Dealing With Extreme Dissociation And Immobilization During Conflict

When Trauma Symptoms Show Up In Your Relationship

Hi friends. I am here with an important, nuanced installment of Dear Dr. Marina today. I'll get right to it.

This reader wrote:

I recently read your post What To Say (Instead of Nothing) If You Shut Down During Conflict and had a follow up question about it. As a result of prior relationship abuse, I’ve developed what I think is a functional neurological disorder or component of PTSD where I have episodes of severe freezing/immobility, dissociation, and sometimes seizure-like activity. These episodes happen when I feel triggered (usually by something relational). This happens sometimes with my partner while we’re having difficult discussions. I do my best to warn her when this is coming on, and we’ve talked about ways she might help me and guidelines to help keep our conversations feeling safer, but I know that it feels awful for her that I shut down and have such an extreme reaction while we’re in conflict or having a hard conversation. Do you have any advice on navigating the impacts of “shut down” when it’s more intense than just not being able to talk or process for a few minutes? I do try to make space for her feelings and validate that it’s difficult for her when this happens. At the same time, it can feel hard to do that when these episodes are so scary and awful for me to experience, as was the past abuse that has led to them.

The painful truth is that even after you survive an abusive relationship and enter a new, healthy one, relics of the old dynamic that often linger. The reader describes substantial trauma symptoms that result in an intense physiological shut down, during which they have reduced access to complex cognition and verbal processing.

In today's Love Note, I will provide an overview of why this type of shut down response can "make sense" in the aftermath of trauma and explore options for partners who want to navigate this pattern with mutual care. It's a long, detailed post today, and it's also a heavy topic. Take care of yourself as you read, stop if you need to, and know that your health and safety matters.