Leaving Fantasy Behind And Returning To Reality

The targets of abuse have a core vulnerability which they often overlook, and their tendency to miss it lies in its very nature: Dissociation.

Targets of abuse often come from emotionally-deprivating families. In many cases, they have also experienced overt abuse. Whether it is the trauma of neglect, the trauma of active harm, or both, the pain of their experience gets too much. The reality becomes too much. To know that the person you love is doing you harm, and to feel the effects of that, is unbearable. The answer to this predicament is dissociation, and with that, drifting into fantasy in order to make the unbearable bearable.

Complex trauma is like a ball of immense fear, shame and guilt which erupts over and over, depending on the challenge or stressor you are currently facing. As complex trauma arises, it overwhelms your mind, internal balance and consciousness. During this time, there is a break in reality. You drift into another realm.

This dissociated state can simply be a gap in memory, paired with a numbness of feeling. It is relief from the immensity of the complex trauma within you. Other times, dissociation is paired with fantasy; a lucid, waking dream which aims to reframe reality to make it more bearable.

You might imagine a brighter future for yourself which requires no input from you; it simply happens by chance, because you are ‘blessed’. You might see a person who in...