Is Weird Stuff Really Stuck In My Psoas Muscle?

[Chava]

Maybe some of you who've tried TRE can speak to this. I'm more into Pilates and had read Liz Koch's book "Core Awareness" where she talks about this magical muscle.

Supposedly the psoas is what helps us curl into a ball or stand up and run. It's supposedly the deepest fight-flight muscle in our body and holds loads of our trauma. I have spent most of my time in therapy rolled up in a ball. When I wanted to straighten my leg out, my therapist tried to help (Somatic Experiencing). Everything in my lower back, hips, and down to knees was so tight. We didn't resolve anything really. The next week it was worse because, as I tried to go into it, I actually further dissociated and was afraid to leave my therapist's house. Well, within a couple days I was in ER for heart arrhythmia...benign...I'm not dying (yet).

The panic coming out of that tension and weird energy in my legs was bizarre. I found some ways to at least settle the panic. But have any of you had issues around your legs/hips, lower back, or psoas and is eventually resolved if it can find a safe way to shake out? I suspect I have a freeze in there and it hurts...frozen between pulling in for protection and pushing away to fight. I suppose we'll try separating these in therapy next...

I've taken two sleeping pills because I'm an idiot. Sorry if this doesn't make sense. I better go to bed!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Springer80]

Hi Chava, firstly, please don't call yourself an idiot. You're feeling pretty desperate I bet and you need some relief. You did what was at your disposal. Just please take care using sleep and sleeping pills as an escape from physical suffering. Easier said than done so don't be too hard on yourself.

I had to have a look at this psoas muscle when you mentioned lower abdomen and fight and flight. You see when I started to get really ill a few years ago a lot of what you mentioned in a previous post resonated with me. The research I did at that time led me in a particular direction but it centred around the nervous system.

Have you heard of the vagus nerve? It connects the brain to most of the major organs, the heart, the digestive tract and controls blood pressure. You remember me saying I got tachycardia, I couldn't eat hardly, I couldn't get up off the floor, I had to be totally flat, my heart rate would get so bad I couldn't speak and move at the same time.

Look up what the vagus nerve is responsible for and see how it connects to the lower abdomen. Also look it up in relation to ptsd.
You see it controls blood pressure and as it gets over stimulated and drops the blood pressure it tells your heart to compensate.

I suspect I know what your going through. It's horrible. You need to be very very soft with yourself. Treat yourself like a patient. Sometimes I didn't have the energy to cook. I couldn't stand up for anything than a minute or two. So I got soup etc and lots of stuff I could keep myself going in. It's really tuff going through it on your own, especially when most medical professional have never gotten this technical in their lives and think your making it up.

 

[Chava]

I relate to a lot of that. Thanks @Springer80 Fortunately I don't feel as generally ill so often...I used to feel sick most of the time, like afraid to take a shower because I'd pass out from the tiniest bit of temperature change, smack my head, and nobody would find me for days...and, oh the water I'd waste!!

Yes, I've read some about the vagus nerve and also believe in the whole nervous system connection (vs simply cognitive connection) to trauma.

Lately it's less of sick feelings, less of the feelings that I can't hold myself up, and more like I need to blast off to the moon...too much energy in some muscles, so tension and cramping. I tried a heating pad this morning (I slept 3-4 hours on my two sleeping pills!)...it felt really nice but I started feeling panicky from it. So I'm laying half propped up at the moment, fidgeting my feet at about 50 miles per hour. Maybe fight + flight + my hormone system is totally disorganized. I wish it were all more simple. But at least it seems like I can burn up loads of energy without hurting myself. I just hope it resolves soon because eventually something will get injured, sick, or pushed too far. My spine and ribs are getting especially sick of my muscles.

 

[Springer80]

more like I need to blast off to the moon

Yep me too. I started to walk. I'd walk for 8 hours, cover about 25 miles. The movement was like pain relief, like hitting your leg when you have pins and needles but I needed to keep doing it. Conversely my exhaustion levels where rocketing. When people say running on adrenaline I know exactly what it means and it's not good or fun, it's like having paint stripper in your veins.

I've got to say, that if I equate what your experiencing to what I went through, I crashed. I couldn't work for a year. I've been back at work for 13 months now and I work a four day week. It has been a long struggle.

In a ay it's like a crescendo of ptsd, you try and push yourself beyond the condition and eventually you end up like this. Then you crash, then you get chronic fatigue then you slowly build back up again.

In a way the crescendo crashing was the best thing that happened but it was absolutely awful to go through.

 

[Springer80]

afraid to take a shower because I'd pass out from the tiniest bit of temperature change

I sit down in my shower. Have done for ages and still do!

 

[Chava]

Yikes, I hope I'm not crescendo/crashing! That sounds terrible, but I relate to a lot of that too. I noticed once I got sober that I was some sort of adrenaline addict. Something in my body wasn't working. I couldn't smoke enough cigarettes and yet I wanted to be able to settle down...impossible. Then I crashed because I ended up with lots of scary symptoms, really underweight...I felt forced into slowing down. And then I developed chronic pain...so I imagine little balls of energy stuck in some places.

I see this pattern sort of come and go, but I hope through awareness and therapy I don't have to hit the extremes or stay there long. I'm definitely swinging towards adrenaline gushes...and pain because I don't want to run around the block twenty times and knock myself out. I'm learning tools to stay closer to middle, but it just doesn't seem like I actually stay there for very long. But closer. Things are getting a little more physically gnarly though and it does bother me....will work on some of this in therapy tomorrow. I think a sticking point for me is that my feelings (like emotions) are totally separate from my physical feelings or body memories. And general memories are missing or disconnected from feelings too. So any work with my energy or pain just seems mechanical for the most part. If anything, I just dissociate or otherwise space out. I don't know how to get everything to integrate. If it doesn't happen soon I hope my body can at least find a way to rest.

 

[Springer80]

I think the cruellest part of it for me was that I'd felt so heavy and in pain for so long that when I started to get 'to the moon' feelings my energy started to come back and I thought I was getting better. I felt I had power in my body again, I thought this is it, I'm ready to finally jump off and start a life. You will notice that my name on this forum is Springer, well that's what it relates to. I was buzzing and full of confidence that this was finally it. I was pretty wrong.

I think recovery can play some pretty sly tricks on you, mainly because you have no frame of reference. But it's not all bad. It just teaches you some hard lessons.

Good luck with resting and I wouldn't necessarily recommend long distance walking but you'll do whatever you can. It's all you can do.

:hug:

 

[franciemarnie]

I just got the DVD on TRE and will report back re release thru psoas muscles.

I know I have had tremendous relief from internal chaos, strife, tension, discomfort, pain with somatic release with T and it has also happened naturally when talking with my husband about stuff. After the tremors, etc., I have had fabulous relief and relaxation.

We've got to find peace within!

There are tricks to calm down heart by stimulating vasalvagal when your pulse races. Taking deep breath, hold five seconds and let go. Also doing quick gag response with finger down throat - not to actually vomit - just real quick to stimulate vasalvagal. Face in ice water ten or fifteen seconds also works. These are quickies, but we need results that are longie!

It would be great if TRE is effective. I've been a walking, talking tight muscle all my life.

 

[Hope4Now]

Hi Chava. I've done psoas release a few times. First I did it with a massage therapist who over weeks manually released it (excruciating but it did help disperse some of the more intense pain for a bit until the muscles went right back into freeze). Then I have done it a few times on my own with positioning my legs--that's when the shaking stuff happens. I have debilitating chronic pain in my sacrum and legs (it's childhood trauma related but just appeared 2 years ago). I shake a lot when I get blended up with emotional energy that feels like fear and inability to escape. There's not much emotion attached. My body and my emotions are pretty separate, so I know what you mean when you say the physical stuff feels kind of mechanical. It does for me too.

The psychotherapy I do is bodymind based and that is helping me--ever so slowly--to start to feel emotion in my body and connect with it. I am also taking lessons in the Alexander Technique which is designed to help the body release habitually held tensions. Of all the physical stuff I've done over the past year, this has been the most amazing because I've discovered that my sacral pain is actually related to tension I hold in my head and face and jaw and neck. I'm learning strategies to help release that. And...bingo...the more I practice that, the more memories I'm getting and the more emotion is starting to connect...and the more I am able to "feel" vulnerable and feel emotional pain (not much, but a little), the less my body hurts.

For me, it's like learning to juggle. Takes tremendous focus to try to stay present in my body and feel the sensations and relax the tenseness, but then the emotional pain starts to surface in fragmented flashbacks or memories, or I get frustrated and angry with myself, and I get all blocked up and frozen again, so I have to start all over again. It's all been so exhausting...I've developed adrenal fatigue. I lie down A LOT but I don't sleep much. My resting is sort of sleep punctuated by dissociation, or vice versa. It's a big mess, but I think I'm starting to at least be aware of the cycles even if I'm not very skilled at managing them.

I don't think there's any easy answer. I fooled myself into thinking that if I could just release the frozenness of my musculature, then everything would resolve. It has not worked that way at all because so much of the frozenness is emotional.

Sorry if this is all mixed up of a response. I'm rather a mess today, but wanted to respond because I'm interested in what you've written.

@Springer80 I'm going to check out the vagus nerve. I've been told by a number of people that my nervous system is in total chaos. I don't know about the vagus nerve, but I do know I have lowish blood pressure with a high heart rate so I'm intrigued. Thanks for sharing that. Also thanks for sharing about the tricks our recovery can play on us. I cycle through short adrenaline rushes when I think I'm all better so I go full-speed ahead to accomplish a million things then crash in the middle. I've taken a 2 month leave of absence from work in an attempt to get some rest...but it's been way stressful because I'm now in deep debt. Argh, the vicious cycles we get stuck in!

 

[Chava]

@Springer80 I did get some sleep. Whew. It would have gotten pretty crazy in here!! Not that it's all normal now. ;) I can't walk much because my knee is a mess. I do better with a daily walk...no marathon walking or really far, but it's good for me and my dog. Not good to be inactive and also not good to feel the fidget button turn on or whatever makes me soooo squirmy, tense, and eventually pained.

@franciemarnie yes, keep us posted!! I knew something about TRE but it didn't really make sense until I learned how important the psoas is. I do shake when laying on my back, but more in my torso and more jerking...and it doesn't feel super helpful. What has felt helpful was some gentle pushing and inner shaking that was like vibrations. But it's hard for me to "get there" in therapy, you know? One week something clicks, the next I'll in la-la land for way too long.

@Hope4Now thanks...I've tried lots of movement things too (Feldenkrais was too slow, but maybe because I was piling it into my therapy days and it was just too much...have looked into Alexander Technique mainly for injuries, but then found some Feldenkrais classes). I guess I do have emotions, but the range is weird....like, stunted, and I think that's exactly what I'm trying to work through. In therapy I can feel frozen in my body and frozen in feeling (like I become a blank)...and I feel like I'm about 5 or 6 in those feelings. I don't have many specific memories, so lots of it might be related simply terror. Anyway, it's hard to navigate the slightly blank space without all feeling disappearing completely. Once in a while I have tears, or want to someone how connect with my therapist by just touching her arm super light, or hold a stuffed animal. So anyway, yes the frozen emotion part is harder. With SE I think I had the idea I could just release everything, but the emotional part is really stuck sometimes. But hopefully we can do something with the energy in my leg. :eek:

So all the blank parts and then panic, with just a few tears in between. But I suppose it took me a super long time to even get to that point.

Like you noticed with scarum, head stuff, i'm feeling it all connected to my upper back pain at the moment...hopefully helpful because my upper back pain has been really mysterious and all I can do is find ways to help it not get worse (and this almost always included muscle relaxants).

 

[Springer80]

It's all been so exhausting...I've developed adrenal fatigue. I lie down A LOT but I don't sleep much. My resting is sort of sleep punctuated by dissociation, or vice versa

WOW. How true!!! I couldn't have written this better myself. This applied to me about 2 1/2 years ago. It is what prompted me to look into adrenal fatigue and through that I found a paper on Dorsal Vagal state, a sort of depression of the nervous system and through that the vagus nerve.

Lying down a lot became about the only thing I did, and through that I got vitamin d deficiency and also, how ironic, when you lay down ALOT it lowers your blood pressure further. I started to feel like I couldn't move it any direction. If I tried to get up I felt exhausted, I get muscular pain, it would effect my cognitive ability and memory, that would make me anxious, so I'd lie down. The lying down decreased my blood pressure and made me feel weaker. It was torture.

Interestingly before this stage as I was getting exhausted but still feeling propelled I cut a lot of things out of my life. Things which weren't emotionally true for me and so took a lot of effort. So as my body got more messed up I was subconsciously making decisions that were bringing me closer to the epicentre of my trauma.

Once in a while I have tears, or want to someone how connect with my therapist by just touching her arm super light, or hold a stuffed animal

Once I has crashed and was off work I found that I would sit on the floor. I felt little and the scale of my living room felt wrong. I had to be on the floor, often wrapped in a blanket. I also had a stuffed animal and I also used a spare duvet and pillows as a sort of life sized stuffed person.

I can feel frozen in my body and frozen in feeling (like I become a blank)...and I feel like I'm about 5 or 6 in those feelings

This is true for me too, including the age thing. And I absolutely nailed to the spot of being a vulnerable 5 year old. I did not have the energy for anything else, my body totally prohibited it.

Like you noticed with scarum, head stuff, i'm feeling it all connected to my upper back pain at the moment...hopefully helpful because my upper back pain has been really mysterious and all I can do is find ways to help it not get worse (and this almost always included muscle relaxants).

I didn't know the terminology at the time but I had this. I did saunas and massage and went and got my back cracked at the chiropractors and I really truly thought that if he manipulated the spot where all the tension gathered that I would burst into tears and all the emotion would flow out in one big floodgate. It helped but it didn't do what I expected it too.

A year or so later and at the beginning of crash period, I finally found a somatic experiencing trauma specialist. I told her about the pain in the base of my neck/crux of my right shoulder and we talked about it. The name I gave the story that unfolded was Little House of the Prairie and the Blue Marble Tent. It was all about defiance.

 

[Springer80]

You know I just wanted to say that's it's nice and reassuring that this stuff is real even if it's barely acknowledged.

I saw one article about something similar in the national press here. But it wasn't sexual abuse related and didn't mention ptsd. It was a guy who had a breakdown and regressed to the age he was when his mother died and he was sent to boarding school. Thankfully he was from a wealthy background/good salary and flew himself out to Arizona for £17,000 worth of treatment. Horribly, his family disowned him and his wife divorced him.

But what I mean to say is thank you Chava and Hope for posting. It means a lot.