ABSTRACT
Humans are born with an innate drive to continue as if life were normal, even after trauma. A survivor of trauma, especially severe trauma, is always physically, emotionally, mentally and imaginatively in survival mode. These people are constantly either running, fighting or freezing from the perceived "tiger" attack or attempting to dissociate all the true fear of this experience. For dissociation things are different, it is about inaction, the unknown, it is very internal and invisible. This not knowing resides in how the insula works and how the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFCs) works while experiencing a posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) response versus a dissociative disorder (DD) response. Those who experience dissociation on a regular basis deserve respect. Mindfulness is an antidote to dissociation. It is in learning to be aware from a fully mindful place that can heal the deepest of internal injury.
