PTSD & anxiety from childhood abuse - thinking patterns changed but physical symptoms persist.

[Moneeka]

Hey guys. I’m 27 and I’ve been struggling with anxiety for my whole life. But it wasn’t until a few years ago that I was diagnosed. I had a very abusive parents and brother. My childhood was a nightmare. I moved out when I was 22 and since then I’ve been living on my own. I cut down on contact with them to bare minimum. I’ve been going to therapy, also took medication but nothing helps. On a daily basis I do yoga, breathing exercises and generally I do self care and self love stuff. Through reading a lot, I managed to change my behavioral and thinking patterns. Unfortunately, I still experience insomnia, physical symptoms and it is what bothers me the most. I constantly feel sick, sometimes agoraphobic. I feel as if something was trapped inside my body, but I’m not able to release it. I have no idea how to „feel and process” these things which cause my body to react like that for no reason and neither does my therapist.
Have you ever experienced similar symptoms? Do you have any idea how to release this trauma that is stuck inside the body? Are there any practical ways to do that? Maybe some other type of therapy? I would be grateful for any advise or even just someone to talk to about it! :)

 

[Freddyt]

Keep up the therapy. The road to better has many ups and downs, healing is not linear. I thought I was having a pretty good week and then wham, a thoughtless act by someone and on a gorgeous day when I should be out, I'm in the basement with one lamp on, flinching every time I hear someone move.
We all wish we could make it go away but its there and it may or may not leave us alone. I have been all over the place the last couple weeks from good to bad to a couple meltdowns, from sleeping 9 hours one night to 2 hours two nights later.
It's all part of the process of healing. That's how I always frame it - recovery is a process and as long as I stick with the process I am doing what I can.

 

[Survivor3]

Hi @moneeka, welcome to the site.

 

[Waterbear]

Hello. I was about to walk away without replying, but here goes. Cognitive Vs feeling/emotion. Two very different ball games. I'm not sure how to explain it, but for me, there's no point doing therapy with my head. I need to do it with my heart. It sounds like you have been reading, which is great, but have you been doing it all on an intellectual level, rather than on a felt level. I've been in therapy for a while now, and my T once said to me "I sometimes wonder what your journey would have looked like if you had undertaken a different type of therapy". (She is an integrative counsellor and we started off doing reparative counselling and seem to do some parts work too). Anyway, I knew the answer instinctively. It would all have been on a superficial level. Not deep work like we have done. I'd have gone in, answered their questions in the way they wanted me to, understood what I was being told and done some of the things that were suggested for me to get better, but really, deep down, not much would have changed. Maybe that's something like what's happening to you. Doing things slowly, and deeply, has allowed real inherent change. In my body. My feelings (which I don't even realise I had!). Anyway, just a thought. Wishing you well.

 

[Freddyt]

I myself would go to a professional and get reassessed.

As for the hurt from trauma the right therapy is the thing to find.