This could be why........

Working with the subconscious is both fascinating as it is mysterious. Typically during sessions with clients, conversations always goes back to childhood and teenage years and this often raises clients to state they don’t have much memory of their childhood or adolescent years. Is there something wrong with me? Or they might even state they notice friends or family members recall memories they simply do not have and come to the realisation, I don’t have memories like they do and I don’t understand why? This has even prompted the question, was I abused and blocked out my memory? Is this why I sometimes just check out?

Whatever comes up, there is a similar theme that there is this feeling of something is off, not quite right, I have always been different and misunderstood.

You see trauma is often associated with ‘big events or experiences’ which is never experienced the same for 2 people. The core wound of trauma in this case is the disconnection from the self to the present moment, causing the lapse of memory. This can cause anxiety, depression and a feeling of isolation and loneliness.

Quite often parents are going through their own pain and stress and therefore are disconnected to their children and not emotionally available, leaving a feeling of abandonment or even rejection within the child. This stressful often chaotic environment creates a copping mechanism, a subconscious program where children form a dissociation from the negative feeling, thoughts, memories or sense of identity even though they are physically present. This dissociation is an attempt to make the circumstances more bearable.

If you have a pattern of dissociation you might experience some of these symptoms and signs:

• Feeling disconnected from yourself – identity confusion about who or where you are
• Problems with handling intense emotions, sudden and unexpected shifts in mood e.g feeling very sad for no reason
• Depression or anxiety problems, panic attacks, or all three
• Feeling as though the world is distorted or not real, chronic day dreaming
• Memory problems that aren’t linked to physical injury, disconnected from emotions
• Other problems such as lack of concentration, glazed expressions, insomnia
• Significant memory lapses such as forgetting important personal information, mind going blank

I do need to state that dissociative disorders are complex and their symptoms are common to other conditions for e.g, physical causes such as head trauma or brain tumours and other cognitive problems, mental illnesses such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder, effects of certain substances, including some recreational drugs and prescription medications, can also mimic symptoms.

"When we exist within unresolved trauma particularly childhood wounds there is a part of the wounded child that remains in our psyche as adults".

You may be familiar with these statements, “grow up”, “stop being a child”, “our 8 year old is more of an adult than you”. When we don’t have a resourceful coping mechanism we shut down and behave in ways that can interfere with relationships, work, and daily functioning and having little to no resilience in coping.

Because there is a perceived threat causing a fear in the subconscious it can interfere with recovery from trauma and can result in someone tolerating situations that need to be changed to experience a better quality of life. The framework I work with allows the subsconcious to heal the wounded child, not by changing the past because we cannot change what happened, what I help clients with is to change the meaning to events and experiences from our childhood, where programming was adopted and developed. Once we can change the meaning, the emotional attachment can be transformed and this allows the subconscious to essentially refile the memory and change the programming the subconscious is operating on.

This form of work I do with clients leaves them surprised when they come out of a session because they realise they in fact do have childhood and adolescent memories. This process is the foundation of healing and recovery from dissociation, bringing the mind to feel safe while connecting back into the body.

If you are concerned that you or a loved one may have a dissociative disorder, feeling disconnected, it is important to seek professional help to learn how to safely heal from your traumatic experience, as well as face experiences that are non-threatening but often go unaddressed due to dissociation.

Book a discovery call with Lai to chat about what you’re going through and find out what options are available to reconnect to part of you that needs to be found to finally heal and be at peace.

Lai Tattis

Master Life Coach and Hypnotherapist

Laitattis.com