Waking Up Inside: What Dissociation Taught Me as a Therapist

-Sarah Kleinman, LMSW-

What is dissociation?

To me, dissociation is the experience of feeling disconnected. Disconnected from yourself, from your surroundings, or from your emotions. It’s like watching your life from the outside, as though you're a character in a movie you can't pause or rewind. It’s the mind’s way of shielding you from overwhelming stress, trauma, or emotional pain by detaching you from reality.

Dissociation can show up in ways such as feeling like you're floating outside your body, experiencing the world as flat or unreal, or noticing chunks of time disappear without memory of what happened. It can even feel like you're going through the motions of life without truly being present for any of it.

In its own strange way, dissociation is a form of protection. Your brain steps in to guard you from feelings that are painful to process. But here's the truth: those emotions don’t disappear — they simply wait. Wait to be felt. Wait to be acknowledged.

Lately, I’ve noticed a shift in myself. I cry more easily. I feel anger more intensely. I panic over time, over deadlines, and the never-ending to-do list. At first, I was frustrated with myself. I thought I was falling apart or becoming too emotional, too reactive, too much.

I looked back at a time in my life when I seemed to be coping so much better. A time when I appeared composed, unshaken, and in control. People didn’t see me cry. They didn’t see me angry. Back then, I mistook that numbness for strength.

But now I understand something I didn’t before.

I’m not more emotional now — I’m simply more present. I’m finally in my body. I’m finally allowing myself to feel the things I used to suppress or ignore. The sadness, the anger, the urgency — they were always there, but now I’m choosing to face them rather than hide from them. To take it even further, I am allowing others in my life to see me feel these emotions as well.

Healing isn’t always graceful. Sometimes it looks like falling apart. But feeling deeply, even when it’s messy, is a sign that I’m no longer surviving on autopilot. I’m beginning to live life fully, honestly, and consciously.

This isn’t weakness. It’s progress.