What Are Symptoms of Dissociation?
Dissociation happens when your nervous system goes into the freeze response. Your nervous system will enter a freeze response when you’re put in a situation that overwhelms you & your ability to cope with stress. Evolutionarily, the mode evolved for your protection. It occurs when you perceive that you cannot fight or flee a situation. In animals, this may look like playing dead to try to trick the predator.
When a freeze response dominates, your system is trying to preserve its energy. & this is healthy. Until it isn’t. The problem occurs when you can’t shift out of this mode even after the threat has disappeared.
Do any of these symptoms sound familiar to you?
Numbness
Foggy Thinking
Memory Issues
You’re Out of Your Body
Zoning Out
Your Surroundings Aren’t Real
No Concept of Time
Symptoms of dissociation can truly feel frightening. From emotional numbness to brain fog, sometimes it can feel like you’re trapped in a dream. You may struggle with memory issues, focus, or sometimes feel like you’re having an out of body experience. I have even heard dissociation described as the feeling that there is a thin veil separating you from the rest of the world & that you can’t break back through no matter how desperately you have tried. All you want is to be able to feel something–anything, whether good or bad–just to be reminded that this is NOT a dream. This is reality. And you CAN experience emotion.
While the symptoms of dissociation can feel terrifying or inescapable, you’ll be happy to know that it is in fact possible to come back from these freeze responses. Coming out of a freeze response, especially if you’ve been stuck in it for a while, takes slow, gentle practices in order to activate your energy in a way that doesn’t overstimulate or overwhelm your system.
If you want to learn more about how to come out of a freeze response or regulate your nervous system, check out my Nervous System 101 program, resource library, and be sure to follow me on Instagram and Pinterest for daily healing tips.
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