Dissociation and trauma: when disconnecting was the only way to go

Sometimes it’s not that you “don’t feel anything”.
Sometimes it's that your nervous system learned to disconnect in order to move on.
Dissociation is a brain response to experiences that have been too intense, painful, or overwhelming. It is not something that the person chooses consciously. It is a form of protection. Understanding the relationship between dissociation and trauma is the first step to regaining connection with yourself.

What exactly is dissociation?

From a clinical perspective, dissociation involves partial disconnection or
Total:

• Emotions
• Body sensations
• Memories
• Or even the environment

It's as if the system “lowers the volume” of the experience to make it more enjoyable.
tolerable.

What happens in the brain?

Research on trauma shows that when the nervous system is affected,
overloaded, the brain changes the way it processes the experience:

• It reduces activity in the limbic system, especially in the
  the amygdala, involved in the emotional response, and the hippocampus,
  related to memory and the integration of what has been experienced.
• Activation in the insula, a key region for learning and memory, can also be reduced.
  body and emotional awareness.
• It increases the activation of prefrontal areas, especially the cortex
  prefrontal medial, associated with inhibition and emotional control, which
  it helps to “disconnect” the experience.
• Communication between:
  → the emotional brain (amygdala, limbic system)
  → and the rational brain (prefrontal cortex)
• The connection to networks involved in the
  integration of experience, such as the default mode network, which makes it difficult to feel continuity between what is experienced, remembered, and felt.

This explains why a person may know what happened to them, but not feel it, or
on the contrary, feeling without being able to understand why, or not remembering episodes
the storms of his life story.

How does it manifest itself?

Dissociation can appear in very different ways:
On an emotional level

• Difficulty identifying what one feels.
• Feeling of emptiness or disconnection.
• “Stifled” or blocked emotions.

At a physical level

• Feeling unreal or “being in a cloud”.
• Disconnecting from the body.
• Lack of registration of internal sensations.

At a cognitive level

• Memory gaps.
• Feeling like you’re driving in “automatic mode”
• Difficulty concentrating.

Why does it appear?

Dissociation is usually related to experiences in which the system
Nervous, he couldn't process what had happened at the time:

• Trauma situations.
• Prolonged stress.
• Intense emotional experiences without sufficient support.

In that context, disconnecting was a solution.
It was the way the nervous system could continue to function.

What function does it have?

Although it can cause discomfort today, dissociation has a very clear function:
protecting the person from an experience that at the time was too difficult
to hold on. It is a survival strategy.

How does it affect day-to-day life?

When this response persists over time, it can impact on:

• Difficulty in connecting with oneself.
• Problems in relationships.
• Feeling of emptiness or disconnection.
• Anxiety without a clear cause.
• Emotional fatigue

The person may feel that they are “there,” but not completely.

In some cases, this discomfort can also be expressed through the body.
The psychosomatic manifestations —such as pains without a clear medical cause,
digestive problems, muscle tension or persistent fatigue— may be
related to this difficulty in processing and feeling certain experiences.
When the nervous system cannot integrate what has been experienced on an emotional level, the
The body can become the channel through which that discomfort is expressed.

Dissociation and trauma: how EMDR therapy helps

The EMDR therapy allows us to work on the experiences that remained unprocessed and
that they continue to activate this disconnection.
Through a structured and respectful process with each person's rhythm,
facilitates the nervous system:

• Process past experiences.
• Integrate what you have experienced.
• Reduce the need to disconnect

This is an approach supported by research and included in the World Health Organization's guidelines for post-traumatic stress. You can find more information here. EMDR Spain Association. It's not about forcing it. It's about the system being able to feeling secure enough not to need to disconnect.

If you identify with this, it’s important to know something: The disconnection doesn’t just happen by itself and makes sense within your story.

And when you work from a appropriate therapeutic approach, With the system no longer needing that protection, we can begin to recover our connection with ourselves and the present moment.

Frequently asked questions about dissociation and trauma