Tackling Anxiety

[watundah]

I have been working with my therapist for 3 years on tackling dissociation. She focuses on somatic experiencing, meditation and grounding work. Finally, oh so slowly, the dissociation seems to be waning and Im a bit more participatory in session.

The last few weeks, however, my anxiety is amped and Im wondering if that's what the dissociation was hiding? (Therapist is on vacation so I raise the question here.) What happens is that I wake up in the middle of the night or in the morning or even if I lie down to nap -seemingly times in bed when Im least preoccupied - and I get an overwhelming tightness in my chest like an elephant is sitting on me. Not aware of this happening when I was the Dissociation Queen. Ive tried a few times to practice focusing on my breathing to counter the anxiety and it felt horrible. ..an internal war commenced. I tried the breathing exercises right at the very first sign of anxiety yesterday and it seemed to help more.

Any of this sound familiar to anyone else? This is all new or Im just starting to notice. Not sure which.

 

[Intrepid]

Yes, this sounds familiar.

First, because of the somatic work you have done I will assume that you know the difference between anxiety and physical ailment. I spent a lot of money in ER's trying to take care of physical problems when they were really anxiety. (Don't make the mistake of thinking it's anxiety if it's physical).

For me the experience of anxiety has come up in the weirdest places. I have often believed that I have taken care of enough of my trauma related issues that I will never have to deal with the crushing weight of anxiety again. And always there has been a new aspect of the trauma I hadn't thought of or worked through to ramp up the anxiety once more.

Now that you dissociate less it may be that you have access to sources of anxiety that you didn't know about.

Finally, I have found that while I have been able to shift my anxiety around or create conditions where I don't feel it, the feelings always reemerge, sometimes centralized, like in my chest, where I really don't want them. (I don't want them anywhere).

True integration means accepting every part of who I am: the unpleasant memories, the traumatically dissociated parts, the flooding emotions, and even the anxiety.