A lot of people struggle with them.
I’m talking about the feeling when you can’t feel your body. When you feel like you’re looking at your body from far above. When you can’t recognize the person you’re seeing in the mirror. Or when you feel like your reality is a fiction—like a movie playing. It doesn’t feel real. That’s extreme dissociation.
Dissociation also happens when you’re not able to connect with your emotions. You try to feel what you’re experiencing in your body, but there’s no feedback. You can’t access it—because it’s overwhelming to go down there and to know what lies beyond your neck, beyond what you can’t handle yet.
What triggers dissociation?
In this case: extreme abuse and overwhelming emotions.
First, you try to adapt by fawning—by trying to please the narcissist by doing more. But the abuse doesn’t stop. So your system has to mitigate it. It has to do something else.
What did it do? It triggered dissociation.
It cut off awareness of emotional experiences so you could survive somehow—so you wouldn’t be overtaken by your inner experiences.
By saying this, I want you to know: your dissociation is not actually a disorder. It’s an alteration. It’s the magic of your mind. Your mind knows how to keep you alive at any cost. So this isn’t a mental illness to be “treated.” It’s an alteration to be reversed.
If you want to heal dissociation, how do you start?
You start going into your body—but not necessarily looking for negative or intense emotions. Some people say, “Feel the feels,” but sometimes that makes things worse.
Instead, build awareness of your body through simple sensations:
- When am I feeling hungry? How do I know I’m hungry?
- When do I feel thirsty? Do I even feel thirsty?
- What sensations do I feel in my mouth? In my stomach?
- When do I need to use the washroom? Do I feel pressure in my abdomen?
- How do I know I need to go to sleep?
- How do I feel when I’m resting?
If you become aware of these subtle sensations, you’ll gain awareness of yourself—and you’ll come back to your body. Then your body will send signals to your brain that it is safe to live “in here.” You don’t have to step out to keep surviving.
5) Complex PTSD (CPTSD)
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