So I've had a number of requests to do an audio on dissociation, and its relationship with ADHD, which I'm more than happy to do as it's a bit of an area of interest for me in my clinical practice. So I think it's probably best to start off by defining what dissociation really is. The DSM-five definition, that's the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders for psychiatry definition, is that dissociation is a disruption, interruption, and or discontinuity of the normal subjective integration of behaviour, memory, identity, consciousness, emotion, perception, body representation, and motor control. I don't think that really means a great deal to me, I don't know how you feel about that.So I'm gonna try and explain it a bit better in layman's terms, really, before we talk about how it can impact us and I'll probably do a second audio on ways in which we can try and sort of come back into our body and ground a bit more. It's commonly associated with trauma, but not exclusive to, I think there is a bit of a misconception that if you are really, really dissociated, then you've definitely experienced loads of trauma. And that's not necessarily the case. But it's very, very commonly associated with trauma, and memories that one has perhaps not processed and disconnected from. Now, dissociation is an umbrella term. And there are various different forms of dissociation, and levels of severity, leading right up to dissociative identity disorder, which used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder, we're not going to talk about that level of severity today. But it is an incredibly interesting presentation, but quite rare. It affects between nought point one and 1% of the population.So yeah, I just want to sort of step away from that. But I just wanted to acknowledge that that's the sort of more severe end of the problem. Under this umbrella term, there is depersonalization disorder, which is marked by periods of disconnection where one sort of feels detached from their body, thoughts, and emotions, it has been described in the sense of like you're observing yourself outside of your body somehow. But the function, of course, is to disconnect from strong negative feelings that are either happening in the moment or something that's unprocessed and unresolved from the past. Then there's derealization, which is another common form. And these are the only two I'm really going to talk about today. But as I say, there aren't there are lots of ways in which dissociation can impact us. Now, derealisation is where things perhaps feel a bit more unreal, like you're in a dream, or I've heard people describe like they're in a computer game or like seeing the world through a fog. And that can be quite disconcerting.What I do know about dissociation, from talking about it for hours and hours and hours with many different traumatized clients, is that one's experience of it is completely idiosyncratic. So you have one person who might feel themselves floating above themselves and feel really distressed and alone by that feeling. And someone else might feel like they've got body parts which are bigger than what they actually are, or they don't recognize themselves in the mirror. Those are very, very common, but equally, I know people that are really afraid of processing trauma in therapy, because they might lose this as a coping strategy. So some people actually see it like a comfort blanket, which of course, I can understand because they've been potentially using it to protect themselves for a long time. So yeah, dissociation has a strong impact on us potentially, but there are some who have very, very positive views on it.Now, why it's potentially a problem is that when we disconnect, when we dissociate we can have all kinds of difficulties. So very commonly, once we step outside of that window of tolerance, that ability to tolerate emotions, we might dissociate. I saw some evidence that it's believed that up to 50% of adults will dissociate at some point in their lives, even if it's just once. Like I said it's very, very common when experiencing trauma. But once we are dissociated, and this is particularly relevant for those of you who might do it regularly as a coping strategy, our ability to process becomes impaired. And our ability to sort of process information or emotions becomes impaired. So the period of time that we're in a dissociative state, we might not feel like we have a full handle on our emotions and thought processes.And that can leave us not necessarily attending to ourselves in helpful ways, by using strategies because we're sort of in this sort of disconnected place. Now, it's very, very hard to tell too, If somebody is dissociating, some of my clients after I've been working with them for ages it's still quite difficult to tell if they are or aren't. Because it's just so normal to them, some people won't even know that that's what they do, as a way of coping. But it can be rather problematic, I describe it as a bit like if you grew up in a very cold place, and in order to survive, you needed a very, very warm coat. And when you became an adult, maybe you move to warmer climates. But the problem is, you might still be wearing the coat and now as an adult, living in this warmer place, it's heavy and burdensome and perhaps making you sweat.