Emotionally Shut Down: Can Child Abuse Cause Someone To Be Emotionally Shut Down?

In general, someone could find that it is a challenge for them to connect to their needs and feelings. Along with this, they could find that they often feel numb and don’t have a great deal of energy.
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By being this way, it is going to be a challenge for them to live a life that is deeply enriching. Instead, what can be normal is for them to simply go through the motions, with life being seen as something that they have to endure, not enjoy.

It’s Clear

For years, living in this way could have just been what was normal, meaning that it won’t have stood out. This doesn’t mean that there won’t have been moments when they became aware of certain things but that would have been about as far as it went.

Now, though, they will be fully aware of how disconnected they are from themselves and they won’t be able to carry on as normal. This could show that they had an experience that woke them up.

The Catalyst

For example, they may have got into a relationship and came to see that it was a challenge for them to deeply connect to the other person. By finding it hard to connect to their needs and feelings, they would have only been able to go so far.

Furthermore, there may have been times when they came into contact with a lot of emotional pain and this caused them to be overwhelmed. Therefore, this would have been a stage of their life that pushed them to the limit.

Confusion

Now that this stage of their life is over, they could wonder why they are either out of touch with how they feel and most of their needs or they are overwhelmed with emotional pain and perhaps feel like a needy child. Naturally, they are going to have the need to be connected to how they feel but not be taken out by their feelings.

Being in a disconnected state won’t be very pleasurable, neither will being all at sea emotionally. If they have been this way for as long as they can remember, they could believe that they were simply born this way.

What’s going on?

There is the chance that they were not merely born this way and what took place throughout their childhood years played a massive part in how they experience life. However, if they were to look back on this stage, they might not be able to remember a great deal.

Or if they can, they could say that this stage of their life wasn’t that bad and that their parents did the best that they could. They were then not perfect but they could have been a lot worse.

Hidden

What this may illustrate is that their brain blocked out most of what took place during this stage of their life to protect them. Consequently, they won’t have access to the information that would shine the light on why they are this way.

This may have been a stage of their life when they were regularly abused and neglected by their caregivers. The people who were supposed to love, care, protect and guide them would have greatly undermined them.

Deeply Wounded beings

Most likely, these were people who had also been greatly undermined by their parents. What was done to them would then have been done to their child/children, or something close to it.

This is not to say that they consciously chose to be abusive and neglectful, as this is likely to have been something that took place unconsciously. Yet, what is likely to have fuelled their need to harm their child/children would have been the pain that they experienced when they were very small and unable to defend themselves.

The Pattern Continues

So, just like when their parents were being harmed as children, they themselves were totally helpless. They wouldn’t have been able to fight back or to find a new family who could actually love and care for them.

Due to this, their only option was to repress the pain that they were in and to disconnect from themselves. They would then have probably been born in an embodied state but thanks to how traumatic this stage of their life was, they would have gradually ended up being disembodied.

One Focus

Still, this doesn’t mean that they consciously chose to lose touch with themselves as this would have automatically taken place. Losing touch with themselves would have allowed them to handle a brutal phase of their life but, now that this stage of their life is over, being this way will no longer be serving them.

To access the guidance that is inside them, connect to their needs and feelings and form a deeper connection with others, they will need to get back into their body. Even so, this is not something that will take place overnight.

A Process

Their body and brain are likely to be holding onto a lot of repressed pain and arousal and this pain will need to be gradually worked through. Dealing with all of this repressed material in one go might sound appealing, but if all of this material was to enter their conscious awareness, they would probably die.

This is why it has to be worked through in stages and in the right stages. With this in mind, it will be essential for them to be patient and persistent.

Awareness

If someone can relate to this and they are ready to change their life, they may need to reach out for external support. This is something that can be provided with the assistance of a therapist or healer.