Gone dark

• Name: Gone dark
• Row: Heart (Feelings)
• Column: Locked Down
• Side: Fear-based

Purpose: Emotionally disconnected. You've cut comms to protect yourself.

Fear has cut comms completely. You feel numb, flat, far from the people right in front of you. Shutting down emotion was a survival skill: it let you function when feeling would have broken you. At home, going dark protects you from pain, and also from love, joy, and your own family.

The voice on this square

I don't feel anything, and that's safer.

Locked Down: Rules. Fear has full control. Rigid thinking, cut-off feeling, fight-or-flight. It's built to keep you alive in danger, and it can't tell home from a war zone.

Fear-based feeling armors up: it withdraws, numbs out, and pushes people away before they can hurt you.

Core beliefs that often drive this square:

• "Feelings are weakness." Trained in deliberately so you could function under fire. It worked then. It costs now.
• "I'm alone. Nobody gets it." Shows up after leaving the unit: the loss of a tribe that understood you without explanation.
• "I'm not safe." Often wired in by real danger: combat, a violent home, a moment where safety disappeared without warning.

Sources: Clark, A; Beck, A

Limbic system and the vagus nerve: your comms network. Emotion is built in the amygdala, insula and cingulate cortex, and it's wired to your actual heart through the vagus nerve. Heart rate variability tracks how well your thinking brain can steady your emotions. Simply putting a feeling into words measurably quiets the amygdala.

Habit takeover: locked down. Under sustained stress your brain hands control from flexible thinking to rigid habit circuits. Rules, routines and reactions take over because they're fast. It kept you alive. It also keeps you stuck.

Sources: Lieberman, M; Thayer, J; Schwabe, L; Arnsten, A

How it tends to show up:

• Feeling nothing at moments that should matter
• Isolating
• People say you're 'not there'

In your body

Numb, flat, heavy, staring through things.

A thought that lives here

Nobody gets it unless they were there, so why bother talking? "I'm alone" turned into a reason to go dark.

No right answers. These are for noticing, not judging. Skip any that don't fit.

• When did you last go dark? What were you protecting by cutting comms, and what did it cost?
• What feeling are you most afraid would come up if you turned the comms back on?
• Who notices when you go dark? What do they see?

• By the book · HeadSame column. When your heart is here, your head often lands here too.
• Hair trigger · GutSame column. When your heart is here, your gut often lands here too.
• Exposed · HeartOne step closer to center in this row.
• I believe · HeartShares a core belief: "I'm alone. Nobody gets it."
• Bracing · GutShares a core belief: "I'm not safe."

Write it as a When/Then plan: "When I notice feeling nothing at moments that should matter, then I will send one message to one person. Two lines is enough."

"When X happens, I will do Y" plans hand the decision to your environment, so you don't need willpower in the moment. Across many studies they make follow-through far more likely than good intentions alone.

Sources: Gollwitzer, P

• Emotionally disconnected. You've cut comms to protect yourself.
• What it sounds like: "I don't feel anything, and that's safer."
• Your move: Send one message to one person. Two lines is enough.

Optional reflection

Who notices when you go dark? What do they see?