Disassociation is Complicity: Breaking the Cycle of Ignorance

The smoke is already in your lungs, even if your house isn't on fire yet. This powerful metaphor frames our deep dive into disassociation—that subtle, pervasive mindset that whispers "if it's not happening to me, I don't care." While our brains naturally create psychological distance from suffering as a protective mechanism, this episode challenges us to recognize how this distancing doesn't actually make us safer—it makes us complicit.

Through personal storytelling and psychological insights, we explore how this mindset manifests particularly strongly around immigration issues. When we say things like "they knew what they were doing" or "we came here the right way," we're performing a type of patriotism rooted more in trauma than truth. Drawing from my own experience of being separated from my parents for years due to immigration bureaucracy, I share what it feels like to be on the receiving end of society's disassociation—the child who becomes no one's problem, caught in paperwork limbo for nearly a decade.

This episode isn't about guilt—it's about connection. Like California wildfires that spread from house to house, ignoring others' suffering doesn't keep us safe when systems of harm eventually reach our own doorstep. We examine how protests function to bridge artificial gaps between us, disrupting the illusion of separation and reminding us of our shared humanity. When we catch ourselves thinking "that's not my business," I invite you to pause and question what fears drive that response. It's time to exercise our empathy muscle rather than letting it atrophy, to close the psychological gap before it becomes a moral one. Because ultimately, silence isn't safety, and distance isn't immunity—they're just comfortable illusions that keep us from building the world we all deserve.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Have a Cup of Joanie
• 1:22 Disassociation as Complicity
• 3:11 Psychological Distance and Immigration
• 5:03 The Illusion of Separation
• 8:17 Traumatic Separation and Personal Story
• 16:08 Exercising Our Empathy Muscle
• 17:49 Episode Closing and Next Week's Preview

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Oh we could, we could fly. Welcome back to have a Cup of Johnny. This season isn't about hustling harder. It's about coming home to yourself, to your voice, to your breath, to the quiet truth that you're still here and you're not starting over. You're starting again. This is your space to reflect, reset and remember who we tell you. So pour your cafecito and let's begin.

Speaker 2: 0:37

Just because your house isn't on fire doesn't mean the smoke isn't already in your lungs, doesn't mean the smoke isn't already in your lungs. Hey y'all, welcome back to have a Cup of Joannie. I'm Joah and this is episode four in our Language, empathy and Accountability series, and today we are talking about something we don't always name, but we all feel, whether we want to admit it or not, and this is something that goes along the way of. If it's not happening to me, I don't care. That's the mindset. It's subtle, it's quiet, but it's everywhere and it's dangerous.

Speaker 2: 1:22

This episode is called Disassociation, is in Neutral, it's Complicity, because detaching yourself from someone else's suffering doesn't make you safer. If anything, it makes you complicit. Let's talk psychology for a quick minute here. There's a term called psychological distance. It's the space, mental or emotional between you and something that feels too far away for you to matter, and the brain loves to protect itself. It's the reason why I constantly say that we, as humans, we seek comfort so bad, and sometimes we seek comfort at the backs of others, right Against others. Because of this, because it's just this psychological need to always feel protected, to always feel comforted. So when we hear about suffering that doesn't touch us directly. We create that distance, we tell ourselves stories like that's not my issue, they should have followed the rules. The reason why it's happening to them is because they didn't follow the rules. And then, right away, when you're saying something like that, you differentiating yourself between one that follows a rule possibly you right, because you're creating that distance and one that does not, which is the other person to which all this catastrophe is happening to. And then you probably also say that will never happen to me because you're the one that follows the rules. That's how we cope, that's how we protect our emotional bandwidth, that's how we keep anxiety at bay. But, like I said, in protecting ourselves, we risk erasing or harming others. And this is exactly what I've been seeing in the context of immigration and ICE raids the silence, the shoulder shrugs, the comments like well, I didn't vote for that. That's not our community. We came here the right way.

Speaker 2: 3:31

And those aren't just observations, they are psychological defenses, they are how we make sense of the world without taking on more pain. But here's the thing on more pain. But here's the thing, vacitos, just because something's not happening to you doesn't mean it isn't real, and just because you can scroll past, it doesn't mean it won't reach your doorstep eventually, and this is a big one. And this is why you often hear we must liberate this group, because if we liberate this group, it's liberation for all, and that is a great phrase that shows the interconnectedness of all groups under the human being humanity umbrella you. That phrase, right there, should teach us that we are all interconnected, that just because it's not our house currently on fire, it doesn't mean that the smoke is not going to kill us or that the fire is not going to pass towards our house, from house to house to house. You see what I'm saying.

Speaker 2: 4:45

But this association gives us this illusion of distance that is not really there. That's just our brain trying to comfort and protect us, because in truth, we are all far more connected than we want to admit. And I think this is just my philosophy, this is just my theory. I think that's why, like the white European folks just did this whole race thing. Because these people have dark skin, you know, brown, black skin. Therefore they're this. They fit into this bucket. Because we have this white skin, we fit into this quote unquote better bucket, you know. And I think they did that in like a way to disassociate themselves from the harm that they were causing. You know, build that distance between them and us. You know when, in reality, we are all connected and it's like they did that to disrupt that connection, to try to erase that connection.

Speaker 2: 5:53

And every single time we get into these big protests, where we demand to be seen, where we demand to be heard, we are disrupting that facade, that illusion of separation. We are saying, hey, look at us, we are just as humans as you, we are just as humans as the Europeans that build this system of separation. You see what I'm saying. So I see protests as a way to bridge that gap, as a way to really bring down that wall between us, so it can show everyone that we are connected. We are in fact connected under the humanity, human being umbrella. Because if your neighbor's house is burning and you say, not my house, not my problem, what happens when the flames spread? We've seen the California wildfires. Right, it always spreads. And then by the time you care, because you see it on your backyard, it's already too late, because it's already at your doorstep. So this mindset of it's not happening to me, I won't care, is especially dangerous in communities like ours, because we know better.

Speaker 2: 7:28

We've lived through separation. We've lived through loss, through being ignored, dismissed, overlooked, and still we catch ourselves echoing the same language used against us. We say things they knew what they were doing, they broke the law, they should have stayed where they were. But that's not justice, that's trauma turning into performance, that's a misaligned patriotism. And this reminds me of I talked about this in my previous episode about me trying to separate from the Spanish language by like being harsh against it and saying it sucks, I don't ever want to speak it again. You know, and in my young, immatureperienced mind, I was 10 years old.

Speaker 2: 8:28

Then I was thinking that by disassociating myself, by saying how much I hated the culture that I came from, will bring me closer to the culture I am now part of, because I didn't understand that there can be a and in that I can love the culture that I came from and I can also love the culture that I'm in the country that I'm in. It shouldn't be one or the other. And I think that's what's happening here, that sometimes, when we say these statements, it's also about protecting ourselves in the face of from then, where we are at will support us more, will nourish us more will accept us more, you know. But that right there, that binary, that's not correct folks. That is not correct. Because if someone or something or an entity needs to accept you by getting rid of what makes you you, those are not the people you want to be around. If the only way that a group of people is going to accept you by you becoming something that you're not, they're not your people. They're not your people.

Speaker 2: 10:06

You know, and I can equate that as an author, when I went through this writing conference and somebody was like, well, reading a book with all that Spanish in there, I just wouldn't even pick it up, I wouldn't buy it, and it hurt, and it hurt a lot, because I was feeling rejected by people that I thought I wanted to be part of. You know, these were readers, writers like me, and I wanted so bad to be liked and to be accepted by them. And I went through that moment, right down the spot, after hearing that comment, feeling rejected, feeling pity, feeling bad, sad for myself. But then something clicked in me and I don't know how, but thankfully, right there in the spot, I turned to that person and my eyes were welling with tears, you know, because I was hurt. I was really hurt, and I feel big feelings every single time. I feel rejected. I'm a Leo, what can I say? And I turned to her and I was like, well, you're not my ideal reader.

Speaker 2: 11:09

I told her and that's how it is in this instance as well, for those Latinos that feel that they need to shun their identity, they need to, like, be nasty to the place and the culture where they came from. So this country, this group of people here, can accept them. They're doing it wrong. These people will never accept you, period. And if they do, because of that, they're not your people, because your people will love and accept you with everything that you are to include where you came from, to include your mother tongue, to include your foods, your dances, your attire, right, all of that. They will love you because of that, of that. You see and that's a tough lesson to learn when we have been taught to assimilate by getting rid of our own skin you see that, right, there is like performing patriotism and that fear dressing itself up as logic is illogical and, more than anything, that's the brain trying to say if I either just stay quiet, I'll stay safe, or if I turn into one of them. I'll stay safe, but you won't. Let me bring this home with something real.

Speaker 2: 12:47

You already heard my immigration story. That was on the previous episode to this one. You know how I was separated from my parents for years, not by choice, but by circumstance, because it doesn't come overnight, all these papers. So for people to be like, why don't you come here legally? Well, it takes years, years, sometimes decades, because it's a system that built to make us jump through hoops, right, so that way they can either weigh us out or be like oh well, you didn't do this one thing Right. Therefore, no, you can't come in right and then blame us for failing.

Speaker 2: 13:27

My parents missed parts of my childhood, a big chunk of my childhood, not because they wanted to, but because they were stuck between paperwork and poverty. They were all the way in the United States while I was with my grandma in the Dominican Republic. So when I see people, especially Latinos, choosing to look away, I remember how it felt to be that child that they ignored. That's why it hits so deep, because I know what happens when people disassociate. I know what it feels like to not be anyone's problem, to be left behind while someone figures out how to process the paper, while someone figures out how to send us a notice because something was wrong or a signature was put in the wrong line, to send us a notice when the administration changed, to let us know that now we need new. And that was me.

Speaker 2: 14:31

Year after year after year being ignored, the separation between my sister and I and our parents lengthened and lengthened and lengthened until, like, I can't speak for her, but I know at times I felt like an orphan. My grandmother that's what it feels like. Year after year after year. People saying that's not my problem, you know well, they can wait a little bit longer. And we were trying to do it the right way and we were still ignored and made to wait years, close to a decade. And, like I said in the previous episode, I don't even remember my parents in my childhood Like not at all. I didn't know them. I had to get to know them when I came to the US and that bond is not there and that is something that will be with me for the rest of my life.

Speaker 2: 15:27

So I know what it feels to be ignored and that's what people that say that's not my problem, well, they should have done it that way, or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah All these illogical fallacies that they spew just to try to be protected and accepted. That's the result of that. So here's my message for this week If you catch yourself thinking, that's not my business, pause. Ask yourself who taught you that and what were they afraid of when they taught you that, and then just look inside and see if you feel just a little bit protected, just a little bit more comfortable after saying that phrase. Because, right there, that should give you an inclination that that's your mind, trying to protect you from feeling big emotions.

Speaker 2: 16:24

But here's the thing it's okay to feel those big emotions. You shouldn't be running away from them. You shouldn't be running away from them because that's your empathy, that's your empathy muscle. You're feeling something for somebody else and that is a muscle that you should continue to exercise, because we cannot let it atrophy Just because the pain is uncomfortable and we're just trying to get rid of the pain, or we trying to make the pain go away, or we trying to ignore as if the pain is not there. Work out that muscle, don't let it atrophy, people, All right.

Speaker 2: 17:07

So next week I'll close out this series and recap everything we've explored language, identity, silence, complicity, and how we begin to rebuild a language of care, accountability and resistance. Until then, ask yourself where in your life have you checked out and what would it look like to check back in? Because silence is not safety and distance is not immunity. It's time we close that psychological gap before it becomes a moral one. All right, y'all, I'm Joa, and I believe in our ability to remember who we are together. See you next time. Bye.

Speaker 1: 17:53

If today's episode spoke to you, share with somebody who's finding their way back too, and if you haven't yet, visit haveacupofjoanniecom for more stories, blog posts and the bits that started it all. Thank you for being here. Until next time, be soft, be bold and always have a cup of john.