From what I recall the detachment mainly came from the fact that she basically vented her emotions and feelings to her the Swarm of Bugs she had. And Capes do tend to cope with lot either with pre-established flaws or incorporate the power itself into that coping mechanism. Which doesn't necessarily get rid of the stress, just displaces it temporarily.
Recently I've been getting into the fan-made audio books of Worm, because I've mainly been used to second hand sources and readings of WoG statements. Like how the Endbringers have an 'effective' mass that's like trying to dig into a galaxy.
Aye, and while that's both sound logic and reminiscent of some actual forms of trauma response coping mechanisms, it didn't...
It's easy to invent reasons for things. If there's one thing writing for as long as I have has taught me, it's that the universe (at least the one interpreted through the lens of the human mind) longs for completion. There's always gotta be a completion to the pattern, something to fill the holes in the chain of cause and effect. So long as you don't break one of the rules you've laid out for your creation before, it's simple to invent reasons for things that would otherwise be nonsensical happenings.
Not that the 'trauma causes powers causes more trauma' thing doesn't make sense in-story, and by the end it even manages to wrap into a resolution that makes sense for the sort of theme it pushes, but there's something missing in it. I don't have enough energy to articulate what it is right now, but it's there. The closest I can get to it is ... Worm to me feels like a work that set out to explore the psychological consequences of superpowers and the ways it'd affect those who use them, but got too caught up in the simulationist aspect of what should logically happen in-setting instead of what the story needed to keep on-theme. It's why there's so much goddamn fanfiction of it, Wildbow invested a lot of effort in exploring the background of the setting, painting the details necessary to generate a wide variety of stories in it. But at the same time there's a reason why 90% of the Worm fanfic I've seen is 'taylor gets another power, what happen' and the other 10% tends to focus around one of the characters from the pre-Leviathan arc - the setting is expansive and accommodating, but the actual defining themes and whatnot of it are confined pretty much to that.
It's a thing trying to do multiple forms of narrative conveyance at once and almost, but not quite, succeeding. It gets pretty close, Wildbow's a good writer (and a damn sight more productive than I've ever been, so I've no space to complain) but the thing's still both trying to be an expansive pseudo-comic setting storyline and a gripping, personal character drama exaggerated through the use of superpowers, and the two don't really fit together.
Course I haven't read Worm in years and I'm running a quest that's in the process of trying to do the exact same thing I'm railing against - I've got a definite plot and themes lined out for Respect Your Elders but I also freely acknowledge that the greater part of its appeal (even for me) is watching me ramble about ancient aliens magitek bullshit. So I've got no room to complain or anything.
Huh, that was a lot of words. Wonder where that came from.
