How can Trauma effect your reality?

Trauma is an emotional response to an event, series of events or a set of circumstances that is experienced by an individual. After the event, shock and denial are typical, and some longer-term reactions include unpredictable emotions, flashbacks, strained relationships, and even physical symptoms such as headaches and nausea.(Trauma and Shock, 2021). Trauma can cause your brain to block out certain days and/or memories to protect itself, causing blanks to appear in your memory, your personal life timeline not to match up, or total amnesia to your past or traumatic event. This loss of memory and post-traumatic stress can affect your mental state and ability to perceive reality as it is.

MALADAPTIVE DAYDREAM

Maladaptive daydreaming is a psychiatric condition and may develop as a coping method due a traumatic experience, or due to a mental health disorder, and their inner dream world may feel safer that the experiences of the outside world.

Maladaptive daydreaming, otherwise known as the daydream disorder, is a condition where a person regularly experiences intense and distractive daydreams, which are more than likely triggered by a real-life event or stimuli, such as noise, smell, or even conversation topic.

Maladaptive dreamers may dissociate from reality to absorb themselves completely in their daydream and may unknowingly act out the behavior or speak dialogue for the characters in their daydream. The content of the daydreams is richly detailed and fantastical. Some have been described as a soap opera, while others feature an idealized version of the daydreamer. (Chahine, 2021).

Unfortunately, maladaptive daydreamers can spend about 4-5 hours of their day daydreaming, having their day-to-day life disrupted by the need and distraction to daydream which can negatively impact their relationships, sleep, work, and school performances.

To the people who experience maladaptive daydreaming, their reality is constantly being taken over, and they visualise a world to their liking, preferring to be in this dream than real life.

EXPERIENCE

“Almost 2 years ago, I went through a pretty big heartbreak, I know it left me feeling lonely, useless, with no motivation to do anything, and I felt like I could not trust anyone at all. The reason it was so bad was because I was already struggling with mental health, and I became co-dependent on the person who hurt me.” This person, who wishes to remain anonymous, has identified what had caused their dissociation episode, “I had struggled with it from about January 2020, where I felt as if I developed amnesia which blocked it all off, up until roughly August-September time, where bits and pieces of my memory came back to me.” The amnesia is a trauma response to the heartbreak and has more than likely happened to keep this person safe. They later describe this time as being aware that life was passing by, but there was no energy or motivation to wake themselves and return to the real world. Luckily, this person has come back to being in control of their own life, that the clouds have left their head, and now they are waiting for their memory to come back now that they are in a safe environment.

Derealisation is another condition caused by trauma or mental health issues and is where you feel the world around is unreal. The people and things around you may seem ‘lifeless’ or ‘foggy’. You can have depersonalization, derealisation, or both together. It may only last a few moments or can come and go over the years. From personal experience, disassociation feels as if you are sat alone at the back of a movie theatre in the dark, viewing the world through a screen so far away. This feeling of being aware of what is around you, being able to see in front of you, but not being able to act on anything or move is horrifying, it depersonalises you and disconnects your mind from reality and your body until you are just a shell of a human with vague awareness.

Severe stress, such as major relationship, financial or work-related issues, depression, anxiety and/or drugs can all trigger an episode of derealisation. This can link with dissociation, the act of your brain seemingly shutting itself off, so you yourself do not feel real. This is triggered by something in the real world, and you are hauled to the back of your mind for protection, something akin to an out of body experience, but you are far within yourself.

DEREALISATION

GABRIEL ISAK

Entailing surreal and melancholic scenes, Gabriel Isak’s art invites the viewer to interact with their inner world and unconscious state of being. (About Gabriel Isak - GABRIEL ISAK, 2021). These otherworldly photographs also stir feelings of loneliness and isolation. Isak’s objective it to use his art to shine a light onto the experiences of being and the state of mind which follows. His subjects are anonymous, with feint consciousness, and imprisoned in a monochromatic setting. Isak’s models are usually posed far from the camera in sharp focus. The imagery usually consists of a body of water accompanied by clouds with a cool colour palette consisting of a range of blues in different hues and tones. The atmosphere created by Isak’s work is icy and melancholy, creates a sense of emptiness and loneliness.

When undergoing an episode of derealisation, it often feels as if you are trapped within yourself. This feeling can reflect with Isak’s work, as when inside yourself, you only ever really have enough consciousness to have a vague idea of what is going on around you.

VICTORIA SIEMER

Victoria Siemer, otherwise known as Witchoria, is a graphic designer who works predominantly in digital medias to create surreal photo manipulations that reflect her penchant for existential crisis and heartbreak. (Victoria Siemer: altered realities | the Photophore, 2021). Within her geometric reflection series, Siemer creates unusual realities by altering the perceptions of space. When dissociating, there will be a time where your subconscious will get bored, and inevitably cause your brain to see reality get altered, such as things melting or blending into one. An example of subconscious boredom would be when you stare at yourself in a mirror that is within a dark room. Sometimes, when an episode is triggered by something related to your trauma, your subconscious will cause you to imagine and see things related to said trauma. Siemer’s work visualizes this mental hallucination in the sense that reality has shifted, but what you stare as remains the same. There is familiarity within this illusion that has not melted away.

Siemer’s landscape images are sharp in focus with a range of colours used in her palette. The weather, time of day and location varies between each photograph. Seimer manipulates the landscape, creating a location that feels familiar yet distorted.

CONCLUSION

Your day-to-day life can be affected by trauma, where it detaches you from the world around you. One outcome being maladaptive daydreaming, a condition that can leave you spending about 4-6 hours daydreaming, and the other outcome being dissociation, a response that causes the life around you to feel lifeless and distorted. These two symptoms of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) interrupt your daily attitude, taking you away mentally and to somewhere safe in your own head, and can be triggered from something in the surrounding environment. The work of Gabriel Isak explores this inner mental world; expressing to an audience how this state of being feels like isolation and entrapment. Victoria Siemer visualised the mental disconnect from the physical world around you, melting your reality.

Dissociation effects your reality mentally, by making you yourself feel wrong.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

TRAUMA AND SHOCK

After the event, shock and denial are typical, and some longer-term reactions include unpredictable emotions, flashbacks, strained relationships and even physical symptoms such as headaches and nausea.

In-text: (Trauma and Shock, 2021)

Your Bibliography: https://www.apa.org. 2021. Trauma and Shock. [online] Available at: <https://www.apa.org/topics/trauma#:~:text=Trauma%20is%20an%20emotional%20response,symptoms%20like%20headaches%20or%20nausea.> [Accessed 23 November 2021].

Maladaptive Daydreaming: Symptoms and Diagnosis │ Sleep Foundation

Your Bibliography: Chahine, E., 2021. Maladaptive Daydreaming: Symptoms and Diagnosis │ Sleep Foundation. [online] Sleepfoundation.org. Available at: <https://www.sleepfoundation.org/mental-health/maladaptive-daydreaming> [Accessed 13 July 2021].

Gabriel Isak’s art entails surreal and melancholic scenes where he invites the viewer to interact with the inner world of solitary figures that symbolize our own unconscious states.

In-text: (About Gabriel Isak - GABRIEL ISAK, 2021)

Your Bibliography: GABRIEL ISAK. 2021. About Gabriel Isak - GABRIEL ISAK. [online] Available at: <https://www.gabrielisak.com/biography> [Accessed 13 July 2021].

VICTORIA SIEMER: ALTERED REALITIES | THE PHOTOPHORE

is a graphic designer who works predominantly in digital medias to create surreal photo manipulations that reflect her penchant for existential crisis and heartbreak. Within her geometric reflection series, Siemer creates unusual realities by altering the perceptions of space.

In-text: (Victoria Siemer: altered realities | the Photophore, 2021)

Your Bibliography: The Photophore. 2021. Victoria Siemer: altered realities | the Photophore. [online] Available at: <http://www.thephotophore.com/victoria-siemer/> [Accessed 13 July 2021].