I have quite a bit of education around trauma and trauma reactions... Intellectually, I know dissociation can come in a lot of forms, and that there is no "true" form of dissociation, but more along a continuum of severity...
yet this (new) sexual assault clinician has said to me (twice now) that my dissociation is not considered "true" dissociation because it is not experienced like the traditional "out-of-body" experience is described (watching the experience from outside of my body).
I don't know why it bothers me, other than it is very invalidating to the experience itself, and what other (more expert) clinicians and doctors in the field of trauma have told me... While I am desperately grasping for any support I can get, I'm beginning to wonder if seeing her will be more helpful or hurtful. Has anyone else been told that their experience of dissociation is not "true" dissociation? I'm not quite sure what she is trying to achieve by telling me this more than once. I don;t know how to ask her why her definition is so limited, and why she feels the need to underscore this with me. I also don't know why it is getting under my skin so badly... Maybe it's a fear of trusting yet another person... and fear of judgement from her (is she being judgmental?)... and maybe a fear of her invalidating the entire experience. I have felt like I needed to defend myself with her in terms of my interpretation of events that occurred, and why I did not leave/felt like I could not leave the situation. But she is supposed to be an expert in this arena... I don't know. She's willing to still see me, despite general policy not to "duplicate" services (I don't feel I can talk about this with my T because he is a male T, and there are so many other daily things that we need to tackle... and he is also looking to help get me extra support). I agreed to keep an open dialogue with both of them. Maybe I will talk to her next week and ask about this...
Am I wrong in my understanding of dissociation? I used to know a lot about this, but since everything has relapsed, I find it hard to remember facts about treatment and such... this may be one of them...