You are driving on your way to work - the windows are down, your favorite podcast playing, but then something said in the podcast makes you think about a conversation you had with a friend the night before. You become lost in thought for what feels like only a moment but as you begin take in your surroundings, you realize you missed your exit 2 miles back. Your mind was somewhere else while your body was safely and efficiently driving your car. This is an example of an extremely common occurrence called dissociation.
Thank you for raising and educating on this vital piece of the trauma/chronic illness puzzle. Interesting that you mention getting "stuck on" - my theory of 'Idiopathic' Parkinson's is this is when the tonic immobility freeze stress response gets stuck on. One of my favourite/most useful framings of dissociation is as part of a natural defense cascade as explained in the terrific paper "DISSOCIATION FOLLOWING TRAUMATIC STRESS: ETIOLOGY AND TREATMENT," (sorry for the capital letters of the copy-paste) https://www.complextrauma.uk/uploads/2/3/9/4/23949705/dissociation_following_traumatic_stress.pdf
Thank you for raising and educating on this vital piece of the trauma/chronic illness puzzle. Interesting that you mention getting "stuck on" - my theory of 'Idiopathic' Parkinson's is this is when the tonic immobility freeze stress response gets stuck on. One of my favourite/most useful framings of dissociation is as part of a natural defense cascade as explained in the terrific paper "DISSOCIATION FOLLOWING TRAUMATIC STRESS: ETIOLOGY AND TREATMENT," (sorry for the capital letters of the copy-paste) https://www.complextrauma.uk/uploads/2/3/9/4/23949705/dissociation_following_traumatic_stress.pdf