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Learning to Live in Your Body After Childhood Trauma
Reconnecting as an adult
One of the most interesting side effects of childhood trauma is that many of us feel we are separated from our bodies. We acknowledge we have a body but view it as an inconvenient necessity that we prefer to ignore.
In this piece, we will focus on learning to live wholly in your body rather than just exist there.
How Did I Lose Contact with My Body?
When childhood abuse and neglect take place, the child may choose to numb themselves from what has happened to them. Some children, especially those who form dissociative identity disorder, can become disconnected from their bodies.
The reasons for body disconnection are many, and all involve overwhelming pain that must be splintered off so that the person can move on in life. This is also the reason children dissociate to remove themselves from the situation.
Your original person moves on despite what has happened, taking great leaps to ensure that we cannot consciously remember the abuse. In the process, we lose contact with our bodies, leaving us living in our heads.
I don’t remember disconnecting from my flesh, but I did.
