Dissociation

Dissociation is like your mind's emergency exit when reality becomes too overwhelming to bear.

At its core, it's a protective mechanism—your brain's way of saying "this is too much" and creating distance between you and an experience that feels unbearable. It's not weakness or brokenness; it's actually evidence of your mind's remarkable ability to survive.

When you dissociate, you might feel disconnected from yourself, like you're watching your own life through a foggy window or from outside your body. The world can seem unreal, dreamlike, or strangely flat—as if you're moving through a movie rather than living your actual life. Time might feel distorted. You might look in the mirror and not quite recognize the person staring back. Sometimes it's like being wrapped in cotton wool, where everything feels muted and distant.

For some people, dissociation means losing chunks of time—suddenly realizing hours have passed with no memory of them. For others, it's more subtle: going through the motions of daily life while feeling profoundly absent, like the lights are on but nobody's home.

What makes dissociation so lonely is that it's hard to explain to others. How do you describe feeling like a ghost in your own life? How do you articulate that sense of being fundamentally disconnected from everything—your body, your emotions, your memories, the world around you?

Often, dissociation begins as a brilliant coping strategy, usually in childhood when someone faces trauma or overwhelming stress they can't escape physically. If you can't flee danger, your mind learns to flee instead—to go somewhere else internally. It's a kind of mercy in the moment.

But what once protected you can become a prison. Your brain may have learned this pattern so well that it now activates even when you're safe, leaving you floating away from moments you actually want to be present for—connections with loved ones, joy, even your own life unfolding.

The journey back involves learning that you're safe enough now to feel, to be present, to inhabit your own life fully. It's about gently teaching your nervous system that it doesn't need to escape anymore. And that takes time, patience, and often the support of people who understand.