The Adaptation We Don’t Talk About Enough: Dissociation as Devotion

They’re not lying. They’ve simply learned not to feel what it would be dangerous to know.

As a somatic psychologist, I’ve sat with people who insist they are not in pain while their bodies tell a different story. They tell me they’re “fine”—but their breath is shallow, their shoulders hover near their ears, and their hands tremble imperceptibly when describing the last time they were dismissed, blamed, or belittled by someone they loved.

They’re not lying. They’ve simply learned not to feel what it would be dangerous to know.

The body is not waiting for proof. It responds to pattern, not narrative. It responds to tone, not text. It responds to threat, even when that threat is cloaked in love.

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This is called neuroception—the nervous system’s constant, subconscious scanning for cues of safety or danger in the environment. Unlike perception, which is conscious, neuroception doesn’t wait for logic. It acts on sensation, posture, and pitch. In harmful relational dynamics, this is what happens first: the body tenses, the breath shortens, and the gut tightens—long before the mind can form the words “this is not okay.” This dissonance between body and story is often the first clue.

But here’s where it becomes more complicated: when attachment is on the line—when the nervous system perceives that love, safety, or connection could be lost—the body chooses survival over truth. And that’s when we begin to gaslight ourselves.

In somatic psychotherapy, we often describe dissociation as a trauma response. But it’s more than that—it’s also a relational strategy. Dissociation is not always a dramatic freeze; often, it is subtle, strategic, and deeply relational. I’ve worked with countless clients who arrive disconnected from their own pain not because they’re detached, but because they’ve become exquisitely attuned to someone else’s.

They’ve learned to track every mood, every pause, every shift in a partner’s face. They’ve learned to silence the discomfort in their own body so they don’t “overreact.” They’ve learned that staying regulated for someone else is the only way to stay connected.

This is adaptive dissociation—and it’s brilliant, if not heartbreaking.

It is the fawn response—a lesser-discussed trauma pattern that blends appeasement with self-erasure. It is the child who learned to be pleasing, calm, low-need, agreeable in order to stay safe. And it is the adult who still disappears into the needs of others, believing that love must be earned through performance.

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These clients don’t present as chaotic. They present as composed. Competent. Overly understanding. But underneath, their bodies tell a different truth: shallow breath, pelvic tension, chronic fatigue, shutdown digestion, and often—no memory of what they wanted in the first place.

It’s the client who says, “I only remember the good times,” even as their body flinches recalling them. It’s the moment a person’s voice softens, their story flattens, their gaze drifts—because to feel would threaten the very attachment they still long to preserve.

This isn’t dissociation as dysfunction. This is dissociation as loyalty. As love. As the only available path to belonging when boundaries weren’t allowed.

Gaslighting from another erodes our trust in reality. Gaslighting from ourselves erodes our trust in our body. But why do we do it?

Because when we’re wired for insecure attachment—or when we’ve grown up in unpredictable emotional climates—our nervous system learns that connection requires contortion. That love is conditional. That feeling too much might make us too much. We become fluent in self-doubt because certainty has never felt safe. We confuse vigilance with love. We start to believe that if we feel hurt, we must have misunderstood. The child who internalized “It must be me” becomes the adult who rationalizes red flags into context, who narrates harm as a communication breakdown, who bends toward the person causing pain rather than listening to the signal within.

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As a clinician, I’ve seen this over and over. Clients defend the people who harm them with compassion so fierce it eclipses their own pain. “They didn’t mean to.” “They’re under stress.” “It's just the way they are.” “I probably made them feel that way.” It’s not denial. It’s a learned form of intimacy.

In depth-oriented work, we might say these are unconscious contracts—agreements made early in life to trade parts of the self in exchange for belonging. The contract might sound like, “If I don’t make waves, I won’t be abandoned.” Or, “If I can understand their pain, I’ll be safe from mine.” These aren’t conscious thoughts. They live in the fascia, in the breath, in the felt instinct to override discomfort for the sake of keeping the peace.

When the story we tell ourselves doesn’t match the truth our body carries, we begin to split. Not visibly. Quietly. One part of us carries the fear. Another part tells us to be grateful. One part aches to leave. Another reminds us how much we’d miss them.

In somatic terms, we become fragmented—nervous system responses firing in multiple directions at once, unable to settle. This chronic inner conflict isn’t just confusing. It’s exhausting. And often, that exhaustion becomes the tipping point. When we finally leave, it’s not because we’re sure. It’s because we’re too tired to keep pretending.

Healing does not begin with certainty. It begins with permission. To feel. To grieve. To remember. To believe the body even when the mind still wants to argue. The good news is: your body has never stopped telling the truth. Even when you silenced it. Even when you blamed it. Even when you abandoned it to survive. It waited.

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This is why I go on and on about how somatic healing and embodiment work is not about “regulating” your feelings or nervous systems. Somatics is about building the capacity to stay present with whatever is happening inside you, around you, and how they influence one another. Somatic is about recognizing the tightness in your throat as a boundary. The knot in your stomach as a signal. The silence after a conversation as a rupture—not a coincidence. It’s learning to listen to what your body says before your mind edits it.

Because what happens wtih time, and what makes somatics as laboratory, healing and amazing, is that the presence you have in your body becomes protection. Not the kind built from armor, but from attunement with yourself.

When you know what your body feels like in safety, you begin to notice when it’s missing. You stop rationalizing the ache. You stop abandoning the flutter in your chest or the dread in your gut. You stop calling disconnection love.

And this is how we leave relationships, situations, places, anything that harms us.

Not always in certainty, but in clarity.

Because once you’ve rebuilt that relationship with your body—once you’ve remembered what love and care feels like—staying in places that harm you becomes unbearable. And entering them becomes unthinkable. The body won’t let you.

But here’s the part we often miss: we don’t do this alone.

When trauma happens in relationship, healing must too. That isn’t a subtle plug for therapy—it’s simply the truth. And healing doesn’t have to happen in therapy either. Here’s why:

From the moment we are born, our nervous systems develop in response to the people around us. Through every gaze, touch, and tone of voice, we learn whether the world is safe—or not. Our brains are wired with mirror neurons, which means that we don’t just observe the emotions of others—we feel them. Safety is contagious. So is shame.

This is why presence matters. When we sit with someone who is grounded, compassionate, and attuned, our bodies begin to borrow their regulation. It’s not performance. It’s biology. We call this co-regulation—the nervous system’s ability to come into balance through connection.

If trauma was a moment when your body learned it had to face the world alone, healing becomes the moment you realize you don’t have to.

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And while therapy can offer that, so can a friend who holds eye contact without flinching. A partner who doesn’t punish your boundaries. A community that believes your story. The body learns safety through repetition. Not through explanation—but through experience.

And so, even before we fully believe we are worthy of love, we begin to feel it in our cells—because someone else’s calm is making it safer to stay inside our own skin.

Sometimes, the body doesn’t remember how to trust until someone offers you the safety to do so. A friend who doesn’t flinch when you cry. A therapist who mirrors your worth. A partner who honors your boundaries. A stranger who offers unexpected kindness on the street.

These are not just gestures of kindness and care—they are nervous system offerings. Proof that presence can be healing. That someone else's groundedness can help you find your own. Over time, this is how we return to the body. Not all at once, but breath by breath, through the quiet accumulation of co-regulated moments.

Because embodiment is not just a personal practice. It is a relational one.

To feel again. To choose again. To believe ourselves enough to not abandon the knowing that lives beneath the skin. This is the return. To somatic truth. To the body as compass. To the body as protector. To the quiet, grounded wisdom that whispers: that safety if love and love is safety.

And when you believe that—not just in theory, but in your nervous system—you stop confusing what you've been taught love is with what love actually feels like. You stop performing it. You start receiving it.

Not because you tried harder. But because you finally listened to the voice within that whispered: You never had to try for love. You are love.

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