Threatened By Feeling Alive

[Chava]

It sounds stupid, but it's so helpful that my therapist understands that I do not tolerate good feelings very well. What is even more weird is that sometimes I can't even tell the difference between angry and happy, because both are on the "I'm alive" spectrum and what starts to feel like Tasmanian Devil energy. I don't know if I should create something or punch a hole in a wall. I just have this jumbled energy. My therapist said that when traumatized people start to feel a little better their defense system can feel confused. I've known for a long time that "survival mode" is my base, where I'm most comfortable.

So here's what I have identified, using my own words (helpful to start to understand better):

Meltdowns: on the powerless end of the spectrum. I feel immobilized, time gets distorted, primary feeling is powerlessness and feeling like I'm drowning. This is where the pain, suffering, or sickness has tipped beyond my control.

Survival Mode: this is like "home base". This includes starving, smoking too much, drinking, pain, being sick, and even the mild forms of dissociation. It's a state of semi-numbness where I feel less alive, less threatened by my own energy, and okay within my bubble of just trying to get by.

Feeling "Okay": this I'm starting to work out and it feels better, in the moments where I have this. I don't feel like I deserve worse and I don't feel threatened because I don't feel too much of anything. I feel present and not in pain, but okay with it. I believe I'm moving towards this (slowly) as my new baseline, which would be very good! I love-hate survival mode. I've been trapped there so long.

Tasmanian Devil: Feeling alive, having energy, not having pain. This ranges from feeling high, like I'm getting too much oxygen, to feeling like I need to destroy something, to even feeling happy. Basically just threatened by energy, aliveness because it's a spinning, f*cking confusing energy. I've actually gotten drunk because I was happy. Not shitting you. I knock myself down so I feel sick again, and safer. My alive energy easily tips into recklessness and self-destruction. I feel safer just feeling slowed down by pain, semi-starvation, sickness, etc.

This all relates well to my trauma (but that would be another separate long-ass post), and even Laurence Heller said that people with really early trauma can feel threatened by aliveness (that was so validating to read, because it feels so f*cked up and senseless).

It helps to not so much define feelings but these energy states. So with the Tasmanian Devil I'm not starving or getting drunk. But I'm also trying to not mindlessly over-do stuff and bring back pain (do that quickly). It helps to find a slow, mindful way to channel that energy. With my pain I have to be careful, so this is all still an experiment, but it feels hopeful to identify this.

Not sure if anyone relates or has more insight into this kind of threat and moving slowly out of survival mode. I can say survival mode has been less destructive in recent years (no more starving, for example), so there is a spectrum here and I do notice very slow progress towards feeling more comfortable feeling "okay" (just not alive or too much energy right now...but the Tasmanian Devil image helps me frame this somewhat so I can respond by trying to channel that energy...wanted to get drunk yesterday, but I did not...so that's good).

Long-ass Chava post. :confused: Thanks for reading.

 

[shimmerz]

I don't have anymore insight, but I do appreciate this posting. It helps me put words to what I believe I float in and out of these days. Thanks Chava.

 

[Chava]

Thanks @shimmerz ...I've recognized my coziness with barely surviving for a long time. If pain or sickness starts to feel out of my control though, then I go into meltdown. So it's like a controlled suffering (how f*cked up is that?). But I'm just starting to notice the more alive feelings. I notice them infrequently because pain or some kind of physical suffering is still so common.

I used to willfully knock myself down. Now, even if I want to feel better, my body seems to knock me down...some subconscious maneuver. But I think if I can understand this disorganized alive energy, the threat of it, then hopefully I can respond differently...slowly, gradually, nothing going to be all fixed this week! :):wacky:

 

[shimmerz]

I think this is a really important posting, although I haven't been able to sort through it the way that you have. I recognize that I do not feel 'safe' when I feel alive. Almost like someone can take something from me (if that makes any sense at all). Best not to have it than letting people steal it from me????? Something along those lines.

I will watch this thread with interest, because if I intend on improving the quality of my life, I think these subconscious issues need to be dealt with. Seems like an endless tunnel at times, doesn't it?

 

[Chava]

if I intend on improving the quality of my life, I think these subconscious issues need to be dealt with

Yes, me too. It's so hard though when you have very little clue what you are dealing with (I understand certain states very well, others very poorly still). This bit of added understanding came yesterday because I had to pay attention and find a new response to chaotic feelings that made me feel like drinking. I could only describe it as feeling "f*cked up." In trying to respond differently I sort of started understanding the energy and threat a little better. Still absolutely not my comfort zone...will probably remain Tasmanian Devil territory for a while, but great if I know how to be there without getting drunk or otherwise dropping into extreme numbing techniques.

 

[Rumors]

@Chava
Good for you for not drinking!!! Way to go! Way to make good choices and way to pay attention to your body instead of numbing it out!!! Congrats!

 

[Justmehere]

@Chava - you described something that I can really relate to and struggle with in a very similar way.

For me, "alive" is where everything can be lost again. Alive is the unknown. "Survival" - that is a state I know better than I know the back of my hand. I can DO survival. But alive? Not so sure.

 

[Tinyflame]

Yes thank you @Chava . I relate to all but the Tasmanian Devil part exactly, no mania-like feel, but alive, happy & free would all be somewhat synonymous to me. I don't know if it's connected to feeling happy -> then tragedy (by association), maybe some guilt in being alive. Beats me but you really express it well & congrats to with being able to choose other than drinking. :hug:

 

[Powder]

I can relate to some of this going into these modes as if automatically and trying to improve them. Feelings of pure happiness are so "shocking" and brief that they are gone before I can figure them out, what caused them, or how to get them back. It feels like seeing a bird fly by, and then it's gone.

I wonder if they are such a shock to the system that they must be immediately removed or they would do harm, or the system feels this way. Although, why after the system has allowed prolonged flashbacks of states that were once perceived as fatal if felt is happiness still perceived as most dangerous of all?

I do not have the answer to this within my trauma history yet. Other than to believe that perhaps I was most happy with those who did the most trauma, and so the happiness/bonded feeling is decidedly seen as a traitor feeling.

The thought of how to prolong the feeling of happiness has occurred but seems silly as I we're talking seconds. I felt it most strongly playing at the park once with my dog. I do think it was actually a child alter that does not have PTSD that came forward and I was feeling a child's happiness, because it didn't square with any experience or feeling state that I can relate to my adulthood. And I was back and it was gone as spontaneously as it arrived.

I do wonder if these experiences have to do with MPD/DID and not just PTSD or early childhood trauma that traps child ego states within a person. As a child, I could feel things much more intensely than as an adult.

 

[Chava]

feeling of happiness has occurred but seems silly as I we're talking seconds. I felt it most strongly playing at the park once with my dog. I do think it was actually a child alter that does not have PTSD that came forward and I was feeling a child's happiness

I don't have alters, so might be off base, but could it be you were simply happy? I have actually felt this with my dog too...and it's not threatening "alive" or happy, so that's very good. It's like neutral (why I need to spend more time with my dog). I assume it's because my connection to him is so safe and reliable, and there are no negative associations...and seeing him happy just makes me feel good. I need more dog time!

 

[Deleted member 28740]

really early trauma can feel threatened by aliveness

Taking deep breaths. Did not know this about myself. Could be alive when IN LOVE (romantic). Reason for that is it produces hormonal activity that is a mild form of depression. (from some research article I found a few years ago). Along the the lines of Love makes you stupid. And generally mind not self oriented.

Appreciate the phases as you describe them. Many reason to be very shy of relationships for some years now, get lost and harmed, but had not considered this aspect of being in alive mode/phase, open/dulled, so it was almost free again, but not. Semi drunk.

 

[Powder]

I don't know but it felt like I was totally free suddenly. And then it was gone. I felt deflated.
Is that mania? Or happiness? I don't know what either is for sure. ?