What Is the Unconscious

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You are not failing when your mind goes blank after destructive behavior.

Your psyche may be protecting you from truths too painful to face all at once.

"I don't know" is not a dead end but a threshold.

The psyche reveals itself in its own time, once you create enough safety to let the unconscious speak.

Many of us have moments in our lives where we lashed out at someone, withdrew into isolation when connection was what we craved, or sabotaged something good just as it was becoming real. In moments like these, you may hear your inner voice screaming with impatience or even panic: Why did I do that?

On hearing "why?" your mind may go blank immediately. Perhaps you try to search for a logical reason, some malicious intent, some evidence that you are somehow an underdeveloped or less-than person, yet you find nothing where an answer should be. You may then feel small, ashamed of your inability to explain yourself. All you can feel and hear is a painful inner knot: I don't know, I really don't know why I did that.

If you have found yourself here repeatedly, you may want to pause that chain of self-blame. What you are experiencing is not a failure of the mind, of integrity, or you trying to evade responsibility. The deeper truth may be that the body remembers what our mind cannot speak.

You might find yourself staring at your own behavior as though watching a stranger perform actions that make no sense, feeling genuinely confused about how you could have done something so unlike who you would like yourself to be. But when you say "I don't know" from this dissociated state, you are honoring a protective barrier your psyche erected for good reason. Your internal system is communicating, though not in words you can easily hear: I am not yet strong enough, or safe enough, to touch the hidden memories or emotions........

© Psychology Today