When Life Feels Like a Blur: Dissociation and Complex Trauma
That Feeling of “Not Really Being Here”
Have you ever been in the middle of a conversation and suddenly realized you can’t remember what was just said? Or driven home on autopilot and had no clear memory of how you got there? Or maybe you’re sitting with friends or family and, instead of feeling connected, you notice yourself feeling strangely distant - like you’re watching yourself from a distance, or floating outside of yourself, or sitting behind a glass wall present but not fully participating.
This is dissociation. It’s worth saying: everyone dissociates sometimes. Getting lost in thought, daydreaming, or spacing out during a dull lecture are all mild forms of dissociation. In fact, it’s one of the brain’s normal tricks for conserving energy and giving you a mental break. But when dissociation becomes frequent, intense, or automatic - particularly when it’s tied to unprocessed trauma - it can shift from a harmless quirk into a survival strategy that damages your sense of self and your relationship to people and the world around you. Most often, this is where complex trauma (CPTSD) is the cause.
Dissociation isn’t a flaw or a character weakness. It’s your nervous system doing what it was designed to do - protect you when something feels too overwhelming to face head-on.
Dissociation vs. Disassociation: What’s the Difference?
The two words sound almost the same, but they mean different things.
Dissociation: A psychological process where the mind disconnects from thoughts, emotions, memories, or surroundings. It often happens automatically, especially in response to stress or trauma.
Disassociation: A more general term that means separating or distancing yourself from something. For example, “I disassociate myself from that political group” or “She disassociated from the project.”
So if you’re talking about feeling spaced out, disconnected, or like you’re not fully present — the correct word is dissociation.
What Is Dissociation, Really?
The word dissociation can sound abstract, but the experience is surprisingly common. On the mild end, it can feel like daydreaming or zoning out. On the more intense end, it might feel like your emotions have gone offline, or like you’re floating outside your own body.
Survivors often describe dissociation in ways like:
“I feel foggy, like I’m not fully awake.”
“It’s like I’m in a movie - I can see what’s happening, but I don’t feel part of it.”
“I go numb. I can’t feel joy, sadness, or even fear. Just blank.”
“Sometimes I lose track of time completely. Hours can disappear.”
It’s important to know that dissociation exists on a spectrum. Everyone spaces out once in a while. But for those with CPTSD, dissociation can become a default survival response - a way the brain and body cope with stress, conflict, or reminders of past trauma.
Why Does Dissociation Happen with Complex Trauma?
To understand dissociation, we need to look again at how the nervous system responds to danger. Psychologists often describe the trauma cascade:
Fight – push back, get angry, defend.
Flight – run away, escape.
Freeze – shut down movement and energy.
Fawn – appease, please, smooth things over to reduce danger.
For many children growing up in unsafe homes - where abuse, neglect, or unpredictability are constant - fight or flight often aren’t possible. Fighting back might lead to punishment. Fleeing might not be an option - where are you going to go? The body learns to survive by freezing, numbing out, or disconnecting. You check out of your environment. That’s dissociation.
Over time, this survival strategy gets wired into the nervous system. Even in adulthood, long after the danger has passed, the body may still default to dissociation in moments of stress: during conflict with a partner, when receiving feedback at work, or even in situations that look safe but feel risky because they echo the past.
The Role of Attachment Wounds
Complex trauma often develops in the context of attachment trauma - when caregivers are frightening, unavailable, or emotionally unpredictable. Children depend on parents or caregivers not just for food and shelter, but for safety, comfort, and a sense of belonging. When those needs go unmet, the nervous system gets caught in a painful bind:
I need closeness to survive.
But closeness is dangerous.
Dissociation becomes the brain’s way of resolving that impossible conflict. Instead of choosing closeness or distance, the child learns to check out, to float somewhere in between.
In adulthood, this can look like:
Shutting down emotionally in relationships, especially when intimacy feels overwhelming.
Feeling numb or blank during conflict, even when you want to express yourself.
Struggling to know what you feel or need because you’re so used to disconnecting.
Dissociation in Everyday Life
One of the most difficult aspects of dissociation is that it doesn’t always look dramatic. Many people imagine dissociation as fainting, losing huge chunks of memory, or developing multiple personalities (a different condition called DID). But in reality, most dissociation is subtle - and easy to miss.
I often work with people who express frustration at feeling distant from those around them, feeling like strangers in their own body, or not being connected to their emotions and feelings. It’s not huge, it’s not dramatic, but it is confusing and frustrating. This particularly becomes true when survivors compare themselves to people around them - how can my spouse just live in the moment like that? How can my kids just express what they are feeling so easily? Why do I always feel like the odd one out?
Here are some everyday ways it can show up:
At work: You sit in a meeting, and your mind goes blank the moment someone asks for your input. You might feel like you’re “not really there,” even though from the outside it looks like you are participating.
In relationships: Your partner asks how you feel, and you honestly don’t know. Not because you don’t care, but because your emotions feel locked behind a wall.
While parenting: Your child’s meltdown feels unbearable. Instead of reacting, you zone out, feeling detached or robotic.
During leisure: Even when life is calm, you find yourself endlessly scrolling, binge-watching, or overworking - anything to avoid being fully present with yourself.
Dissociation can also create gaps in memory. You may forget parts of conversations, lose track of time, or feel like whole days pass in a blur. This isn’t about carelessness. It’s the brain protecting itself from overwhelm.
Dissociation and Identity
One of the hardest parts of long-term dissociation is its impact on identity. Many people with complex trauma describe a painful hollowness or emptiness, a sense of not knowing who they really are. Because dissociation numbs emotional awareness, it also blocks self-discovery. How can you know your preferences, values, or passions if you rarely feel fully present in your own life?
This can lead to questions like:
“Who am I, beyond my survival strategies?”
“What do I actually want?”
“Why do I feel so blank, even when things are going well?”
These are not signs of personal failure. They’re the natural consequences of a nervous system that has had to disconnect for survival. But the good news is, identity can be rediscovered or rebuilt.
How Therapy Helps with Dissociation
Healing from dissociation doesn’t mean forcing yourself to “stay present” all the time. It means slowly teaching your nervous system that it’s safe enough to come back. Therapy provides the structure and safety for that process.
Here’s how therapy can help:
1. Recognizing the Pattern
Often, the first step is simply naming dissociation when it happens. Instead of blaming yourself for being “spacy,” you can recognize it as a survival response. This shift alone reduces shame and increases self-compassion.
2. Reconnecting with the Body
Grounding practices, mindfulness, and exercises based on body can help you notice sensations, feelings and anchor in the present moment. Over time, this rebuilds your tolerance for staying connected, even during stress.
3. Processing Trauma Memories
Talking about your experiences in therapy, or using tools EMDR can allow the brain to safely revisit traumatic experiences, helping “unstick” memories that fuel dissociation. This reduces the need for the nervous system to shut down.
4. Rebuilding Identity
As dissociation softens, therapy supports you in exploring feelings, values, and desires. You learn to answer questions like, “What do I want?” and “Who am I?” with increasing clarity.
This Sounds Like Me - What Now?
Through therapy and self-compassion, you can learn to:
Recognize when you’re disconnecting.
Gently bring yourself back to the present.
Build resilience so that stress doesn’t always trigger shutdown.
Reclaim your emotions, your relationships, and your sense of self.
Healing doesn’t mean you’ll never zone out again. Everyone dissociates sometimes. The difference is that it no longer runs your life. Instead, you’ll have more choice, more presence, and more connection to the people and experiences that matter most.
If any of this resonates with you, and you would like to discuss further, I offer free consultations to people living in Oklahoma.