Grounding 101

Everyone dissociates to some degree, some just do it at a more intense level that can interfere with their daily functioning. Grounding is the foundation to managing your level of dissociation, my hopes with this post are to educate those who suffer from intrusive levels of dissociation on how to manage it .

Above is the dissociative continuum. Hello crash course. We start out in the normal range which everyone experiences. At the normal level you may experience driving somewhere and become so lost in thought or in the music playing in your car that you may forget having driven a couple of miles. People experience this also when they do repetitive work, because their movements are so repetitive they can become lost in thought and not remember doing several tasks, like those who work on lines in factories. The second on the continuum is a single dissociative episode. This can happen in those moments of deja-vu where things feel very similar and unreal. It doesn't occur on a regular basis or interfere with daily functioning. Third is a dissociative disorder such as dissociative amnesia which can be described as not being able to recall important information due to high stress. The general public describes this as "blocking something out". Fourth is PTSD, in which people experience loss of touch with reality when immersed in a flashback or body memory. In those experiences people are unaware of time and surroundings because they are so lost in their flashbacks. Fifth is the atypical dissociative disorder like frequent and severe sleep walking...some people report actually leaving their homes and performing tasks completely unaware they are doing them. Finally, dissociative identity disorder is the dissociative extreme in which two or more states of being are present in an individual.

For individuals experiencing the more extreme forms of dissociation it can be a love/hate relationship. Dissociation can feel extremely helpful in difficult situations, just zoning out to not have to deal with uncomfortable feelings is a great escape and as a child it was VERY helpful. The downside to this is that at some point the dissociation becomes so natural that we often miss out on pleasant feelings and can end up in dangerous situations. Our brains and bodies react to stress with dissociation and situations that are dangerous we become more vulnerable and unable to make quick decisions or act if necessary to protect ourselves.

We we do not stay in touch with reality we become more vulnerable to flashbacks, body memories and intrusive thoughts and impulses. Below are a list of tools and strategies that can help you re-train your brain to manage dissociation to lower symptoms and gain more control over your dissociation.


What exactly does grounding mean?
It means the here and now. It's the process of being connected to the present moment. It's simply awareness and connectedness.

Techniques

Use your 5 Senses
This technique makes you pay attention to your senses and what it is experiencing in the present moment. If you are extremely triggered by one of your senses (I am over-reactive to the smell sense) it may not be a good idea to focus to much on that particular sense.

What exactly is audible in the present moment? Can you hear a clock ticking? The sound of the air conditioner, static? Is your TV or radio on? Can you hear street noise or a dog barking from a neighbors yard?

Come up with a list of sounds you find soothing and use one of them.
-music, -nature sounds, -familiar sounds, -white noise machine

What can you see in the present? Are their shadows on the wall made by sunlight? Find one object for each color in the rainbow. How many circles/squares/triangles are in the room?

Make a collage of visually pleasing images and photographs that you can keep folded up in your purse/backpack, etc. You can use your current photo ID to ground you to your present appearance and age. Keep photos of safe people or animals around you.

Touch is very powerful. This particular sense can get you completely aware of your body if you start from your feet and go all the way up to your head, telling yourself what each of your body parts are touching. For example, my feet can feel the floor below me, the backs of my legs are touching the chair, I can feel my spine on the chair, I can feel the hair on my head pulled into a pony-tail.

Since touch can be so soothing, keep a favorite lotion on hand and use it to feel your hands and arms (if it's scented it'll work for that sense as well). Find a small smooth stone you can use to feel temperature and texture. Ice cubes are so cold that it's easy to feel them, put an ice cube in your hand.

Taste. Using strongly flavored candies can help you get your grips on the taste sensation. Altiods, lemon, cinnamon, ALL very strong tastes. Find a candy that is not connected to your childhood and keep it on hand for a quick taste check.

Smell. For me, this sense can be a little overwhelming and I struggle to find scents that are not connected to my past. Some solutions I have found for my room include carpet fresheners that I never had in my home as a kid. I sprinkle a little on my air cleaner and BOOM, present day. You can also use scented candles, soaps and lotions.

Something that helped me plan this out in advance was to come up with a list of situations in which I know I often become ungrounded in. For example, I know that near the end of the workday when my brain is overloaded and I have a mandatory meeting to attend that I typically zone out. So I made a plan for myself to get grounded before the meeting and made the items I need to do this available to myself. If you know those situations it's less likely you'll be caught off-guard. I then made a quick note-card for myself that had my grounding techniques on it and kept it in my purse so that I'd have it available if I began to panic.

In the beginning of learning all of this I found it really helpful to do a grounding worksheet each day. Basically I have a chart with all the hours of the day and at the top of each hour I would check in with myself and rate from 1-10 on how grounded I felt. I had a separate list of what I would do corresponding with each number on ways to help myself become more grounded.

You can make your own in Word or Excel, specific to you. Or if you'd like the one I have, leave a comment or e-mail me privately with your e-mail and I will forward it to you.

I learned all this at Sheppard Pratt Hospital's Trauma Disorders Unit. My treatment has cost nearly one million dollars. I hope everything I learned for massive amounts of money can be distributed to the general public in a helpful way. If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know and I will do my best to help you.

Comments

[My Monster]

I really like this post and it helped me tonight, Thank You! I hope you don't mind, I linked to your post in mine here. I also added you to my blogroll, so let me know if you mind!

Thank you again for sharing your thoughts and ideas!

My Monster