Disconnected: Can Childhood Trauma Cause Someone To Disconnect From Their Body?

It might be hard for someone to comprehend how another person could be out of touch with their body and live on the surface of themselves. As far as they are concerned, this could be seen as something that is not possible.

They could think that as their body is connected to them, there is no way that they could lose touch with this part of them. What this is likely to show is that they themselves haven’t ever felt disconnected from their own body or if they have, it isn’t an experience that has lasted long enough to leave a mark on them.

A Different Reality

As a result of this, they are generally going to be in touch with their body. This will mean that they will typically have a good connection with their needs and feelings.

If they have ever lost touch with their body, it could be because they were in a fearful situation. Perhaps they were walking along a road at night and they heard a strange sound, which may have caused them to freeze up and to leave their body.

A Rare Occurrence

This will have taken place and then, before long, they will have returned to how they were before. Thanks to this, they might not even realise that they left their body in this moment and other moments like this.

Yet, if they were to take their attention back to these moments in their life, it would give them the opportunity to understand what it is like for someone who lives in this way practically all of the time. How they have experienced life for a few seconds or minutes at different periods of their life, will be the norm for someone like this.

 A Divided Being

When someone lives in this way practically all of the time, there is the chance that they won’t even be aware of it. If this is the case, it could show that this is how they have been for most, if not all, of their life.

Through being this way, it is likely to mean that it will be hard for them to connect to their feelings and a lot of needs. They will live ‘upstairs’ in their head and what is taking place in their body will be a mystery.

Mind Power

As they are out of touch with their bodies feelings, there is a strong chance that they will use the power of their mind to get things done. Their life is then going to be driven by the power of their will, not their feelings.

Thus, there is unlikely to be a sense of flow in their life; just about everything can be forced. Living in this way is going to take a lot out of them and they might often end up feeling totally exhausted.

Another Part

Naturally, not having a good connection to a lot of their needs will mean that a lot of them won’t be met. When it comes to the needs that they are aware of, these are likely to relate to their mental and physical needs.

Their need to form deeper connections with their fellow human beings is going to go unmet but as they are typically unaware of this need, they are seldom going to feel lonely. If they ever feel angry, frustrated and helpless in relation to what is going on, they may have a number of ways to push this pain out of their conscious awareness.

Playing a Role

Not being in touch with their body and the elements that are found there – their feelings and needs – will mean that the self that they show to others won’t be a reflection of who they are.  In order for their true-self to see the light of day, they will need to reconnect to their body.

There may even be times when it is as though they are just putting on an act and that other people don’t know who they really are. How they behave and what they do each day can be the result of who they think they should be and do, along with what they believe other people expect from them.

Self-Alienation

Living in this way is not going to allow them to lead a fulfilling existence and to really thrive; they will have a barren existence and life will be something that they have to endure. Now, while living in this way will be how their life has been for a very long time, there would have been a time when they were connected to their body and experienced life in a very different way.

What this may illustrate is that their early years were very traumatic, and their birth and their time in their mother’s womb might not have been very pleasant either. When it comes to their childhood, this may have been a time when they experienced some kind of abuse and/or neglect.

One Option

As they were powerless and completely dependent on their caregivers during this phase of their life, they wouldn’t have been able to run away or to fight back. The only way they would have been able to handle what was going on would have been to leave their body.

It would have been far too dangerous for them to exist and disconnecting from their body would have allowed them to stay alive without needing to go anywhere. The trouble was that even though this took place, they would have had to lose touch with their true-self and their being would have been greatly harmed.

Awareness

Many years will have passed since that stage of their life but their body is likely to be loaded with trauma. To prevent this pain from coming to the surface, they will have many defences in place.

Getting in touch with this pain and working through it is not going to happen overnight; to become an integrated human being will take time. This is a process that can take place with the assistance of a therapist or healer

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Oliver JR Cooper
http://www.oliverjrcooper.co.uk