NHS Dissocia definition

A dissociative disorder is a mental health condition that alters a person's sense of reality.

Someone with a dissociative disorder may have memory loss or may feel:

• that their body or the world around them is unreal
• uncertain about who they are
• that they have many different identities

Most people affected by this disorder will have experienced a traumatic event during childhood. They 'dissociate', or switch off from reality, to cope with it (the box on this page explains what 'dissociation' means).

This feeling of being disconnected from yourself or from the world can be extremely distressing, significantly affecting work and personal life.

It can affect people at any age and is nothing to do with a head injury or underlying health condition – it's the result of the brain adapting to a difficult early life.

If you have been diagnosed with a dissociative disorder, or a friend or family member has, read on. This page explains three main types of dissociative disorders:

• dissociative amnesia
• depersonalisation-derealisation disorder 
• dissociative identity disorder

It then explains what we know about the cause of dissociative disorders, other conditions commonly associated with dissociative disorders, and how dissociative disorders are treated.

What is dissociative amnesia?

Someone with dissociative amnesia will repeatedly have periods where they cannot remember information about themselves or about events in their past life. They may also forget a learnt talent or skill.

These gaps in memory are much more severe than normal forgetfulness, and are not the result of an underlying medical condition.

Some people with dissociative amnesia will find themselves in a strange place without knowing how they got there. They may have travelled there purposefully, or wandered in a confused state.

These blank episodes may last minutes, hours or days – and rarely, months or years.

What is depersonalisation-derealisation disorder?

'Depersonalisation' means feeling detached from yourself, observing yourself and your feelings and thoughts as if they belong to someone else you are watching in a movie. Some of the typical symptoms are:

• out-of-body experiences
• loss of feeling in parts of your body
• distorted views of your body
• unable to recognise your image in a mirror
• a sense of detachment from your emotions
• feeling like you are watching a movie of yourself
• feeling like you are unreal

'Derealisation' means seeing other people and the environment around you as dream-like and unreal. Objects may change in shape, size or colour. Typical symptoms are:

• feeling like a normal environment is unfamiliar
• a sense that what is happening is unreal
• feeling detached from the world
• a perception of objects changing shape, colour, size
• feeling that people you know are strangers

You might experience one or both of these problems if you have been diagnosed with depersonalisation-derealisation disorder, and will probably be aware that these experiences aren't reality.

Episodes of depersonalisation or derealisation may last just a few moments and come and go over many years, or may be ongoing.

What is dissociative identity disorder?

Dissociative identity disorder, or 'multiple personality disorder', is the most extreme of the three types.

If you've been diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, you may feel uncertain about who you are and struggle to define yourself.

You may feel the presence of other identities, which may each have their own names, voices, personal histories and mannerisms.

Typical symptoms are:

• feeling like a stranger to yourself
• being confused about your sexuality or gender
• feeling like there are different people within you
• referring to yourself as 'we'
• behaving out of character
• writing in different handwriting

What's the cause?

Many people with a dissociative disorder will have experienced a traumatic event in the past.

Often, this traumatic event will have been physical, sexual or emotional abuse suffered during childhood, although some people 'dissociate' after experiencing war, kidnapping or even an invasive medical procedure.

Switching off from reality is a normal defence mechanism that helps the person to cope during a traumatic time – it's a form of denial, as if "this isn't happening to me".

It becomes dysfunctional when the environment is no longer traumatic but the person still acts and lives as if it is, and hasn't dealt with or processed the event.

So, a dissociative disorder is the result of the brain adapting to a difficult early life environment. It is not:

• to do with genes
• the result of another medical condition
• the result of a head injury
• the result of drug or alcohol abuse (although many people with dissociative disorders misuse alcohol or drugs to cope)

who is lisa?

Lisa is a woman who had struggles throughout her childhood which we do not  know what they are. A abusive childhood is hinted throughout the show by Antony nielson and in our performance we wanted to emphasis this more by making characters join in with lines for example Dot says Janes line "I really don't know where you're getting this from Lisa" this creates a sense of mystery to the audience as to why Lisa's sister might be saying this line. I believe that it is because something happened to her and someone said this to her when she was younger. Another thing that could suggest an abusive childhood is that the goat rapes Jane, this could be Lisa's subconscious remembering the event but Lisa cant place herself in that moment as it was too traumatizing.

costume

In our version of a Wonderful World of Dissocia to create continuity we are going to have all the Lisa's have one piece of costume the same and there base costume will be grey/black tracksuit bottoms with a white costume.
The item of costume to create the sense of continuity will be a pink dressing gown. She will wear this in each scene of the play. She will also have on her a phone with headphones. The actresses playing Lisa decided that we thought that Lisa's state and personality would suit a messy pony tail to show how she doesn't care about her appearance.

Evalutation

Performance and rehearsal evaluation

Wednesday

Wednesday was our opening night, this was our first night of working with lighting and sound, so it was a matter of working as an ensemble to make our show as best as we can. After the show looking back the cast thought that the show had gone better than we had expected. Which we were happy about because our show was quite a mature play and I think we pulled it of very well. 

There were certain things that stuck out on the first night that went well, everybody was committed to the show which made the show have more energy and it was strong. The ensemble pieces were together and during the elevator scene everybody looked towards to Lisa which is something that wasn't entirely there in rehearsal but on the night went perfectly well. Some critics about the ensemble pieces is that we needed to commit more to the verbal ensemble moments e.g. verbal abuse. The airport scene however was over the top and it didn't look like an airport so we needed to calm this down for Thursday and make sure it doesn't look too weird. 

 There was some worries about lines but everybody knew their lines and this was a strong point because everybody had learned each others lines, so any mistakes were unnoticeable to the audience due to the strength of lines. Although we were secure on lines it didn't feel set in stone and felt more improvised which was good because it gave the show a good flow. 

Actors in the show were fully committed and there was a lot of good chemistry between the actors. Luke and Elise had a good pace and they worked well together throughout the show and the rehearsals to create a flow in their scene because they knew their lines and covered for each other and what they did seemed natural. Angel and Tazmins character transition was smooth and seamless, as well as all the other transitions between the characters. Dot (played by amber) had good voice work and had emotion which worked well. Angel was overconfident with her work due to nerves and Tazmin was more quietened due to nerves but this should be less of an issue on Thursday. 

Act 2 was emotional and worked well, the nurses were all different and this helped the scenes to flow from one to the other. There was a good connection between Vince and Lisa and you could see the emotions that the characters were feeling. You could tell that they both were emotional about what had happened. However act 2 was jumbled, and due to not rehearsing with light ques they were messed up and also scenes got confused. The phone was not given back to Lisa for one of the main scenes and also certain scenes were missed. But this should be cleared up for Thursday nights show. 

Thursday 

Thursday night was our last night of the show and I think this went well. The lighting and sound ques were better than the night before. 

Everybody was fully committed to their characters and the ensemble parts were together and there was a good sense of unity throughout the cast. This shows that even though we weren't in the scene the cast was still fully involved in the show to create an exciting show. 

There were no mistakes in lines and if  there were not even the cast noticed due to the tightness that it was run and how everyone had each others backs to fill in for lines. Everybody was fully committed to the show and the chemistry was even better. Everything went smoothly and all issues from the night before were cleared up e.g. Act 2 the scenes were in order, however the phone was again not given to Lisa so another crucial scene was missed. 

On both nights the ensemble were focused and fully in control of what was happening. This was good because the ensemble were a huge part of the show. 

What I did for the role and ensemble

An exercise that helped me to focus on my character is when we individually focused on our scenes. This helped me get more into character because I could imagine myself in her situation and the enabled me to get more emotionally connected to her and what she went through.
An exercise I used in rehearsal to shape my performance is when we chose animals that represented our characters. I chose a hedgehog because I thought that Lisa was quiet but she had more to her that met the eye. Moods of a hedgehog would be;

• Grumpy
• scared
• happy
  

This fits with Lisa because she is only happy in Dissocia and whenever we see her out of this scared and grumpy.  This helped me to create a more emotional connection to her because I could sense how she was feeling

To explore the world of the play I read Alice in Wonderland because I know that 'The Wonderful World of Dissocia' and 'Alice in wonderland had some links between them. For example the insecurity guards and Tweedledee and Tweedledum, they are very similar characters. Also the story lines are slightly similar. This helped me connect to the world of Dissocia more because I could connect the two stories and see how weird both the worlds were. This helped me be able to see Dissocia as this weird and crazy place which Lisa believes is normal. 

Another exercise that demonstrated commitment was when we had to give our characters an objective in each scene and on certain lines. This helped me to commit higher to my character because I had to figure out how I wanted Lisa was feeling when she said certain things and then I was able to develop her into a more believable person , who was upset and angry and ill.  

For the ensemble I made sure to fully commit to all aspects, vocally and physically. In the elevator scene I fully committed to my chosen action and tried to make it as weird as i could. The vocal ensemble was more difficult to do because we needed to work together and all have the same energy and I think I contributed well to this because I was always ready and prepared for the ensemble moments and when we all committed this worked well because it looked great. 

Preparing for this role vocally, mentally and physically was difficult for me because I needed to put myself in her head space and I needed to show my control in her character. I committed myself to her fully. I prepared myself by watching videos of people who had a dissociative disorder and how they felt. This helped me to commit to her fully because I had an understanding as to how she felt. I put myself in her situation and made myself feel her emotions with what was happening, such as her relationship with Vince and how she felt about it. I read the play and focused on how she felt at certain moments which helped me to mentally and physically put myself in her shoes. Vocal work was better because I had all of the mental and physical preparation making the vocal work more emotional and believable. 

I then used these skills in the performance. I was able to commit fully to Lisa and was able to give and emotional performance. My vocal work was good and controlled this was shown in the different scenes e.g Vince compared to a scene with a nurse. They were both different. I was able to show how she was feeling during the performance because I was confident in my lines and this showed because I could fully commit to what she was trying to show. 

I was most proud of how the ensemble came together to create such a tight show. I was also proud of how I created an emotional performance throughout Act 2. I was proud of this because its a different to any type of role that I've played and I enjoyed it. If I could change anything about the show I would develop the bond between Dot and Lisa because I feel like they did not have enough rehearsal time together however I think on the night there was a connection between the two.