Lauren Rose
Learning
My breath is escaping me once again and I am having to conscious work on not panicking. I am in a significant PTSD storm and it is such a struggle to keep my emotional head above the very tumultuous emotional waters. It is even more challenging because every time I force myself to relax when I get too amped up, I lose my breath and am left gasping until I can turn my attention away and let my body mechanically find its rhythm. It has been a constant battle every since I broke with PTSD 13 years ago. And now that everything is activated, it is exhausting giving myself the constant pep talk to keep going when all I want to do is lay down and die. Sounds peaceful.
For the past 12 years I have been asking everyone I know - lay peeps and professionals alike - why I lose my breath every single time I put attention to it. No one has an answer. And everyone always seemed so surpised and it made me feel defective... less than. I got to the point where I simply didn't pay any attention to my breath - problem solved. Not really because I had to keep a vigilance to NOT pay attention to it so I was still a prisoner of my own mind ... just in a different way.
When I got sucked into this present storm I lost my breath even unconsciously. I feel like I have been running a marathon at full speed and can't seem to get a good breath. Or the air doesn't have any substance to it. I can breathe in down to the bottom of my lungs, but there is no satisfaction. I am constantly gasping for air, taking that "catch up breath" because I am shallow breathing.
But it is familiar. So I am not panicking ... sort of. It is like a low grade panic actually, not quite strong enough to medicate but strong enough to require constant observation. Did I mention exhausting?
My method of maintaining my stability until this storm passes is to seek out new coping mechanisms. I made a new friend who also suffers from my style of PTSD and it has been life giving talking with him in the flesh. I haven't found anyone who understands what I am going through in a number of years. Thank you my Universe. What a gift. He put me in touch with a friend of his who profoundly helped him with grounding.
I spoke with her on the phone yesterday. She took me through a grounding exercise that has great potential to be helpful. It was a typical “sit and let your feet grow roots down to the middle of the earth and let the earth energy flow up through you out your crown and down your body back to the earth” but spoken in a way that I could really latch on to and relate. It was amazing. After the 15 minute exercise, I began asking her some questions.
Is it normal to have waves crash through you? One wave where my tears were literally flowing down my face soaking my chest? And the next wave I was literally vibrating with rage energy and had to will myself to sit and continue the exercise? Or another wave where I was swallowing so hard because the bile wanted to eject from my body onto my carpet?
Oh she said. No. She told me if it got that intense that I should stop and pull back. I explored that with her and came to my conclusion that as always, I needed to push myself to uncomfortable and stop before breaking … to desensitize and to build my stamina being with me.
As I was explaining to her why I have such a hard time trusting myself, I began to understand perhaps why I lose my breath so badly so often.
Going to get personal… in a general way.
When I was small ages 5-8 some of the adults in my parents life used to come into my room and … well you can imagine. I used to hold my breath every time I heard a noise outside. And when I was 27 and assaulted by 2 men, I had run from them and leapt into the bushes and went “dead” and held my breath but they caught me. And and and…. so many times I have held my breath. And this is in the waking world. In my terror dreams… same.
I think what is happening is that when I focus on my breath, my highly tuned survival instinct sees this behaviour and immediately thinks I am in mortal danger. My fight/flight/freeze instinct is tripped and my reasoning mind is disconnected and my survival self is in charge. It knows that in order for me to have even the smallest chance to escape life threatening disaster, I need to be silent. My breath needs to be barely there. I need to be still.
This makes so much sense to me. But … I have such a hard time trusting myself especially when I am in a PTSD storm, I have doubts. But I trust you. What do you think? Does this make sense to you?
If it is sound then I have a visible mark to hit - FINALLY! I can sit with a grounding rock in my hands and do a focused meditation that “I Am Safe” and change the terms of engagement I currently have with focusing on my breath.
I really hope you will comment because I desperately need your thoughts. If this is full of shit .. I need to know that so I can keep seeking an answer.
Forever grateful… me.
When I got sucked into this present storm I lost my breath even unconsciously. I feel like I have been running a marathon at full speed and can't seem to get a good breath. Or the air doesn't have any substance to it. I can breathe in down to the bottom of my lungs, but there is no satisfaction. I am constantly gasping for air, taking that "catch up breath" because I am shallow breathing.
But it is familiar. So I am not panicking ... sort of. It is like a low grade panic actually, not quite strong enough to medicate but strong enough to require constant observation. Did I mention exhausting?
My method of maintaining my stability until this storm passes is to seek out new coping mechanisms. I made a new friend who also suffers from my style of PTSD and it has been life giving talking with him in the flesh. I haven't found anyone who understands what I am going through in a number of years. Thank you my Universe. What a gift. He put me in touch with a friend of his who profoundly helped him with grounding.
I spoke with her on the phone yesterday. She took me through a grounding exercise that has great potential to be helpful. It was a typical “sit and let your feet grow roots down to the middle of the earth and let the earth energy flow up through you out your crown and down your body back to the earth” but spoken in a way that I could really latch on to and relate. It was amazing. After the 15 minute exercise, I began asking her some questions.
Is it normal to have waves crash through you? One wave where my tears were literally flowing down my face soaking my chest? And the next wave I was literally vibrating with rage energy and had to will myself to sit and continue the exercise? Or another wave where I was swallowing so hard because the bile wanted to eject from my body onto my carpet?
Oh she said. No. She told me if it got that intense that I should stop and pull back. I explored that with her and came to my conclusion that as always, I needed to push myself to uncomfortable and stop before breaking … to desensitize and to build my stamina being with me.
As I was explaining to her why I have such a hard time trusting myself, I began to understand perhaps why I lose my breath so badly so often.
Going to get personal… in a general way.
When I was small ages 5-8 some of the adults in my parents life used to come into my room and … well you can imagine. I used to hold my breath every time I heard a noise outside. And when I was 27 and assaulted by 2 men, I had run from them and leapt into the bushes and went “dead” and held my breath but they caught me. And and and…. so many times I have held my breath. And this is in the waking world. In my terror dreams… same.
I think what is happening is that when I focus on my breath, my highly tuned survival instinct sees this behaviour and immediately thinks I am in mortal danger. My fight/flight/freeze instinct is tripped and my reasoning mind is disconnected and my survival self is in charge. It knows that in order for me to have even the smallest chance to escape life threatening disaster, I need to be silent. My breath needs to be barely there. I need to be still.
This makes so much sense to me. But … I have such a hard time trusting myself especially when I am in a PTSD storm, I have doubts. But I trust you. What do you think? Does this make sense to you?
If it is sound then I have a visible mark to hit - FINALLY! I can sit with a grounding rock in my hands and do a focused meditation that “I Am Safe” and change the terms of engagement I currently have with focusing on my breath.
I really hope you will comment because I desperately need your thoughts. If this is full of shit .. I need to know that so I can keep seeking an answer.
Forever grateful… me.