Body Memory Or Anxiety?

[Powder]

Lately, all flashbacks, and a couple of the nightmares, seem to cluster around a memory of almost drowning as a small child by my mother, probably when I was age 4, maybe more than once (also as a baby?).

Since September, any anxiety (being around people at work especially) and I feel like my throat is closing and I start coughing. I keep feeling throat irritation, and like I am struggling to breath. It's been happening so often that I wondered if I'm developing asthma. I have an inhaler and it doesn't work much on this. This went on Sept.-Jan., went away and then has recently come back worse and stronger and more triggered by anxiety (now obvious).

My throat felt really bad during social anxiety yesterday at work, and then when I got home and took a shower, I started coughing so much that I nearly threw up twice. I was working too hard to breath, hyperventilating, and passing out. I "could breathe" enough to cry, because I felt so "I CAN'T BREATHE!" in my emotions even more than in my body, as if the allergies became a trigger. I thought maybe I was having an asthma attack and panic attack at the same time. I coughed a lot and felt like I had just been drowning. My right lung was hurting REALLY bad, like a hot spot was in it.

(I have no clue what was going on, and thought it was all physical. My husband came to help me and said he thought I was having a PTSD flashback, not a real breathing problem cause I could talk fine, just not breath normal or stop coughing and trying to open my airway with throat clearing noises.)

In other words, I wonder if it's possible that this is new PTSD symptoms related to a new surfacing of a trauma. Has anyone experienced chronic breathing problems as part of PTSD body memories or flashbacks?

I'm also really frustrated/angry that everyone wants me to do deep breathing for my PTSD not realizing that most of my trauma is triggered by noticing my breath (or lack thereof).

Deep breathing exercises make me feel the opposite of how I'm sure they are supposed to. I find it helpful if I can move through, but mostly I don't even want to do it, avoiding the triggering of breathing at all. I'd rather not notice that I'm breathing at all and dissociate from breath altogether.

Has anyone found a way to work with this kind of thing?

 

[ihateusernames]

I don't have any answers, but my heart goes out to you.

just not breath normal or stop coughing and trying to open my airway with throat clearing noises

This exact thing has been happening to me over the last 2 months. I cough and clear my throat and struggle to get a good breath constantly. I will feel like I'm suffocating and cough until I puke, and I have been to the doctor for it, have been sent for testing, I've had blood tests, went to a pulmonary specialist, there is nothing physically wrong. It sucks and I'm so sorry that you are feeling this way, too.

I highly doubt that mine is related to a previous drowning incident. Maybe that means it's anxiety for both of us or maybe it means it's two different things entirely.

 

[seedling]

I think I'm having a physical problem now that's related to a memory that I started in EMDR. The lymph glands at the base of my throat have been swollen for three weeks now. I don't feel sick. It gets better and then worse again - at first I thought it was a mild flu. I'm having a hard time telling how much is physical and how much is emotional. It's all mixed up. I'm working on a memory that involves a part of me that's all about speaking. I had a choking incident three years ago that was emotionally related to this.

I have problems with my breathing - mostly with holding my breath at least a little bit all the time. More, if I'm stressed. I am able to work on my breathing without it being triggering. I have a tension in the back of my tongue and throat that keeps me from breathing out all the way. Am working on reminding myself to do that.

Not sure how you could help yourself move through this. Be good to your throat, do what feels good and soothing.

 

[Chava]

Breathing stuff is sort of hard to sort out. I do have breathing trauma...pretty bad and multiple traumas in that area (don't remember much because I was too young and when older lost consciousness). But even with that, breathing gets difficult with any regular anxiety. Can you tell if your breathing is getting more shallow? Or if it feels like it's in the muscles, like constriction, do you notice that you are tight anywhere else? Muscle relaxants have helped when it felt hard to breathe sometimes. In those cases it was general all-over stress that was creating tightness and spasms in my upper body.

For me, if it's really connected to the breathing trauma, coughing or making myself a little oxygen mask helps...there is a weird sort of way I start sucking air that seems to calm me down and open the airways. I can't talk if I'm in the middle of it. It feels like I am choking from the inside.

But I can't just focus on breathing alone either...makes me more anxious (I totally get the frustration with being told to just "breathe" and how that actually makes it worse). I can notice the exhale some, but not the whole process. Maybe you can focus on one part, or one part of your body as you are breathing...like feeling your chest expand, but not feel breathing too directly. Or blow against something to notice a whistle sound? Feel breathing with only half your attention but focus on listening to something??? Not sure if this makes sense, but I have to "notice" that I am breathing okay (not dying) from a sort of sideways, indirect approach. Or squeeze something or move my arms. Sometimes it's the weirdest things.

 

[Powder]

Thank you for the heartfelt and thoughtful responses @seedling @ihateusernames and @Chava

I will come back and read through each again more slowly to digest each point and image.

@ihateusernames I'm sorry this is happening to you, too! It's been a horrible symptom to deal with; and even though I suspected it was anxiety/PTSD based, it feels very physical and quite possibly just 100% biological only. My supporter/husband, who's known me for 20 years, could sense that it was a bit of both, mostly PTSD though.

Can you tell if your breathing is getting more shallow? Or if it feels like it's in the muscles, like constriction, do you notice that you are tight anywhere else? Muscle relaxants have helped when it felt hard to breathe sometimes. In those cases it was general all-over stress that was creating tightness and spasms in my upper body.

Excellent question @Chava I definitely think I do breath too shallow all the time and have very poor circulation from that. It was part of my PTSD diagnosis from the pdoc in the 90s. My cold hands on a hot summer day and blue/grey toes, barely moving chest and pale lips, barely have a pulse, too low blood pressure. Then, lately I have high BP now, but still shallow breathing.

I should try my M.R's that I have.

When this happened last night, I totally forgot to mention the weirdest part was during the "attack" my lips and eyes were spasming, drawing up together like a purse-string. It was part of the scariness. Maybe my lung was as well. God, it was horrible. I don't even like thinking about it.

 

[Chava]

That sounds very scary.

I breathe shallow by default. The sick part about my love of cigarettes is how it feels okay to really take a good inhale . :meh: I can sort of do the alternate nostril breathing (yoga)...maybe for a minute. Anything that gives me that added layer of attention, like touching my nose, anything...I just can't focus completely on my breathing. In meditation it's a source of presence...always there, working on it's own. Well no. Breathing is not a given. To be alive an not able to breathe is sheer terror.

Are you working on this stuff in therapy? Hope muscle relaxants help some and that you rest well tonight.

 

[sun seeker]

Has anyone experienced chronic breathing problems as part of PTSD body memories or flashbacks?

Yup. It's been a big thing for me. My brain is fried tonight but I'll try and post on this tomorrow. I'm sorry to hear you are having such a rough time with this.

 

[sun seeker]

Slightly more awake now. :)

Breathing problems can be really scary. I'm sorry you are going through this.

I've had a lot of issues relating to breathing, and there are a few things that helped me sort out whether they related to a body memory or just anxiety. I'm not saying this is what is going on for you.

My most common symptom set is trouble catching my breath, a feeling of a heavy weight on my chest that makes it hard to expand my lungs fully, and at the same time, some swelling of the airway. It does come up in situations where I feel anxious, but I have anxiety a great deal of the time and this set of symptoms only sometimes. It's distinct from other kinds of anxiety for me. I also wondered for a while about asthma, but I don't think that fits in my case. Not sure about you.

What helped me sort it out was listening to what my body was trying to tell me. What's in your body is there for a reason. I've had bouts of this symptom for years off and on, decades really. It would be worst in situations where I felt trapped. Being in a crowded or enclosed space with another person blocking my exit while I'm having this symptom makes me panic. When it's really bad, I have an immediate need for space around me, and particularly space to move my arms freely. Feeling closed in is horrifying, as is thinking of not being able to move my arms. That told me something. What I wanted to do with my arms was push away anything restricting them - even though nothing was, it felt as if there was.

I was working with this around the time I posted the Working With Body Memories thread, I don't remember whether you were part of that one but it helped me. At the same time I was starting to feel an eerie kind of deja vu when hearing people describe certain experiences. That's a misnomer actually because it wasn't something I'd "seen" before but something I'd felt, though I couldn't have said how. Eventually I found that by focusing on and writing about all the bits and pieces of what I didn't think I knew, it turned out I did know. It led to a pretty intense flashback, so I wouldn't advise doing this alone.

It sounds like you've already had flashbacks and nightmares that tell you what this is about. I wonder whether working with your body would help relieve some of the symptoms. For instance, if you pay attention to what it wants and it tells you to cough... do that, and do it as much as you need to without trying to hold it in, until the need is released. I don't know how that sounds to you. You're getting the cognitive level, but it sounds like your body hasn't gotten the message that you've gotten the message, if that makes sense.

I still have the breathing symptoms off and on, but not as bad. A shift did happen with the other symptom I'd been having for about a year, a persistent urge to scream. Once I let my body complete what it needed to do, the urge subsided. By several days later, it was gone.

So yes, I'd say it's highly possible this is a new symptom of surfacing trauma, but it's hard to tell from here. Can you ask your doctor for an opinion in case there is something physical going on?

I get the thing about breathing exercises making it worse. I have to alter any kind of meditation involving focus on the breath. NOT relaxing for me. Instead I focus on something external, like counting how many blue things there are in the room. Suppose it could be any neutral body sensation too, but there are times it's more relaxing to come out of myself than stay in.

 

[Born to Run]

Has anyone experienced chronic breathing problems as part of PTSD body memories or flashbacks?

I believe your husband is totally right and this was a flashback. This morning in therapy I went through a quite similar bodily memory, as my body remembered my mother trying to drown me as a baby. A few weeks ago my body remembered she tried to strangulate me also as baby. Both sessions were with extreme breathing problems and an extreme sore throat for days after. It seemed water and air were all mixed up and it was chaos and I just kept burping air. She was less determined this time as the water did not get into my lungs, therefore no coughing. This is how it was at that time. It is in a way great that your body helps you in your healing by bringing this up. It is important though to feel that you complete this specific memory. The body memory is one part, the other part is to feel the emotions that were there too. I felt I was going to die, would not make it, fought against her, felt the disgust of her. I was in shock after as I never knew I had lived with a potential killer. It is easy for me to say all of this as I do a therapy that works with the body, so I would not know how to go about it when you do a different therapy. Still try to connect to related emotions I would say.
I believe this was also @sun seeker 's experience after her body memories thread. She told her therapist all about our input and the therapist just shrugged, if I am correct?
No, I believe there are no new symptoms involved, it is old stuff that wants/needs to be processed.
BTW it is very interesting that you bring up the shower and after the shower your flashback started. For years I have been struggling with the shower and bathroom without knowing why. I would collapse physically after washing my hair. Since last week the bathroom issues -everything around my head; brushing teeth, brushing hair- became more and more prominent, and leading to today's session and processing the drowning attempt.

 

[sun seeker]

I believe this was also [DLMURL="https://www.myptsd.com/c/members/28120/"]@sun seeker[/DLMURL] 's experience after her body memories thread. She told her therapist all about our input and the therapist just shrugged, if I am correct?

It was my thread about finding my way out of the freeze response. I told her what I had done, hoping for more input, and it seemed like I'd already figured out everything she knew on the topic. She just said it sounded great and to keep doing more of the same.

 

[sun seeker]

the other part is to feel the emotions that were there too. I felt I was going to die, would not make it, fought against her, felt the disgust of her

This is another part of how I knew to trust what I was feeling. The detail of the emotions was so intense, so precise. There is no way I could have known what the experience was like that vividly if I were imagining it.

Sounds like you are working through a lot @Born to Run. Good for you!

 

[Born to Run]

True @sun seeker. Thank you! :)