Overstimulated

[desiderata310]

Yesterday was just over the top for me.
It started with therapy. I always arrive early because well... this is a little embarrassing but I have to check out my therapist's office to make sure it's safe. (yes I am still circling it) In order to make me feel a little less exposed, my therapist suggested that I go in the back since there is a little alley way with a gated area that I can wait that leads directly to his office.

When I got there (my appointment is at 7:30 am.. yeah... we meet that early to avoid the noises from the other offices) The office building next door was uncharacteristically busy for that time of the morning, and when I rode down the narrow alley, I saw a motorcycle parked at the end that had never been there before. I backed out really quickly, and went around front where I saw a guy in a truck... just sitting there. I rode away and text my therapist from a safe distance what I had seen and to text me when he got there.

It turns out that the guy in the truck was a contractor waiting to do work on the office next door and the motorcycle actually belonged to my therapist!

I spent the ENTIRE session trying to come back down from that. He kept the session super light because I was shaking so badly. I think the only reason I was able to sit there at all was because he had his dog with him and I was able to pet him for a bit at the beginning of the session.

At the end, as I was finally coming back to something normal-ish I heard the front door open and about jumped out of my skin: turns out it was the person that shares the office space. My therapist got up and stuck his head out to help show me it was ok but that was pretty much it. I was back up to high alert.

When I got to work, I had to go to a one day conference being held in my building. Which meant sitting next to people all morning. At lunch I had been charged (by my boss) to meet and talk to two new people. I did. Lucky me, I got to have lunch with a councilman for the local government. By the time lunch was over I was just about over the moon with anxiety.

I had to stop on the way home to see a doctor about an injury and get some anti inflammatories. I have a repeat IT band issue. So the doctor looked at me when he came in and questioned me: IT band huh? You a runner or something? Don't get me wrong, he was a great doctor, very thorough in his procedure. When he asked about why I was so interested in distance running I answered that it was good therapy. He looked at me funny and started probing further: what was going on that had me so stressed? AAHHHHH!!! I took a deep breath and babbled 'yesit'sthemoveandthejobandalotofotherthingsandIwasdiagnosedbackinJanuarywithPTSDandIamseeingatherapist'. I really didn't want to get into everything with this guy and explain that I had been through a really bad suicidal time just recently or that I was cutting again or any of that. I just wanted to go home and get in my PJ's and be AWAY from people. I finally got my prescription and physical therapy. (Oh dear god, not PT... that means people TOUCHING me!!). I walked outside and it was raining its ass off... did I mention I was on a bike?

on a positive note I slept like the DEAD Friday. I was too tired to do ANYTHING.

 

[Deleted member 28403]

I partially know how you feel.

I am a self-harm due to stress person as well. My back is full of light wounds from me just tearing off myself. I am afraid of spaces which I can't completely monitor and have a panic attack if someone is behind me. And well, at least you slept well. I managed to get combined 3 hrs of sleep.

 

[Karen12]

It takes me forever to come back from something like that, too. The other day someone was walking behind my chair and they stumbled and violently grabbed the back of my chair to keep from falling. It was no one's fault, just a normal thing but it really shook me. I have some really heavy behind-my-chair issues. I thought I was going to lose it. I sat there doing deep breaths for what seemed like an hour, right on the edge of dissolving into tears. You gotta allow yourself space and time and be patient with yourself. You need what you need and that's all there is to it.

I have tight IT bands, too - that's a painful battle. I think your doctor was rude! If you like to run you like to run, what on earth is wrong with that? What was with the third degree? Sheesh. (Hm... was he out of shape?)

There's a lot of physical therapy you can do to work on IT band issues without anyone touching you. I would tell the therapist you don't like to be touched. I would think physical therapists deal with a lot of people who have recently experienced trauma and are dealing with PTSD issues. It seems perfectly reasonable to me to ask them not to touch you and I bet you wouldn't be the first to request it. Heck, even when I taught aerobics classes back in the day we were told to always ask a student's permission before touching them in class to help them with alignment or whatever we were working on. If aerobics instructors are schooled to be that accommodating one would hope physical therapists are taught at least something similar.

 

[arfie]

Over-stimulation is one of the baddest of my bad dogs in my PTSD baggage car!!! I was born with a hyper-active nature and my "ON" buttons are naturally more accessible than my "OFF" buttons. Add on the PTSD baggage car and... RENEGADE FREIGHT TRAIN ON THE LOOSE!!!!

I moved an apiary last month. I am still coming down... Sigh... Sometimes I wonder if I even have an "OFF" switch.

 

[Deleted member 28403]

@arfie

I have some hyperactivity simptoms as well, though not strong nor diagnosed, I am similar to you.

There is a guy in our class with ADHD so if you are like that, I can imagine why it would be hard for you to keep cool.

 

[Lucycat]

I would argue with your terminology. But them I am a pedant!

I would say you were hyper-vigilant rather than over stimulated. By this I mean the motorbike ( for example) didn't do anything except be there. Same for the guy in the truck. You were hyper-vigilant ( understandably as we all are at times in the wicked world of PTSD) and reacted to these things.

You cannot avoid all the trucks and people in the world, so the key is to reduce the 'being on guard'. As you progress in therapy hopefully this will get better. I do hope that your T is focusing on this at the moment, as I suspect it is getting in the way of any other progress in therapy. If your brain is busy watching out for danger you cannot concentrate and hear anything your T is telling you. A vicious circle.

 

[scout86]

If it helps at all, I've had PT for IT band syndrome. Not much, touching, except a little the first visit. Just a bunch of exercises to do. (And they really helped!)

Your reaction to the motorcycle sounds like a smart move, to me. (I'd have a problem coming in the back door like that because the alley would feel like a trap!) How does your T bring his dog on the motorcycle?

 

[desiderata310]

@Lucycat I agree... sort of... if you want to get right down to it, I was triggered initially. I FULLY expected to see my ex (an abuser) appear when I saw the motorcycle. From there my spidey senses were in overdrive. The guy out front was (in my mind) likely someone working for my ex. I tried mightily to reason with myself that I was being silly and to calm down once I got into therapy and talking to my therapist and he explained everything but my heart was going 90 to nothing and I couldn't concentrate on anything. We basically talked about... nothing all session. He made small talk about how we were both looking for houses and stupid little stuff like that. He tried to get into the email I had sent him a couple of day before trying to ask me what I wanted to talk about in that email (safe way to approach it) but in that moment all I could think was
"email? I sent an email?Oh.. I guess I did. No idea what I wrote right now. Sorry.. I guess it must not have been too important" (actually it was. there was a lot of material there)
I've commented to my therapist that I thought a session was incredibly light. He responded by pointing out that I am super sensitive to stimulus (highly sensitive according to him. yay me!) and he wants to make sure I feel safe IN therapy. I vaguely remember him encouraging my attempts at breathing deeply at the beginning.. he was kinda far away at that point. So.. yeah. we're working on it. Actually that's ALL we've been working on for months: me feeling safe in therapy . Both safe from outside and safe with him. It's been quite the battle for me. I think I equated it once to being a wild animal that is trying to figure out if they can safely get the food from the human's hand and so they dart in and out of the hole trying to build up the nerve to grab the nut. It's exhausting.

The dog is certainly brought in to help ground me and it helps usually.

When I found all was safe I couldn't come back down from that super high anxiety point all the way so.. hyper vigilant to be sure. The rest of the day was too much stimulation! Talking to people, getting bumped and people wanting to shake my hand! Someone I didn't know wanting to engage me in conversation in that state!!! AAAAAAHHHH!!!! In a OMG effort to control it, I actually took over and bored a politician with my own message. that was almost worth all of it: watching his eyes glaze over as I waxed poetic about arts and how a strong arts community was important to the local economy.

@Karen12 The doctor was actually an ex runner. Very knowledgeable and supportive overall. He said he had switched to mountain biking (he found out I also like to do triathlon) after years of tris and running distance. At that point it was too much interaction for the day. I should have just gone home and dealt with a doctor in the morning but I wanted to get on SOMETHING and get back to running asap so I bit the bullet and stopped that day knowing full well that I was already at DEFCON 2 and had been floating between 1 and 2 all day.

@scout86 HAHAHAH! I had wondered the same bit for a moment! He explained that he was having problems with his van and had brought his motorcycle down so he could have a way around town while they worked on it. He actually arrived in his van that day, dog in tow.

The whole thing is kind of comical given a couple of days distance but at the same time I have to admit I am still trying to 'calm down' from it all and thinking about parts of it make me want to cry.

 

[desiderata310]

@scout86 I hope you are right. last time (several years ago) they wanted to do massage and THAT is just a big fat NOPE.HELL no, you can't touch me! I hope this stuff kicks in soon. I had a pretty awful night of it with the pain. I drove my car yesterday (manual transmission) and it has just really irritated the heck out of it so I am not even riding today like originally planned because rolling over in bed and standing are painful today.

 

[scout86]

This is a little off topic, but it turned out that the REAL reason I had ITB syndrome was that my pelvis was rotated. One of my legs appeared to be longer than the other and I'd known it was that way for years. Quite a bit longer, actually. That was due to the rotation, there really isn't a difference in length, and this is fairly commonly related to ITB problems. I then irritated it more with running. The biggest solution to the problem, long term, was exercises that fixed the rotation. (There were specific stretches for the ITB too). The PT guy told me that most of the people he saw with my problem had been in a car accident. Then he asked what I did for a living. When I told him, he laughed and said "Your whole LIFE is a car accident!) Anyway, I was told that I would have problems on and off for the rest of my life, because things had been out of wack so much for so long, but to just do the exercises any time I started to have problems. I've done that and it's been fine ever since. I hope things go as well for you!

Oh, I've kind of done a lot of "working on being comfortable/feeling safe" in therapy too. We've never actually discussed it, but I think that's something my T does a lot. There was a day when he asked what I wanted to talk about, and I expressed a willingness to go someplace hard. He looked at me for a few seconds, smiled and said, "I think, NOT." and took the conversation someplace "safe". It bothers me sometimes, that we aren't "getting anything done". Then I think back to my experiences with horses and acknowledge that building trust IS something and it's something pretty big, if trust isn't easy to come by. It's hard to be patient, especially with yourself!