Building connection: When the “logical side” and the “emotional side” of your mind are split

“Sometimes I feel like there's like two splits inside my head where there's like this logical [side that] can see things [and] can function and there's this complete mess side of it. It feels like the logical one is … looking at, explaining everything that's going on. It [sees] why we're doing this. But the illogical … emotional side is like, it doesn't matter, the world's exploding, sort of thing.... So I guess in some ways the logical brain is part of that dissociation, because I can split myself off into those two things. And when there's crisis, I think of that as disassociating, because I'm like, okay, there's all these emotions happening. Those have gotta go down right now and I've gotta get through this.”

Alex, a trans man in his early 20s, describes himself as “just a guy trying to figure it all out.”

Estimates of the prevalence of the dissociative form of PTSD range from 6-45% of people diagnosed with PTSD. As a therapist supporting adult survivors of child abuse, I find that many of my clients live mostly in the “logical side of the brain” that Alex describes, and struggle to access the “emotional side” without being overwhelmed.

Says Amanda, a multiracial woman in her 30s, “I would like to be more able to connect …I would like that to be able to turn off the TV and do more fun things and be more active with my kid and… feel better in my body because I've taken the time to care for it better. You know? I think that's what I would like. More time to create art.”

Paula Ciniero, RN, of Healing Hands Healing Hearts (ahealingplace.net), integrates her training as a nurse in western medicine with energetic and sound healing practices. She describes her process of helping someone move from the fight/flight/freeze place that Alex describes to the connected, present place that Amanda is hoping to find. “I do a variety of modalities, but what it really comes down to is getting the person's body ready to start healing. I'm not there to heal everything and make everything better. It's just getting their body ready to do it, into a state. Pretty much getting them from a sympathetic nervous system response [fight/flight], to a parasympathetic nervous system response [rest/digest/connect], because a lot of the people I deal with are domestic or sexual assault victims, or other kinds of things. And pretty much everybody's living in a flight, fight or freeze. And in varying degrees of that, and if you're a domestic violence survivor and you have that repeated, I don't think you ever go to a parasympathetic response. You're always anticipating something's going to happen…. So you're always living in that sympathetic nervous system response. So the body then has to compensate, whether it's pain, whether it's whatever. “

“And so you just kind of bring that down so that maybe we can stop the pain for a little bit or peel the layers back. And that's what I pretty much do is peel layers back because I can make you feel good in that hour session. I might've cleared something, but next week you're coming in with a different complaint. Because now that's come to the surface and now we have to do that. And so I do use a lot of other people to refer to, like acupuncturists, chiropractic,… OMT [osteopathic manipulation] for pain, that kind of thing, or counseling, if they don't have somebody, I try and hook them up with somebody or talk to them about that because I believe it's a whole big circle, a wheel that has all these: mental, emotional, spiritual, physical health. And if the spokes are broken, the wheel doesn't move.”

If you, like Alex and Amanda, are looking for ways to combine your logical and emotional experiences and move away from spending so much time in fight/flight/freeze to experience more connection and presence in your daily life, there are some practices you can use.

1. Seeking medical care to address sources of pain or chronic health issues is an important step to making your body feel like a safe place to be present. While your body is uncomfortable, you are receiving repeated stimuli to dissociate.
2. Taking time to stop and notice what is happening in your body (e.g. “am I hungry? How do I know? What does hunger actually feel like in my body?” “Am I tired?”) can start to build connection between your logical/mental life and your physical life as an embodied human.
3. Building a team of providers who can help you to care for the “wheel” Paula describes is a powerful step towards creating the safety and support needed to be present to your experience.

If you are looking for a therapist as part of your support team, check out my About page and see if we might be a good fit to work together.