All of a Sudden
All of a sudden, while I was showering, a wave of chills ran through me.
It felt as though every hair on my body stood on end.
Then derealization began to creep in, followed by dissociation.
I was clearly standing under warm water —
yet suddenly, I felt unbearably cold.
My whole body turned icy and began to tremble.
So I turned the water hotter.
It seemed warm enough —
yet my body kept shivering, and I couldn’t understand why.
Then, abruptly, it became painfully stinging and burning.
Startled, I twisted away from the water and stepped aside.
Thick steam was billowing.
Scalding water was blasting violently from the showerhead.
I came to my senses, finished showering, and stepped out.
My shoulders were burning, swollen, and bright red.
Fortunately, after cooling them with cold water, the pain subsided over time.
I was lucky I pulled away in time.
What, exactly, had just happened to me?
But Clearly
During a shower, the sound of running water masks external noise.
With the bathroom door closed, sounds from outside barely reach inside.
The enclosed space, fogged mirrors, and the absence of glasses narrow one’s visual field.
The skin becomes hypersensitive when soaked, and warm water heightens sensory responsiveness.
In other words, the shower becomes an environment of sensory isolation and amplification.
For someone with Complex PTSD, this state can be perceived as one in which danger is difficult to detect —
and an already hyper-aroused brain may become anxious simply because it recognizes that vigilance is impaired.
I Often Hear Hallucinated Sounds in the Shower
While showering, I frequently hear auditory hallucinations.
They are not voices with clear meaning or articulated words.
Instead, I hear the sense of sounds:
my mother screaming,
my parents shouting at each other,
objects crashing violently.
It does not matter whether I am alone or not.
Even when no one is home, it happens.
There are no real sounds.
The noise of running water merely carries them.
Sometimes I turn off the shower, listen carefully, or step outside the bathroom —
but only silence remains.
They are hallucinations.
Most likely, in a state of sensory closure and hyper-arousal,
my trauma expresses itself in the form of auditory hallucination.
I do not know when this began.
It simply… always had.
It used to frighten me.
Eventually, it became “just how it is,” something I accepted without even realizing it was abnormal.
We Also Remember Through the Senses
The sound of water is continuous — almost white noise.
It blocks external noise while stimulating the brain’s automated sensory circuits.
In this state, the brain may replay sensory memories from the past —
not as sentences or words, but as felt presences of sound and emotion.
These are not literal memories,
but sensory evocations produced as the nervous system repeatedly simulates past threat states.
Not Psychosis — But Traumatic Sensory Memory
These hallucinations are not signs of psychotic illness.
They differ from the hallucinations of delusional disorders such as schizophrenia.
They are not fixed or systematized.
They are directly connected to past trauma.
And my insight — the awareness that they are not real — remains intact.
They are better classified as traumatic hallucinations or sensory-based dissociative symptoms.
Thankfully
Perhaps this is not a sign that I am “losing my mind,”
but rather the residue of a survival system that once kept me alive.
In enclosed, uncontrollable, or sensory-isolated spaces —
such as a closed room or the bathroom —
my nervous system remembers past moments of danger
and demands that I become tense and alert in advance.
The Body’s Physiology
When the sympathetic nervous system is excessively activated,
peripheral blood vessels constrict, lowering skin temperature.
This can make the skin feel genuinely cold —
and the brain receives strong signals of “coldness.”
The familiar phrase “my blood ran cold” when afraid is not merely metaphorical.
In dissociative states, sensory input may also be processed abnormally.
The brain may misinterpret or distort temperature sensations in unpredictable ways.
What Was I So Afraid Of?
Warm showers usually make the body relax and feel heavy with comfort.
They induce drowsiness and help regulate sensory input.
That is why it was deeply unsettling that dissociation appeared even there.
This level of dissociation was new to me — and frightening.
The hallucinations, however, have existed for much longer.
So long that I no longer know when they began.
Perhaps I had similar experiences even in middle school — or earlier.
So what was I so afraid of?
What did my body believe it needed to brace itself against?
While I am showering, things keep happening beyond the door —
screams, crashing sounds, violent banging.
A whole invisible catastrophe unfolds.
Sometimes the sounds terrify me.
Sometimes I grow weary of them.
I deliberately increase the noise of water and soap, trying to drown them out —
but they never disappear completely.
Of course, nothing is actually happening outside the door.
All of it exists only inside my head.
And perhaps…
it always will.
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