Withdrawn and Lonely: The Trauma of Not Being Welcomed

Withdrawal is a deep somatic adaptation to chronic unsafety, invisibility, and social erasure. Ana identifies withdrawal not as a symptom to be “fixed,” but as a brilliant survival strategy when someone has never felt safe, welcomed, or truly allowed to exist as they are. Welcome to Exiled and Rising. Please follow and rate and always share to others who need to hear this. 

Social and Cultural Relevance

Ana’s work becomes a mirror for our time. In 2025, with rising political authoritarianism, cultural censorship, and the silencing of minority and independent voices, this episode is a somatic protest.

“If you have been silenced… Welcome.”

She provides language for the body in a time when language is being censored, surveilled, and politicized. This is particularly potent for:

• Activists and whistleblowers
• Immigrants and undocumented people
• Trauma survivors who were never given words for what they endured

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SOMATIC IMPACT OF WITHDRAWAL

Withdrawal is not avoidance or passivity—it’s a nervous system shutdown in response to:

• Chronic unsafety (home, society, or internal landscape)

• Unwelcome identity (race, body, accent, orientation)

• Invisible pain (displacement, exile, suppression)

Types of Trauma Addressed

This episode implicitly and explicitly names multiple intersecting traumas:

• Attachment trauma: lack of welcome and relational safety in early development.
• Complex PTSD: from systemic oppression, long-term abuse, or exile.
• Social trauma: caused by racism, xenophobia, colonialism, ableism, etc.
• Intergenerational trauma: observing parents or ancestors living in submission, silence, or fear.
• Political trauma: living under surveillance, censorship, or erasure.

Ana Mael connects each of these to somatic responses—specifically the state of withdrawal—which becomes the body’s last defense in the face of repeated invisibility or harm.

Ana’s reference to “pleasurable contact” is deeply significant.

“There is no contact, there is no pleasure. There is only threat.”

This suggests a complete loss of social engagement and safe sensory input—essential components for neurobiological repair.

Without pleasure, safe touch, or welcome, the nervous system cannot down-regulate. Over time, this can lead to:

• Low vagal tone
• Suppressed immunity
• Digestive and hormonal dysregulation
• Chronic fatigue and inflammation

Psychological and Somatic Framework

“We withdraw when nothing around us is safe.”

Ana reframes withdrawal as a biological response to terror, not a flaw. This is aligned with polyvagal theory (Dr. Stephen Porges), which describes how the dorsal vagal shutdown leads to freeze, collapse, and dissociation when safety is chronically unavailable.

 The Somatic Roots of Withdrawal: