Dissociation: Symptoms, Causes, and How to Heal

Image credit: Glen Jackson at Unsplash

Have you ever been in the middle of something and suddenly realized you’d lost track of time, feeling mentally checked out? Or found yourself in a conversation, only to drift off into thought or feel like you’ve momentarily left your body? Maybe you struggle to stay fully present in everyday life.

This is called dissociation. Sometimes it’s harmless daydreaming. But for some, dissociation is a near-constant state of being, and leaves people feeling disconnected, disoriented, or stressed in daily life.

What Is Dissociation?

Dissociation is a response to stress triggered by overwhelming emotions, difficult life events, or trauma. At times, it can seem to happen randomly. Some experiences include:

• Feeling mentally absent

• Emotional numbness

• Memory gaps

• Surroundings feeling unreal (derealization)

• Feeling you aren’t real, while the world around you is (depersonalization)

It’s a protective mechanism, and your nervous system’s way of shielding you from emotional pain. Like a turtle going into its shell, or a gazelle freezing before a predator attacks, dissociation taps into your body’s deeply-rooted survival mechanisms.

Attachment Trauma

Dissociation can begin in childhood when faced with violence, neglect, or emotionally unsafe environments. It can stem from insecure attachment, for example, having a parent who is anxious and relies on you for emotional stability, or having a parent who is cold, emotionally unavailable, or withdrawn in their connection with you.

When a child is exposed to their parent’s unboundaried emotions, and feels responsible for their parent’s anxieties and comfort, a child becomes parentified. This creates an insecure and stressful attachment between a child and their caregiver. If a parent fixates on the child’s reactions or emotions to feel secure themselves, a child may withdraw or retreat into a fantasy as a response.

Later in life, this can lead to an avoidant attachment, and manifest in obsessive work habits, intense focus on hobbies, addictions, or other compulsive behaviors, which can all compound and work to assist a lifestyle built around dissociation.

Children also rely on their parents for mirroring: to be seen and understood in a way that they understand is safe, validating, and nurturing. Children rely on their parent’s facial expressions and vocal responses to make sense of the world around them, and to know that the world will receive them with acceptance. Without adequate mirroring, a child can emotionally withdraw, and may have difficulty responding to social cues in later social environments. A child may learn that it is safer to exist in dissociation, than to live openly in social contexts.

Physical abuse also drives dissociation, and children will mentally retreat to protect themselves from a caregiver’s open aggression.

Everyday Stressors and Coping

Not all dissociation stems from a single traumatic event. It can also develop from complex trauma, with repeated, long-term stress in childhood, and the chronic repression of thoughts and feelings. People with complex PTSD often have stress responses to their own emotional world. It can become a habit to avoid feeling by staying in stress, or by taking part in more seemingly-innocuous behaviors like scrolling on the phone. More harmful behaviors can include addictions, or thrill-seeking.

Harmful Adult Relationships

Abusive, passive-aggressive, or chronically invalidating adult relationships can also trigger dissociation. If you give to a significant other but receive harm in return, emotionally “checking out” can become emotional armor. You might remain physically present in a relationship, but feel mentally and emotionally absent.

It can become easier to justify harmful behaviors to preserve a relationship at the expense of your own. These patterns can echo earlier experiences with neglectful or abusive caregivers, and recreate the same dissociative responses we learned as children.

In this way, dissociation can be both a form of resilience and overt tolerance of abusive behaviors. It is a deeply ingrained survival mechanism that is there to help us endure painful circumstances.

Shame and Dissociation

Shame can be a powerful driver of dissociation. If you have core beliefs that you are not good enough, not worthy of love, or undeserving of opportunities, it can feel safer to disconnect from life than risk feeling. Shame often stems from PTSD, childhood trauma, or harmful adult relationships.

Shame vs. guilt:

• Guilt says, “I did something wrong.”

• Shame says, “I am wrong.”

In healthy families, communities, and relationships, the emotion of shame can guide us toward repair and belonging. It can show us how to align properly with others. But in less nurturing environments, shame can become a toxic system that dictates how we relate to one another. A family can become “shame-based” and make all their decisions around shaming one another, or avoiding shame and displacing it onto others. This can shape your entire identity and how you relate to the world. Without consistent attunement from primary caregivers, it can become easier to hide, or to be performative, rather than to simply exist. A “false self” is created, while your authentic emotions and experiences become hidden or repressed.

Toxic shame often demands dissociation. Disconnecting from our bodies and emotions can feel safer than feeling the sting of rejection. Yet shame is also a signal calling for compassion and safe relationships where we can be fully accepted. Healing means slowly reclaiming those repressed parts of yourself and meeting them with the acceptance that has been denied.

Cultural Trauma and Dissociation

Dissociation can also be shaped by cultural trauma and the collective impact of oppression, displacement, racism, or historical violence on an individual. This kind of trauma can be intergenerational, affecting communities over decades.

Dissociation can be caused by:

• A feeling of shame as codified, oppressive responses to your culture

• Intergenerational trauma passed down from parents in your childhood as nervous system responses

• Growing up in an indigenous community affected by colonization

• BIPOC communities dealing with systemic racism and being othered

• Daily, received micro-aggressions.

• Living in constant fear in the threats of deportation and violence against family

In these contexts, dissociation can be a survival strategy, and help people cope when the world is oppressive and challenging a person’s basic right to exist. Healing often involves reconnecting with your cultural identity, communities, and broader spaces that validate your lived experience.

How Dissociation Shows Up in the Body

Dissociation is both a mental and physical process. Our nervous system reacts to stress through freeze, flight, fight, or fawn responses, to varying degrees. When dissociation becomes chronic, it can look like:

• Brain fog or difficulty concentrating

• Emotional numbness

• Low energy or fatigue

• Feeling disconnected from your body

The Many Faces of Dissociation: Flight, Freeze, Fawn, and Fight

Dissociation can show up in different ways, depending on how our nervous system learned to protect us. You might recognize yourself in one response more than another—or notice that you move between them. Each is a survival strategy, even if it no longer serves us in the present.

Flight: Always Moving, Never Arriving
Sometimes dissociation looks like staying busy as we constantly in motion, rarely slowing down enough to feel. Doom-scrolling is one example: chasing quick dopamine hits without a real sense of enjoyment, just doing for the sake of doing and filling the silence. Flight can feel productive on its surface, but underneath can be an active escape from the discomfort of awareness towards ourselves..

Freeze: Numb and Stuck
Other times, our body pumps the brakes completely. A freeze response can leave us feeling foggy, disconnected, or unable to take action. You may feel the weight of all the things you “should” do, yet lack the energy to start. We might feel lazy or unproductive, when it’s actually your body protecting you from overwhelm by shutting down.

Fawn: Pleasing to Stay Safe
Fawning causes us to put others’ comfort above our own, often without realizing it. We stay agreeable, avoid conflict, and ignore our own needs to prevent harm. On the surface, it can look like being caring or accommodating, but underneath can be a survival habit formed in unsafe relationships. Over time, it can blur our sense of self, and attract people who take advantage of our inherent openness.

Fight: Pushing Back, Holding Control
In fight mode, dissociation can look like needing to control people, conversations, or situations. It might sound like, “I know best, and I’m not ever going to budge.” A fight response doesn’t necessarily mean being loud—it can be quietly rigid or defensive. For some, it’s also a necessary survival response to cultural injustice and oppression. When systems dehumanize and oppress, we may feel compelled to resist at all costs. But living in a constant state of fight can leave us exhausted and burned out.

How Dissociation Affects Daily Life and Relationships

Dissociation becomes a greater issue when it interferes with your daily activities. If you find yourself checking out during conversations, while answering emails, attending to tasks, or even during basic self-care, daily functioning can become a significant challenge.

In relationships, dissociation can make it difficult to stay attuned. Instead of fully noticing someone’s words, emotions, and body language, you may not feel fully present, even with loved ones. Stress can overshadow the positive moments in your life, where positive experiences are instead overshadowed by a critical voice. When we don’t feel safe in our bodies, it becomes harder to connect with others as well as our own experiences in a way that feels positive. Over time, we can isolate ourselves from our communities and those around us.

Dissociation doesn’t just create an emotional disconnect. It can also intensify depression, anxiety, and anger. Tuning out can fuel the fear, worry, and self-blame, and reinforce a toxic cycle of self-neglect or self-hatred.

Dissociation as a Two-Sided Coin

Through our most difficult moments, dissociation helps us survive emotional pain. But over time, it can become a painful, numbing default, leaving us disconnected from our joy, creativity, and authentic relationships.

When repressed emotions surface, sometimes unexpectedly, it can flood us with feelings of pain, confusion, or shame.

Healing from Dissociation

Healing isn’t about “snapping out of it.” It’s about building the awareness, curiosity, and compassion to guide your inner experience, and gently increasing your capacity to stay connected with yourself.

In short, here are some focused strategies for healing dissociation:

• Mindful Meditation

  • Start with 5 minutes a day. Focus on your breath and scan your body, noticing sensations—even if they’re faint or hard to describe. Over time, you’ll develop a richer emotional vocabulary and greater awareness of your inner state.

    Pay close attention to small details: the smell of coffee, the colors in a sunset, the softness of your pillow. Describe them to yourself in detail. This anchors you in the present moment and gently softens dissociation.

• Sensory Noticing

  • Pay attention to small details around you: the smell of coffee, the texture of a blanket, or the different shapes and colors in your environment. Pick an object, and spend a minute or two noticing as many details about it as you can. Noticing the world around you can help anchor your attention in the present.

• Self-Compassion

  • Many people with dissociation have a strong inner critic, often developed in childhood as a shield. Practice gentle affirmations like, “I did well today,” or “I’m proud of myself for trying.” Gratitude and loving-kindness exercises help shift this inner dialogue.

    Notice when your inner critic shows up, and practice meeting it with curiosity. Self-compassion doesn’t mean erasing that voice—it means choosing a kinder, more conscious response.

• Creativity and Self-Expression

  • Creative acts likepainting, writing, music, reconnect you to resilient, authentic parts of yourself. They engage your mind and body together, restoring spontaneity and vitality.

• Journaling

  • 10 to 20 minutes of free writing allows your unconscious voices emerge, helping you connect with your authentic self. Reading what you wrote the following day can bring added perspective and self-respect. Journaling is both creative and somatic, and grounds your experience in the present.

• Music

  • Listening to music with intention and presence can evoke identity, emotion, and grounding. It can offer a safe, uplifting space where you can move freely and connect with something bigger than yourself.

• Reading

  • Finding literature that you identify with becomes a major helper in reconnecting with your mind, body, and spirit. When you develop wisdom around your own lived experience, you allow your authentic self to grow beyond the shell of dissociation.

There are many resources that expand more on these strategies, which can be found in my resources section.

Grieving

Sometimes when we slow down enough to feel what’s underneath, we can find grief waiting for us. It can be a deep sense of underlying sadness, or even unexpected tears of gratitude.

Grief is a personal thing. We may wish we could share our tears with the people who should have been there for us, but they may be people that are not safe to turn to. In this way, grief can feel challenging. For many who’ve experienced trauma, grieving can feel like a lonely road. We have a deep need and want to be understood.

Letting ourselves grieve takes courage. It takes strength to allow sadness to move through us, and to soften the shell that’s been protecting us for so long. In grief, we give our emotions space to breathe. Over time, grieving can shift from being a rare, overwhelming moment to a gentle, ongoing practice. We can start to notice when our guard goes up and when dissociation creeps in, and notice how to come back to ourselves more quickly.

The more we develop skills and ourselves feel, the more room there is for real change to grow.

Therapy

Talking with a “good-enough” therapist can be the start of repairing the emotional and relational wounds that keep us disconnected. In therapy, you get to bring your full self into the room: your confident parts, your hidden parts, and even the ones you’ve been avoiding.

With the right therapist, you get something that might have been missing before in a safe, steady presence who listens without judgment, reflects your truth back to you, and helps you make sense of what’s happening inside. Together, you can explore how dissociation shows up for you and find new ways to feel grounded, connected, and present in your own life.

Safety

Regaining a sense of safety is key to healing dissociation. Trusting others begins with feeling safe in your own body. If your parents lacked a sense of safety or worth in their own lives, or experienced cultural violence, then dissociation can be an inherited response and a continuation of trauma. We can make the conscious effort to be present for ourselves, and to find a new definition of safety and worth.

Dissociation is more than just surviving: it is pointing the way. Healing means gently reclaiming your presence, reconnecting with your authentic self, and building relationships and practices that affirm safety, belonging, and joy.

If you’ve been feeling disconnected or “checked out,” therapy can support you in safely exploring these patterns and rebuilding presence, resilience, and connection to your life.