Trauma produces a disassociation between mind and body - a kindness granted by nature to numb the affects of severe injury that distances, for example the deer from the biting, tearing agony of the wolf pack's attack - but if endured for long the mind never really snaps back and life thereafter is lived in a disassociated haze of never feeling truly present. Childhood abuse, I know from experience, produces just such an effect.
This is what the Trump "zero tolerance" policy is doing to children removed from the safety of their family.
Really? Adults I believe react/deal differently than children. Altho there is Numbness from adrenalin, maybe...physical things do hurt much worse later. But when first hubby was kicking, strangling, beating on me, I remained fully aware and time slowed down, with thoughts like, "get out of the bathroom, too small with lots of hard surfaces", or "get out of the kitchen, too many sharp things"...because he Was trying to kill me in those moments, and I have the scars to prove it.
Have had similar reaction(s) when hit by a car (as a pedestrian). Completely aware, everything "highlighted", time slowing down, etc et etc.
But, I was an adult all these times, with inner resources.
I do believe that the young of any species is genetically programmed to fear separation from 0arents/pack as in the wild it means certain death, and this is why you cannot do that if you want mentally healthy adults....something inside gets "broken" which is impossible to fix, much like childhood 0hysical abuse is so hard to deal with...things that happen when you are pre-verbal, or barely verbal....how do you even process them?
Theses forced separations are an abomination!
One truly - and literally - disturbing aspect of these removals is that young children are left not only feeling abandoned, but believing that their parents are to be held responsible for the terror of separation.