Shut Down: Can Developmental Trauma Cause Someone To Be In A Shut Down State?

In order to truly embrace life, someone will need to have a strong connection with their body and be able to feel. By having this connection and this ability, they will be able to take life in and receive.

However, although being this way will be essential when it comes to living a fulfilling life, it doesn’t mean that everyone is an embodied human being, who can truly feel. There are those who have strong a connection to themselves, those who don’t and those who are in the middle.

It’s clear

When someone is in the middle, it can be a lot harder for others to notice what they are like. They won’t come across as being totally estranged from their feelings but they won’t come across as being strongly connected to them either.

However, if they live in a society that is full of people who are like this, it is to be expected that they won’t stand out. Furthermore, as they are likely to typically come across people who are the same, their behaviour won’t be seen as abnormal.

Another Scenario

When someone is on the other side of the spectrum and doesn’t have a strong connection to themselves, this is something that can stand out. For example, it might not be uncommon for others to say or think that they are shut down

Due to what they are like, it will be a lot harder for them to hide what is going on for them or to simply blend in with others. Still, if they are good at hiding what they are like and putting on an act, something that can take place unconsciously, how they are might seldom stand out.

Their Experience

By being this way, it can be normal for them to often feel flat and numb and they can often experience a fair amount of tension. When it comes to the former, they won’t be dead but they can feel as though they are.

As for the latter, they won’t necessarily feel alive but they will feel edgy and uncomfortable. To change their inner state and to try to feel alive or to settle down and be more at ease, they could often consume things or engage in certain activities.

The Watcher

Without a strong connection to their body and life, they can often feel as though they are just watching life from outside. Like the substitute who rarely gets the chance to enter the field, they will be looking on as others play the game.

This can mean that they will spend a lot of time watching TV, films and playing video games, for instance. Being active and doing things might seldom interest them, which can mean that they won’t exercise.

One Area

As for their relationships, they might not have any close friends and could just have people in their life who are more like associates. If so, when they are around people like this, they could primarily talk about current affairs and what they have been doing.

What is going on internally is then unlikely to be shared, with their interactions being very surface-level. They might also prefer to spend a lot of time by themselves and not have a strong need to be around others.

Isolated

When they are by themselves and are not distracting themselves, they could often experience a deep sense of loneliness and disconnection. During these moments, they could believe that life has no meaning and they might even contemplate ending their life.

They are then going to be in a very deep hole and are likely to experience a deep sense of despair. Taking all this into account, it is not going to be a surprise if they believe that life is something that they have to endure.

Another Area

If they have ever been in an intimate relationship, it might not have lasted for very long. The reason for this is that before much time had passed, they might have felt trapped and smothered.

Additionally, not having a strong connection to their feelings would have made it hard for them to form a deeper connection and to take things further. Their partner might have also found this to be an issue and soon ended up pulling away as a result.

Stepping Back

Sooner or later, if they were able to step back and reflect on how they experience life, they could wonder why they are so disconnected from themselves and find it hard to feel. What could also cross their mind is why they spend so much time living in their mind, their body is often so wooden and it is so hard for them to feel at ease.

It might soon occur to them that they have more or less always been this way, with them coming to the conclusion that they were simply born this way. There is a chance that they are this way due to what took place during their developmental years.

A Closer Look

From the moment they were born, they might have often been left and when they were given attention, it might have largely been misattuned care. The pain that they would have experienced by being left and not having an attuned parent would have deeply traumatised them.

Yet, as they were powerless and totally dependent at this stage of their life, their only option was to go into a shut down, disconnected, frozen and collapsed state. The pain and arousal that they experienced would have automatically been repressed by their brain to allow them to keep it together and survive.

The Past Is Present

If they were connected to themselves when they were born, then, they would have soon lost touch with themselves. The care that they needed to grow and develop in the right way wasn’t provided.

What they are like as an adult is not going to allow them to embrace themselves, let alone life, but, at one point in time, being this way stopped their life from coming to an end. They are going to be carrying a lot of pain and arousal and this will be stopping from being able to be an embodied human being who can feel deeply.

Awareness
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If someone can relate to this and they are ready to change their life, they may need to reach out for external support. This is something that can be provided with the assistance of a therapist or healer.