Work Related Dissociation: Practical Ways I Get Unstuck

I love my work. Part of it, anyhow. I love writing and sharing my thoughts with the world. I’ve always been a writer. I love being able to make a change in the world and I know that I’ve touched so many thousands or hundreds of thousands of lives with my blog over the years, and I get such pleasure from that. (I also love my foraging classes but that is less of what I do lately, so that isn’t what I’m focusing on, and it is less relevant to most people, so it isn’t what this post is about.)

But there is a part of my work that I really don’t like as well, and it’s annoying and frustrating… and that’s the part that actually makes me money. Ha.

I hate the pressure of needing to write on a specific schedule to keep up with clients’ needs and not just when inspiration strikes me.

I hate having to respond to so many emails, many of them trying to get me to give them things for free, or trying to lowball me so much, asking to get things for such an insultingly low price when I repeatedly tell them that I don’t offer discounts.

I hate the tediousness of certain tasks I need to do that are just, quite frankly, boring, and don’t use my brain.

On top of that, there are times when I can’t work so my backlog builds up, and other times I fortunately have so much work that I can’t keep up, but in both cases I feel a lot of pressure to not let down my clients and it is really rough on me, and this pressure makes me dissociate. Unfortunately, that one is a rough one and I don’t have a solution for that…

But other times when I’m trying to work, I find that I simply cannot. I start dissociating badly and cannot focus on my work. I feel like I am swimming under water and can’t see or hear properly, let alone focus on my work.

I’ve figured out some techniques, some on my own, some together with my therapist, and I wanted to share them with you, because maybe they’d help you, if you also find that your brain gets in the way of your working sometimes. These are almost all based on different DBT and other therapy related principles.

Work-Related Dissociation: Practical Ways I Get Unstuck

Get Out

Sometimes the biggest thing I need to do to get my brain to allow me to work is change my environment. Right now I am sitting at the dining room table working because when I’ve tried working from my room where my desk is and my computer usually sits my brain just started fogging over and I was utterly useless. Picking up the computer and moving it makes a world of a difference. Changing the environment and the associations you have with it are a good way to change how your brain is behaving.

Sometimes I don’t just move to a different room, I get out of my house entirely. I go to a cafe or I go to the library to work. In both of these I have no distractions calling me and it is a very different environment so my brain usually lets me focus better there. Especially at a cafe, because you’re paying for this food, so you better be making money to pay it off, subconsciously.

The next few techniques are sensory based, related to the TIPP skills from DBT, as well as mindfulness techniques.

Cool Your Body (TIPP: Temperature)

One way to get out of crisis mode is to change your temperature rapidly and cool your body. Dissociation, even if it feels like it’s from something ridiculous like working, is your body reacting to something that it feels is extreme, and it is your brain’s way of telling you that it is in crisis mode, sorry to say.

Having the AC blast, making your body cold, is from the T part of the TIPP skills, the temperature changing. Of course you can also put an ice pack on your face, but you can’t work while having an ice pack on your face, while you can work with the AC blasting. And I don’t know about you, but heat makes me feel light headed regardless, so even when not fully dissociating, I concentrate better when it is colder. If cold triggers headaches for you, try a cool washcloth on your face or wrists instead.

Bright Light to Re-Orient

One thing my dissociating brain likes to do is to tell me to go to sleep and let it all pass. What I need to do is tell it to wake the heck up, and turning on really bright lights, or opening the shades so I have sun shining brightly in my face, also helps me a lot. It also fits into the mindfulness aspect of paying attention to the senses and sometimes even overwhelming a certain sense to bring you back to the moment.

Let Yourself Complain Out Loud

I’m not actually kidding about this, but it doesn’t need to be a real scream. It can just be a moan, a vent, a groan, but it should be verbal, not just written out online (though writing it out online helps it doesn’t help to the same extent).

One of the things my therapist and I were discussing was that it is really frustrating to work, to need to be an adult and have adult responsibilities all the time, and especially in my situation where I was forced to be an adult already from 17, when I was self supporting and fully self sufficient, living in another country at that age, when I shouldn’t have needed to be. And then already at age 18 I was married and fully an adult in every way, and at 19 I was already a mother with too many responsibilities. I didn’t have a chance to be a kid, and there’s a part of me that is rebelling against that, this need to be adulting all the time. It’s something many people feel, but especially with my trauma, and my disabilities and needing to adult on top of everything else it is a lot.

So my therapist suggested that before I work, before I do any assignment, just scream out, complain, groan “UGH!!! I don’t want to work! This is soooo annoying!!!!!! I wish I didn’t have to!!!!” and I’ve been doing that today, and I have to say, it has stopped the dissociation right in its track. I’m validating myself. I’m allowing myself to feel what I was forbidding myself to feel because I didn’t want to come across as lazy and irresponsible, and then that went downhill into dissociation. But if I just let it out, my brain didn’t need to dissociate. It’s been magic. I don’t know how it will work on other days, but I have a good feeling about this one.

There’s also the aspect of letting it out of your throat that does something for you sensory-wise (and probably connected to your vagus nerve, something I learned about in somatic therapy), which is why when I’ve vented before on Facebook it hasn’t had nearly the same effect as when I’ve literally called out before each annoying task “This freaking sucks and I wish I didn’t have to do it!” If you have neighbors or sleeping kids, a pillow yell or car yell works.

Loud Music for Tedious Tasks

This only works if you have work that is mind numbingly tedious, because if you need to focus, you’ll need to stick to the next one.

But connected to the self validation of the previous one, and the sensory overloading of the ones before that, I find blasting certain music really helpful. Today I was blasting Bruno Mars’ The Lazy Song and it was really helpful, because it was talking about not wanting to do anything, just wanting to lay in bed and not function all day, and it was really validating, and while that was playing, I got to work.

There’s also the aspect of the loudness that is a sensory overload that jolts you out of the dissociation.

A few days ago I realized that blasting punk rock or similar like Green Day also really helped. Basically something loud and gripey which suited the mood of not wanting to do the work really got me out of my head and my inability to work.

Focus Tracks for Deep Work

When I need to write and I am having a hard time focusing, but then it is more ADHD than dissociation that is getting to me, I find that playing concentration, study, or focus music from Spotify or YouTube really helps.

Work When Your Brain Works

If you notice that there are times of day that you are able to focus more, that you dissociate less, don’t let that time slip away. Grab it and work then. Doesn’t matter if there are more fun things that you’d rather be doing, choose the time that you know you can work and do it then.

While I enjoy having lazy mornings, I find mornings are the times that I tend to dissociate less. When I’m tired, at the end of the day, with all the stress of the day, it’s usually the perfect mix of things to cause me to dissociate. But sometimes, like now, I get inspired to write things like this post, and it is the end of the day, and I’m working instead of eating supper because I want to take the opportunity and finish this while my brain is cooperating with me.

Get to know your brain, figure out your schedule, and time your work to when your brain works best, if you can do so at all.

Considering EMDR for Work Triggers

Lastly, I haven’t done this yet, so this is just a question mark, but my therapist and I are going to try to do some EMDR work on my work-related traumas, and hopefully they’ll also help with the dissociation.

Even if you don’t dissociate, maybe you just have a hard time focusing to work. Hopefully these tips will help you have an easier time working and getting your tasks done.

Do you ever dissociate when you need to work? Do you have any tips that you use? Do you think you’d try any of these tips?