Checking Out: Ice Water In My Veins

[Bullying Survivor]

Hi,
I'm a bit nervous about posting (having kept all of my shame around bullying locked deep down for my whole life), but here goes... (this is my first post)...

I am a woman in her late forties who has suffered off and on over the years with anxiety and insomnia that ranges from low-grade debilitating. Despite talk therapy, CBT, yoga, and massage, homeopathy, naturopathy (you get the idea), it has not really improved (unless you count disassociation, which "helped" for most of my life). Despite these issues, I managed some success in the "real world", until I developed Chronic Fatigue Syndrome 3 years ago.

The CFS was triggered by a 2 year bout of workplace bullying and a period of time where my mother and sister had stopped speaking to me for several months (conflict in my family is dealt with through shunning). I went into stress shut-down mode, stopped working altogether and fumbled along dealing with my CFS symptoms (mostly by disassociating: lots and lots of tv and mindless knitting).

About a month ago, and despite my best efforts to shove down my feelings, I became a weeping, insomniac mess with anxiety through the roof. Long-repressed memories of relentless childhood bullying (grade 2 to grade 10) and grief/frustration/anger at my alcoholic mother (who blamed me for being bullied and then ignored me for days or weeks), could no longer be pushed down. All came boiling up in a chaotic and uncontrollable eruption of tears, tears, tears. I felt helpless, hopeless, and filled with grief and then wham: I shut right down.

My question is, how do you deal with the disassociation? It feels like a wall of numbness around my head and body. I can feel myself slip up into the top half of my head and my body feels far, far away. Small pockets of grief burp up, then I slide back into numbness. I want the feelings! But I do not know to access them or even stay with them. The habit of disassociation is so familiar, so old, it feels impossible to shake its hold over me. Ideas? Thoughts? Does the disassociation ever decrease to the point where you can actually live in your own body?

 

[Deleted member 12723]

Hi, I cannot help you with the dissociation, and for that I am sorry. But I have been a victim of bullying too. It is like terrorism. The effects were very destructive to me and to my family. My heart goes out to you with what you have been through. It sounds like you have tried really hard to work on yourself. It sounds like you could benefit from some safe medications to stabalize you.

Are you in therapy now? Are you seeing a qualified therapist? I am concerned for you. you sound like you could really use a hand up. I am sorry that I am not more helpful. I hope someone will be along that will be able to assist you better. Take good care of you.

 

[Bullying Survivor]

Thanks Gizmo. I am working with a terrific therapist, and am fortunate to have lots of help & support from some close friends, my husband, and my GP. This current bout of off-the-hook anxiety and insomia (and disassociation) has been visitng for a month, and it's only now that I've been diagnosed with complex PTSD. Although the diagnosis feels like a huge relief in a weird way, because it explains the hell I've been living since I was used as a psychological punching bag as a kid (anxieity to panic attacks to disassociation to chronic fatigue, several breakdowns, and now now back to screeching anxiety). I've done therapy in the past, but I talked around my bullying and family issues, now it would apear that I have to actually talk about the pain, feel it, etc. This honestly freaks me out. Anxiety is totally annonying, totally debilitating, but at least it's familiar. Rooting around in the muck of my childhoold, on the other hand is somehting I have avoided my whole life. Here we go...

 

[kers]

Sometimes I can deal with dissociation by embracing it. Instead of fighting it and trying to get out of it, I try can acknowledge it, see what triggered it, and it sometimes does a natural fade. I think focusing my awareness on it makes me more mindful and not so scared so I came back.

For me the worst dissociation is that which makes me panic because I want to break out of it. It's tough to deal with. I know you are scared going into this new part of your healing, but talking about it really does help it lessen.

 

[Bullying Survivor]

Instead of fighting it and trying to get out of it, I try can acknowledge it, see what triggered it, and it sometimes does a natural fade. I think focusing my awareness on it makes me more mindful and not so scared so I came back.

Thank you for your reply. The weird thing is I did not even know I was disassociating until very recently. It's like when my son graduated from high school (and didn't need me so much anymore), and my husband and I started doing some couples counselling (and I kept saying over and over I could not keep carrying everything by myself) and we started really talking, that I finally gave myself permission to feel. All of a sudden the flood-gates opened and I collapsed into this immense pain. It must have been waiting for me behind my wall of disassociation, where I locked sad me away.

So, yes, just even learning to note when I am "checking out" is totally new. I lived that way most of my adult life, accomplished lots of "stuff", and now the wall is coming down and I can't even breathe some days. Thanks for listening.