Feeling Numb & Disconnected? Grounding Exercises for Anxiety & Dissociation

Im so frustrated zoning out of conversations and people thinking I'm not interested in what they're saying, but I do, but I can't help it 😭

I was a participant in a group therapy session when someone else had a full fledged flashback. She was terrified, it was if the trauma was happening all over again. The group facilitator took charge of the situation and talked her down. Poor girl, I really hope she's doing better now and was able to salvage some happiness for herself. It was very sad.

I just want to let everyone know, you can get out of this, and there's so much life waiting for you on the other side. I struggled with this for about a year or two, but when I had it, it felt like it's all I've ever known and I forgot what it felt like to be 'normal', I didn't even really know what was wrong with me. I had my family as a support system even though I didn't ask for it and tried pushing them away. I was in a way forced into treatment by loved ones, and many different treatment options didn't work. But at some point, I set my mind that I was going to get out of it no matter what, and eventually, I found therapy that actually worked and I did start feeling again. It was a gradual process, and painful when it felt like the changes were insignificant and that at the end of the day I was still stuck, exactly the same, a living breathing corpse, and that the world is stuck like this from now on. Even after I set my mind to it, it still felt like something unattainable and impossible, but I kept trying and had to hold on to the hope that one day it just wouldn't be like this anymore. I had to keep trying to feel something, feel at least one moment of a positive emotion everyday, even if it was still detached. And then eventually I got to the point where I was happy again, I was enjoying things, even though my life was still technically uneventful and bland. But then a few months later it REALLY happened. I went into the new school year, the same building as last year, but something clicked. I had new friends, all sorts of new relationships, new experiences, and at some point, I was all of a sudden alive again. Everything changed, I mean, everything. I remembered this is how it felt to be 'normal', it felt like I was finally home. I could see again, and colors were bright and vibrant again, everything looked completely different than the world I thought I was stuck in before. Everything had a feeling too. It actually felt like my chest and throat were soaring, like I wasn't a statue anymore and I was flying. I almost never cry, and at the beginning of that year, (and even now sometimes) I cried at night out of joy, full on sobbing that this was my life now and it really was possible, I did it. So don't give up, I know that you can do it, you really can.

I've been running Ice cold water over my wrists for years without realizing that its an actual technique.

Dreams often reveal the trauma you have blocked from consciousness.

I dissociate all the time, it's so normal. It's the worst when I try to learn anything. It's so frustrating. Thank you for the tips.

I dissociate a lot due to repeated childhood trauma. It’s gotten to the point where nothing feels real anymore and everything is numb. I don’t feel anything anymore. I’m always disconnected to everything. I call myself a walking corpse. I experience memory loss and ptsd too. I don’t feel real. *edit 2024. Thank you everyone for the support it’s truly appreciated and so kind. I found out I have DID and c-ptsd which makes so much more sense now and my alters are so wonderful 🖤so we all say thank you.

I’ll be watching this video 30 times to absorb it due to my dissociating. Who can relate?

As someone who struggles with a dissociative disorder, thank you for such a clear explanation. Would love a similar one on DID if possible.

When I was really sick a few years ago i started writing down, "I am healthy and strong" or saying it to myself anytime I had to get up and move or was dealing with the fear that I was dying. It's the only way I got through that illness. When I'm dissociating however, I usually can't form cohesive thoughts so what I've found that helps me most is ice. The sharp coldness "snaps" me back to reality.

I've been researching for so long now on what I'm going through, for a while I started to think I might be going crazy or insane. After listening to your video I know now what I'm going through and it comforts me that there is ways to cope and heal. I wasn't sure I could heal from this at first. Thanks a lot it was so helpful!

I dissociate and it is very embarrassing. The challenge is that I don't realize that it is happening and I can stay in that place for extended periods of time. I miss meetings, don't remember conversations, I don't remember people's names or times when might have worked together. It is just gone, until I come back. It is not until people around me start asking me what is going on that I start to realize what is happening. This stems from childhood. Of the 10 Adverse Childhood Experiences, I experienced 8. I might go very long periods between dissociative episodes so I think that I am better then something will trigger me and off I go. It is really frustrating.

Thank you for this, i was actually crying during this video because someone finally understood what i’ve been going through

Disassociating is my worst ongoing symptom of C-PTSD. When it hits I become completely detached from everything. I can't work, talk, focus, or even watch a movie. I have to take medication to help me sleep and then if it worked out I wake up and I'm either coming out of it or completely out of it. It usually works for me though. I have tried so many things but sleep is the only thing that fixes it

After losing half my family in tragic car accident back in December of 2013, I think I went through every single emotion possible trying to survive such complicated grief. I like to think I’ve healed as much as one can heal but as of recently, I’m being told that I lack emotions, or empathy when it comes to disagreements or the feelings of another in a new relationship. I just feel like once you’ve been through such extreme emotions, things don’t effect you the same way or the way they would for a person who has never experienced such trauma before. Apparently, my heart is made of stone as I’ve been told.

When my mother, who was terminally ill was living with me, something very traumatic happened that started in my house and continued on in the hospital. When I got home from the hospital, I watched some TV with my husband in an effort to feel less traumatized and more normal. But when we went to the kitchen, I remember looking at him and thinking, "It's like I am in a parallel universe and nothing here is real -like that's not my countertop and this is not my kitchen. It's like it just looks like my stuff." Even my husband felt unreal, or part of that parallel world. It wasn't comforting. I just wanted everything to feel normal again. But, of course, because of what I'd experienced with my mother that day, I knew nothing would ever be normal again. In the end, I was wrong. I did feel normal again in time. ❤️

I’m doing a lot of disassociation work and it’s so interesting how my brain will try to check out even on the lessons for healing. The hurt piece of me is so reliant on the disassociation to feel safe that even the idea of finding better coping strategies can trigger this reaction. As sad as it is that anyone deals with this, it’s been helping to remind myself that this is a creative solution that I came up with while I was young to be safe. It’s not healthy or useful anymore, and also this is a result of my consciousness caring for me. It isn’t the strategy I would choose for myself now but it does show the love I had for myself and the persistence I had to survive. Looking at this trauma response with compassion opened my eyes to a whole piece of my mind that I had been chronically ignoring.

I'm living in a traumatic past Thank God for dissociation because I can remove myself from this & survive.

thank you very much for this video !!! ive been diagnosed with complex ptsd for a few years, and i feel dissociated and disconnected to a point where i have very flat emotions, and bad events/potential harming events dont seem to reach me, it got worse by each event. i forget those things really quick, but as much as my mind somehow dont let these events get to me, the positive things in life seem to pass by as well. i mostly feel like out of time/in another dimension with different rules, like time passes differentley, everything is blurry. and i have a really slow reaction time to things. anyway, thank you very much, i hope you have a great day, dr marks !

i’m really scared because i found out what disassociation was in the last year and i have been experiencing it since i was so little. i don’t remember anything traumatic in my life at all. however i have extreme anxiety, a past with depression, and i overthink everything to the point that i need to calm down before having a panic or anxiety attack. i don’t want to jump to any conclusions of experiencing trauma but could there even be another explanation??