The Anatomy of a Dissociative Pattern May or May Not Surprise You
This post is an exposé on the origins of my dissociative history that involves a purple shot, and a secret held back in my throat for 18 years. Plus, a piece of new legislation that gives me hope.
Some days I wish I had listened a smidge more to the only therapist who ever leveled with me — a tall woman with crimped auburn hair and electric-red cat-eye prescription glasses. The first to introduce me to the term dissociation. I remember trying to break the ice at our intake session with a lame joke but her “party in the front” look was only a façade. The woman was all business with no interest in *finding out what the therapist says when a guy walks into her office wearing only saran wrap. So, I took a deep breath and lunged straight into the horrific incidents and lascivious events that followed the first fateful stone laid on my drinking path…back when I was the gullible simpleton.
[Trigger warnings: sexual assault and sheer stupidity]
According to Dr. Shweta Kapoor in an article for the Mayo Clinic, dissociation and depersonalization, a form of dissociation, is the brain’s way of guarding a person when they’re triggered. “If it’s too overwhelming, your brain steps in to protect you, leading to dissociative experiences.” And while alcohol is not a dissociative drug (like marijuana and other drugs), a 2014 study published in the National Library of Medicine shows its complicity as an offsetting reaction that occurs when someone who has experienced trauma is managing negative and unregulated emotions.
If that’s true, it explains A LOT. Like why I dissociated so heavily in my mid-20s and later — though far less frequently and intense — in my 30s.
“I suggest you start from the beginning, Michelle.” At this point, I recall an afternoon ray streaming in from the window, glinting apathetically. It reflected off her sharply angled spectacles and enrobed me in warmth, which should have been comforting but felt more like being put on the spot by God himself. How can I talk when I can barely see? Is this light trying to blind me on purpose?
“Michelle?”
“Yes, sorry. I’m sure this is nothing you haven’t heard before. I mean, it’s pretty typical these days: 23-year-old girl enters a bar to meet up with friends who ditch her. Odd older woman hands her a purple shot that, unbeknownst to the girl, is drugged. Girl ingests purple shot and wakes up hours later, unable to move her arms and legs. A strange man twice her age is lying next to her. Girl’s hands start to tingle and bands of nausea lace through her chest tighter than a medieval corset as she realizes she only had a couple sips of that purple shot before her memory goes blank. She knows what’s happened. She waits until enough feeling returns to her limbs so she can pick up her clothes and sprint for the door, praying to baby Jesus and every saint’s name she memorized in confirmation class that the door is unlocked. Girl thanks her lucky stars she was on the track team and that the stranger was too lazy to pursue her. So yeah, like I said, just your average quotidian spiked drink story here. But I’m good. Like, that was a while ago.”
“It’s only been three years, and from what I understand you never followed up with the police or pressed charges, correct?”
“I was scared and confused. I just wanted to move on with my life as quickly as possible. You know?”
As straightforward as my boldly bespectacled therapist seemed to be, she was pin-drop quiet after I spoke. Finally, she lifted her chin to the side, removed her glasses, and advised I not drink when emotionally triggered. She explained that, given my history and what had happened since, I was prone to what she called “amnesia flights.” This was a new term for me and unsettling to consider. I didn’t understand the mechanics behind it or how I even managed to charter these pseudo mental flights to begin with. After all, they sometimes occurred without me even trying, which really unnerved me.
I left her office with my head down. Not because I was writhing in depression so deep it was physically causing my neck to stoop (I had been there before), but because I couldn’t stop reading the note she ripped off from her notepad when our hour was up. She paused and smiled at the “chhh” sound the fresh tear made. You could tell she relished that part of her job, the conclusion of the session. The first part of her note read: “Prone to higher-level dissociative emotion.” Higher level? Okay. I can work with that. I’ll have to visit the library and read up on dissociation and what kind of implications we’re talking about here since there’s apparently various levels of this thing. Maybe she’s wrong and I only have a low-level version that dissipates over time or something. The second part I read over and over, outside her office, in the elevator, and on the walk back to my apartment which was on the other side of the city. Plenty of time to marinate over the expensive doctor’s direction: “Should avoid alcohol if at all possible.” The words were discernable, but not the meaning. Not drink? What else was I going to do with everyone? Paint my toenails while they all got smashed? I couldn’t fathom not drinking alcohol. It was all around me. I was in my mid-20s. That’s just what everyone did. And what did “if it all possible” even mean? She might as well have told me to consider becoming an ornithologist and moving to Guam.
I never spoke of this new diagnosis to anyone. In my mind it was just another disorder and lonely secret to add to an already teeming shit-stew of shame. What’s more, my dissociative spells began hitting me like hiccups; they would come out of nowhere. One time I dissociated after a nice meal out with family and friends (just a couple years before marriage). We had all left the restaurant in high spirits, satiated to the heavens and ready to walk off the delicious meal and drinks with some window shopping. A few minutes into the walk, I dissociated and had to be gently shaken by someone to snap out of it. We were in public, and it was embarrassing. I was embarrassing. I’d sit with this crippling notion for years, regrettably unaware of the fact that dissociation can also occur when you’re exposed to stimuli that reminds you of a traumatic event. It wouldn’t be until years later (as in just last year when I was finally processing this incident) that I was able to connect the dots.
You see, we had been window shopping in the same town on the same street as the bar I had been drugged at four years prior. Perhaps I dipped into dissociation right after passing that haunting place, or maybe in the lead up to walking closer to it. Either way my reaction stirred someone in our group to inform my future spouse that I was crazy. Like “dude, she’s been in a mental ward crazy” was the phrase that had been used. He’d tell me about this conversation years later. I asked him why he stayed with me after that incident, and if he had concerns after being told he was dating an alleged crazy person. I’ll never forget his response. “Shell, you told me everything on our first date. I know who you are. You’re not crazy. And you’re not the person you are when you drink, either. I’ll always love you and protect you.”
After episodes like that, the skies would clear. Life moved on and so did everyone else. Occasionally I’d recall what the auburn-haired therapist told me, but then I’d remember the words on her note: “if at all possible,” the key word being “if.” The problem was that these experts of the mind never gave me the impression that I needed to act urgently. I figured if I was truly nuts, they’d have me hospitalized or say in a hotly foreboding tone: “This is serious, madam. You need to change your routine immediately.” But they didn’t and so I didn’t. Sadly, there is still a gaping blind spot within the medical community on this subject, and with alcohol, in particular. If I had not felt the pull to get curious and become my own expert in June of 2023, no doctor would have told me to stop drinking wine on the weekends or when I felt like it.
That is why I started writing about my drinking history and launched this Substack. It’s why I wrote this searingly vulnerable post that, yes, was a vexatious task at times but also a work of passion and hope - hope for every person out there who resembles a version of me at various stages of my drinking era:
For the young professional in her 20s who strives for upward mobility but continues to play Russian Roulette with her life as drinking often leads to dangerous and embarrassing dissociations - this is for you.
For the pariah in the office who feels like the excrement under God’s fingernails that He’d much rather flick away and clear from the earth than keep giving second chances to - this is for you.
For the crestfallen woman in her mid-20s who finds herself hooked up to an IV in a hospital only a few weeks after being hospitalized due to sustained injuries from a violent knife attack - this is for you.
For the single socialite stripped of her dignity and strapped down to a gurney like Hannibal Lecter, sent to a behavioral rehab center where the inpatients tell her that her presence is an insult to “the real junkies there” - this is for you.
For the stay-at-home-mom and wife in the suburbs changing rancid diapers, losing herself in the relentless undertow of responsibilities in motherhood who believes all her fears and worries will be allayed the moment she uncorks that beautiful bottle of pinot noir - this is for you.
For the woman about to turn 40, having an existential breakdown wondering if there’s any connection between the unsettling death dreams she’s been having and her weekend wine habit that’s becoming more frequent - this is for you.
For my children and the next generation - this is especially for you. Learn from my history, my mistakes, my triumphs. I will never claim to be perfect, and I wouldn’t want to. You can’t learn squat from a stone statue. I love you and will always be transparent and open with you.
Encouraging Legislative Action Being Taken
On June 25th, Josh Lowenthal, U.S. Representative for California’s 69th Assembly District, passed a bill that aims to curb drink spiking by requiring bars and nightclubs to offer lids for customers’ drinks upon request, and to post signs informing customers that lids are available.
“I want to note that no single bill, as I stated earlier, will end drink spiking, sexual assault or rape,” stated Lowenthal in a report by Kristen Farrah Naeem in the Signal Tribune. “But it’s important that we keep adding to the comprehensive approach in addressing this epidemic.”
Sending you big hugs friend
❤️❤️❤️