It is often an unconscious response to trauma or distressing events that you have internalised. A kind of body memory that has become frozen because you shut down and were unable to process your emotions at the time.
In psychology, emotional detachment, also known as emotional blunting, is a condition or state in which a person lacks emotional connectivity to others, whether due to an unwanted circumstance or as a positive means to cope with anxiety.
When a Trauma response is triggered, the more primitive part of the nervous system dominates. This is geared towards shutting down, protection and survival. Because it is a passive defensive response we may feel helpless or hopeless.
Silent treatment abuse is a form of emotional abuse in which a person refuses to communicate with you in order to control or influence your behaviors. Taking time to cool down after an argument is healthy, but shutting off communication for a long time, especially in order to control another person, is a form of abuse.
In some cases, stonewalling is a trauma response. Those who experienced trauma, perhaps as a child or in previous relationship, will sometimes develop stonewalling as a coping mechanisism. It is a form of self preservation, like someone who passes out under extreme stress.
Trina was demonstrating a “dissociative shutdown,” a symptom often found in children faced with a repeated, frightening event, such as being raped by a caregiver, for which there's no escape. Over time, this response may generalize to associated thoughts or emotions that can trigger the reaction.
Freeze is one of several defense responses to trauma. While the survival strategies fight and flight are more well-known, the freeze response has become increasingly identified and worked with over the past several years.
The Duration of a Nervous Breakdown Varies by Individual. A nervous breakdown is not a diagnosable mental health condition, and that means there are no official criteria to describe it, including duration. These mental health crises are highly variable, lasting a few hours for one person or weeks for another.
Suppressed emotions stay in the body. The effects of suppressed emotions include anxiety, depression, and other stress-related illnesses. Such suppression can lead to alcohol and substance abuse. (Read more about the link between childhood trauma and addiction here.)
Initial reactions to trauma can include exhaustion, confusion, sadness, anxiety, agitation, numbness, dissociation, confusion, physical arousal, and blunted affect. Most responses are normal in that they affect most survivors and are socially acceptable, psychologically effective, and self-limited.
The key symptom of empath burnout, empath shutdown, and compassion fatigue is that you start to feel cynical or detached from the people and events around you. Your nervous system may be stuck in survival mode. These are the key signs: Feeling overwhelmed or unable to cope.
If your partner shuts down, it can be difficult to know how to communicate with them. By asking questions, listening, and offering support, you can create an environment where your partner feels safe enough to open up. With time and patience, you should be able to help them through whatever is troubling them.
Stonewalling is when one person is cognitively or emotionally inaccessible to another person. In relationships, this means one partner blocks out the other in a figurative or literal sense. Unsurprisingly, this defensive stance often harks back to our childhoods. "Stonewalling is often a survival mechanism of sorts.
In the context of a marriage, the feelings of neglect, being left out, and not being heard are collectively referred to as emotional abandonment. It occurs when one partner is so preoccupied with their own concerns that they are unable to notice the struggles, concerns, or problems their partner is experiencing.
Intrusive memories
Recurrent, unwanted distressing memories of the traumatic event. Reliving the traumatic event as if it were happening again (flashbacks) Upsetting dreams or nightmares about the traumatic event. Severe emotional distress or physical reactions to something that reminds you of the traumatic event.
Shutdown dissociation includes partial or complete functional sensory deafferentiation, classified as negative dissociative symptoms (see Nijenhuis, 2014; Van Der Hart et al., 2004). The Shut-D focuses exclusively on symptoms according to the evolutionary-based concept of shutdown dissociative responding.
Flag: If there is still no resolution of the threatening situation you will progress into the fifth stage, “flag,” which is the collapse, helplessness, and despair that signals parasympathetic based nervous system shut-down and immobilization. Dissociative reactions dominate this phase.
The cycle of abuse is made up of four stages. These stages include the building of tension, the abuse incident, the reconciliation, and a period of calm.
You may experience feelings of confusion, anxiety, shame, guilt, frequent crying, over-compliance, powerlessness, and more. You may stay in the relationship and try to bargain with the abuser or try to change the abuser's behavior, often placing blame on yourself, even though you are not at fault.
“Stonewalling is actually a learned defense mechanism that might stem from an unpleasant emotional or physical reaction someone has experienced in the past. Or your partner may simply not be able to express how they feel so instead they shut down,” Dr. Dannaram said.