The Pain of Neglect: Women's Story of Disassociation

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As a young woman, I often find myself wondering what my place is.

Both in life, what aspirations should I follow for my soul to feel fulfilled? And in the world, what is the geographical area that will house my dreams and realities and turn the former into the latter?

With the questions comes the urge to be happy at all costs. But so many lives live in me, and can reality host them all?

I dream of building a career of my own, as well as building my own family. However, I often feel that having both is precluded from me. I often fear the possibility of ending up nourishing someone else's dreams instead of mine. Putting my potential to sleep so that somebody else's can rise and grow. All this at the price of my own dreams, which would then only be destined to live in my mind like ghosts in a haunted house.

So I fixated on the concepts of happiness, of purpose, and of womanhood. I want it all, but what if I can’t have it all? What happens when you don’t get it at all? What happens to unfulfilled purpose? Is it able to haunt a mind like ghosts do with graveyards?

At the start of the year, I often focussed on these thoughts. This year, the new hot topic on BookTok (the TikTok community where people discuss books) was ‘The Vegetarian’ by Han Kang. After a brief surf of the plot of the novel, I knew that I had to read the book. Yeong-hye, the protagonist, was the haunted house that I needed to visit to grow from these thoughts.

Reading 'The Vegetarian' left me feeling uneasy. I had more questions than I had answers, mostly about the fate of Yeong-hye. I was left asking myself: What triggered that state of apparent complete disconnection from reality? Can it happen to me as a person? Will it happen to me as a woman?

Long story short, the book narrates the story of a woman who never speaks for herself. She is only ever presented as a wife, daughter, and sister. And then, she decides to become a vegetarian. This choice, which at the beginning seems to be so innocent and irrelevant, soon becomes the symptom of a serious condition and outlook on society.

A few days after finishing the book, I formed a hypothesis about its message. Could it be that Yeong-hye's need to shrink herself to please her father and later her husband led to a long-term defensive mechanism? This mechanism might have created fertile ground for a more serious mental condition to develop.

The book that should have given answers left me with questions. 

Thus, I chose to explore how societal expectations affect mental health, especially for women. To do this, I read 'The Bell Jar' by Sylvia Plath.

I knew, at this point, that unfulfilment could be a life sentence, but what about potential? What about young women like me who were still in the process of choosing and were feeling overwhelmed by expectations of every sort?

Esther, the protagonist of ‘The Bell Jar’, is a young woman with the possibility of a brilliant future ahead. However, society expects her to remain chaste and get married rather than have a career.

The different paths promised to men and women spark events that lead to a traumatic experience. In turn, these make her realise that society was never hers but always his to own. This leads her into spiralling thoughts on her role and purpose, making her ultimately question her fitness for life.

My passion for cognitive science brought me to focus on the slow but constant form of dissociation from reality depicted by both novels. My fixation on being a woman in a society that does not always feel like it was built for me made me wonder if the challenges we face might be the key to the described dissociative state.

In synthesis, I wondered if there was a connection between gender and dissociative disorder and what its roots were.

A study by Sar and colleagues in 2006 found that being female is a key reason for the high rates of dissociative disorders today. They reported a female-to-male ratio of 9:1.

According to the Mayo Clinic, dissociative disorder is a broad term. It describes a set of conditions involving loss of connection between thoughts, feelings, surroundings, behaviour, and identity. It arises as a reaction to shocking, distressing, or painful events, such as abuse or neglect, and aims to suppress difficult memories.

The lives of Esther from The Bell Jar and Yeong-hye from The Vegetarian create unease and confusion for the reader. Their identities are unclear. Both characters feel disconnected from themselves and their emotions. This leads to a warped sense of reality and thoughts of self-harm. These characteristics are often listed as common symptoms of the dissociative disorder.

I then pondered, is this what happens when, as a woman, you have aspirations bigger than the roles society has destined for you?

Nowadays, I have the opportunity to study or be a mother. However, "although society norms and levels of acceptance have changed", a lot of people haven’t. If I do aspire to have it all, I will be questioned on who will raise my kids if I am at work, and would I end up loving my job more than my family?

In our hearts, there is space for both; is it that shocking?

Nevertheless, a man is promised both. Society accepts for him to have both, as well as, for him, the freedom to choose one. Who is going to question his ability to succeed in both? Who is going to tear over her neglected dreams that allowed him to have both? And so we are, 9:1, the reason for the high prevalence of dissociative disorders in the present. Neglect.

Naturally, it is not possible to, and it is far from my competencies, to confirm a disorder in any real or fictional character. And I do not aim at simplifying the aetiology of any disorder. However, I do aim at a reflection on the effects of the pressing societal views on the individual’s mental health. This piece aims to raise awareness of mental health and societal pressure. To highlight the interdependency of the two.

I wanted to highlight the link between lifestyle, relationships, and mental health. Stress the importance of living a life guided by one's purpose. Wanting to lead the reader into the realisation that what the mind can't handle is not the versatility of one's personality. But neglect is the womb of unborn dreams. Being forced into a life that someone else imposed rather than one chosen.

Finally, I wonder if dissociation isn't a form of defence mechanism. A strategy adopted by the mind to seclude consciousness from a reality, or the potential of a reality, of painful unfulfilment and unsolved emotional trauma.