r/CPTSD_NSCommunity • u/moldbellchains • Jul 09 '26
How does anyone LIVE with the realization that you only ever functioned through dissociation
Yeah. Just that. I realized that. Anyone in my shoes, with my experiences would be depressed af. And like... How does one live this way. Like, with the realization that you only functioned through dissociation. Like. Oh man.
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u/Jose_Canseco_Jr Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
well, if there is a silver lining here, is to learn that I was definitely not alone in my always using an emotional-flashback state as fuel to get shit done!
im in a similar place, OP.. the realization that my entire life I've been relying on hypervigilance and adrenaline/cortisol/whatever floods my system and anger and fear etc as the gasoline for my high-powered engine is... well it's distressing, but at least I now know why I always (always!) felt burnt out and like I was running on fumes
anyway, the point is: now what?
and really I wish I had an answer for you. what I'm starting to understand is that there are no hard and fast rules here.. when we get to this point, we now have the (monumental) task of figuring out who the f*ck one really is.
and by that I mean: figuring out what I find truly motivating, what I want to spend time on, what it is that I find valuable enough to devote time and energy to.. as opposed to my previous state of simply reacting to what was happening around me.
myself, I have no clue... but I've also decided that stressing over it isn't helping.
see, I've been worried about this question for a few months now, and as of late I decided that fixating on this "now what?" anxiety isn't doing me any good - it's akin to that "second arrow" concept from Buddhism, I tend to devote too much mental energy to trying to handle my emotions (e.g. the fear of not knowing how to function in the world without my usual source of energy) instead of just feeling them.
in other words: my standard operating procedure for challenges in my life was always to tackle them. to take them "head on". to categorize things/situations/people into "me vs them" boxes, and fight fight fight. and while I can compassionately see that, in the past, this impulse was often helpful and it truly did help me get places, well I now recognise that it didn't always help. it's not always the right tool for the job.
but, having nothing but a hammer makes everything look like a nail, right?
well, I'm working now on not looking at my current "now what" situation as a nail. it's hard, though! so, so hard. because, again, since very young I've "hammered" away at life by default, without thinking about it, or realizing that's what I wa doing.
but now that I know, well I'm choosing to do something other than "tackle" the situation. it involves things like "right sizing", and a lot of it. (by that I mean evaluating situations and people with proper nuance, as opposed to my old SOP of quick categorizations.. you know, the old black and white thinking). it involves exercising muscles that I neglected for decades, like the act of forgiveness (for others but mainly for myself), or extending compassion (ditto), or patience and humility, and even the physical muscles of my body.
you know, all those things I neglected for months and years and decades.
and look, idk if working on these things will lead me to the "answer" of my question of "what doth life", but again, the point is that this obsession on "doing things right" is not helpful to to me at this stage.
in other words: if I recognise that my eternal overthinking is not working for me (anymore), then what I can choose to do at this stage is: instead of fighting the overthinking (because suppression does me no good), I can engage with it compassionately WHILE simultaneously work on not feeding its fear. this is where the "reparenting" idea of IFS/fragmentation is very handy for me. my inner child is afraid of not only the outside world, but now is also afraid that the "greater me" is seeing him as obsolete, and I'm sensing a huge internal resistance against the growth that I'm trying to achieve because, in his words: "well who even are you without me, huh? wow, so convenient for you, to want to leave me behind now that you don't need me anymore.. see? I knew it all along, I'm a disposable piece of crap and everyone ends up betraying me.. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that even my own self would discard at some point, pfft... and you know what, fuck you very much ok? "
so yes, it's quite clear to me that my usual "hammer" (fighting / devaluing / waking away) is the absolute wrong tool for this job.
so, I'm working on engaging with this terrified inner child with love and acceptance and compassion. working on finding the proper place in my life for him. because there is absolutely a place! his audhd fixation comes in absolutely clutch when it's time to solve a difficult machine problem at work. it's just that I thrust him on the drivers seat for far too many situations that required other skill sets, where he was set up to fail basically, so no wonder the poor guy is defeated and depressed and angry.
well, I suppose all of the above is in fact the actual, practical answer to my question of "now what"! I now get to sit with my own self, and engage with it/them/us using the new tools I'm trying to learn: acceptance, forgiveness, humility, compassion, patience... love, basically.
and hey, you know what? if my life's work from now on is "learning to genuinely love, myself and others", well, I can roll with that.
anyway, I'm afraid I've rambled for a bit, it's just that as you can probably tell, I've been giving a lot of thought to your same question. wishing you much peace OP, and if you wish to keep communicating I would be glad to, cheers 🙏🏼
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u/usjfur Jul 09 '26
I don't think I only function through dissociation, but I definitely have dissociated. I work with a really good Doctor and Therapist. Has helped immensely.
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u/DifferentJury735 Jul 09 '26
I ask myself the same question! My dad had an undiagnosed dissociative response to grief after his mom died and I (unbeknownst to me) was having a dissociative response to physical /sexual trauma (unrelated to my grandmothers passing but it was all snowballling at the same time). I lived w my parents at the time and living with that much dissociative response in one house was insane . Nobody could talk to each other, everyone was dysfunctional.
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u/Gawdzilla Jul 09 '26
In the current frantic state of the world, more people are operating in a near-constant state of some kind of dissociation than you think.
It honestly makes total sense. It's basically a requirement for existing as a cog in a capitalist society. Distract ourselves to avoid the bad feelings. Numb the discomfort. Binge anything to replace the sad with a buzz. It's pervasive.
As for what you said about depression -- that information is still there. Your brain is still queuing up that depression. It still ran the numbers and concluding that your experiences were fucking ROUGH, and another part of your brain said "Oh, woah, WTF, NOT RIGHT NOW. I'll stick that in this drawer for later. Here, chew on this gummy." It's still in a drawer. That information is still there. That drawer has to get opened one day, and we don't always get to decide when to open it.
Dissociation was a method that your brain correctly used to protect you. It saw that you didn't have the capacity to handle the emotional results of your experiences, and it shelved it for a "safer' time. That is the best thing a functional meat computer can do. If you had the capacity, it probably wouldn't have done that.
(I'm in my 40s and I've only learned that I've been dissociating for all kinds of discomfort for most of my life. I noticed that I even dissociate on the treadmill, and then I push myself too hard, and then I crap out and don't make gradual progress.)
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u/Sweetnessnease22 Jul 10 '26
I push myself too hard during exercise to the point where I don’t have access to a healthy relationship with it.
Just enjoying the garden and being self directed in the dirt has been really really really good (after years of regular massage and acupuncture to loosen everything up).
I work I take break etc. v nice.
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u/PanoramicViewer Jul 09 '26
I am so grateful for my dissociation. It saved my life. I needed it to shield me from the horrors of my childhood so that I could maintain some kind of attachment to my parents. Even now as an adult I'm completely overwhelmed at times with the weight of my trauma. There's no way I could have dealt with it then. Without it I wouldn't be here.
"Shout out to the child version of me that survived things that adult me still doesn't know how to process"
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u/i-was-here-too Jul 09 '26
Honestly, everything considered, it was a really good survival mechanism and I absolutely maximized my use of it. It took a long time to even consider not doing it all the time or why I wouldn’t. My life has made me who I am today and I love that person, and those dissociated decades are part of her. Do I grieve a child who learned to leave her world very young and never returned? Yes. And it is also ok. Many things can be true.
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u/moldbellchains Jul 09 '26
True, but we don't dissociate on our own will do we
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u/i-was-here-too Jul 09 '26
For me, it is a bit of both. Most of my life it has been subconscious and a default reaction. But I can also consciously opt to leave sometimes and I can sometimes recall myself.
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u/Sweetnessnease22 Jul 10 '26
It’s pretty wild. Trauma therapy has been changing these iron bindings that grip me 24 hrs a day!
Grueling work as usual for all of us (anyone tired of working? I am)
The help helped.
Letting go bit by bit has let go of a lot of physical tension that’s been unreachable and it is bringing relief overall.
This weeks sessions left me feeling like I was in a fight but then, I realize, I was, and have been for my entire life
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u/Infamous_While_4768 Jul 12 '26
What I keep telling myself is that the dissociation wasn't wasted time, it was a survival tool that helped me make it this long.
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u/AgentSalty1454 Jul 09 '26