You’re sitting in a meeting, but you can’t quite feel your hands on the table. Someone asks you a question, and your voice sounds like it’s coming from somewhere far away. You look down at your body and feel like you’re watching yourself from behind glass—present, but not fully there.
If this sounds familiar, you’re not imagining it. And you’re not alone.
What you’re experiencing has a name: dissociation after trauma. It’s a psychological response that often develops following overwhelming experiences, and while it can feel frightening and isolating, understanding what’s happening in your mind and body is the first step toward feeling more grounded again. Learning about how trauma impacts your psyche can provide essential insight into these experiences, as detailed in psychological damage after abuse.
What Is Dissociation?
Dissociation is a mental process where your normal connection to your thoughts, memories, feelings, actions, or sense of identity becomes disrupted. It exists on a spectrum—from mild, everyday experiences like “zoning out” during a long drive, to persistent feelings of being disconnected from your body, emotions, or surroundings.
When dissociation becomes frequent or severe enough to interfere with daily life, it may be part of a trauma response or a dissociative disorder. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) recognizes several dissociative conditions, including depersonalization/derealization disorder, dissociative amnesia, and dissociative identity disorder.
At its core, dissociation is your mind’s attempt to protect you from overwhelming experiences. Understanding this response can help normalize what feels confusing or frightening and provide a path toward recovery.
What Dissociation Actually Feels Like
People describe dissociation in different ways, but common experiences include:
- Feeling like you’re watching yourself from outside your body, as if you’re an observer of your own life rather than an active participant. Some people describe feeling like they’re in a movie or dream. Others report feeling “floaty” or disconnected, as though their body doesn’t quite belong to them.
- The world around you may seem foggy, distant, or unreal. Colors can appear muted. Sounds might feel muffled or unusually sharp. Time can feel distorted—minutes stretching into hours, or entire days blurring together.
- Emotions may feel numb or distant, even during moments when you’d expect to feel strongly. You might struggle to recall parts of your day or find yourself in a room without remembering how you got there.
- Physical sensations can become dulled. Pain, temperature, or hunger cues may not register the way they normally would.
These experiences can be deeply unsettling, especially when their cause is not yet understood.
Why Trauma Causes Dissociation
Dissociation after trauma functions as a survival mechanism. When faced with an experience that is overwhelming, painful, or threatening, the brain creates distance between you and the event to protect you.
During traumatic events—whether physical abuse, sexual violence, emotional neglect, serious accidents, or prolonged exposure to danger—your nervous system can become flooded. When fighting or fleeing isn’t possible, dissociation becomes the third option: freezing and mentally “leaving” the situation.
This response is governed by the autonomic nervous system, particularly the dorsal vagal complex, which can trigger a shutdown when threat levels exceed tolerance. From an evolutionary perspective, this “playing dead” response helped our ancestors survive life-threatening situations.
Research demonstrates that childhood trauma, especially chronic or early-life trauma, significantly increases the likelihood of developing dissociative symptoms later in life. When a child’s environment is unpredictable or unsafe, dissociation becomes a learned coping strategy—a way to escape psychologically when physical escape isn’t possible.
The problem arises when the brain continues this protective strategy long after the danger has passed. The nervous system may have learned that dissociation equals safety, activating this response even in non-threatening situations.
Signs and Patterns of Dissociation
Not everyone experiences dissociation the same way. Common signs include:
Depersonalization:
- Feeling detached from body, thoughts, or emotions
- Observing oneself from outside the body
- Feeling robotic or going through the motions
- Emotional numbness or flatness
Derealization:
- The world feels foggy, dreamlike, or unreal
- People and objects appear distorted, distant, or two-dimensional
- Visual or auditory distortions
- Feeling like living in a movie or behind glass
Memory and Time Distortions:
- Gaps in memory or “losing time”
- Difficulty recalling personal information
- Evidence of actions done without memory
- Perception of time speeding or slowing
Physical Disconnection:
- Numbness or reduced sensitivity to pain
- Feeling disconnected from physical sensations
- Out-of-body experiences
- Not recognizing your own reflection
Triggering Situations: Dissociation often intensifies during stress, when reminded of past trauma, when tired or overwhelmed, or during emotional vulnerability.
How Dissociation Affects Mental Health and Daily Life
Although dissociation serves a protective purpose, chronic disconnection from body and emotions creates real-world challenges.
Relationships can suffer when you struggle to stay present during conversations or feel emotionally available. Partners, friends, and family may feel confused or hurt by your apparent distance.
Work and productivity may be impacted when focus, time awareness, or memory falters. Decision-making becomes harder when disconnected from intuition and emotional guidance.
Physical health concerns can arise because dissociation may prevent noticing pain, hunger, exhaustion, or illness until problems become severe. Risky behaviors may occur without full awareness of consequences.
Emotional processing stalls when disconnected from feelings. While numbness can feel safer than pain, it prevents experiencing joy, connection, and the full spectrum of human emotion, potentially contributing to depression, anxiety, and persistent emptiness.
Identity confusion can develop when dissociation is severe or long-standing. A person may struggle to know who they are, what they want, or what they believe while disconnected from their internal experience.
Many individuals with dissociative symptoms also experience co-occurring conditions, including PTSD, depression, anxiety disorders, and substance use issues.
For further practical guidance, see Feeling Detached From Your Body? Dissociation After Trauma.
Evidence-Based Approaches That Help
Recovery from dissociation is possible. The aim is not to remove protective responses entirely but to help the nervous system learn when it is safe to remain present.
Trauma-Focused Therapy
Therapeutic approaches effective for trauma-related dissociation include Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), which reprocesses traumatic memories to reduce triggers; Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, which focuses on the body’s role in trauma; and Internal Family Systems therapy, which is beneficial when dissociation involves distinct parts of self.
Working with a trauma-informed therapist is critical for progressing safely without overwhelming the nervous system.
Grounding Techniques
Grounding exercises reconnect you to the present moment and your body. Techniques like the 5-4-3-2-1 method involve identifying five things you see, four you touch, three you hear, two you smell, and one you taste. Physical grounding can include pressing feet into the floor, holding ice, or splashing cold water on the face.
Practical guidance is available in How to Ground After Dissociation: Practical Steps to Feel Present.
Somatic Practices
Body-based practices help restore mind-body connection. Trauma-informed yoga, progressive muscle relaxation, and mindful movement (tai chi, qigong) cultivate awareness without overwhelming the system.
Focus should remain on gentle, self-paced exploration rather than pushing through discomfort.
Nervous System Regulation
Regulating the autonomic nervous system helps prevent shutdowns that trigger dissociation. Techniques may include box breathing, coherent breathing, vagal toning, or establishing consistent routines and supportive relationships.
Medication
No medications specifically treat dissociation, but addressing co-occurring conditions such as depression or anxiety can reduce symptoms. Consultation with a trauma-informed psychiatrist is recommended.
Supportive Resources and Tools
- Journaling for pattern tracking and emotional processing
- Body scan meditations, slow and choice-driven
- Weighted blankets for proprioceptive grounding
- Sensory kits with textures, scents, and temperatures for immediate grounding
- Support groups providing validation and community
- Educational resources from reputable organizations, including the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation
Explore additional guidance at trauma recovery resources, offering compassionate strategies to rebuild mind-body connection.
You Can Feel Present Again
If you live with dissociation, understand that your brain was protecting you. Detachment is not a flaw or weakness—it is evidence of survival.
Survival mode does not have to be permanent.
With support, the nervous system can learn safety in the present. Connections between mind and body can be restored, emotions felt without overwhelm, and integration of self achieved.
Healing is not linear and takes time, but each step toward presence teaches your system a new truth: you are safe, and you do not have to disappear.
For significant impacts on daily life, reaching out to a trauma-informed mental health professional is an essential step. Support is available, and you deserve it.
References
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing.
Lanius, R. A., Brand, B., Vermetten, E., Frewen, P. A., & Spiegel, D. (2012). The dissociative subtype of posttraumatic stress disorder: Rationale, clinical and neurobiological evidence, and implications. Depression and Anxiety, 29(8), 701-708.
Porges, S. W. (2011). The polyvagal theory: Neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication, and self-regulation. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
Schauer, M., & Elbert, T. (2010). Dissociation following traumatic stress: Etiology and treatment. Zeitschrift für Psychologie/Journal of Psychology, 218(2), 109-127.
Steele, K., van der Hart, O., & Nijenhuis, E. R. (2005). Phase-oriented treatment of structural dissociation in complex traumatization: Overcoming trauma-related phobias. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 6(3), 11-53.
van der Kolk, B. A. (2015). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. New York: Penguin Books.
International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation. (2011). Guidelines for treating dissociative identity disorder in adults, third revision. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 12(2), 115-187.
Putnam, F. W. (1997). Dissociation in children and adolescents: A developmental perspective. New York: Guilford Press.
Foa, E. B., Keane, T. M., Friedman, M. J., & Cohen, J. A. (Eds.). (2009). Effective treatments for PTSD: Practice guidelines from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (2nd ed.). New York: Guilford Press.
National Institute of Mental Health. (2021). Post-traumatic stress disorder. Retrieved from https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd
