Why Do I Shut Down During Intimacy?
The Pattern
You are with someone you love. You want to be close. The closeness begins and somewhere in your body a door closes. You go quiet, you go still, you go far away. Your face is here. You are not. You come back ten minutes later and you cannot fully explain where you went. You wonder why your body keeps doing this. Your body keeps doing this because at some point in your history, intimacy was the location of danger, and your nervous system stored a protective response that activates when closeness reaches a certain depth. The response is not about this person. It is about the original closeness that was unsafe.
Origins & Context
Stephen Porges's polyvagal theory describes the dorsal vagal shutdown response, the most primitive of the body's three nervous system states, in which the system disconnects from sensation as a last-resort protection. Porges notes that the shutdown response is most commonly triggered in adults during sexual or emotional intimacy, because intimacy is the situation that most closely matches the original conditions under which the response was first formed.
Peter Levine's work on somatic experiencing describes the shutdown as a stored survival response that was once a successful adaptation. The child who could not flee and could not fight learned to leave. The adult version of that child still leaves, even when the leaving is no longer necessary, because the body does not yet know that the original threat is over.
Bessel van der Kolk's research on trauma and the body confirms that the body keeps the score of early intimacy injuries, and that the body's response to current intimacy is often a reactivation of the original protective pattern rather than a response to the present partner.
Your face is here. You are not. You come back ten minutes later and you cannot fully explain where you went.— Nikita Datar
How It Shows Up
You notice it in the specific moment. The kissing is going well. The touch is going well. Something tips. Your jaw goes slightly slack. Your breath gets shallower. Your eyes lose focus. You are technically present. You are not actually present. You hear yourself say things that sound like participation. The participation is the autopilot.
It shows up in the aftermath. You feel a flat numbness rather than a satisfied softness. Your partner asks if you are okay and you say you are tired. The tired is true. The tired is also a cover. You went somewhere and you do not yet have the words for where.
It shows up over time in the way you start avoiding the conditions in which the shutdown happens. You stop initiating. You schedule the closeness for times you know you will be too tired to fully arrive. You blame your libido. The libido is not the problem. The protection is.
Named in the Literature As
The pattern is named in the literature as the Dorsal Vagal Shutdown (Stephen Porges), the freeze response of the parasympathetic nervous system. It is also named as the Freeze Response in intimacy (Peter Levine), the somatic protection from closeness that was once unsafe. Bessel van der Kolk names the cumulative version of this Trauma-Stored Intimacy Avoidance.
Related entries in this library: Dissociation, Nervous System Regulation, the Body Keeps the Receipt.
Nikita's Note
The shutdown is not a failure. It is a brilliant historical solution to an impossible situation. The work is not to override it. The work is to thank it and gently teach the nervous system that the conditions have changed.
The practice is small and somatic. Notice the shutdown when it is beginning, not after it has happened. Pause. Open your eyes. Name a single object in the room. Feel your feet on the floor. Tell your body where it is and who it is with. The repair is not a single brave session. The repair is many small sessions in which the body slowly learns that this room is different from the original room. The shutdown thins as the new evidence accumulates.
From the work
Your face is here. You are not. You come back ten minutes later and you cannot fully explain where you went.From You Are the Love You Seek by Nikita DatarAbout this book
Related Concepts
More in The Pattern Atlas
See all in The Pattern Atlas →I wrote about this in You Are the Love You Seek — available on Amazon.