In learning about the psychological mechanisms of oneself, there is
             the added benefit of confronting the fears that confront all humans.
             Learning what causes fear and understanding how it is connected to the
             unconscious can help the individual prepare for those situations and, or,
             avoid certain circumstances which might initiate a disassociative response.
             In the book, The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman the
             protagonist seems to have no control over the disassociative madness that
             overtakes her. However, her madness allows her to make sense of her world
             in a way that calms her mind. In the short story, A Wilderness Station, by
             Alice Munro, the narrator is seen to have control over her madness, which
             leads her to a confession that allows her to quiet her mind and find an end
             to the discomfort of her jail. She eventually recovers.
             The Yellow Wallpaper, written in 1892, is based on an actual
             experience by the author. Under treatment for 'hysteria' the narrator is
             taken "three miles from the village" (11) to an upstairs nursery of a
             "colonial mansion" (9), its windows barred and its walls covered in a faded
             yellow wallpaper whose "sprawling flamboyant patterns" commit "every
             artistic sin" (13). In time, the woman succumbs to the disassociation
             focused on the wallpaper and, in an analogy to the stripping away of the
             wallpaper, is stripped of her sanity and humanity. Nothing about her
             confinement, but the wallpaper, seems to bother her. She accepts the
             control by others, the denial of freedom and the loss of her dignity, but
             she is unable to maintain her stability under the watchful eyes of the
             The woman experiences a disassociation from her identity as she
             becomes obsessed with ridding the room of the wallpaper. When she realizes
             she cannot remove it, she decides to become a part of it - to enter into it
             so as to be on the other side of the watchful ...