She rambles

Recently it was pointed out to me that I ramble (to talk at length in a confused or inconsequential way). I knew I often went on tangents, but I didn’t understand what was actually happening in those moments, or recognize the impact it had on others. I hadn’t realized that my rambling didn’t leave space for other voices. This realization has opened a door of self-discovery and a flood of questions.

Is rambling a trauma response?
What is happening in my body when I Ramble?
Am I present? 
Where do I go?
How do I pull myself back into my body?

I am asking myself so many questions these days. I am trying to learn who I am, to trust myself, and to recognize myself more clearly. The more questions I ask, and the deeper I dive, the more clarity, intention, and self-awareness I find. It feels like waking up for the first time. This is both uncomfortable and disorienting. The cognitive dissonance is peaking as I move through it, but it also feels like growth.

In my research, I came across the concept of the fawn response. This response often develops in children who learn to survive by appeasing or pleasing caregivers who are also a source of threat. To fawn is to bypass your own needs ~ and sometimes even your sense of identity ~ in order to attend to the needs of others. Biologically, we are wired to attach to our caregivers, no matter what. That attachment is so fundamental that even when those caregivers are critical, shaming, neglectful, or abusive, the child will cling to the bond rather than risk abandonment.

The conflict is devastating: the instinct for safety colliding with the instinct for attachment. When a child is caught between love and harm, the mind adapts in extraordinary ways. One part of the self clings tightly to the caregiver, desperate to preserve the connection at any cost. The other part carries the unbearable truth of the abuse. And too often, that truth must be buried in order to survive. This creates a fracture within the self, an impossible split that says, “I must love the very person who hurts me, so I will cut off the part of me that knows the pain.”

This split is fertile ground for dissociative tendencies. Over time, the mind learns how to compartmentalize, how to shut off pieces of memory or awareness in order to keep functioning. And while this adaptation allows the child to survive, it often continues into adulthood. The dissociation does not disappear once the immediate threat is gone. Instead, it lingers, quietly shaping behaviors, coping mechanisms, and ways of relating. It resurfaces in subtle but powerful ways: when silence feels unsafe, when vulnerability feels like exposure, when the body believes that remembering might undo us. 

This concept deeply resonates with me in ways that are both validating and unsettling.
Rambling can, in fact, be a trauma response.
For me, it is. 

It is not just speaking too much, or going off on tangents. It is the rush of words spilling out like floodwaters. The endless stream of words tumbling out faster than I can catch them. It is an attempt to fill the space before silence can turn dangerous. It is an effort to explain enough to avoid rejection, to prove myself worthy of staying connected, to show I have value. In those moments, my body believes it is protecting me. My nervous system thinks it is saving me from abandonment. But in reality, it is pulling me away from presence.

Rambling, then, is not just about talking too long. It is about survival. It is my body remembering what it once needed to do to stay safe and repeating the pattern even when the threat is no longer there. Understanding this changes everything. It allows me to look at myself with more compassion, to see the frightened child underneath the habit. It allows me to start recognizing these patterns and opens the door to new questions: how do I notice when I leave the present moment? How do I return to my body when the words begin to spiral? How do I learn to trust silence, to believe that I am safe even when I am not filling the air?

These questions are not easy, but they feel like the beginning of something honest. And maybe that’s the first step: not silencing the ramble, but listening to what it’s trying to protect. In doing so, I can begin to rewrite the story. Not of abandonment, but of presence. Not of survival, but of growth. These are not habits that I can break overnight, but I can now move through them with more intention as I travel through this journey of self discovery. 

I ramble. But now, instead of drowning in it, I am learning to listen. Every word is a breadcrumb leading me back to myself.