I try and ground myself in reality by being like, okay, my name is my birthday is the year that I'm living in is to try and kind of connect with my reality again. 

But sometimes that information is very hard to find. , So it's not really the same as forgetting where you put your keys. That's just, , for me, that's just being, , so much in my head that I'm kind of forget about the outside world. ,  And then there's dissociative identity disorder, which used to be called multiple personality disorder. , which involves the presence or two or more distinct personalities states within an individual. And each personality might have their own memories, behaviors, mannerisms, and sometimes people call them alters others. , and that's very complex. 

It's hugely complex, but again, it makes absolute sense. , why people would have dissociative identity disorder, why they might have multiple parts to their personality, , because it is a coping strategy that our brain employees to deal with extreme trauma.  , So we're not going to cover everything in this website or this website, this podcast. 

So I'm going to call this part one.  , and we're going to begin to finish it there. Just have this as like a, this is an overview of dissociation. This is my experience. Maybe you relate to it. If you've experienced it, there will be a complete. Sensical reason why you're not losing your mind. You're not being taken over by demonic forces. 

And although, as I always mentioned, I absolutely believe in the unseen world. I believe in powers principalities. , I completely have a biblical view when it comes to. , the unseen spiritual world, the demonic world, but often, , and I've mentioned this before. Often we get very caught in spiritualizing experiences when there is opportunity to normalize them sometimes. , so we I'm gonna end it there just because this is, , longer than I originally intended.  And I'm going to do a follow-up, that's going to give us some things that we can do when we are dissociated. Dissociating. The key one being understanding what's happening. 

So it's not happening outside of our understanding. We can understand it. And then we'll talk about, , some causes of dissociation include colluding trauma. Stress. ,  Substance abuse and, , substances. Uh, maybe Holly said hallucinogenics. We know that cattlemen, , which has become, , kind of had a bit of a rise to fame. 

Again, I remember it's kind of, , popular when I was at school of like, let's go out on Friday night and take some horse tranquilizers. I understand from. , my younger friends that, that has come back. , but they are dissociatives, , dextrose method. Methane is that what it's called or the things like that? , so also childhood experiences, mental health conditions, fatigue, and sleep deprivation. 

You'll know if you've been particularly exhausted. It can make the world feel like you're in a dreamlike state. And also there are medical conditions, things such as epilepsy, even migraines actually. , so there's an overview in the next episode, which I will record before I go on holiday, because I am closing Fayetteville therapy for August, which I feel wonderfully excited about. , 

 But yes, I will do a part two before going away and we will look at, , coping. Treatment Bible verses breath, prayers. What can you use? What has God given us? Internally. In our bodies and the way he's knitted us together. So nervous system, Vegas, nerve breathing exercises, , bilateral stimulation, all those things that he's so graciously, weaved and knitted into the way he's created us. 

, but also external things. What can we use in the world that he's, God's created the people he's put us alongside in order to help us. , so hopefully that's helpful. Hopefully it's validating. Hopefully you can see yourself or maybe somebody, you know, and love within. Some of the narrative that I've created for this podcast. , Yeah, as always, please share it, share it with your friends, share it with people that it might be helpful, whether you might want to share it with people within church to say, Hey guys, we need to get a better understanding of this. 

So we can pass to people and lead people and love people and serve people really well. , yeah, and as always feel free to tag me on Instagram, they, like I said, I've bought shutting down for the month of August, ready to start up again in September with a new station in new school shoes and all those kinds of things. 

 📍 But. , like I said, hopefully it's been helpful. Bless you. Bless you. And may, you know, the truth that God is making you holy and whole, and I'll see you. next time.