Catatonic Cocoon

Abstract

This poetic mediation explores catatonia from a personal perspective and sensory geography, including its interrelationships with trauma survival, threat responses, and the use of catatonia to create a safe harbor within the self. This creation of a world within the self allows a shutting down and shutting out of broader realities to find healing space when no safety can be found, and a recuperation in self-sanctuary. The catatonic cocoon is untethered from time and the expectations of movement, sound, speech, and performance. By re-positioning catatonic experiences as having emotional and physical functions outside of biomedical conceptualisations of neuropsychiatric disorder, these experiences can be explored as both incidents of vulnerability and as powerful survival strategies, at times subconscious and at times agentic. Approaching this concept with curiosity provides the opportunity to consider how to connect with a person experiencing catatonia, and insights into its timeline, meanings and purpose.