Dissociation is a coping mechanism when one feels overwhelmed by stress or painful feelings. It often develops as a protective response to significant traumatic experiences. Dissociation can feel like you are detached from your mind or your body, or else the things around you seem unreal. It may take the form of depersonalization, or the feeling that you are seeing yourself from the outside, going through the motions. At its most severe, people with Dissociative Identity Disorder experience different parts of their identity at different times and can sometimes appear to be separate people altogether. Dissociation can last for a fleeting moment (eg, briefly spacing out), though some people experience longer and more frequent episodes of dissociation that distress them and interfere with their life.
