Pain That Releases Into Panic?

[Chava]

Pain and panic...my favorite topics. :eek: I've had quite a bit of pain in the last week. Yesterday family visited and I made it through the day, sort of faking it. Today some stress feels like it has passed and the pain is noticeably lessened, but my body has been flooded with buzzing feelings and panic symptoms. No thoughts or obvious stress...just sort of like an adrenaline gush. I never noticed this as a real pattern but now remember other times like this...pain or tension releases and I feel like my muscles are relaxed but I need to kick out a window, bite my arm off, or run 10 miles up hill (I didn't do any of that, btw). Once after a massage, which felt really good and loosened a bunch of junk in my back, I went home feeling like a new person. But in the middle of the night I woke up in some sort of high-anxiety madness, wanting to destroy myself.

Pain isn't cool and usually makes me feel trapped (a different panic scenario...meltdown type). I'm working on pain tolerance and taking care of my body. Also my therapist does somatic experiencing and helps me work on this body stuff and taking the edge off the load of unmanageable feelings. But it helps me not feel like I'm just totally punished by my body, but that some of my pain is containing stuff for me that is probably even more unmanageable. It doesn't seem like I have many days in the middle...where I just feel good. It's all pain and muscle spasms or like some floodgate has opened and my muscles go from like locked to fluid but super-charged. In that state I try not to over-do anything and ask for a following day of pain, but it has helped to exercise some, bite things, bang my head against pillows. Nut-so coo-coo, but safe. I hope that finding safe ways to respond to the energy is helping my nervous system "reorganize" (how my therapist explains it) but I don't know how to escape this pattern or how long it has to play itself out before I can feel my body simply having more "normal" days. I also avoid things like massage or other manipulation. I have to work out my own super gentle myofascial release but I'm finding I'm a little better off waiting out pain or working to lessen stressors and increase positive feelings and experiences.

Not sure if anyone relates to that. I chose this forum because, while panic symptoms have been my thing today they are spinning off of some pain releasing its grip for a while, which seems to be a thing in my trauma-chronic-pain matrix (some of the pain has other medical explanations but most of it doesn't). Sometimes my panic involves thoughts and catastrophes in my head, or distortions in place/time, but this version is all body stuff. I'm present and relatively cool-headed but with mild palpitations, internal buzzing feeling all over and a load of super-squirmy feelings. Or that's the best I can describe it. I just want more days in-between. :confused:

 

[Upside Down Eagle]

I think I know the high-anxiety madness you talk about.

Relaxing is good, but if your body is telling you it needs to do something explosive, sometimes that can be good too. I don't know what kind of pain you have, but if your body allows it, maybe do something active. Don't over do it, or transgress your own boundaries, but just enough to get rid of that feeling (I read on and saw that you were already doing that).

Your body isn't punishing you, although I know the feeling. I usually get angry at my body because when it bothers me its usually unbearable itching. Also a result of tension. Your body has just been through some sh...t and is asking you to take real good care of it, which you are already doing.

I think you're doing great. You will have days without pain. It just takes time.
I know patience in this kind of thing is hard to have, especially when it has been going on for-e-ver.

:hug:

PS: making sure you are eating well, drinking enough, and getting sleep, also helps with the anxiety madness thing.

 

[Chava]

Thanks @Radise ...movement stuff helped yesterday, lowered the antsy-squirmy-buzzing feelings and bodily anxiety.

Some pain woke me up in the middle of the night. Just comes and goes. But sure enough pain is back and all the crazy energy is subdued. I actually sensed and feared this energy when I was semi-starving, and that if I truly recovered from anorexia I would not be able to manage or contain this energy that I felt I was subduing. I developed all the pain symptoms shortly after getting to a normal weight...and I was subdued in a new way.

Separate pain issues have been diagnosed medically but my therapist also helps me work with the pain and understanding some of it from complex trauma lens. My doctor seems fine with this because she knows physical therapy has been of limited value and that my pain stuff is more stress related (somatoform, a little conversion-y). But there is still a lot of value in strength training, and movement or exercise for feeling empowered, getting rid of the intense energy, and also my body tolerates pain a little better when it is healthy and stronger (yes I eat very well, but wish I could sleep a little better...).

 

[ghotiff]

I know the feeling of it being like I am at war with my body.

Heat packs are good for me. The heat transfers through your whole body (they raise your internal temperature) so I use it where I want it, not necessarily where the pain is.

You can make a heat pack really cheaply by filling a cotton bag (old favorite t shirt works well) with 1kg of rice heat in microwave for 2-3minutes.

 

[stargazer]

Post visit with someone not good for me. I am compelled to continue relationship with the person who along with my dead father horrifies me the most. I thought I could handle it. I have to handle it. I've got no support but my therapist. I guess it is irrelevant now. It was so long ago and I should forgive. I didn't flash during the visit and stayed one and a half hours. But ever since I got out of there, I have felt sick, wanting to cry, scream, and throw up simultaneously. When I got out of country to the Middle East, it was such a relief. Next bang, I am being shipped home in a wheelchair.I have worked hard to get well with the surgery, therapy. But it brought out so many demons.Tonight I cannot catch my breath.