The Art of Dissociation

“Dumb blonde.” “Your head is in the clouds.” “Airhead.”…I heard it all.

Growing up, I was known as the absent-minded girl. Looking back now, I understand why. I was the girl running into walls and tripping over my own feet—the one zoned out in class and daydreaming in the car.

As I reflect on my childhood and young adult years, I’ve started to notice how much time feels… missing. People will say, “Remember when…” and go on to tell a story about something we experienced together. I would laugh and respond, “Yeah, that was the best!”—but the truth was, I had no idea what they were talking about.

This happened more often than I’d like to admit.

I felt mortified. Embarrassed.How could I be so dumb? Why do I forget everything?

A large part of my journey has been coming to terms with dissociation—understanding it, and slowly waking up from it. The strange thing is, I didn’t even realize I had been dissociating until I began to come out of it.

For so long, I lived disconnected.Disconnected from myself. From others. From my life.

I was there, but not really there.My body was present, but my mind was somewhere else.

I would drift into daydreams, get lost in my thoughts, and sometimes lose entire stretches of time altogether.

For the longest time, I thought it was just me—that I was dumb, clueless, forgetful.

But now I’m learning it’s more than that.

When people experience trauma, our nervous system works incredibly hard to protect us from pain. Our minds and bodies are powerful, and they develop all kinds of coping mechanisms to help us survive.

My personal favorite coping method was dissociation—and I became a pro.

Dissociation, in medical terms, is a disconnection between thoughts, memories, feelings, and a person’s sense of identity or reality. It’s the brain’s way of creating distance from something overwhelming or unsafe.

Biologically, this is tied to our nervous system. When we experience stress or trauma, the brain—especially areas like the amygdala (which detects danger)—signals the body to protect itself. If fighting or escaping isn’t possible, the body can move into a kind of “shutdown” or freeze state. This is often linked to the parasympathetic nervous system, where everything slows down.

In that state, awareness can fade, emotions can numb, and memory can become fragmented. It’s not a failure—it’s protection. The brain is essentially saying, “This is too much, so let’s create space.”

Over time, though, what once protected us can become the way we live.

I was living in a state of dissociation for as long as I can remember. It was my way to cope.

Because I had been living this way for so long, I didn’t even realize I was doing it—it just felt “normal.” I thought it was just who I was.

After learning about dissociation and how it protects us from pain, it might sound like a good thing. Who cares if we’re a little dreamy, right?

Wrong.

As my mind began to slow down and I started reconnecting with my body, I was hit with a hard truth:

I missed so much.

Most of my childhood memories—gone.

Family vacations—gone.

Endless stories with friends in high school—gone.

Precious moments with my girls as babies—gone.

It was like it never even happened… like it didn’t exist.

It’s like I have pictures of memories, but the experience is gone. The hugs, the laughter, the warmth… it just evaporates. What’s left is a trail of scattered fragments—little clips here and there—and I’m left trying to piece them together, wondering what happened and where my life went.

It’s like you’re living, but you’re not really living.Like you’re going through the motions, but you’re lost at the same time.

It feels robotic. Empty.

Often, it felt like I was looking back at a life I didn’t live—like someone else was living it for me. Sure, it protected me from pain. I experienced several major traumas in my life, but I didn’t let it slow me down. I buried everything deep inside, pretending it never happened, and just kept moving forward.

I kept myself so busy I didn’t have time to feel. If my mind could keep running—keep distracting—it didn’t have to process what happened. And if I didn’t process it, then it didn’t exist.

So that’s how I lived: fast-paced, chaotic, distracted.

From party to party.From friend to friend.From one distraction to the next.

I drank. I danced. I did whatever I could to stay busy enough not to feel.

My journey has been one of coming out of this dissociation—this amnesia—and reconnecting with myself. Learning to slow down enough to feel.

And when I started to feel again… I won’t lie—it was hell.

I felt everything. The shame. The pain. The loss. The terror. The disgust. The anger. The sadness. The anxiety. It was crippling.

But as I kept allowing myself to feel, something else began to happen…

I started to feel joy.I started to feel hope.

I wasn’t just empty anymore—I was starting to live.

For so long, I carried this deep emptiness inside me—the void created by everything I had numbed. But as I allowed myself to feel, that void slowly began to fill—with love, with joy, with hope.

Now I have moments that melt my heart—moments that bring tears to my eyes in the most beautiful way, because I can actually feel them.

I’m learning to be present.To take it all in—the good and the hard.

For the first time, I am beginning to live.To feel what it’s like to be fully human.To be open. To be vulnerable.

Yes, I feel the depth of sadness—but I also feel the warmth and beauty of joy.

I was the queen of dissociation, as you’ll come to see.

But I don’t want to be numb anymore.

I want to fully live.

And for the first time… I am beginning to.