Not Wanting To Be Alive And Not Wanting To Die: Part 1

Welcome to this educational talk on resignation syndrome. Today, I will share both my professional insights and personal experiences with this often overlooked state in trauma. We will explore how to understand and address this space, allowing our nervous systems to regulate, even when we feel like we're in a state of neither living nor dying.

Resignation syndrome is commonly associated with prolonged trauma, chronic uncertainty, and unresolved grief. When our bodies lack the necessary support to feel safe, grieve, and process traumatic experiences, it enter a state of pure, intelligent survival.

My aim is to illuminate this state, helping you not to fear it but to honor it. Through this share, I hope to provide you with knowledge and strategies to seek continuous support as you heal and recover.

Trigger Warning: This talk includes topics about trauma and it is mentioning suicide. This is not a substitute for professional help.

Transcript

There is one place we don't talk about.

We don't talk about it among therapists,

We don't talk about it on social media,

We don't talk about it with our friends or family.

And yet,

It is a very common place,

Present in trauma and PTSD bodies.

And that place is very real.

It is a place where we don't feel like dying,

And we don't feel like living either.

It's a place where we feel as if we want to disappear.

It's a place of resigning.

It's a place,

I don't want to live,

And I don't want to die.

And this is very commonplace in trauma,

Very commonplace.

And yet,

It's not discussed.

This state is called resignation syndrome,

Named by Danish researchers who were looking at the state of the children escaping the war in former Yugoslavia.

And I was one of those children,

I was a teenager.

And I know this place very deeply.

It can happen in any age of our lives.

It can last from a couple of weeks to a couple of years.

And it can go from complete catatonic physical state to emotional catatonic state,

Okay?

So when experiences we are going through,

Such as loss,

Wars,

Or being exiled,

Experiences losing someone,

Losing your loved person,

Losing your loved human being,

Or immigration to the new country,

To the new city.

Also when we live in continuous state of uncertainty,

When the life gets too overwhelming for a nervous system,

Body moves to resignation syndrome.

So I just want to really to say to you who are listening,

You don't need to go to the war to feel as you don't want to be alive and you don't want to die.

You don't need to feel state of resigning only if you have been in a war,

Okay?

Because subconsciously many times,

And I know even with my clients many times,

They do compare traumas.

No.

The nervous system is same regardless of the experience we lived in.

The nervous system,

When it feels it's too much,

It needs to shut down.

It needs to regulate by shutting down regardless of the story,

Okay?

So what your body is doing,

If you're in this state,

If you're in this state,

Your body needs to move in one of the best survival strategy.

And that's the strategy I will need to shut down.

I will be in a state of not living and not dying because everything outside is too much and it's too sudden for my experience.

And that's the definition of trauma.

It doesn't have to be big,

Big,

Shocking traumatic event.

It can be very prolonged state of uncertainty and the safety.

So too much,

Too sudden of not safe experience or layers of unsafe experience for you,

For your body can move you into this state.

And it doesn't matter how other person beside you is taking the same experience.

You're not comparing what is happening with experience in your body with an experience of other person in their body.

You cannot compare or be told or told yourself,

This is not so big.

People are going through the genocide right now.

I just need to figure out how to make a living and pay bills.

No,

Your experience is valid and it's important.

It is what happens to you inside of you.

It's your reality,

Not what you have told by others or compared yourself to more painful experiences in others.

Okay,

I really want you to hear that.

We do not compare states of our traumas,

Period.

With a state where we resign,

What is present and coupled with too much and too sudden is a lack of human support,

Either a family,

Partner,

Parent,

Community,

Country.

And what is lacking is acknowledgement and validation of the trauma and experience we are going through.

Aiming and voicing what is just happening to you or to them is lacking,

So experience of that pain,

Of that uncertainty is very unsafe.

It's too much,

It's too sudden,

And silence what follows is what seals the state and place the pin on our psyche.

And what actually makes the trauma more of trauma,

Silence as experience doesn't exist.

Lack of validation,

Like what is just happening doesn't exist.

And our eternal silence because of shame and a sense as no one will get us,

An external silence by person and people around us.

I wrote two books with the title,

The Trauma We Don't Talk About,

Because exactly those states we are not talking about makes our experience as they don't exist,

Makes everything so much more scary and isolated,

And yet it's very alive and present in our body.

And it's easy to name and give a label,

PTSD,

Depression,

Dissociation,

Addiction,

Anxiety.

Yes,

We are so familiar with those labels,

But we need to name and hold the states of PTSD,

The state of the depression,

And those states,

You're in it.

One of those states you're not talking,

You're not addressing is a state of feeling as I don't want to live and I don't want to die.

It's a resignation state,

And it's more and more global,

And it's going to be more collective as we are facing uncertainty on a global level.

Okay?

And there is the help.

Help is not around PTSD or around trauma.

Help is around the states you are in it.

The states no one even talks about.

And because of that,

We have all reasons to collapse and not want to exist.

Because all around us,

Which is too much and too sudden,

Is validating only one thing,

And that is that our experience doesn't even exist.

Or even us,

We are not even educated,

We don't know how to even name this,

What's happening.

Okay?

So in that place of deep loneliness and overwhelm,

The best protective way the body is doing is to send us into the place of resignation.

And this is not laziness.

And if someone is calling you or called you lazy or not productive,

I am truly sorry.

I'm truly sorry that happened to you.

You are not lazy or behind or not keeping up.

You have been continuously overwhelmed without adequate support and your body wants to rest.

Your body wants to sleep until it's over,

Until you can feel safe.

So remember,

I'll repeat this.

Even though your body feels like it wants to resign,

What it's doing is going into the deep qualities of rest.

And this is not regular resting place as you need to rest after the day of work or you need to rest after a big project.

This rest is deep,

Restorative,

Catonic rest on the cellar level.

And it looks like a place where you don't want to exist.

It looks like you want to leave your body and let your body do everything without you.

It looks like if your motions,

Tasks,

And deliveries can continue and if you,

You can just disappear and not come back for a very long time.

This is how it feels.

And it feels like this is the only thing you truly need.

And people don't understand that.

And people don't understand that this is not a place where you want to kill yourself.

This is not a place of suicidal thoughts.

This is a place where you don't want to exist.

It's very simple.

It's not about wanting to die.

It never is.

And also this is where the system in the mental health industry failed to give support.

It is a resignation state called resignation syndrome where we don't want to exist and be alive,

But we don't want to die.

And it's caused by prolonged trauma or a series of traumas coupled with silence and lack of validation of what's happening.

And that place of not wanting to be alive and not wanting to live happens because all outside is too much and it's too overwhelming and it's a scary place to be.

And what your brilliant biology is doing is actually finding a place to remove from the unprocessed,

Unnamed,

Ungrieved,

Let me repeat that,

Ungrieved experience.

And it moves us into chthonic level and that's the only place,

It's the most intelligent place we can be and where our body can take us in is exactly that place.

And it's a space between living and dying.

And it's the most sacred space body intuitively can take you so you can actually recover and take that impact in the most gentle,

Caring way of what was happening or what happened to you.

And in that place of not wanting to live and not wanting to die is a place where we can honor our state,

Our grief or our wound and allow our body to recover on cellular level.

Because only in that place,

In that resting place,

We can pause.

In that resting place,

We might name our losses and grieve.

In that resting place,

We don't need to be hyper vigilant,

Hyper alert,

Hyper helpful,

Hyper purposeful,

Hyper responsible,

Hyper,

Hyper,

Hyper,

No.

In that place,

The body knows one thing it needs to do is to be hypo,

Hypo,

Hypo.

It needs to rest.

It's a deep biological rest and I really want you to honor that state.

It looks unnatural and it looks scary.

It's not socially acceptable.

It is still unknown.

It's scary to be witnessed from someone else.

It has a quality of collapse.

It makes others confused and helpless if you speak about it or if they see you in that place.

And also,

Internal shame and self-judgment is not helping.

So many children with resignation syndrome went into deep chthonic state and had to be fed and bathed.

The body just knew to shut down until it sensed that the environment became safer and those kids completely recovered.

Also,

That state can also look like emotional chthonic place and what is present in biology is a need to restore,

Replenish,

And grieve and the only way the mind can hear it is by pressing ctrl-alt-delete buttons and moving into that place.

That's the only way.

And don't be afraid of that place,

Don't.

I know it feels deeply isolated and maybe even judged by self,

By others,

By society,

By expectation of society,

But what your body is doing is nesting a place in the most intelligent wise way so you can recover,

You can grieve,

And restore,

So it can take its own time to feel safe and replenish all cells,

Replenish your nervous system,

Replenish your heart space,

And process all experiences.

So we will move to the somatic practice and I'll make a second recording so you can go straight into the practice and you can use that recording as many times as needed as long as you're in the recovery state or as a part of your daily ritual and I want you to take this piece into your practice.

Write down what overwhelming experience you went through,

Do not minimize or dismiss any or compare any,

You don't need again to go through something as a worry,

To feel I don't want to live and I don't want to die.

This can be a loss of your dream,

A loss of your pet,

It can be a sequence of prolonged uncertainty for you and name,

Name that and let that be present and known via biology needed to shut down.

I really invite you to practice with awareness that you're not collapsing but you're surrendering into relational space of safety you were robbed of having.

So let me repeat that and this is what you can repeat in your own words.

I'm not collapsing into uncertainty,

I'm surrendering into relational space of safety right here right now.

I was robbed of safety,

I was robbed of belonging,

I was robbed of being loved and loved and I'm gaining trust into relational field of my body right here right now as long as I need,

As long as my biology wants me to recover and to grieve and to rest.

And collapse is not the same as surrender even though body can feel a similar state,

It's a very similar qualities in body.

What is different is a safety of relational space.

This is what you keep in your awareness,

This piece okay.

I'm not collapsing,

I'm surrendering into the qualities of rest in relational field between my body and let's say just my pillows around me.

If you're going to use a pillows in the practice I think we will.

And your body needs to recover and rest and find its own time and micropulse to start relating into that space.

Relational space between your body and the pillows you are leaning onto,

Between your body and the mattress for now.

And then you can experiment as you build trust to lean into the relational space between you and the person you can trust or between you and the nature,

Between you and animals,

Between you and divine,

Between you and what you call in.

That's the relational space.

And in that place you restore,

You honor your place of needed shutdown,

You honor your survival pattern to resign and you yield into restorative pattern of honoring your story,

Your biology,

Your experience and need to surrender to rest.

I will close this track by saying not wanting to live and not wanting to die is not a place of giving up.

And resignation and collapse finds healing in surrender and relational space of trust and of holding what didn't happen.

So let me hold you as we move to the next track of somatic practice.

And if you know anyone who feels this way,

Please share,

Please share.

I am Ana Maia,

Somatic experiencing therapist for PTSD and trauma recovery.

Take care.

Reviews

Thankyou. So true it is!

To be kind & compassion to oneself on the road to healing from toxic abuse & the associated trauma.
To accept that this process is most necessary to heal my body & mind.
Now, four years alone, I set no target to achieve, I just needed a reset to me. To find within myself who I am FINALLY & what I need to be authentucally true to myself with much compassionate, love & kindness.
To find a way to live & slowly reconnect with a knowingness that I'm going to be ok.
A slow going move forward that is not linear or anxious. A gentle ebb & flow of life each day and into the sunshine with a belief that what really matters is right now & what I can do with it.
Peace, tranquillity & trust that I continue to build upon..... for me. At last!

Namaste 🙏

💜❤️💛💙💚🤍
🌼⚘️🌷🌻🌺🌸🪷

This made so much sense though mine is more I can't die with 2 special needs children needing me here but I greatly need restoration and I am at the end of my rope my happy place support system I am hated now and I have no avenue of acceptance.

This explains the space I have been in for a long time but didn’t understand what it is until now. Thank you for explaining this. 🙏

Illuminating and healing, this talk helped me honor a part of my experience I had previously found difficult to accept.