When Trauma Cuts You Off from Yourself
Why Did I React Like That?
How often do you find yourself asking:
Why did I react like that?
Where did that come from?
Why do I keep doing this?
Did I have to make that such a big deal?
What’s wrong with me?
Will this ever stop?
If you ask yourself any or all of these questions, let’s talk about it.
The Truth About Unconscious Reactions
Most of us have unconscious reactions that arise outside of our awareness. These automatic behaviors or emotional responses often feel like they happen without our consent—and can leave us wondering what just happened. Because these parts of ourselves can be confusing or even painful to face, we often try to disown them. We might explain them away as a random blip, blame them on our star sign or blood sugar*, or place the responsibility on someone or something else that “made” us react that way. This is especially common when shame is involved.
Sometimes, instead of disowning the reaction, we go the opposite direction and over-identify with it—turning it into a defining part of who we are. This can feel like a way to shield ourselves from shame, but it still leaves us stuck and disconnected from our fuller, more integrated self.
Why We Disconnect from Ourselves
We might pull away from parts of ourselves when:
No one helps us make sense of our experience.
The meaning we make is distorted.
It felt safer to suppress awareness.
For example, in our society, many people are disconnected from their bodies—often unaware of physiological signals like distress or pleasure. One common distortion is the “mind over matter” attitude, which teaches us to ignore or override signs of real physical need or harm. Take, for instance, high school wrestlers who, after years of rigid weight control, often struggle later in life to recognize basic hunger cues. This kind of disconnection becomes ingrained and difficult to unlearn.
These disconnects can be reinforced when:
We’re praised for ignoring them.
We avoid pain by staying unaware.
We channel the energy elsewhere — often unhelpfully.
To live as a whole and integrated person, we’re called to braid together all parts of our being: physical, emotional, mental, creative, spiritual, and more.
Where Does This Start?
This disruption to our sense of integration can stem from patterns established early in life—whether we grew up in a family impacted by the relational effects of substance abuse or infidelity, or whether our caregivers were healthy, unhealthy, or somewhere in between. If we were repeatedly reinforced for ignoring our emotions or physical cues, we learned to discount that information, believing it wasn’t important.
Disowned Parts Don’t Disappear — They Leak
This repressed information doesn’t vanish — it leaks. In sideways, unconscious ways.
John Bradshaw, known for his work on the inner child, uses the acronym CONTAMINATE to describe how disowned parts of ourselves show up:
Co-dependency: “I can’t be okay unless you’re okay.” No separation between self and others.
Offender behaviors: Rage, abuse, manipulation.
Narcissistic disorders: Grandiosity rooted in shame protection.
Trust issues: Trusting the wrong people, not trusting the right ones — often linked to control.
Acting out / Acting in: 1. Acting out: Repeating our wounds in external situations. 2. Acting in: Turning pain inward, self-abuse.
Magical beliefs: Hoping for a perfect external fix instead of internal healing.
Intimacy dysfunctions: Playing a role instead of showing up authentically due to lacking a firm sense of self.
Non-disciplined behaviors: Swinging between lax and rigid behavior — often people pleasing.
Addictive/compulsive behaviors:Using substances or behaviors to numb disowned parts of self.
Thought distortions: Beliefs not grounded in reality — personalizing, catastrophizing, black-and-white thinking.
Emptiness: Apathy, depression, or disconnection from meaning.
If any of these sound familiar, maybe it’s time to take a look at what happened in your childhood that may have resulted in a wound.
You Can Begin the Work of Integration
If any of these sound familiar, maybe it’s time to take a look at what happened in your childhood that may have resulted in a wound.
Single traumatic events can also create a separate stream of information. When overwhelming (internal or external) events occur that the brain cannot make sense of, it can’t integrate the experience into a healthy story of the self. That information gets split off—but it doesn’t disappear. The details of the event, whether physical, emotional, mental, or meaning-making, still live inside. But instead of being processed and integrated, the information begins to leak out in unconscious ways, sometimes through clear symptoms like flashbacks or panic attacks.
However, many of us walk around carrying the effects of lower-intensity, high-frequency, un-cope-able experiences—what’s sometimes referred to as developmental trauma or way-of-life trauma. There are many ways to begin supporting your integration—and we’d love to help.
*This is not to say that certain things don’t make us more vulnerable- like being physically de-resourced. If you’re struggling to maintain emotional regulation, start with PLEASE: Treat Physical Illness, Balance Eating, Avoid Mood Altering Substances, Balance Sleep, Balance Exercise. If your body is well-regulated you have more emotional buffer.
About the Author
Morgan Hanley is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Certified Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapist (EMDR), and Couples Therapist trained in Gottman Method, Level 2. Morgan works with clients to heal attachment wounds, family dynamics, and intimate relationships as each system relates to complex trauma responses.