April 28, 2025 • 44 mins
Our brain and nervous systems are incredibly protective—they can shield us from overwhelming stimuli by shutting out sensations. This mechanism plays a central role in depersonalization and derealization (DPDR), causing you to feel detached and like you are observing yourself from a distance. While these dissociative states can offer short-term protection, chronic experiences can lead to further dysregulation as unprocessed emotions accumulate.
In today’s episode, Elisabeth and Jennifer dive into DPDR, explaining its impact on the brain and nervous system. They discuss why our senses become muted, its protective role, and how it shows up in those with childhood trauma. Elisabeth and Jennifer also share their personal experiences and how they found safety in their bodies to process their emotions.
While our brain and body protect us from overwhelming sensations, the stored experience remains within us. The journey to healing involves convincing our brain and body that it’s safe to reconnect with these feelings, building internal capacity to do so. Simply understanding DPDR isn’t enough; we must communicate with our nervous system to reclaim our sense of self.
If you've experienced depersonalization and derealization and are seeking healing insights, don't miss this episode!
Topics discussed in this episode:
-
What is depersonalization and derealization (DPDR)?
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Why are our senses muted, yet still active, during DPDR?
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The connection between CPTSD and DPDR
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The high levels of dysregulation that occur with DPDR
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Co-regulation versus nervous system disconnection
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How derealization and depersonalization function as adaptive strategies
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Why healing DPDR requires working directly with the nervous system
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What happens when you finally start feeling again after DPDR
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How to cultivate a sense of safety around your internal signals
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The vagus nerve's role in healing DPDR and practical techniques to activate it
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
What most healing and personal development programs. Don'T tell you is that your
patterns, your behaviors, your emotional responses are outputs
of your nervous system trying to keep you safe. And changing your
thoughts won't change those deep rooted patterns. You have to go deeper
inside. Rewiretrial.com, you'll learn how to train your. Nervous system for
greater capacity so that. You can navigate life with more ease,
(00:21):
more presence, more connection. We have five live classes a week
with expert instructors. We have an on demand library with.
Thousands of recorded neurosomatic training sessions. And we have an
incredible, supportive, inclusive. Community of people just like
you. Doing this deep work together. You don't have to keep fighting against.
Your own nervous system. You can re pattern it. Start your two free week
(00:44):
trial now@rewiretrial.com. Have you ever felt
like you're floating outside your body, watching yourself from a
distance? Or like the world around you is foggy,
dreamlike or unreal? This is called
depersonalization and derealization.
It's a survival response of the nervous system. Your brain isn't
(01:05):
broken, it's protecting you. When stress, trauma
or emotional overwhelm become too much, your nervous
system shuts down awareness to help you survive. But what
exactly is happening in the brain? And more importantly, how do you
start feeling real again? You know, the other day I was
really triggered by an argument with my partner. It was such a small thing,
(01:27):
but it tapped into a deep wound of feeling like I was being
called crazy. That one, that one gets me every time. And I
realized that suddenly it was I was
speaking, but it was also like I wasn't speaking. I was
watching myself speak from outside. Of my body and I had no.
Idea why I was saying the things I was saying. My
(01:48):
consciousness, it was like my consciousness left my body
and there was a. Robot version of me going through the. Motions of this
conversation. These experiences, depersonalization
and derealization, are survival responses of the nervous
system, not psychological states. And like all outputs,
they're on a spectrum. According to a 2009 study,
(02:11):
depersonalization and. Derealization disorder affects about 1 to
2%. Of the population chronically. But these transient
episodes are common in. At least 50% of the population. At
some point in life, especially if. You have complex
trauma, many people experiencing DPDR feel broken
or crazy, when in reality it is a nervous system
(02:33):
adaptation to overwhelm.
Welcome to Trauma Rewired, the podcast that. Teaches you about your nervous
system, how. Trauma lives in the body, and what you can do to heal. I'm
your co host, Elizabeth Kristof, founder. Of Brainbase.com, an online community
where we use applied neurology somatics stress processing for
(02:54):
improved nervous system health, resilience and regulation. And I'm also the
founder of the Neurosomatic Intelligence Coaching certification, an ICF
accredited course for coaches, therapists and practitioners who
want to bring practical tools and a framework to incorporate the
nervous system into. All of their practices. And I'm your co host,
Jennifer Wallace, a neurosomatic psychedelic preparation and integration
(03:16):
guide. And I bring your nervous system health into your peak somatic
experiences like psychedelic experiences maximizing your
potential for healing and growth through the nervous system. And I'm also
one of the educators at the Neurosomatic Intelligence Coaching certification.
And I'm really excited to have this conversation today because
we love to talk about dissociation. And there's been a lot of
(03:39):
questions for us to prepare for this conversation. Like, we've
gotten a lot of requests for depersonalization, derealization. So we're.
We have heard you and it should be good. Dissociation
is a broad term and it should be good. So here we are
really excited to record on this protective
response. Dissociation is a broad term that
(04:01):
describes a disruption in normal consciousness, memory,
identity, perception or awareness of self and surroundings.
It is a survival response often triggered by overwhelming stress
or trauma. It serves as a protective mechanism when the nervous
system perceives a threat to too great to process.
Depersonalization and derealization are specific types of
(04:22):
dissociation, but not all dissociation involves
them. So here we go into this deep dive of
depersonalization and derealization. Yeah, I want to start
out maybe. Just by defining these. Some people may be
very intimately familiar. With what they are. Or maybe not
so much. Right. So just unpacking a little bit what we mean.
(04:44):
And I'm gonna take us through a little bit on depersonalization.
So again, like you were saying, Jennifer, this is a type of
dissociation where. You are feeling detached
from your own. Body or your thoughts or your emotions or your
actions. Like you're an outside observer of yourself.
And you might find that with thoughts or even saying like, it
(05:05):
doesn't feel real or I can see myself doing things, but I don't
feel like I'm the one doing them. I feel like a robot. I've lost my
emotions. This happens to me a lot. Like I'm doing something, but I don't.
Feel the emotional experience of it. I've detached from that, from my
internal. Sensations, from the emotional experience. And
the neurological basis of this is that we
(05:27):
have reduced activity in certain areas of the brain
where we interpret and process
this information, the sensory information. So we have reduced activity in
the anterior insula, which is responsible for self awareness. And
also those interoceptive signals, the feelings. That come from inside of our
body, we have actually increase
(05:50):
in our prefrontal cortex activity. So at the prefrontal cortex
we've talked a lot about on here. And in this situation
it is actually. Turned up to
inhibit our emotional processing. So our
prefrontal cortex can inhibit a lot of our limbic activity
and our. Brainstem activity as needed, so that we're. Not moving
(06:12):
into as much of a triggered response, but it can also, when.
We move into patterns of repression and. Dissociation like this, it can
actually blunt. Some of those signals to blunt the distress. So
it is overriding the emotional processing there. And there's a
disconnection that's happening between. Our limbic system and, and our
different sensory processing areas of the brain. And so
(06:35):
we want to remember big picture. And we have many episodes on
here. Talking about dissociation, that this is a survival response,
right? Fight or flight is not an option. And so our
brain disconnects from our bodily sensations,
from awareness of either our internal
environment or our external environment to reduce
(06:56):
overwhelm. And in this specific case of
depersonalization. It'S often a coping mechanism for
that really intense emotional pain. Our brain is
numbing the felt sense. Of ourself to keep
us from being. Overwhelmed by the emotional experience. And if we
have that pattern in, during development,
(07:18):
because experiencing emotions was
dangerous, right? We had these big emotions from big. Experiences
and, and we weren't in an. Environment where it was safe to express them.
Or maybe we weren't in a supported environment at all. Like there was no one
else around. To help us regulate with that. And so
we, we don't have the skills to process
(07:41):
those emotions. And especially at that young age, the. Nervous system can
be very overwhelmed, very dysregulated. And so
we develop this protective output of
disconnecting from the emotional experience. And then we have
derealization. And this is the feeling like
external world is unreal, it's distant, foggy, or
(08:02):
even distorted. You might find yourself saying things like
everything looks strange, like I'm in a dream or a video game
or something. Like sounds and sights feel muted or far
away, or colors seem washed out. The world feels
two dimensional. And so on a neurological basis this
is over activation of the prefrontal cortex. It's
(08:24):
Blunting emotional and sensory experience. There's the
suppression of the amygdala. The amygdala is reducing the
emotional connection to the environment. And then there's
also disruptions in the visual and auditory senses, in the
sensory processing of the visual and the auditory senses.
And so derealization happens when the brain filters
(08:46):
out sensory input to prevent further overwhelm.
I work with a client who identifies heavily with depersonalization
derealization, and she often describes her experience as
being in a plexiglass box. So she can't really
be part of the environment. She's distant from the sensory
input and from the emotional experience and often feels like
(09:08):
she is not there and the one experiencing the experience.
Yep. As I was preparing for this episode. I was reading
some. Some from Dr. Elena Beazibova, who is an expert in
depersonalization and derealization. And
there was a quote from her that said, depersonalization is not a
defect in perception, but a defense mechanism
(09:30):
against unbearable affect. And so I want to break
that. Down a little bit, right? It's not a fundamental
character flaw in our personality, and it's not even
about having a deficit in our perception,
but it is our brain and our nervous. System
intentionally doing this to protect us. Because
(09:52):
the affect, the sensory experience of
the emotion, is unbearable. We do not have
the capacity in our nervous system to regulate through that
experience. So it's not that our brain is. Broken, but
actually our nervous system is doing what it was designed to do in
moments of extreme stress to create distance from
(10:14):
those overwhelming sensations. And so I
just can see all. Of that, like, happening inside
of the body of the client that you were talking about, or inside of my
own. Body, like, all of this sensory input coming in, and then
the internal experience, the physiology of that emotional
experience, and especially when we have interoceptive
(10:36):
accuracy and. Awareness issues where there's a large threat
response coupled with those sensations, and we're. Really getting
pushed into an activated state. It's like the dial has got to be
turned down. And that is on a spectrum, right? For some of us, it just
gets. Turned down a little. And for some of us, it gets turned down a
lot. So that. That disconnect is. Is quite big.
(10:57):
But all of that is in proportion to how
dysregulating, how activating that sensory
experience is. And in dissociation,
generally speaking, we have this altered
connectivity between our limbic system and our.
Our prefrontal cortex, our higher brain areas. And
(11:19):
we've talked a lot in here. About the insular cortex and that Being.
A big processing center for our internal
sensations, part of our interoceptive system and. Our limbic
system, and how we can have a very highly reactive limbic system. And
so I just want to talk about this because I
think something is important to understand. It's not that those
(11:41):
emotions are not happening in our body.
It's not that our limbic system isn't. Having a big response
to whatever's occurring. All of that is still
happening. It's just our brain's ability to
process it that changes. And it's the
ability of those sensations and that emotional
(12:03):
experience to be interpreted and
integrated in a way that it's part of our conscious
experience. So even when I'm dissociating
from the experience, like I'm having the argument I'm. Triggered, I'm talking, but
I don't feel any emotion with it. It's not that those
emotions and those physical responses aren't happening in my body.
(12:25):
That dysregulation, the inflammation, the changes in. My heart rate, like
all of that is happening, I'm just not aware of it
so that I don't get further. Dysregulated and pushed into an
extreme stress. State that my body can't come back
from. Does that make sense? Yeah. And so even if we're
dissociating, it's important to remember this stuff is still.
(12:47):
Happening in our body and does still need to be processed. And now
we're not able to process. It because we're in that dissociated state.
That's right. That's right. Because with derealization, like when we
dissociate, our nervous system is telling us that the environment is too
dangerous for us to be fully present in. And so in this case, for
the brain, we have a suppressed amygdala and altered sensory
(13:10):
processing. This could come from trauma overstimulation or
sensory mismatch, which we've talked about several times here on the podcast,
affecting perception. And so. So there's
often an overactivation of the periaqueductal gray because we
are moving into a freeze response. This affects our threat
perception, pain modulation, and that you may feel less
(13:31):
pain when you are in a dissociated state. The senses are muted
because the sensory input is too much. And so once again, this
could be a past trauma, but also it really could be an issue
with sensory processing, like a vestibular deficit, a sensory
mismatch, increased sensitivity to stimulus because of natural
biodiversity and differences in our sensory processing.
(13:53):
Yeah, I think that's a really important distinction to make. When
I think about these two things. I kind of split them
apart. And the depersonalization is
when the internal. Stimulus is too much and overwhelming.
And the derealization is when the external. Stimulus
is too much and too overwhelming. And then I have that disconnect from my environment.
(14:16):
And so when I think about a lot of like different types of
neurodivergence. And sensory processing issues that could
very much be leading to the derealization. Because
lights and sounds and textures are. All
overwhelming to the nervous system. It doesn't necessarily have to be like.
From a particular traumatic incident. It's just
(14:37):
my capacity to process that. Amount of environmental
stimuli. If you've ever felt like healing modalities
just aren't working for you, like you're stuck in the same cycles. No
matter how much mindset work you do, you are not broken.
It's not about your willpower, it's about your nervous system.
At RewireTrial.com, we take you on a 90
(14:59):
day guided journey through applied neurology, somatic
emotional processing and stress training so that you can
map your stress response and finally understand what's been keeping
you stuck. Heal dysregulation at the root. Instead of
trying to fix behaviors on the surface, train your
nervous system for resilience so that safety and peace come
(15:21):
from within. Join us for two free weeks inside
Rewire and get full access to live daily
classes, expert support and our massive on demand
library of nervous system tools. Start your rewire journey
today@rewiretrial.com and I. Think it's just a
really important place to just remind people that our brain
(15:43):
speaks a language of sensory inputs. That is the language that
our brain speaks. So when we are having these blocks or
voids, it's kind of perpetuating
the experience. Yes, let's talk about that for just
a second. Because it does become sort of a
loop, right? Yeah. It's like I am sensitive
(16:05):
to these things, so I start to dissociate and.
Repress or lose my ability to process. And
integrate different sensory experiences and then
that can further my sensitivity to that because
I'm what we do, we get better at. Right. And so if I'm
losing my skill. To be able to process and be. With those
(16:26):
sensory inputs, I'm not getting. Fuel
and activation to the areas of the brain that process it. I'm not
getting myelination on those neural pathways. And so my deficits
in these different areas, whether that's interoceptive or vestibular
or whatever it is that's causing that issue. It's getting
less and less stimulus and less and less. Yeah, the deficit
(16:49):
is expanding and then I'm more reactive and I'm more likely.
To go into that dissociative state more. Quickly
because it's just feeding on itself. Yeah,
that's exactly. That's exactly. And what we do with NSI is sensory
processing. It is important because sometimes it's like. What are we doing
here? You know, and people might come on. The site and be doing these little
(17:11):
exercises and it's like, what is the point of
retraining my eyes to be able to take in information from my periphery
or retraining my cranial nerves to be able to function
well? And it's not just
for that particular. In that moment to get a better. Output, to get a
better reassessment. It's as we rehabilitate these over
(17:34):
time, we're creating changes in this big
output. By making our sensory input systems function. Better through
the delivery of accurate input. Like it's so.
It's so simple. Actually, I'm so excited to carry on
into the rest of this conversation. I find NSI so
exciting. Yeah, me too. Me too. It's such a practical
(17:56):
path for working with some of this because it can be.
I mean, when we're at this point in the output
spectrum of like dissociation, depersonalization,
derealization, it's not very likely that we're going to be able to
cognitively talk our way back from this. It's just
already. It's not part of our consciousness. And so
(18:18):
cognitively trying to override is a difficult thing to do in
these moments. Okay, so let's talk a little bit
about this connection with CPTs and
depersonalization and derealization because they are both
linked to early attachment trauma, particularly
early childhood emotional neglect. That was what I was able to.
(18:39):
Find quite a bit of research on, actually.
And inconsistent caregiving and attachment
disruptions. Right. So when a child is
constantly lacking co regulation from a
caregiver, their nervous system adapts by
suppressing emotional responses and self awareness
(19:00):
to protect them from repeated relational
distress. And we've talked about this many
times on here. But when our emotional experience
as a child, there's several ways that this
can be harmful. If we don't have the right
family. Situation or environmental situation to be able to process
(19:22):
it. Right. When we experience emotions, if we
express them, that severs the attachment to our caregiver
because they're overwhelmed by it and they dissociate.
Or maybe they react to it in a fight manner
or fight manner, they, you know, leave us or we get punished. Right.
We learn in a very deep level
(19:45):
that it is dangerous to experience these sensations. And
then also too, if we're left alone as children with
these big emotions. And we don't have
anyone to co. Regulate with us or to hold space for that or to
help us process. In a safe environment, it is extremely
disruptive to the regulation of our nervous system to our
(20:07):
homeostatic baseline. And we experience a
lot of stress. Hormones and a lot of changes in. Our
physiology that at a deep
somatic level are sending huge red flags
that this is not safe. And so we start
to disconnect from all of this. And when we have
(20:29):
these attachment styles that are
insecure, right. Whether that's anxious or avoidant or
disorganized that we've explored so much on here. We are
significantly more likely to experience. Some of these
outputs like depersonalization and derealization,
because we don't have the patterning. Of a secure
(20:50):
attachment where we can. Express and
feel and embody and process emotions
without some kind of consequence that.
Threatens our social safety. Right. Our nervous system learns
that connection to these emotions or these
experiences is unsafe. And so it learns to disconnect us.
(21:13):
As a survival strategy. It's really interesting, like the
micro to the macro, because emotional childhood, emotional neglect
creates a nervous system that is wired for disconnection. And
so it continues to like, grow and move into
different ways of the body. And children who do not receive
attuned emotional responses from caregivers learn to dissociate
(21:35):
from their own internal experiences as a means of coping.
This comes from Dr. Alan Shore from a 2019 study.
And so let's talk a little bit about co regulation versus
nervous system disconnection. A well attuned caregiver helps
a child regulate emotions. They soothe distress through eye
contact, through touch, vocal tone, and through the presence of
(21:57):
their own nervous systems. If a caregiver is emotionally
unavailable, critical or neglectful, the child has no
external regulation. Wait a minute. If a caregiver
is emotionally unavailable, critical or neglectful, the
child actually has no external regulation and must shut down their
own emotional responses internally to be able to
(22:20):
cope. Over time, this lowers interoceptive awareness
and that ability to sense the bodily states and
emotions which is central to depersonalization and
derealization. Yep. And then we
also think about the derealization
as an adaptive strategy for survival in unsafe environments.
(22:41):
Right. When you're a child and you can't escape
emotional neglect or abuse, the Nervous system finds another
way to survive by. Shutting down those emotional responses and also.
By disconnecting from reality, right? So
whether that's the depersonalization route of. Like, I don't
exist, I'm disconnecting from my own body to
(23:04):
avoid the pain or the feeling of being
unwanted or unseen, that can all happen with
depersonalization. And then that carries into our
adulthood. As an adult who might struggle to feel present in our
body. And when we're having a
conversation, right? Like when we're being intimate with someone. When we're experiencing
(23:25):
emotions, when we're trying. To process any of our life
experiences. And when that happens consistently, it
can lead to questioning our identity or
reality and further and
further moving into those patterns of, of self abandonment
and really having a, a complex
(23:46):
relationship with knowing who we are, an
embodied way, and then with derealization. It's kind of this
idea over time of like, the world isn't real, right? Our
caregivers are unpredictable, they're unavailable, the environment is
threatening. And so we detach from the external. World to
reduce the emotional impact of. That or the overwhelm to our nervous
(24:07):
system. And then again, those patterns can play out into
adulthood. So then we become adults experiencing chronic.
Derealization, feeling like we're just like you. Talked about with
your client, watching life. Through a glass wall, through that
Plexiglas bubble, or, you know, through a thick. Layer
of fog and feeling really detached from our surroundings.
(24:30):
And I think what's really important here. To talk about is
that to come. Out of dissociation, to come out of. These different
protective outputs, we have to teach our nervous system to feel
safe. To feel safe with our own internal. Sensations, to feel safe with
our environment externally and not just as like an
idea, not just to, again, conceptually understand
(24:52):
I'm safe, but to have that as a felt sense reality in
our body. Any one of the ACE scores is going to be
an attachment rupture. Like anything in the world of complex trauma is
going to rupture attachment. We spent all of season
three talking about relational aspects of
complex trauma. And I just want to say too, like, we have the emphasis here
(25:14):
today on childhood emotional neglect. But for the
two women that I know experience DPDR the
most, their ACE score is primary
sexual abuse. That is
a major attachment rupture
of trust and a very valid reason, any,
(25:36):
any abuse is a valid reason to want to leave the body. But
I just want to say for our listeners who, who have
experienced that primary rupture, this is a very
likely experience for you. I think that you are gonna
really identify with this conversation. So I just wanna honor that
as an ACE score and as a precursor
(25:58):
to feeling DDR. A hundred percent. I mean, if
you think about how. Much it is for a little body. To go
through early childhood sexual abuse, it
seems the only natural
response would. Be to disconnect from those sensations.
Absolutely. And that experience. And I think while
(26:20):
there was some research on the emotional neglect component, and
you can see very clearly, like, why emotions would be overwhelming if you were
emotionally neglected. If you think about so many different. Situations, if you
live in a really. Chaotic environment, if there's physical abuse or. Verbal abuse or your
parents are fighting. Or you have a parent who has. A substance abuse
problem, and they're really. Unpredictable, of course you would detach from your
(26:42):
environment. It's overwhelming. The stimulus coming in is
overwhelming to. A nervous system that is not prepared
to handle that. And so it becomes a natural
protective output to disconnect from that
environment. So I think absolutely, all the ACE scores play in
here. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, this is why embodiment is really
(27:04):
essential for healing DPDR is because if you
are so used to being out of your body, we want to get you back
into your body safely in being able to feel the
experience that's happening for. And, you know, this
is. This is a tricky place to be, honestly.
Because when you are present in the body and you don't
(27:26):
have an interrupted continuity of consciousness, you are
starting to experience the world totally new. Sometimes you'll
find yourself in a situation that you may have found yourself in a million
times. And now you're here for it and you're feeling it. And we must
include the body when we are dealing with any level of
dissociation, like thinking about it, understanding it, just having the
(27:48):
awareness of it is not going to be enough. We must
include the nervous system and using these tools to
lower ourselves into a new baseline of safety in the moment if
we need to. And just being able to receive
sensory input like we were talking about, sensory stimulus is
a beautiful way and a very simple technique to start
(28:10):
bringing ourselves into the body. To be like, this is
my body and I am experiencing this. I am
experiencing this touch. I am experiencing the
grass, the wind, the sun. Right. And being able
to mend the gap of the
experiences of maybe that plexiglass box that people are.
(28:30):
Are finding that they're. They're living in.
Yes. You brought up some really important things. That I kind of want to touch
on here. And one is, I think we talked. About this in our Presence
episode, but. How embodiment is
the most important thing and we really want to live an embodied
life. And it can be quite a lot. When we first
(28:53):
start to come back into our body. And it's something that
personally has been a long journey. And I've had to really do
it. In a calibrated way, like you said, starting with
gentle sensory stimulus, assessing and. Reassessing how's
my nervous system responding so. That I'm not just pushing myself into
these further repeated loops of
(29:15):
dissociation because it's too much. And I think if somebody is
pretty far in that spectrum of dissociation,
depersonalization, derealization, I really recommend
also, like, get a practitioner. And this is something that
is. It's a lot to take on alone and it's
something that can be quite, quite jarring. And
(29:37):
yes, do the tools to rehabilitate. Your nervous system
and also have a whole care team that you might need for. For
this kind of. Just depending on where you are on spectrum for what you're
experiencing, it might. Require more, more care
and more practitioners. And we talked in that episode on.
Presence about some of the first times. We experienced an emotional flashback
(29:59):
actually in our body and how big that was. I
was suicidal. Yeah, I really did experience
suicidal ideation. I do not know if I can
handle this. That's exactly the thought that has gone through my mind. I don't know
if I can handle. This because I've been disconnected for so. Long and now
all of a sudden, like you said too, it can sometimes just be these small
(30:22):
things that we do every day. Oh, my God. This is a whole new experience
when I'm feeling it in my body and I'm not disconnected. But then when those
bigger moments come too, and I'm no longer going down. The dissociation pathway
because I've spent so. Much time rehabilitating my interoceptive
system. And now I am here for it. I am here for that
pain, the terror, the grief. And I am able to process
(30:43):
it. And that is beautiful. That is the key to how I do it.
And we had support. We had support and it's a lot. We had each
other. Like I had you. That, that was. I mean, I would
not have made it. Yes. I really don't. I had you and I had Grace.
Yes. And that is. That is how I stayed alive, honestly. Yeah,
we have a lot of support. I've worked with somatic therapists. I've
(31:05):
working with one now. Yeah. Yeah. We have teams of people that
Support us. It takes a village. It
takes a village. There's no shame in that. No, no,
no, there is. Not at all. So talking
about that and really thinking too, that like, in order
to be able to re pattern
(31:28):
from some of these experiences, this is like the
piece that I have to be able to. Stay in my body.
And that has come really through changes in sensory
processing and through working with my interoceptive
system to improve awareness and accuracy.
Right. Our interoception is the foundation of our ability to
(31:49):
be able to feel and. To understand emotions, to regulate our
bodily states and to experience ourself. Right. So,
you know, if my interoception is functioning well,
I can recognize my hunger. Or my thirst or my pain,
but. I can also identify my emotional states.
Am I angry? Am I sad? Am I afraid? Am I
(32:12):
experiencing joy? Like, I can feel these sensations and I can
be cognitively aware of them. I can process them. And then I
can regulate my stress responses and my
emotional responses because I. Have that bodily
awareness. And so if that has been
disconnected. Through my past experiences, through my
(32:33):
different. Traumatic experiences, or even maybe just the
environment I was growing up in, little things over time, then that
system really has deficits in it.
It really has gone offline to a certain extent. And so there does have
to be. Time of gradually, in a minimum
effective dose, spending some real time
(32:55):
rehabilitating my interceptive system so that I can do.
All these things of emotional processing that. I need to do
to be able to heal. Yeah, it's been
scary. It has been incredible. I mean, it's just been so
many things. And like you said, like, we're here to experience that
spectrum. And trauma, especially complex trauma, it
(33:17):
impairs the communication between the body and the brain. And this leads to a
weakened ability to feel and interpret our bodily
sensations. Diminished connectivity between the insula and
the prefrontal cortex is going to equal reduced ability to
process emotions linked to our internal bodily states.
When someone experiences repeated trauma, their nervous system
(33:39):
learns to suppress interoceptive signals. Because feeling the body
may be associated with overwhelming distress. And
so healing requires repetitive practice
of safely feeling these internal signals at a minimum
effective dose while regulating and processing the
stress of feeling those signals so that gradually it becomes
(34:02):
safe again. And so we talk about things as
skills on here a lot. And every skill is trainable,
and that includes embodiment. In the beginning, embodiment could
feel very threatening, but we just go in it minimum
effective dose. And as a skill, we train it. And gradually,
over time, with repetition and regulation, you will Be
(34:24):
in your body safely. And so for
me, we've talked about sensory stimulus. I feel like I beat sensory
stimulus over the head on this podcast. I love it. It's very simple
and you can do it anywhere and everywhere. And so that is probably
one of my number ones. But you brought up something very important to the
interoceptive system. Just about feeling like the hunger, the thirst, like,
(34:46):
when do I have to go to the bathroom? Like, something as simple as honoring
when I have to go to the bathroom makes a huge difference in
the interoceptive accuracy. Yeah, that's exactly what I was
going to talk about as like little ways to start to tune into our
interoception. And it can be really as simple
as honoring when you have to go to the bathroom and
(35:08):
allowing yourself to feel those signals. Or Dr. Megan Ann Neff, the
autism expert that we had on gave a really beautiful tool too, of
just holding something cold, like your smoothie or, you. Know, a
cold cup, and just allowing. Yourself to feel the sensation
of cold and, you know, or maybe putting something warm on
your abdomen and feeling that sensation and just starting with
(35:31):
like temperature and maybe a little bit of compression. Wearing
an ab belt, feeling those sensations. Sensory stimulus,
like you talked about, especially starting farther away from the head, giving your feet a
little sensory stimulus, and. Then gradually over time building
up to. Deeper awareness during those emotional
experiences. And there is also an important point.
(35:54):
That I want to bring up here. Too, because not all of the time do
we disconnect and numb out these sensations.
Sometimes it can kind of go the. Other way, where people with
complex trauma or trauma experiences can become
hyper aware of bodily sensations, but in a distorted
way. So instead of feeling like subtle internal. Signals
(36:16):
might only notice extreme pain or. Panic, or I might
start to misinterpret. Some of my bodily
sensations as carrying. Too much threat
load. So I might feel like too much. Of those sensory signals
coming in. I feel every single shift, every single ache, every pain,
and then I start to fixate on that and it can. Push me into a
(36:39):
really activated state. I feel my heartbeat and that
moves. Me into a panic state. A lot of sympathetic
overdrive. So tuning in and dropping into the. Body and starting to
feel those signals. Can actually really push you into
more. Sympathetic nervous system response, more anxiety. And then
it's about rehabilitating our brain's interpretation
(37:01):
of those signals. Like, so there's interoceptive
awareness, which is just being able to feel them, and. Then there's
interoceptive accuracy. Am I accurately
interpreting the right amount of stress response
to this internal signal. So there's places there
to not just rehabilitate being able to feel them, but also
(37:23):
sometimes where I might need to start working to
regulate around feeling those sensations and
reducing the stress response and maybe not even
feeling them as much. Like, can I bring my awareness to. My
external environment and not be so
aware of every internal sensation? Yeah,
(37:44):
I think that's, like, really important and. And fascinating also for us to
talk about. We don't talk about that a lot, do we? About, like, the
overwhelming feeling of sensations. And so I'm really looking
forward to hearing from y'all who wrote to us about this to see how this
is landing with your nervous systems. Because this is a
lot to kind of take in, and we just want to, like, finish on some
(38:06):
closing thoughts and just to kind of sum this up really clearly for
you. Trauma dampens interoception by altering
the insula, amygdala, and limbic system as a whole.
It also interrupts vagus nerve function. Vagus nerve and the
interoceptive system, they are each other. You can't separate
them. And so all of this creates disconnection from
(38:27):
bodily sensations, leading to DDR, emotional numbing,
and chronic stress disorders. Rebuilding interoception through somatic
and neurosomatic tools is essential for healing. And we
didn't talk a lot about the vagus nerve on this conversation today, but
when I finish my practices, I always end
with a little bit of vagus nerve love. It's always about
(38:50):
showing the vagus. Like, bringing the vagus nerve in to my embodiment
practices is really essential for me. I just feel like
it is a way to kind of put the
bow on the practices, if you will, because it's
just like, okay, I've done all of this expression, I've done some
somatics, I've done my drills. And then it's like to finish, it's like
(39:13):
the icing on top is to re regulate the vagus nerve
and just give it some love through the vocals, maybe even through some
lip rolls. Yeah, I think that's so important for a couple reasons.
Right. Our vagus nerve. One thing is that it's going to. Be
helping your parasympathetic system to kick in and
help you come down and rest and relax from that emotional
(39:35):
experience. So as we stimulate the vagus nerve or we decompress
it through all kinds. Of things, you can do vocalization, gargling.
Vibration, vagus nerve decompression so that we're
mobilizing the vagus nerve all of these things will help our
body to re regulate. And the more I can create regulation.
Around these emotional experiences, the more I'm teaching, teaching
(39:57):
my nervous system, it's safe to experience this. I can
come back to a regulated state. And often we
have lost the skill. Of modulation through these experiences. We
get really activated and we don't have the skill to come back down. And
we get kind of stuck in that state or we get shut down. But
either way we're staying stuck in either like a freeze
(40:19):
flop dissociated state. Or we're staying really activated
and panicked. And we don't have the ability to flow
in our nervous system and respond to the experience. So if I can use
tools around my emotional expression,
kind of sandwiching that emotional expression and sensory stimulus that my.
Nervous system likes, I'm helping my nervous system. It's like I'm just giving it
(40:42):
a little bit of hand, a little bit. Of a boost to be able to
regulate around. And then I'm teaching my brain, my. Body, my nervous system,
it's safe to do this. I can come back, I can
regulate, I can process and still be come. Back
to myself and my baseline. And so the more we do
that. The more we re pattern so that. We don't have to
(41:04):
move into these. Other big protective responses. We give our
system that one good rep of being able to process and
return to safety, to modulate through the experience.
So I think it's just, it's a practice like
everything that we talk about on here. It's one thing to
intellectually understand it and to say like, okay,
(41:26):
this is what's happening in my brain, these areas are affected.
But the real like where the rubber meets the road is can
I actually work with my nervous system in the. Language that it understands, which
is sensory. Inputs, to create a new experience
inside with my external environment or my internal
environment. And can I really commit to doing that over and over and
(41:49):
over again. So that I am re patterning the. Response that I
have? And we really want to encourage you to join
us@rewiretrial.com because if finding someone to work
with one on one is not in your means right now, the site is
entirely designed to mentor you and hold you through what
you are experiencing. It is an incredible resource for live
(42:11):
classes and on demand. So you will also get the
community there that we talk about in communal healing.
So don't shut yourself off if being one on one is just
not where you are right now. You will get everything that
we talk about. We are not gatekeeping anything from you just because we
don't share tools on here with you. We have everything for
(42:34):
you@rewiretrial.com and Elizabeth has laid out an incredible 90
day journey for you to follow. Yeah, we would love to see you. On there
and it really is a great resource. It was really
designed to be able. To the main like
the heart of brain based is emotional processing
and using applied neurology around different somatic practices
(42:55):
to make emotional processing safe and to
expand that with your practice. And even if you come
and learn the tools to take into another container
with a therapist with other healing modalities that you do,
that is beautiful too, right? Come get some tools, use
them in your other practices so that you have ways to work with the nervous
(43:17):
system. Thanks y'all. Thank you. This
podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and
should not be considered medical or psychological advice. We
often discuss lived experiences through traumatic events and
sensitive topics that deal with complex developmental and
systemic trauma that may be unsettling for some listeners.
(43:39):
This podcast is not intended to replace professional medical
advice. If you are in the United States and you or someone you know is
struggling with their mental health and is in immediate danger, please call
911 for specific services relating to mental health,
please see the full disclaimer in the show.
What most healing and personal development programs. Don'T tell you is that your
patterns, your behaviors, your emotional responses are outputs
of your nervous system trying to keep you safe. And changing your
thoughts won't change those deep rooted patterns. You have to go deeper
inside. Rewiretrial.com, you'll learn how to train your. Nervous system for
greater capacity so that. You can navigate life with more ease,
(00:21):
more presence, more connection. We have five live classes a week
with expert instructors. We have an on demand library with.
Thousands of recorded neurosomatic training sessions. And we have an
incredible, supportive, inclusive. Community of people just like
you. Doing this deep work together. You don't have to keep fighting against.
Your own nervous system. You can re pattern it. Start your two free week
(00:44):
trial now@rewiretrial.com. Have you ever felt
like you're floating outside your body, watching yourself from a
distance? Or like the world around you is foggy,
dreamlike or unreal? This is called
depersonalization and derealization.
It's a survival response of the nervous system. Your brain isn't
(01:05):
broken, it's protecting you. When stress, trauma
or emotional overwhelm become too much, your nervous
system shuts down awareness to help you survive. But what
exactly is happening in the brain? And more importantly, how do you
start feeling real again? You know, the other day I was
really triggered by an argument with my partner. It was such a small thing,
(01:27):
but it tapped into a deep wound of feeling like I was being
called crazy. That one, that one gets me every time. And I
realized that suddenly it was I was
speaking, but it was also like I wasn't speaking. I was
watching myself speak from outside. Of my body and I had no.
Idea why I was saying the things I was saying. My
(01:48):
consciousness, it was like my consciousness left my body
and there was a. Robot version of me going through the. Motions of this
conversation. These experiences, depersonalization
and derealization, are survival responses of the nervous
system, not psychological states. And like all outputs,
they're on a spectrum. According to a 2009 study,
(02:11):
depersonalization and. Derealization disorder affects about 1 to
2%. Of the population chronically. But these transient
episodes are common in. At least 50% of the population. At
some point in life, especially if. You have complex
trauma, many people experiencing DPDR feel broken
or crazy, when in reality it is a nervous system
(02:33):
adaptation to overwhelm.
Welcome to Trauma Rewired, the podcast that. Teaches you about your nervous
system, how. Trauma lives in the body, and what you can do to heal. I'm
your co host, Elizabeth Kristof, founder. Of Brainbase.com, an online community
where we use applied neurology somatics stress processing for
(02:54):
improved nervous system health, resilience and regulation. And I'm also the
founder of the Neurosomatic Intelligence Coaching certification, an ICF
accredited course for coaches, therapists and practitioners who
want to bring practical tools and a framework to incorporate the
nervous system into. All of their practices. And I'm your co host,
Jennifer Wallace, a neurosomatic psychedelic preparation and integration
(03:16):
guide. And I bring your nervous system health into your peak somatic
experiences like psychedelic experiences maximizing your
potential for healing and growth through the nervous system. And I'm also
one of the educators at the Neurosomatic Intelligence Coaching certification.
And I'm really excited to have this conversation today because
we love to talk about dissociation. And there's been a lot of
(03:39):
questions for us to prepare for this conversation. Like, we've
gotten a lot of requests for depersonalization, derealization. So we're.
We have heard you and it should be good. Dissociation
is a broad term and it should be good. So here we are
really excited to record on this protective
response. Dissociation is a broad term that
(04:01):
describes a disruption in normal consciousness, memory,
identity, perception or awareness of self and surroundings.
It is a survival response often triggered by overwhelming stress
or trauma. It serves as a protective mechanism when the nervous
system perceives a threat to too great to process.
Depersonalization and derealization are specific types of
(04:22):
dissociation, but not all dissociation involves
them. So here we go into this deep dive of
depersonalization and derealization. Yeah, I want to start
out maybe. Just by defining these. Some people may be
very intimately familiar. With what they are. Or maybe not
so much. Right. So just unpacking a little bit what we mean.
(04:44):
And I'm gonna take us through a little bit on depersonalization.
So again, like you were saying, Jennifer, this is a type of
dissociation where. You are feeling detached
from your own. Body or your thoughts or your emotions or your
actions. Like you're an outside observer of yourself.
And you might find that with thoughts or even saying like, it
(05:05):
doesn't feel real or I can see myself doing things, but I don't
feel like I'm the one doing them. I feel like a robot. I've lost my
emotions. This happens to me a lot. Like I'm doing something, but I don't.
Feel the emotional experience of it. I've detached from that, from my
internal. Sensations, from the emotional experience. And
the neurological basis of this is that we
(05:27):
have reduced activity in certain areas of the brain
where we interpret and process
this information, the sensory information. So we have reduced activity in
the anterior insula, which is responsible for self awareness. And
also those interoceptive signals, the feelings. That come from inside of our
body, we have actually increase
(05:50):
in our prefrontal cortex activity. So at the prefrontal cortex
we've talked a lot about on here. And in this situation
it is actually. Turned up to
inhibit our emotional processing. So our
prefrontal cortex can inhibit a lot of our limbic activity
and our. Brainstem activity as needed, so that we're. Not moving
(06:12):
into as much of a triggered response, but it can also, when.
We move into patterns of repression and. Dissociation like this, it can
actually blunt. Some of those signals to blunt the distress. So
it is overriding the emotional processing there. And there's a
disconnection that's happening between. Our limbic system and, and our
different sensory processing areas of the brain. And so
(06:35):
we want to remember big picture. And we have many episodes on
here. Talking about dissociation, that this is a survival response,
right? Fight or flight is not an option. And so our
brain disconnects from our bodily sensations,
from awareness of either our internal
environment or our external environment to reduce
(06:56):
overwhelm. And in this specific case of
depersonalization. It'S often a coping mechanism for
that really intense emotional pain. Our brain is
numbing the felt sense. Of ourself to keep
us from being. Overwhelmed by the emotional experience. And if we
have that pattern in, during development,
(07:18):
because experiencing emotions was
dangerous, right? We had these big emotions from big. Experiences
and, and we weren't in an. Environment where it was safe to express them.
Or maybe we weren't in a supported environment at all. Like there was no one
else around. To help us regulate with that. And so
we, we don't have the skills to process
(07:41):
those emotions. And especially at that young age, the. Nervous system can
be very overwhelmed, very dysregulated. And so
we develop this protective output of
disconnecting from the emotional experience. And then we have
derealization. And this is the feeling like
external world is unreal, it's distant, foggy, or
(08:02):
even distorted. You might find yourself saying things like
everything looks strange, like I'm in a dream or a video game
or something. Like sounds and sights feel muted or far
away, or colors seem washed out. The world feels
two dimensional. And so on a neurological basis this
is over activation of the prefrontal cortex. It's
(08:24):
Blunting emotional and sensory experience. There's the
suppression of the amygdala. The amygdala is reducing the
emotional connection to the environment. And then there's
also disruptions in the visual and auditory senses, in the
sensory processing of the visual and the auditory senses.
And so derealization happens when the brain filters
(08:46):
out sensory input to prevent further overwhelm.
I work with a client who identifies heavily with depersonalization
derealization, and she often describes her experience as
being in a plexiglass box. So she can't really
be part of the environment. She's distant from the sensory
input and from the emotional experience and often feels like
(09:08):
she is not there and the one experiencing the experience.
Yep. As I was preparing for this episode. I was reading
some. Some from Dr. Elena Beazibova, who is an expert in
depersonalization and derealization. And
there was a quote from her that said, depersonalization is not a
defect in perception, but a defense mechanism
(09:30):
against unbearable affect. And so I want to break
that. Down a little bit, right? It's not a fundamental
character flaw in our personality, and it's not even
about having a deficit in our perception,
but it is our brain and our nervous. System
intentionally doing this to protect us. Because
(09:52):
the affect, the sensory experience of
the emotion, is unbearable. We do not have
the capacity in our nervous system to regulate through that
experience. So it's not that our brain is. Broken, but
actually our nervous system is doing what it was designed to do in
moments of extreme stress to create distance from
(10:14):
those overwhelming sensations. And so I
just can see all. Of that, like, happening inside
of the body of the client that you were talking about, or inside of my
own. Body, like, all of this sensory input coming in, and then
the internal experience, the physiology of that emotional
experience, and especially when we have interoceptive
(10:36):
accuracy and. Awareness issues where there's a large threat
response coupled with those sensations, and we're. Really getting
pushed into an activated state. It's like the dial has got to be
turned down. And that is on a spectrum, right? For some of us, it just
gets. Turned down a little. And for some of us, it gets turned down a
lot. So that. That disconnect is. Is quite big.
(10:57):
But all of that is in proportion to how
dysregulating, how activating that sensory
experience is. And in dissociation,
generally speaking, we have this altered
connectivity between our limbic system and our.
Our prefrontal cortex, our higher brain areas. And
(11:19):
we've talked a lot in here. About the insular cortex and that Being.
A big processing center for our internal
sensations, part of our interoceptive system and. Our limbic
system, and how we can have a very highly reactive limbic system. And
so I just want to talk about this because I
think something is important to understand. It's not that those
(11:41):
emotions are not happening in our body.
It's not that our limbic system isn't. Having a big response
to whatever's occurring. All of that is still
happening. It's just our brain's ability to
process it that changes. And it's the
ability of those sensations and that emotional
(12:03):
experience to be interpreted and
integrated in a way that it's part of our conscious
experience. So even when I'm dissociating
from the experience, like I'm having the argument I'm. Triggered, I'm talking, but
I don't feel any emotion with it. It's not that those
emotions and those physical responses aren't happening in my body.
(12:25):
That dysregulation, the inflammation, the changes in. My heart rate, like
all of that is happening, I'm just not aware of it
so that I don't get further. Dysregulated and pushed into an
extreme stress. State that my body can't come back
from. Does that make sense? Yeah. And so even if we're
dissociating, it's important to remember this stuff is still.
(12:47):
Happening in our body and does still need to be processed. And now
we're not able to process. It because we're in that dissociated state.
That's right. That's right. Because with derealization, like when we
dissociate, our nervous system is telling us that the environment is too
dangerous for us to be fully present in. And so in this case, for
the brain, we have a suppressed amygdala and altered sensory
(13:10):
processing. This could come from trauma overstimulation or
sensory mismatch, which we've talked about several times here on the podcast,
affecting perception. And so. So there's
often an overactivation of the periaqueductal gray because we
are moving into a freeze response. This affects our threat
perception, pain modulation, and that you may feel less
(13:31):
pain when you are in a dissociated state. The senses are muted
because the sensory input is too much. And so once again, this
could be a past trauma, but also it really could be an issue
with sensory processing, like a vestibular deficit, a sensory
mismatch, increased sensitivity to stimulus because of natural
biodiversity and differences in our sensory processing.
(13:53):
Yeah, I think that's a really important distinction to make. When
I think about these two things. I kind of split them
apart. And the depersonalization is
when the internal. Stimulus is too much and overwhelming.
And the derealization is when the external. Stimulus
is too much and too overwhelming. And then I have that disconnect from my environment.
(14:16):
And so when I think about a lot of like different types of
neurodivergence. And sensory processing issues that could
very much be leading to the derealization. Because
lights and sounds and textures are. All
overwhelming to the nervous system. It doesn't necessarily have to be like.
From a particular traumatic incident. It's just
(14:37):
my capacity to process that. Amount of environmental
stimuli. If you've ever felt like healing modalities
just aren't working for you, like you're stuck in the same cycles. No
matter how much mindset work you do, you are not broken.
It's not about your willpower, it's about your nervous system.
At RewireTrial.com, we take you on a 90
(14:59):
day guided journey through applied neurology, somatic
emotional processing and stress training so that you can
map your stress response and finally understand what's been keeping
you stuck. Heal dysregulation at the root. Instead of
trying to fix behaviors on the surface, train your
nervous system for resilience so that safety and peace come
(15:21):
from within. Join us for two free weeks inside
Rewire and get full access to live daily
classes, expert support and our massive on demand
library of nervous system tools. Start your rewire journey
today@rewiretrial.com and I. Think it's just a
really important place to just remind people that our brain
(15:43):
speaks a language of sensory inputs. That is the language that
our brain speaks. So when we are having these blocks or
voids, it's kind of perpetuating
the experience. Yes, let's talk about that for just
a second. Because it does become sort of a
loop, right? Yeah. It's like I am sensitive
(16:05):
to these things, so I start to dissociate and.
Repress or lose my ability to process. And
integrate different sensory experiences and then
that can further my sensitivity to that because
I'm what we do, we get better at. Right. And so if I'm
losing my skill. To be able to process and be. With those
(16:26):
sensory inputs, I'm not getting. Fuel
and activation to the areas of the brain that process it. I'm not
getting myelination on those neural pathways. And so my deficits
in these different areas, whether that's interoceptive or vestibular
or whatever it is that's causing that issue. It's getting
less and less stimulus and less and less. Yeah, the deficit
(16:49):
is expanding and then I'm more reactive and I'm more likely.
To go into that dissociative state more. Quickly
because it's just feeding on itself. Yeah,
that's exactly. That's exactly. And what we do with NSI is sensory
processing. It is important because sometimes it's like. What are we doing
here? You know, and people might come on. The site and be doing these little
(17:11):
exercises and it's like, what is the point of
retraining my eyes to be able to take in information from my periphery
or retraining my cranial nerves to be able to function
well? And it's not just
for that particular. In that moment to get a better. Output, to get a
better reassessment. It's as we rehabilitate these over
(17:34):
time, we're creating changes in this big
output. By making our sensory input systems function. Better through
the delivery of accurate input. Like it's so.
It's so simple. Actually, I'm so excited to carry on
into the rest of this conversation. I find NSI so
exciting. Yeah, me too. Me too. It's such a practical
(17:56):
path for working with some of this because it can be.
I mean, when we're at this point in the output
spectrum of like dissociation, depersonalization,
derealization, it's not very likely that we're going to be able to
cognitively talk our way back from this. It's just
already. It's not part of our consciousness. And so
(18:18):
cognitively trying to override is a difficult thing to do in
these moments. Okay, so let's talk a little bit
about this connection with CPTs and
depersonalization and derealization because they are both
linked to early attachment trauma, particularly
early childhood emotional neglect. That was what I was able to.
(18:39):
Find quite a bit of research on, actually.
And inconsistent caregiving and attachment
disruptions. Right. So when a child is
constantly lacking co regulation from a
caregiver, their nervous system adapts by
suppressing emotional responses and self awareness
(19:00):
to protect them from repeated relational
distress. And we've talked about this many
times on here. But when our emotional experience
as a child, there's several ways that this
can be harmful. If we don't have the right
family. Situation or environmental situation to be able to process
(19:22):
it. Right. When we experience emotions, if we
express them, that severs the attachment to our caregiver
because they're overwhelmed by it and they dissociate.
Or maybe they react to it in a fight manner
or fight manner, they, you know, leave us or we get punished. Right.
We learn in a very deep level
(19:45):
that it is dangerous to experience these sensations. And
then also too, if we're left alone as children with
these big emotions. And we don't have
anyone to co. Regulate with us or to hold space for that or to
help us process. In a safe environment, it is extremely
disruptive to the regulation of our nervous system to our
(20:07):
homeostatic baseline. And we experience a
lot of stress. Hormones and a lot of changes in. Our
physiology that at a deep
somatic level are sending huge red flags
that this is not safe. And so we start
to disconnect from all of this. And when we have
(20:29):
these attachment styles that are
insecure, right. Whether that's anxious or avoidant or
disorganized that we've explored so much on here. We are
significantly more likely to experience. Some of these
outputs like depersonalization and derealization,
because we don't have the patterning. Of a secure
(20:50):
attachment where we can. Express and
feel and embody and process emotions
without some kind of consequence that.
Threatens our social safety. Right. Our nervous system learns
that connection to these emotions or these
experiences is unsafe. And so it learns to disconnect us.
(21:13):
As a survival strategy. It's really interesting, like the
micro to the macro, because emotional childhood, emotional neglect
creates a nervous system that is wired for disconnection. And
so it continues to like, grow and move into
different ways of the body. And children who do not receive
attuned emotional responses from caregivers learn to dissociate
(21:35):
from their own internal experiences as a means of coping.
This comes from Dr. Alan Shore from a 2019 study.
And so let's talk a little bit about co regulation versus
nervous system disconnection. A well attuned caregiver helps
a child regulate emotions. They soothe distress through eye
contact, through touch, vocal tone, and through the presence of
(21:57):
their own nervous systems. If a caregiver is emotionally
unavailable, critical or neglectful, the child has no
external regulation. Wait a minute. If a caregiver
is emotionally unavailable, critical or neglectful, the
child actually has no external regulation and must shut down their
own emotional responses internally to be able to
(22:20):
cope. Over time, this lowers interoceptive awareness
and that ability to sense the bodily states and
emotions which is central to depersonalization and
derealization. Yep. And then we
also think about the derealization
as an adaptive strategy for survival in unsafe environments.
(22:41):
Right. When you're a child and you can't escape
emotional neglect or abuse, the Nervous system finds another
way to survive by. Shutting down those emotional responses and also.
By disconnecting from reality, right? So
whether that's the depersonalization route of. Like, I don't
exist, I'm disconnecting from my own body to
(23:04):
avoid the pain or the feeling of being
unwanted or unseen, that can all happen with
depersonalization. And then that carries into our
adulthood. As an adult who might struggle to feel present in our
body. And when we're having a
conversation, right? Like when we're being intimate with someone. When we're experiencing
(23:25):
emotions, when we're trying. To process any of our life
experiences. And when that happens consistently, it
can lead to questioning our identity or
reality and further and
further moving into those patterns of, of self abandonment
and really having a, a complex
(23:46):
relationship with knowing who we are, an
embodied way, and then with derealization. It's kind of this
idea over time of like, the world isn't real, right? Our
caregivers are unpredictable, they're unavailable, the environment is
threatening. And so we detach from the external. World to
reduce the emotional impact of. That or the overwhelm to our nervous
(24:07):
system. And then again, those patterns can play out into
adulthood. So then we become adults experiencing chronic.
Derealization, feeling like we're just like you. Talked about with
your client, watching life. Through a glass wall, through that
Plexiglas bubble, or, you know, through a thick. Layer
of fog and feeling really detached from our surroundings.
(24:30):
And I think what's really important here. To talk about is
that to come. Out of dissociation, to come out of. These different
protective outputs, we have to teach our nervous system to feel
safe. To feel safe with our own internal. Sensations, to feel safe with
our environment externally and not just as like an
idea, not just to, again, conceptually understand
(24:52):
I'm safe, but to have that as a felt sense reality in
our body. Any one of the ACE scores is going to be
an attachment rupture. Like anything in the world of complex trauma is
going to rupture attachment. We spent all of season
three talking about relational aspects of
complex trauma. And I just want to say too, like, we have the emphasis here
(25:14):
today on childhood emotional neglect. But for the
two women that I know experience DPDR the
most, their ACE score is primary
sexual abuse. That is
a major attachment rupture
of trust and a very valid reason, any,
(25:36):
any abuse is a valid reason to want to leave the body. But
I just want to say for our listeners who, who have
experienced that primary rupture, this is a very
likely experience for you. I think that you are gonna
really identify with this conversation. So I just wanna honor that
as an ACE score and as a precursor
(25:58):
to feeling DDR. A hundred percent. I mean, if
you think about how. Much it is for a little body. To go
through early childhood sexual abuse, it
seems the only natural
response would. Be to disconnect from those sensations.
Absolutely. And that experience. And I think while
(26:20):
there was some research on the emotional neglect component, and
you can see very clearly, like, why emotions would be overwhelming if you were
emotionally neglected. If you think about so many different. Situations, if you
live in a really. Chaotic environment, if there's physical abuse or. Verbal abuse or your
parents are fighting. Or you have a parent who has. A substance abuse
problem, and they're really. Unpredictable, of course you would detach from your
(26:42):
environment. It's overwhelming. The stimulus coming in is
overwhelming to. A nervous system that is not prepared
to handle that. And so it becomes a natural
protective output to disconnect from that
environment. So I think absolutely, all the ACE scores play in
here. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, this is why embodiment is really
(27:04):
essential for healing DPDR is because if you
are so used to being out of your body, we want to get you back
into your body safely in being able to feel the
experience that's happening for. And, you know, this
is. This is a tricky place to be, honestly.
Because when you are present in the body and you don't
(27:26):
have an interrupted continuity of consciousness, you are
starting to experience the world totally new. Sometimes you'll
find yourself in a situation that you may have found yourself in a million
times. And now you're here for it and you're feeling it. And we must
include the body when we are dealing with any level of
dissociation, like thinking about it, understanding it, just having the
(27:48):
awareness of it is not going to be enough. We must
include the nervous system and using these tools to
lower ourselves into a new baseline of safety in the moment if
we need to. And just being able to receive
sensory input like we were talking about, sensory stimulus is
a beautiful way and a very simple technique to start
(28:10):
bringing ourselves into the body. To be like, this is
my body and I am experiencing this. I am
experiencing this touch. I am experiencing the
grass, the wind, the sun. Right. And being able
to mend the gap of the
experiences of maybe that plexiglass box that people are.
(28:30):
Are finding that they're. They're living in.
Yes. You brought up some really important things. That I kind of want to touch
on here. And one is, I think we talked. About this in our Presence
episode, but. How embodiment is
the most important thing and we really want to live an embodied
life. And it can be quite a lot. When we first
(28:53):
start to come back into our body. And it's something that
personally has been a long journey. And I've had to really do
it. In a calibrated way, like you said, starting with
gentle sensory stimulus, assessing and. Reassessing how's
my nervous system responding so. That I'm not just pushing myself into
these further repeated loops of
(29:15):
dissociation because it's too much. And I think if somebody is
pretty far in that spectrum of dissociation,
depersonalization, derealization, I really recommend
also, like, get a practitioner. And this is something that
is. It's a lot to take on alone and it's
something that can be quite, quite jarring. And
(29:37):
yes, do the tools to rehabilitate. Your nervous system
and also have a whole care team that you might need for. For
this kind of. Just depending on where you are on spectrum for what you're
experiencing, it might. Require more, more care
and more practitioners. And we talked in that episode on.
Presence about some of the first times. We experienced an emotional flashback
(29:59):
actually in our body and how big that was. I
was suicidal. Yeah, I really did experience
suicidal ideation. I do not know if I can
handle this. That's exactly the thought that has gone through my mind. I don't know
if I can handle. This because I've been disconnected for so. Long and now
all of a sudden, like you said too, it can sometimes just be these small
(30:22):
things that we do every day. Oh, my God. This is a whole new experience
when I'm feeling it in my body and I'm not disconnected. But then when those
bigger moments come too, and I'm no longer going down. The dissociation pathway
because I've spent so. Much time rehabilitating my interoceptive
system. And now I am here for it. I am here for that
pain, the terror, the grief. And I am able to process
(30:43):
it. And that is beautiful. That is the key to how I do it.
And we had support. We had support and it's a lot. We had each
other. Like I had you. That, that was. I mean, I would
not have made it. Yes. I really don't. I had you and I had Grace.
Yes. And that is. That is how I stayed alive, honestly. Yeah,
we have a lot of support. I've worked with somatic therapists. I've
(31:05):
working with one now. Yeah. Yeah. We have teams of people that
Support us. It takes a village. It
takes a village. There's no shame in that. No, no,
no, there is. Not at all. So talking
about that and really thinking too, that like, in order
to be able to re pattern
(31:28):
from some of these experiences, this is like the
piece that I have to be able to. Stay in my body.
And that has come really through changes in sensory
processing and through working with my interoceptive
system to improve awareness and accuracy.
Right. Our interoception is the foundation of our ability to
(31:49):
be able to feel and. To understand emotions, to regulate our
bodily states and to experience ourself. Right. So,
you know, if my interoception is functioning well,
I can recognize my hunger. Or my thirst or my pain,
but. I can also identify my emotional states.
Am I angry? Am I sad? Am I afraid? Am I
(32:12):
experiencing joy? Like, I can feel these sensations and I can
be cognitively aware of them. I can process them. And then I
can regulate my stress responses and my
emotional responses because I. Have that bodily
awareness. And so if that has been
disconnected. Through my past experiences, through my
(32:33):
different. Traumatic experiences, or even maybe just the
environment I was growing up in, little things over time, then that
system really has deficits in it.
It really has gone offline to a certain extent. And so there does have
to be. Time of gradually, in a minimum
effective dose, spending some real time
(32:55):
rehabilitating my interceptive system so that I can do.
All these things of emotional processing that. I need to do
to be able to heal. Yeah, it's been
scary. It has been incredible. I mean, it's just been so
many things. And like you said, like, we're here to experience that
spectrum. And trauma, especially complex trauma, it
(33:17):
impairs the communication between the body and the brain. And this leads to a
weakened ability to feel and interpret our bodily
sensations. Diminished connectivity between the insula and
the prefrontal cortex is going to equal reduced ability to
process emotions linked to our internal bodily states.
When someone experiences repeated trauma, their nervous system
(33:39):
learns to suppress interoceptive signals. Because feeling the body
may be associated with overwhelming distress. And
so healing requires repetitive practice
of safely feeling these internal signals at a minimum
effective dose while regulating and processing the
stress of feeling those signals so that gradually it becomes
(34:02):
safe again. And so we talk about things as
skills on here a lot. And every skill is trainable,
and that includes embodiment. In the beginning, embodiment could
feel very threatening, but we just go in it minimum
effective dose. And as a skill, we train it. And gradually,
over time, with repetition and regulation, you will Be
(34:24):
in your body safely. And so for
me, we've talked about sensory stimulus. I feel like I beat sensory
stimulus over the head on this podcast. I love it. It's very simple
and you can do it anywhere and everywhere. And so that is probably
one of my number ones. But you brought up something very important to the
interoceptive system. Just about feeling like the hunger, the thirst, like,
(34:46):
when do I have to go to the bathroom? Like, something as simple as honoring
when I have to go to the bathroom makes a huge difference in
the interoceptive accuracy. Yeah, that's exactly what I was
going to talk about as like little ways to start to tune into our
interoception. And it can be really as simple
as honoring when you have to go to the bathroom and
(35:08):
allowing yourself to feel those signals. Or Dr. Megan Ann Neff, the
autism expert that we had on gave a really beautiful tool too, of
just holding something cold, like your smoothie or, you. Know, a
cold cup, and just allowing. Yourself to feel the sensation
of cold and, you know, or maybe putting something warm on
your abdomen and feeling that sensation and just starting with
(35:31):
like temperature and maybe a little bit of compression. Wearing
an ab belt, feeling those sensations. Sensory stimulus,
like you talked about, especially starting farther away from the head, giving your feet a
little sensory stimulus, and. Then gradually over time building
up to. Deeper awareness during those emotional
experiences. And there is also an important point.
(35:54):
That I want to bring up here. Too, because not all of the time do
we disconnect and numb out these sensations.
Sometimes it can kind of go the. Other way, where people with
complex trauma or trauma experiences can become
hyper aware of bodily sensations, but in a distorted
way. So instead of feeling like subtle internal. Signals
(36:16):
might only notice extreme pain or. Panic, or I might
start to misinterpret. Some of my bodily
sensations as carrying. Too much threat
load. So I might feel like too much. Of those sensory signals
coming in. I feel every single shift, every single ache, every pain,
and then I start to fixate on that and it can. Push me into a
(36:39):
really activated state. I feel my heartbeat and that
moves. Me into a panic state. A lot of sympathetic
overdrive. So tuning in and dropping into the. Body and starting to
feel those signals. Can actually really push you into
more. Sympathetic nervous system response, more anxiety. And then
it's about rehabilitating our brain's interpretation
(37:01):
of those signals. Like, so there's interoceptive
awareness, which is just being able to feel them, and. Then there's
interoceptive accuracy. Am I accurately
interpreting the right amount of stress response
to this internal signal. So there's places there
to not just rehabilitate being able to feel them, but also
(37:23):
sometimes where I might need to start working to
regulate around feeling those sensations and
reducing the stress response and maybe not even
feeling them as much. Like, can I bring my awareness to. My
external environment and not be so
aware of every internal sensation? Yeah,
(37:44):
I think that's, like, really important and. And fascinating also for us to
talk about. We don't talk about that a lot, do we? About, like, the
overwhelming feeling of sensations. And so I'm really looking
forward to hearing from y'all who wrote to us about this to see how this
is landing with your nervous systems. Because this is a
lot to kind of take in, and we just want to, like, finish on some
(38:06):
closing thoughts and just to kind of sum this up really clearly for
you. Trauma dampens interoception by altering
the insula, amygdala, and limbic system as a whole.
It also interrupts vagus nerve function. Vagus nerve and the
interoceptive system, they are each other. You can't separate
them. And so all of this creates disconnection from
(38:27):
bodily sensations, leading to DDR, emotional numbing,
and chronic stress disorders. Rebuilding interoception through somatic
and neurosomatic tools is essential for healing. And we
didn't talk a lot about the vagus nerve on this conversation today, but
when I finish my practices, I always end
with a little bit of vagus nerve love. It's always about
(38:50):
showing the vagus. Like, bringing the vagus nerve in to my embodiment
practices is really essential for me. I just feel like
it is a way to kind of put the
bow on the practices, if you will, because it's
just like, okay, I've done all of this expression, I've done some
somatics, I've done my drills. And then it's like to finish, it's like
(39:13):
the icing on top is to re regulate the vagus nerve
and just give it some love through the vocals, maybe even through some
lip rolls. Yeah, I think that's so important for a couple reasons.
Right. Our vagus nerve. One thing is that it's going to. Be
helping your parasympathetic system to kick in and
help you come down and rest and relax from that emotional
(39:35):
experience. So as we stimulate the vagus nerve or we decompress
it through all kinds. Of things, you can do vocalization, gargling.
Vibration, vagus nerve decompression so that we're
mobilizing the vagus nerve all of these things will help our
body to re regulate. And the more I can create regulation.
Around these emotional experiences, the more I'm teaching, teaching
(39:57):
my nervous system, it's safe to experience this. I can
come back to a regulated state. And often we
have lost the skill. Of modulation through these experiences. We
get really activated and we don't have the skill to come back down. And
we get kind of stuck in that state or we get shut down. But
either way we're staying stuck in either like a freeze
(40:19):
flop dissociated state. Or we're staying really activated
and panicked. And we don't have the ability to flow
in our nervous system and respond to the experience. So if I can use
tools around my emotional expression,
kind of sandwiching that emotional expression and sensory stimulus that my.
Nervous system likes, I'm helping my nervous system. It's like I'm just giving it
(40:42):
a little bit of hand, a little bit. Of a boost to be able to
regulate around. And then I'm teaching my brain, my. Body, my nervous system,
it's safe to do this. I can come back, I can
regulate, I can process and still be come. Back
to myself and my baseline. And so the more we do
that. The more we re pattern so that. We don't have to
(41:04):
move into these. Other big protective responses. We give our
system that one good rep of being able to process and
return to safety, to modulate through the experience.
So I think it's just, it's a practice like
everything that we talk about on here. It's one thing to
intellectually understand it and to say like, okay,
(41:26):
this is what's happening in my brain, these areas are affected.
But the real like where the rubber meets the road is can
I actually work with my nervous system in the. Language that it understands, which
is sensory. Inputs, to create a new experience
inside with my external environment or my internal
environment. And can I really commit to doing that over and over and
(41:49):
over again. So that I am re patterning the. Response that I
have? And we really want to encourage you to join
us@rewiretrial.com because if finding someone to work
with one on one is not in your means right now, the site is
entirely designed to mentor you and hold you through what
you are experiencing. It is an incredible resource for live
(42:11):
classes and on demand. So you will also get the
community there that we talk about in communal healing.
So don't shut yourself off if being one on one is just
not where you are right now. You will get everything that
we talk about. We are not gatekeeping anything from you just because we
don't share tools on here with you. We have everything for
(42:34):
you@rewiretrial.com and Elizabeth has laid out an incredible 90
day journey for you to follow. Yeah, we would love to see you. On there
and it really is a great resource. It was really
designed to be able. To the main like
the heart of brain based is emotional processing
and using applied neurology around different somatic practices
(42:55):
to make emotional processing safe and to
expand that with your practice. And even if you come
and learn the tools to take into another container
with a therapist with other healing modalities that you do,
that is beautiful too, right? Come get some tools, use
them in your other practices so that you have ways to work with the nervous
(43:17):
system. Thanks y'all. Thank you. This
podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and
should not be considered medical or psychological advice. We
often discuss lived experiences through traumatic events and
sensitive topics that deal with complex developmental and
systemic trauma that may be unsettling for some listeners.
(43:39):
This podcast is not intended to replace professional medical
advice. If you are in the United States and you or someone you know is
struggling with their mental health and is in immediate danger, please call
911 for specific services relating to mental health,
please see the full disclaimer in the show.
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