S1 | E9 | Adulting While Dissociated

On the outside, everything looked fine.

I was working, going to school, building relationships, and following the path I thought I was supposed to take. I was doing what was expected of me… and doing it well. 

But internally, I was disconnected.

In this episode, I share what it looked like to move through the beginning of adulthood while dissociated—functioning, achieving, and showing up, but not fully present in my own life.

I talk about the quiet impact of trauma, how it shaped my relationships, and the ways I learned to mimic emotions I didn’t fully feel. From feeling like an imposter to struggling to connect, this is an honest look at what survival can look like when it follows you into adulthood.

Because sometimes, you don’t fall apart.

Sometimes… you just aren’t fully there.

 CREDITS: Created, hosted, and produced by Sheryl. 

Website: dissociatedpod.com

RESOURCES

Immediate Support

• National Sexual Assault Hotline (RAINN):  1-800-656-4673 Website: https://www.rainn.org
• Crisis Text Line:  Text HOME to 741741  Website: https://www.crisistextline.org
• Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: 988 Website: https://988lifeline.org

Therapy & Trauma Support

• Psychology Today Therapist Finder: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapist
• Therapy Den — Inclusive Therapist Directory: https://www.therapyden.com
• EMDR International Association: https://www.emdria.org
• Trauma-Focused CBT: https://tfcbt.org

Organizations & Survivor Communities

• RAINN: https://www.rainn.org
• 1in6 (for male-identifying survivors): https://1in6.org
• Pandora’s Project: https://pandys.org
• End Violence Against Women International (EVAWI): https://evawintl.org

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

You're listening to Dissociated, Breaking Silence, Building Joy. I'm your host, Cheryl Brown. This podcast explores what happens when we find our voices after years of silence and how joy can exist even after the unthinkable. Before we begin, I want to offer a brief content note. In this episode, I talk about the lasting impact of post-trauma, including emotional disconnection, dissociation, and how it can affect relationships and identity. There are no graphic details, but some of the themes may feel heavy or personal. Please take care of yourself as you listen and feel free to pause or step away if needed. Hello, and welcome back to Dissociated, Breaking Silence, Building Joy. In episode eight, we talked about what people get wrong, about the assumptions, the judgments, the things people say when they don't understand what survival actually looks like. But in this episode, this is different. Because this isn't about what people saw. It's about what they didn't see. I didn't fall apart. That's the part that people don't understand. I didn't spiral. I didn't collapse. I didn't look like someone who had been through what I had been through. I built a life. I went to work. I went to school. I followed the plan. Wake up, go to work, come home, go to sleep. If I had class, I'd commute, spend the whole day at school, and I still had to work full time. I even tried to be part of a sorority. But the distance and the need to work, it made it almost impossible. Everything was structured. Everything had a purpose, and I followed it because that's what you do, right? You get through school so you can get a better job, so you can build the life. There wasn't space to question it. There wasn't space to feel it. There was just the next step. I didn't just follow the plan. I followed it perfectly. If I took time for myself, I felt guilty. If I skipped a day because I was exhausted, I'd spend the entire day anxious. Like I had broken a rule. Like I had done something wrong. Even rest didn't feel safe. Because somewhere along the way, I learned that doing what was expected mattered more than checking in with myself. There was no room for emotion. Just followed the plan. But underneath that structure wasn't peace. It was fear. It was anxiety. I had removed myself from an environment that was uncomfortable, but I missed my family. And that came with guilt. And he found ways to express disappointment in me, even still. To make me feel like I had created a burden by leaving. So even in creating distance, I still carried the weight of it. I was sad, I was confused, I was trying to navigate adulthood, doing what was expected of me, and somehow find a way to enjoy my life at the same time. I was always searching for something positive to hold on to. And when I found it, I would hold on tight. I latched onto my closest friend. Because she was the one place I felt real joy. The one place I didn't feel like I had to perform. And I didn't want to lose that. So I held on to it tightly. I tried to recreate that feeling in my other relationship too, with the person who would later become my husband. But it wasn't the same. Because I wasn't the same. I was still carrying everything I hadn't dealt with, and trying to build something on top of it. He was confident, certain, clear in how he felt about me, about us, about the future, and the way he expressed that felt like too much. Not because it was wrong, but because I couldn't meet him there. I didn't feel worthy of those feelings. I didn't feel like I could hold them. I remember driving home after seeing him an hour alone in the car, lost in my thoughts, trying to understand how someone could feel so strongly when I felt like a hollow shell. And I wanted to feel it. I wanted to be that person. So I tried. Outwardly, I mimicked it. I mirrored what I thought it was supposed to look like, what it was supposed to sound like, what I thought I was supposed to feel. But inside, I felt like an imposter, like I was playing a role in a life I didn't fully understand. And I didn't realize it then, but I was setting us up to fail. I was hurting him without even knowing how or why. It was everywhere. I would sit back and observe people, listen carefully, watch how they interacted, try to find some common ground, but the truth was I couldn't fully connect. Because their fears felt so simple to me. Not wrong, just different. They hadn't experienced what I had experienced, and I knew if I shared mine, I would terrify them. So I didn't. I agreed. I nodded, I matched their energy. I became who I thought I needed to be in that moment. Because when you're holding something that heavy, you don't feel like there's space to be fully known. And over time, people sense it. They don't know what it is, but they feel it. Like they're not getting the full version of you. And they weren't. Because I wasn't fully there. No one pulled me aside and asked if I was okay. Because I looked okay. I was functioning. I was responsible. I was handling everything I was supposed to handle. But inside, there were moments where I wasn't present in my own life. Conversations I can't fully remember. Moments that should have felt big but didn't land. Emotions that felt just out of reach. Like there was a layer between me and everything I was experiencing. I wasn't falling apart. I just I wasn't fully there. The same things people admired about me were the exact things that kept me disconnected. My independence, my strength, my ability to handle everything. Those weren't just personality traits. They were survival. And they worked so well that no one realized I was still surviving. In episode eight, I mentioned the cost of telling the truth. But there's more to the cost that no one talks about. Dissociation kept me from addressing the root of my problem. It kept me from being present in my life, from creating genuine connections. It kept me from fully understanding who I was. There are moments I wish I could go back and fully feel. Moments I know mattered but didn't land the way they should have. I wish I had known enough to get the help I needed to work through it to be fully present, to be myself instead of a shell moving through life like a process. And I grieve that. I grieve for my younger self. Because she deserved more than survival. She deserved to feel safe enough to be present in her life. To be connected to people who loved her. To walk away from what she didn't want. To know who she was without having to piece it together later. To have her voice and to actually be heard when she used it. There's something else that I need to talk about too. Because it didn't just cost me, it impacted the people around me too. And it's still impacting people that I love and loved to this day. People who cared about me, who were trying to connect with me, who were showing up in ways I couldn't fully meet. There are moments where I wasn't fully present with them. Moments where I couldn't return what they were giving me. Not because I didn't care. But because I didn't fully know how to. And that had an impact on relationships, on connection, on trust. And that's a hard truth to hold. Because while dissociation protected me, it also created a distance. Not just between me and myself, but between me and the people in my life. And I didn't know enough at the time to understand that I needed professional help in order to get over that hurdle. Dissociation protected me. It gave me distance when I needed it. It allowed me to survive when I couldn't process at the time. But survival has a cost. And sometimes the cost is your presence, your connection, your ability to fully live inside your own life. And sometimes it's felt by the people who are trying to reach you while you are still learning how to come back. And sometimes coming back isn't something you can navigate on your own. Sometimes you need language for it, understanding, guidance. So in the next episode, I'm sitting down with a licensed professional to talk about this more deeply, to better understand what happens, why it happens, and what it actually looks like to begin reconnecting. I'll see you next time. Thank you for joining me. This podcast exists to break silence and build connection. If you're a survivor, a mental health professional, or someone who feels called to share their experience, I invite you to reach out. You can contact me at info at dissociatedpod.com if you're interested in being part of a future episode or contributing to this conversation. Your voice matters, and you don't have to carry your story alone. I'm your host, Cheryl Brown. Healing is a journey, not a finish line. And joy can meet us in the smallest moments along the way. I'm glad you were here.