Trauma In Conversion Disorder

Here is a very good article about how we numb our life when faced with very traumatic situations.  In the case of Conversion Disorder (also known as Functional Neurological Disorder), people who suffer from this, readily and easily minimize trauma.

When I went through the paralysis in 1991 (read my book for more details), I could have convinced not only myself but the world that everything was fine.  I didn't want to even think about anything that I had been through and so I did not.  I fooled many people including myself, but yet deep down I knew I was holding on to secrets.

Our minds deal with trauma in the best way they know how.  It isn't so much that we want to fake others out or hide from the truth, but that the events are usually so overwhelming, that there is no other choice.  Our brains go to great lengths to protect us and in the face of trauma, numbing and minimizing is the first line of defense.

While I realize that most people who are faced with a diagnosis of conversion disorder or who may not even have arrived at that connection yet, do not want to think something is wrong with them psychologically.  They usually do not want to piece the trauma and the physical symptoms together.  Instead, they generally try to avoid that and demand or seek out any treatment which might give them temporary relief.


Unfortunately, until the connection between the experiences and the conversion disorder are made, very little progress will be made in true healing.  Yes, you can have symptoms disappear, but that is not healing.  I'm sure some reading this will vehemently disagree with me, but I am writing this from my own experience of healing from conversion disorder.  I'm writing it from what I have seen in myself and others through some very intense trauma healing work I have went through in my own life.

Minimizing trauma in conversion disorder is more normal than one may wish to believe.  It doesn't make the individual bad or wrong.  It is just what the brain needs to do to protect the person.  You cannot hurry this process along because until the brain realizes that there is someone safe to help guide them through this, the brain will hold the individual back.  It takes time and it takes courage to go into the healing of this, but it is fully possible to heal and not fear the symptoms returning to take over  your life.  Again, I speak from my point of experience and the experiences that I went through in my own conversion disorder.

To read more on this, please read my article on Somatosync.com, "Minimizing Trauma In Conversion Disorder.

You may also find it helpful to read more of my story in my book, Hope And Possibility Through Trauma.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 4/29/13 by Don Shetterly

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