What Is Dissociation and Why Your Body Checks Out
Episode 96
You're driving down the highway and suddenly realize you've passed your exit 10 miles ago. You're scrolling on your phone and 30 minutes disappear without you noticing. You look in the mirror and for a second think, "Is that really me?"
Welcome to dissociation, one of your nervous system's most misunderstood protective mechanisms.
What Is Dissociation?
Dissociation is how your system as a whole detaches from certain things like emotions, bodily sensations, thoughts, or perception. It's an adaptive, protective, and often completely involuntary function that your body uses to survive overwhelming experiences.
Think of it as your brain's emergency shutdown switch. When things get too intense, too scary, or too much for your system to handle, dissociation steps in to protect you by creating distance between you and the experience.
The important thing to understand: dissociation isn't a design flaw. It's actually evidence that your body knows exactly what it's doing to keep you safe.
The Spectrum of Dissociation
Dissociation exists on a spectrum, from everyday experiences everyone has to more severe forms that significantly impact functioning.
Simple forms (everyday dissociation):
Daydreaming or zoning out
Scrolling mindlessly on your phone
Highway hypnosis (driving on autopilot)
Getting lost in a book or video game
Sleep (yes, sleep is a form of dissociation)
These are your brain's natural breaks. Everyone does this. Your system needs to recharge.
Middle spectrum (more fragmented dissociation):
Depersonalization: Looking in the mirror and thinking "Is that me? I don't recognize myself." Feeling disconnected from your own body or like you're observing yourself from outside.
Derealization: Your brain distorts reality. Things look bigger, smaller, foggy, or a different color. The world around you doesn't feel real or like it's actually happening.
What's fascinating is that biologically, your brain is shutting off certain pathways of awareness. This can show up in how you perceive the world visually and sensorially.
More severe forms:
Memory gaps and amnesia (not remembering certain events or periods of time)
Difficulty carrying conversations or recalling recent events
Extended periods of disconnect that impact daily functioning
Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), formerly known as multiple personality disorder, where distinct parts develop with strict barriers between them
DID represents one of the most protective mechanisms for severe, repeated trauma. While it can be distressing to live with, it's actually a testament to the incredible lengths your system will go to keep you alive.
Why Your Body Chooses Dissociation
Think about your nervous system's window of tolerance like a window pane. Inside that window, you can be present, aware, take in information, and respond appropriately. That's your calm, regulated zone.
But when stress, anxiety, or overwhelming experiences push you out of that window, your body has options:
Going up: Hyperarousal. Anxiety, anger, panic. Your system is revved up, ready to fight or flee.
Going down: Hypoarousal. Shutdown, numbness, dissociation. The "I don't give a fuck anymore" energy where your body forces you to detach.
Here's the thing: if you stay in that hyperaroused, activated state for too long (think running a marathon hour after hour, day after day), your body naturally needs a break. It can only handle that level of stress for so long before it waves the white flag and drops you into shutdown.
This isn't failure. It's actually life-saving. That amount of sustained stress on your body can be genuinely damaging, so your system protects you by checking out.
Dissociation and Trauma: When Leaving Isn't an Option
Dissociation becomes especially important in the context of trauma, particularly childhood trauma. When you're in a threatening situation and physically leaving is more dangerous than staying (or impossible because you're a child), your body gets creative.
If there's an emotional or physical threat and you have no option to escape, it's much easier for your body to survive by detaching from the experience. You float above it. You go somewhere else in your mind. Your body stays, but you don't have to be fully present for what's happening.
This is why dissociation is so common in trauma survivors. Your body learned that disconnecting was the safest, smartest option available at the time.
Subtle Signs You're Dissociating
Beyond the obvious examples, dissociation can show up in sneaky ways:
The phone scroll: You pick up your phone for "just a second" and suddenly 30 minutes have vanished. You weren't present. You were gone.
The activity blur: Cooking, reading, knitting, video games. Any activity that can be meditative and grounding can also become dissociative. The difference is whether you're present with what you're doing or completely checked out.
The robot mode: Going through the motions of life without actually remembering doing things. Assignment, submit, work, sleep, repeat. Everything else is turned off.
The conversation fog: Someone's talking to you and you realize you haven't heard a word they said. Or you're constantly asking "What did you say?" because information just isn't landing.
The sensory overwhelm response: When sounds, touch, visual input, or any sensory experience becomes too much, your brain might just turn it off.
The Hard Truth About Healing from Dissociation
Here's what needs to be said honestly: healing from long-term dissociation is extremely difficult. It's not comfortable. Your system will be very stressed and very scared.
You don't go from dissociated to calm. You go from dissociated to highly activated and then work your way to calm. It's like you ended up all the way down the road, and now you have to come back through the scary forest to get to the other side.
The longer you've been dissociating, the scarier it feels to stop because dissociation has been keeping you safe. Coming back means feeling things you've been protected from for years, maybe decades.
This is hard work. It's slow work. But people who struggle with dissociation deserve the time, space, and honesty about what this work actually looks like.
Tiny Steps for Reconnecting
What the world thinks is a "small step" and what actually feels small to a highly dissociative system are light years apart.
Some genuinely tiny practices:
Orienting to space: Can you name three things in the room? (Not even five. Just three.)
Sensory connection: Can you feel the material of your pants? But if sensory input is overwhelming, skip this.
Sound connection: Can you connect to one noise? Can you find music that feels safe? But if your music is attached to trauma, move on.
Smell connection: Sometimes this sense feels safer than others.
Movement: Can you move one finger? Literally just one finger. Can you mobilize something small?
The key is respecting what your body is telling you. If grounding feels overwhelming or stressful, maybe today isn't the day. That's okay too.
Some people can turn dissociative activities into mindful ones over time. But that takes time. There's no rush.
Why Dissociation Matters
If you recognize yourself in any of this, know that dissociation has likely saved you in countless ways. Your body figured out how to survive when staying present felt too dangerous.
The body keeps the score, as Bessel van der Kolk writes. Your body remembers. And often your body is still stuck in a time when emotional overwhelm was happening, when it needed to brace and freeze and disconnect.
So the body doesn't feel like a safe place to live because it's not registering that you're not there anymore. It's still in survival mode.
Healing means slowly, over time, reestablishing little glimmers of safety in the here and now. It's complicated work. But it's possible with the right support and approach.
Ready to work with this kind of support? If you're in Pennsylvania and looking for trauma therapists who understand dissociation, connect with the Reclaim Therapy team.
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