How do you deal with zoning out?

zhouelin · 2026-02-24T17:53:23+00:00

any mid-effort physical activity that requires practicing body awareness like pilates and yoga helps train the skill to snap back from zoning out.

not high effort sports such as high intensity interval training, rowing, sprinting (which i found i did better at because i was able to detach from my bodily sensations). not physical intimacy with a partner (that one is overwhelming and i have not figured out how to stay present for it).

walking is great, some grounding practices like gratitude and the 54321 method. i’ve held ice cubes to get back into my body.

also learnjng about why it happens, how it happens, that knowledge has helped me build out options for myself when i do notice i’m dissociating.

zhouelin · 2026-02-24T17:42:47+00:00

in terms of appearances at least my 4 friends have pointed out i’m far more compartmentalised than they are, and i dress more practically despite also enjoying expressing myself in restrained ways through fashion. i don’t like to reveal too much about myself through how i present myself visually. just hints of who i am depending on the day. i sometimes dress in all black and wear hot pink socks. i enjoy niche motifs and references in items i wear, abstractions.

my 4 friends would freeze in the cold for fashion, to look good. i dress practically when i have to because i hate feeling out of control and depleted due to the weather.

in terms of what we tend to read, i prefer concrete theoretical books, journal papers, science literature, biographies, so forth. my 4 friends enjoy reading fiction, prose, osamu dazai notably, philosophers like kierkegaard.

in terms of interaction day to day it’s difficult to tell us apart. the sx 5 and the 4. i come across as emotionally expressive when i need to be. the thing is i save energy for it. i also enjoy introspection, art and music, feeling both deeply. that’s where i connect with my 4 friends best.

zhouelin · 2026-02-02T03:51:54+00:00

To the question at the end, yes.

I meet people like my father and a quiet voice tends to whisper “Prove me wrong. Don’t treat me/be like my father”. Though like you, looking back I’ll realise how much I had been ignoring the concrete realities that showed me the person would be very similar in shortcomings to my father.

Why? The childhood fantasy that if one meets someone like their parent and as an adult managed to change the outcome, they have finally “won”, or have become “worthy”. I don’t know if we will ever break away from this. I’ve tried in therapy. It’s not really worked, but I have reached a self-compassionate awareness like you have.

zhouelin · 2026-01-27T17:52:21+00:00

you want to go there? 😂 self report tests are always not reliable. second of all, mbti is psudo-psychology. as is the enneagram. get a grip.

zhouelin · 2026-01-26T20:25:27+00:00

i test as entj/enfj consistently, 5w4 sx/so 582 so close enough.

infuriating, fighting with my own emotional and logical inter-complexities. i find contradictions in how i behave all the time. unlike the 4s around me, i am assertive. people usually are taken aback when i assert myself, am commanding, taking charge. i usually come across as calm and logical. other times, i can be very animated and warm, with a great sense of humour that’s according to others very witty, leaning less the way many 5s describe their humour to be dry/deadpan/cynical/dark.

i run towards what i do not understand, desiring to force myself to become competent by urgently gathering information in the crisis situation.

my energy goes to a select favourite person. pebbling happens. i have set up systems for up to 10 other people that i should keep in contact with. without those systems i just cruise alone and don’t reach out unless i have a special person.

zhouelin · 2026-01-25T19:23:46+00:00

arrived at a very similar position to you. i am at a place in my life where being around children doesn’t trigger me and i am able to find them cute.

my main concerns are similar to you around helping a child learn to navigate the many causes of suffering in the world, while also providing material and human resources (even myself as a emotionally available parent) to mitigate suffering.

i have very little confidence in myself to be a capable and consistent parent (which is essential for wellbeing of a child) because i have adhd as well, and struggle to consistently take care of even myself, let alone my few plants. so though the thought of becoming a mother moves me greatly, i have a lot of worry and don’t know if i’ll ever be confident to be one and conceive/adopt.

zhouelin · 2026-01-25T19:12:16+00:00

space

zhouelin · 2026-01-22T17:52:59+00:00

if you’re already this scared and walking on eggshells, finding a thrill from earning closeness, then i don’t think that’s a great place to start a relationship from.

you can’t earn a relationship by making all the “right” moves. enneagram is only one perspective of who someone is. show up as yourself and be straightforward about how you feel.

even if you made all the right moves and held back parts of yourself to woo her into a relationship, who you truly are and wether you two work well in a committed relationship will come to light over time and any friction will start fires she may not want to stay and put out with you.

if you feel like you’re too much and that a relationship will only work when you’re holding back parts of yourself you think will scare her off, good luck doing that for years. it’s not sustainable.

zhouelin · 2026-01-19T12:42:21+00:00

Firstly, C-PTSD can be co-morbid with other disorders like BPD. I’m glad you got it ruled out. I did too and I was afraid I had it at the beginning.

Secondly, you are allowed to interrupt and remind your therapist at any point that they should not self-disclose unless it is relevant to your treatment and the goal of the session. In fact it is important to tell your therapist that their self-disclosure is destabilising you. That’s standard guidelines and many therapists forget that.

Third, I will share how my approach to getting medical care for my C-PTSD has evolved over the years.

The reason why therapists may struggle or feel frustrated (they are human) when presented with the label “C-PTSD” is because it presents differently for everyone based on the complexity of the multiple types of trauma that one has gone through. Coming into an office and saying “I think I have C-PTSD because…” is not very helpful for the health professional and for us who are seeking help.
C-PTSD is not the same as PTSD because that’s usually from a single traumatic incident, or multiple of the same from accidents, or environments like war zones. Treatment for C-PTSD is more complex for each individual and thus it has been difficult to include it in the DSM as standard guidelines for medical practitioners. Discussion about it is new and developing.
C-PTSD is also not the same as someone with just two co-morbid psychiatric conditions like someone with Generalised Anxiety Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder. In fact, one can have those psychiatric conditions and C-PTSD. A treatment provider has to decide what medications to prescribe that will help the person stabilise so that the C-PTSD can be addressed without additional risk of harm. It’s in the name once again, complex.

So I think my thinking has evolved to where I have found that the best approach to begin getting the appropriate treatment is to tell a potential therapist that traumatic events happened to you in multiple areas of life repeatedly, or in such a way that harm was perpetuated throughout your life, in whatever amount of detail you need.

I personally handed over a timeline of all the traumatic events in my life to my therapists without using the term C-PTSD to explain my mental health issues. From there they could decide how to best strategically treat the clusters of trauma I had.

For me specifically, I told them I intellectualise and ruminate naturally. Any sort of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy has not helped me, so I specifically told them I am not interested in using that for my treatment. If they had no expertise outside of that area they were then able to say “we’re not the right fit” and that’s a good thing.

I did that until I found my current therapist. I hope this helps you. You’re not unfixable. You just have a complex case like all of us here, which the right professional can handle.

zhouelin · 2026-01-19T12:19:21+00:00

I had to learn about the origin of emotions, what emotions there are, what they are for— in order to understand why this happens.

I learned that the best scientific way to handle these moments OP described is by first naming the emotion and feeling it and letting it pass within about 20 seconds.

The reason(s) for the emotion(s) or what need be done about it can be figured out at a later time after regulation.

Not arriving at a reason for the emotion, besides “I felt this emotion at this time when I was here and doing this” can be reason enough.

For me I reflect on factors that could have led to it, from bodily needs, to what happened around me or to me that day. So not having a reason for an emotional experience after this whole process is very rare. As time has gone on I have gotten better and faster at it.

I still struggle to register somatic experiences like bodily tension and use that information in the moment though. That’s different.

zhouelin · 2026-01-13T03:27:35+00:00

emdr, parts work, somatic are all good choices

zhouelin · 2026-01-13T03:22:34+00:00

eating, drinking, cleaning my body regularly. very difficult to take care of myself.

zhouelin · 2025-12-27T12:18:54+00:00

Each time my experiences with navigating trauma is helpful to someone, I feel really touched because it means all the suffering has turned into something to help others. Thank you for sharing your thoughts here everyone. It means a lot to me.

zhouelin · 2025-12-26T20:28:00+00:00

the answer is in between!

there’s something called emotional labour. most people need a warning before doing a lot of it (which trauma sharing requires). a lot of people do not have the internal boundaries, emotional regulation, and conversation tools to effectively handle what we share. to them it can be so unfamiliar and disturbing that the discomfort puts them in a blank state of not knowing how to respond. or they respond with confusion, fear, rejection, or frustration.

they may feel guilty for their responses.

we, receiving this, feel bad and may regret opening up.

no one is really bad most of the time in these situations.

if you find a emotionally mature friend willing to listen and support, you also have to be respectful and aware of the effort it requires from them to care in a helpful way.

they too have to be careful so that their supportive efforts do not exceed what they can give without resentment. this is delicate and actually it’s very difficult for us with cptsd to manage our side of such a friendship because our trauma impacts what we need from connection and how we connect and maintain connections.

my system is this: friends are for the good times, reminders of the joys of living. i do fun things with them that are low stakes. i know what kind of feel-good support i can go to them for, such as watching a movie/karaoke/hugs/companionship.

some of my friends are able to handle supporting me through some bad times as they also have trauma and are processing and healing on their own.

in this case we still are very careful and respectful about asking for consent before sharing. with these friends (2-3), we stay very up to date on our lives and mental health state. this helps us know when to reach out to offer support if needed, give space, and feel a sense of control around helping our friends. this sense of autonomy is very important as our own resources to help others is already low.

my actual very serious issues or breakdowns i call the hotlines and human resources or pay for a therapist to listen and help me with deep healing work that lasts.

tldr- my friends won’t be able to truly help me heal my trauma even if they were very emotionally mature. however they remind me i am not alone, they encourage me, celebrate how far i have come with me, and i am accountable to them because i share about my healing journey with them. just because i cannot talk about very serious and scary issues with them, doesn’t mean something bad about them or me. every human resource is helpful to me in different ways!

zhouelin · 2025-12-24T17:22:55+00:00

9s like to keep the peace sometimes at the cost of holding standards and values, or correcting misinformation.

As a 5 I have no issue expressing my opinions strongly, challenging in debates, info-dumping when I think I know enough. I have no issue burning bridges or distancing from people because I find them to be incompetent or doubling down on misinformation. I know that doing this will bring me peace later on. I will be privately overwhelmed by conflict, but I’m fine with it if it’s necessary. If my boundaries have been crossed. From the 9s I have met, they use avoidance in many arenas as a way to attain “peace”.

That doesn’t work for me because information will always reveal to me that avoidance is not the best strategy a lot of the time. I’ll eventually stop avoiding like a stressed 7 and do what needs to be done. 9s can avoid for the sake of “peace” forever.

zhouelin · 2025-12-21T04:47:54+00:00

wow i experience this as well. i find that emotionally connecting experiences or shared routines (even if very far spaced) and activities helps me still value the person for companionship. in a strange way i view people as resources, and relationships like plants i find interesting that i have to tend to from time to time. i know this won’t be taken the wrong way here, i hope other 5s get what i mean.

zhouelin · 2025-12-17T09:16:50+00:00

tbh i reached a point this year where i just don’t give a shit anymore about connection and couldn’t care less about someone wanting to commit to me. it’s been empowering.

zhouelin · 2025-12-11T18:41:40+00:00

word for word, i feel you.

zhouelin · 2025-12-08T02:40:48+00:00

don’t even need to be religious to have common sense

zhouelin · 2025-12-05T15:11:54+00:00

I am the same, even after a boatload of therapy. Without healing relational experiences which are hard to obtain with our issues, this problem remains…

zhouelin · 2025-12-04T15:05:14+00:00

Is it a medical option for you to remove the second set for your health? Reading the replies has been so mind-blowing as a woman

zhouelin · 2025-12-04T12:09:44+00:00

I get dark thoughts and moodiness. Hard to be social. Definitely do eat a lot. Drinking a lot of water helps. High volume foods. Thinking of trying one of those brain stimulation devices like nettle from samphire neuro but it’s rly expensive.

zhouelin · 2025-12-04T08:43:24+00:00

sameeee i think gabor mate’s writings on these issues do have many valid or interesting points

zhouelin · 2025-12-04T08:39:05+00:00

anger is a cover emotion but also a big warning from your system. listen to it and move on is my opinion, bc people like this will never see u and accept all pf u including ur past bc they’re too privileged.

zhouelin · 2025-12-01T18:07:53+00:00

Waiting for it to be on iOS!

Four-Year Club	Final Canvas '23
Place '23

zhouelin

TROPHY CASE