Is there a link between dissociation and dementia?
I've been thinking about how dissociative processes may contribute to long-term cognitive decline and even dementia. A dissociative process happens when a person experiences an intense emotion and minimises or even 'checks out' either through choice or automatic impulse developed through habit, which may have started in childhood. Sometimes, minimising or completely 'checking out' was the only safe way to deal with traumatic (i.e. survival-based) emotions in an abusive relationship with caregivers.
Many people do not learn the skills to recognise and process their emotions due to not having had their emotions accepted and reflected back to them as children. Instead, they were punished or disapproved of for their emotions. Without acceptance of emotions, from adults, children learn to distrust their own emotional experiencing and internalise the adults' desires for control and other attitudes toward their feelings. This may generate fear-based, negative self-talk, fierce inner criticism, immobilising self-doubt, or self-harm, which are all related to emotional trauma, but it can also create dissociative processes of checking out, going blank or even leaving your own body.
Children depend on relationships with caregivers for nourishment, shelter and survival. Emotions are related to needs. When children's needs are unmet, and the emotions are not accepted, then the child may adapt to shut off from those needs, in order to sustain contact with caregivers for other essential survival needs. This becomes an alienation from self, which might never be restored without safe conditions in which to process the emotions and unmet needs. Whether or not the caregiver intends to harm the child, and some do intend harm unfortunately, the effects of this self-alienation can be lifelong and even worsen with age.
Learning to accept and understand emotions is something that many adults now choose to do with a therapist. In a way, a therapist provides the empathic aspects of the relationships with adults that may have been missing during childhood. Therapy thus becomes a space for emotional education and development. It can be a deeply profound and poignant experience to reconnect with the emotional aspects of self, and not check out, or shut them down or try to control, suppress or repress them. It can be an experience of regaining self-trust. It may come with some mourning for earlier unmet needs, but also can be recharging and energising because of all the emotional energy that becomes available for constructive life changes.
There are clearly biological aspects to conditions like dementia, and I find it fascinating how people in the same family suffer from it. To some extent this may be passed down in genes, but how genes express themselves depends on the environment they are in. What if the psychological and cognitive environments created by family attitudes toward emotions could affect gene expression? Could dementia be more preventable than we realise? I followed my hunch and did find that some neuroscientists are already exploring the link between trauma and dementia, and it seems there is evidence that suggests that dissociation from emotional trauma may cause dementia.
Here's a link from the net that I found, that talks about the link between trauma and dementia, with reference to research articles if you're interested in exploring this more deeply: https://www.uclahealth.org/news/article/do-unresolved-trauma-and-dementia-have-link (Disclaimer - I haven't studied dementia in any great depth, and am just sharing my musings. That's why I'm pointing you in the direction of the experts if you want to know more.)
What I haven't explored in this article is what happens when the cultural fabric of a whole nation becomes deeply interwoven with dissociation and emotional trauma, and how this perpetuates violence, disconnection from ourselves, one another, and even nature or a sense of spirituality i.e. something bigger and trust in the process of life. Some of these musings are in older posts, and I'm sure they'll pop up in the future as well.
For now, I'm wishing you all the best, and if you need help or support with any of this then reach out to a therapist or someone who won't react, shut you down or give you the space you need to heal. We become more resilient when we have integrated and healed from our childhood wounds. Many have not had this opportunity, and for many of us, it will be ongoing, in some ways more or less, for the rest of our lives, with or without one or more courses of therapy. Be tender with yourself, if this is you.
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