Disassociation: Did It Ever Really Happen?
This week’s lesson is one word: disassociation. When you think about what the word means, you might think of distancing yourself from a situation. Essentially, not to associate, right? Apparently, my daughter and her friend took it one step further: They act like it never even happened to the point that they really don’t know if it did or not, at least in their minds. Let me give you a little context. I teach at the same high school my daughter attends. There is a group of girls who do not care for me and have said many hateful comments about me, which in turn upsets my daughter who has classes with them. Someone not part of their group, began a rumor about something I said with the intention of “getting me fired because I deserved it.” I don’t want to say anything more than that except that this was pretty typical teenage girl drama. This young woman had heard some so-called information that she thought would improve her social standing so she felt entitled to turn me in. There was not much to this except that any report made to the principal must be investigated, regardless of the validity of it. As you can imagine, I was not happy. I have found in my last few years of teaching that if you piss off a student they will come after you with rumors, negative attitude and sometimes even parent conferences. This has made me rethink my career choice many times and this time it affected my daughter as well. Due to these circumstances, I watched my daughter being nice to this young woman and I felt betrayed. Why would my own flesh and blood not stand up for me with this person who is trying to affect her mother’s career and perhaps our financial livelihood? You may think I am being petty, and maybe I am, but good grief, I gave birth to my daughter and I thought she might at least snub this girl a little. When I questioned her about it, she shrugged and gave the reason of disassociation. She essentially acts like it never happened. When the thought comes up, she imagines fluffy clouds and puts herself in a different mindset. She said by doing that it keeps her from being stressed about it. She has a point. Don’t we all do a little bit of disassociating with co-workers we don’t necessarily care for but we all have to work together? Don’t we all have to “pretend something didn't happen” to manage? I guess she may have the right idea after all, except I don’t think I’ll be picturing fluffy white clouds. After thinking about it, I think we call this professional detachment in the adult world.
