Trauma Series Ep. 13: Recognizing your Dissociative Trauma
"Dissociation paves the way for the characteristics of nonattachment; the unconscious mind usually provides solutions when we reflect on it deeply enough."
When we habitually dissociate amid a traumatic flashback, we create a grim relationship with our reality. Dissociation through trauma is physically, mentally, and emotionally overwhelming and prevents us from fully engaging in our psychological wounds.
This vacates us from the present moment into a vacuous void. Of course, this isn’t necessarily a conscious decision—very rarely is this the case. Instead, it is an unconscious survival technique that we default to. Our conscious awareness slips into the cracks of our unconscious mind until the cold emptiness, free of the pain of consciousness, fully envelops us.
It’s essential to distinguish between dissociation and detachment. They both attempt to reach the same goal—moving away from insufferable feelings and thoughts about current circumstances. However, detachment is a concerted and conscious effort to give up worry and desire to witness life as it is and accept it as such. On the other hand, dissociation is usually an unconscious coping mechanism where we disconnect from our thoughts, feelings, memories, and identity to escape into a void.
It is unquestionable that to process trauma fully, we have to free ourselves from the psychic overstimulation and pain. Dissociation paves the way for the characteristics of nonattachment; the unconscious mind usually provides solutions when we reflect on it deeply enough.
The goal is then to identify when we are in a dissociative episode so we can pull ourselves back into reality to confront the trauma. When we don’t confront our pervading trauma, we live a life sequestered by fear and denial.
So, how do we begin to pull ourselves out of a dissociative episode?
First, we identify that we are dissociating. It is almost impossible to overcome anything without knowing what we’re against and how we got there. Nevertheless, this won’t always be amid a dissociative episode, and in the early stages, it will need to be a self-reflective practice. Self-reflection is, without question, required to eventually become familiar enough with what dissociation looks like for us.
Some common forms of dissociation include the following:
PHYSICAL
Blank stare: Our visual focus slips into an inability to connect with the world around us. There is often a cold nothingness in the gaze.
Hollow body sensation: There is a certain empty feeling in the body; it almost feels like we’re not in our body. There is a lack of physical awareness of the environment around us.
Unconscious self-soothing: This may be anything, from grabbing our phone to mindlessly scroll to biting your fingernails. We use our external to bring us out of our dissociation, but since there is no consciousness, it merely concretizes the dissociation.
EMOTIONAL & MENTAL
Disconnection: It feels like a lack of anything because there is nothing. We feel as though nothing is anchoring to the scaffolding of our personality that has been embedded and nurtured into us. We are merely disconnected from the source of thought and emotion.
We all want to achieve some sense of non-attachment to our trauma, a life where we aren’t persuaded by our fears and desires, just to release and let them go. The answer to solve our dissociation is knowing it and how to confront it; then it will no longer have the pull it once had on us.