Reaching Out From Dissociation Land

[Hope4Now]

:hug: Thanks, you guys. You really helped me today. Seriously.

I have survived and am back in my hotel room. Exhausted and relieved, and no major faux pas (is that plural?). Even met two really nice people at dinner and managed to ask a semi-intelligent question to the dinner speaker from MIT about his neuroimaging work (which was fascinating). It is so weird. I used to do this stuff ALL the time. Never a problem. I have spoken to groups of 500+ people...had confidence in all sorts of social situations. All just parts that seem to have somehow exhausted themselves, but managed to semi-rally today. I don't think I can do much more of this until I "get better," whatever that means. I am not the person I have thought I was for so many years.

There's many ways of stimming, extreme ways might be flapping arms, jumping, spinning in circles, bouncing, self-hug, etc. More subtle techniques are fidgeting which most all people do, tapping, clapping, biting nails, rubbing hands, self massage, drumming, humming, chewing gum, playing with hair, etc. There's also external tools like a warm/hot/cold bath, holding your breath, deep pressure tactics (ie. wrapping yourself in tight blanket, covering yourself up with heavy pillows/blankets), etc. Basically methods that do a sort of controlled sensory overload.

Fascinating. Who knew there was a word for this. Some of these more extreme ways are some of my only ways of calming down. I can't tell you how often I end up in the ladies room doing kooky things like this. I told my therapist that I suffer from massive sensory overload--sometimes internally, sometimes externally, sometimes both (that's the worst). The one thing that saved me today during all the presentations...there was lots of play-dough and pipe cleaners and markers, etc. on the tables for people to play with (the people running this gig were trying to put into practice their recognition of what people need to stay engaged).

I have done the trauma-release exercise a whole bunch of times since I learned it. (One of the theories of all my pain stuff at the beginning of this mess I'm in is that my psoas was in spasm, so I spent many hideous appointments with a massage therapist trying to help me release it). The TRE exercises seem to release a lot of stuff for many people. For me? I get the shaking massively, but not much else. Probably in too many parts. I will have to try it some time when I am feeling more in SELF. Thank you for all the suggestions for head, heart and gut, @Valentino!

 

[Chava]

Glad you were able to get through. I relate a lot to the pressure...I've had a lot of this in work too, where people expect a certain leader and confident self from me and I'm just not feeling it. I'll stick my neck out a bit once in a while but then I just get the hell away from everyone. You can rest after this and feel good about getting through, with awareness, even if it was hard and murky. Someday you will have your more whole self and it won't feel so hard. But people really do respond to us even in parts. My professional self is very effective, and I'd even say very helpful. It's just nearly manic and often feels like I'm existing somewhere outside of myself...or like front and center but with a weird bubble around me. In some ways, it has helped me be effective, so I try to honor that. I'm just trying to find a different balance or the day-to-day connection to my deeper self.

I used to make crowds laugh and be shoved into all kinds of leadership positions and love it. Now I shake and get all weird and nervous speaking in front of others. What worries me is what others will think who knew me before, like "what the hell happened to her?" But I'm doing okay, just committing to fewer roles, hanging in the background when I can and just enjoying my work, and also allowing myself to just be a little awkward sometimes. Glad you got through it...I'm sure that feels very good!

 

[Valentino]

It is so weird. I used to do this stuff ALL the time. Never a problem. I have spoken to groups of 500+ people...had confidence in all sorts of social situations.

I don't see this as that unusual. When a professional athlete comes back after an injury, it takes extra effort to recover from the injury with lots of training and practice. Then often it takes a few actual games, to get back into 'game shape', and re-learn the timing and develop stamina.

PTSD healing and integration can have a lot of similarities with this. Practice is in a sense pretend action, during therapy and in other controlled environments, this is an ideal time for training. Developing muscles and skills in areas like mental awareness, emotional soothing, physical body scans, slow deep breathing, capacity to endure discomfort, widening our comfort zone, etc.

With more training and practice, then when you go into unexpected real life situations and unknown triggers, with more natural confidence. And self-esteem naturally rises when you perform better under pressure, because of the training and being better prepared. Also prioritizing rest and recovery are important parts of training. Muscles need stress to expand and grow, but also need down time to recover and heal.

But we're always going to be susceptible to trauma, that's why we have instinctual survival mechanisms. They still need to be in our nervous system, for those rare situations when our coping strategies get overwhelmed. We can just use therapy, training and practice as ways to expand, adapt, and evolve our coping strategies so that getting overwhelmed is a rare occurrence.

I recently got overwhelmed this past weekend, I was spending time with my gf & her relatives, and her adult niece is mentally retarded (age 6-8 mentality) and has autistic traits. She bleeds out a lot of unconscious anxiety, and her body language and communication is out of the norm and totally unpredictable to me. A few times when she tried to talk to me, I felt totally overwhelmed. She might've been directing a lot of anxious energy under the words, along with her mom also anxious about a potential tantrum (holding her breath), and I'm surprised, confused, and anxious, feeling rushed to answer but not sure how best to respond.

I didn't have any major breakdowns from it all, but it was an exhausting evening. Though one time, I did get startled, and dropped by camera, almost like the wave of energy from her question, symbolically knocked me off balance.

The next day, after the intensity faded away some, and I had more mental time to process and digest the experience. I talked it out some with my gf, exploring different theories as to understand what the h*ll happened and why. Putting conscious effort to make sense of overwhelming situations, and talking it out, that should help me move the experience into long term memory, limiting memory residue in my body.

And next time I inter-act with her, I will see whether I can do better. If I do, then I learned from my prior experience. If I do the same or worse, then I need to adapt differently and/or try out newer theories to seek better understanding.

In a sense, isn't growing and learning from experience an integral part of living? We can't really predict the future or control the unexpected. But we are allowed to practice and train in advance. And we can look at new experiences as opportunities for learning and growth.

Sometimes it's hard to get unstuck from inertia of old patterns, it takes a little more effort at first, but once things get moving, it's a lot easier, and incremental progress also helps generate hope and natural positive outlook.

 

[Hope4Now]

I am back home now. Wrecked but relieved. Will really need to figure out whether it is healthy or not for me to do this stuff. What is good for some parts seems to be deadly for others. I may have keyed in to some self energy but I sure don't know what's best for all my parts when it comes to my professional life. Thanks again everybody.

 

[WhisperingUnicorn]

Take care of yourself, @Hope4Now .. I hope you are able to rest and recover well! :) :)