Heal in Place. Fill your Still. Dissociation | Emotional detachment. Dissociation, or emotional detachment, is a defense mechanism used to cope with highly stressful or overwhelming emotions. It is a disconnection between your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. I avoided dealing with traumatic memories and negative emotions which was caused by my toxic parents who had no emotional awareness and did not and could not teach healthy emotional regulation. For most of my life I coped poorly with obstacles both big and small, tried to control everything and when emotions would surface was I was totally overwhelmed by them so I would shut down. I remember as a child having really bad panic attacks followed by crippling emptiness afterward and felt totally depleted, and that kind of emotional exhaustion can feel like numbness. Acknowledging the role you may be playing in your own misery by identifying causes, triggers, and stressors, learning to maturely deal with them and reframing both past and present experiences in order to see them as they really are and not through a learned distorted lens. This was a game changer for me. Once I understood that I actually did have a choice – a choice that my past did not have to continue to define me for the rest of my life. There was a huge wave of relief and freedom that washed over me when I learned that I could teach myself new coping strategies and not remain stuck with the same toxic family patterns that plagued my family for over 100 years.
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