Some Days I Locate My Exit

CW: dissociation, complex trauma, chronic pain, embodiment struggles

There is a common perception that repair from complex trauma will be inherently pleasurable and gentle - an unambiguous message that you’ve “returned” to yourself. It makes for a palatable narrative.

For me, what came back first wasn’t pleasure, but discomfort - often debilitating. Pain, when it returned, didn’t gently whisper; it blared. Hunger snapped like a command, not an invitation.

This isn’t evidence of therapeutic failure. It’s a mark of my body’s pragmatic intelligence. My dissociation wasn’t a mistake in my wiring; it was the best available option for handling daily threat. Sometimes I still need a break from consciously experiencing my pain, even as I unlearn what chronic absence has taught me. If my experience of returning to embodiment is patchy, that doesn’t signal regression. It’s the terrain honestly mapped.

Dissociation is not the villain in my story, nor will I sanctify embodiment.

Some mornings, presence is possible and even welcome: the edge of a blanket registers as simply soft, a glass of cold water as pleasing and not immediately jarring. Other days, all I can do is locate my next exit. Neither mode is more correct, nor does either reflect a deeper commitment to healing.

There is no obligation to love embodiment and no moral reward for pushing through pain. The fact that I sometimes need distance from my body is not a failing. If you need that too, know this: you don’t have to apologize, explain, or perform.

Dissociation is morally neutral. For all the celebration of being present, what matters most is agency: the ability to choose, when possible, how close to stay to sensation. Even small reprieves - those moments when my body is not a battleground - are valuable, but so are the days when I am away from embodiment for the sake of survival. My task is to live honestly: to let healing mean contradiction and relief.