Do You Have PTSD or Sexual Abuse?

If the predator sticks around, it raises your pain tolerance so that if you actually are killed or injured, you won't feel it as much as you would if you weren't in that dorsal vagal system. It's a defense of last resort. The idea of being able to distance and dissociate and not be life-saving is very protective at the time of threat. And then it's not as functional when a bell goes off or your partner's there - they're really not threatened but their body is responding in a real traumatic way.