Trying To Understand Something.

[Teasel]

Am trying to understand something that happens to me often.

Something,
often something rejecting or which reminds me of how i have felt neglected / abandoned / ostracised/
or conversely something which is the opposite of that - seeing others connected / loving / or someone being loving to me or having an experience of feeling real kindness from someone - which brings into sharp focus the lack of that in my life generally and particularly when I was young
can trigger a sudden overwhelming searing emotional pain. It's utterly devastating pain, takes your breath away. I will feel like the child I was. I will often produce a wailing keening kind of sound if it happens when I am on my own.

In trying to describe this experience I always seem to be unable to use enough adjectives to describe the awfulness of it. Lol makes me think of some kind of dramatic pulp novel writer...

So anyway - when the intensity of the pain starts to diminish, and I start to come back to my self a little - when I can remind myself to drop the story and go to the body. I will feel powerful energy coursing round my body, specially in the arms and legs.

It's almost painful in its intensity but calms down soon enough so long as I stay focusing on it and don't spin off and let my mind stir things up.

Once the energy has dissipated I'll often be left with a dull quite intense ache in the shoulders or throat.

Is this an emotional flashback?

 

[Teasel]

I realise people are busy. Hoping someone might reply.

 

[shimmerz]

I would describe that as more of a somatic response. Perhaps a response to grief?

When I used to go to my T-doc and we would speak of certain things, I would walk out of his office and do a breathing pattern that was very much like you would see in a baby who had cried too much. There were also noises involved in that. Noises that I can't describe.

Now, I am not too connected to my body, so I can't say that I felt pain anywhere, or that it affected me in any other way.... but that in and of itself, for me is a trauma response as well. Inability to feel things in my body.

 

[Muted]

when the intensity of the pain starts to diminish, and I start to come back to my self a little -

Have you done any work on parts?

 

[Teasel]

Thanks @shimmerz
As often seems to be the case whenever I try to make sense of such things, thinking clearly is extroadinarily difficult!
Ok so I shall think on it.
Releasing feelings of grief perhaps.
No one died when I was young..

 

[Teasel]

Have you done any work on parts?

As in DID no. We've talked quite a bit about me being fragmented. I think T has sort of tested out things in T and says that sometimes I know something and other times I don't know it.
But I think she explained that as being because I couldn't access the rational part of my brain when dissociated.
Unfortunately I can't think very clearly at the moment either.
Makes me feel stupid.

 

[shimmerz]

No one died when I was young..

I think that grief can include feelings of loss of many things, not just people in our lives. You speak about this

how i have felt neglected / abandoned / ostracised/
or conversely something which is the opposite of that - seeing others connected / loving / or someone being loving to me or having an experience of feeling real kindness from someone - which brings into sharp focus the lack of that in my life generally and particularly when I was young

and that to me can have a very large component of loss/grief in it. I don't know that for certain, but I know I had to deal with grief because of the extreme losses that I had incurred.

Just a thought.

Also, 'parts' are not just DID. There is also the Structural Dissociation theory that speaks to fragmentation that is similar, although not quite the same as DID. If you search Structural Dissociation on this forum, I think you will find quite a bit of information, which may help you.

 

[Teasel]

Thank you muchly @shimmerz I shall look it up. The grief of losses does make sense, I shall ponder further :)

 

[Teasel]

So I could think of it being a few moments of connecting to the well of grief within.

Or of releasing some of the grief?

Or of connecting to the young person whose grief it was?

 

[LadyZane]

I looked up why certain emotions are physically painful once and I found a bunch of info about the vagus nerve and how to calm it down. WHY it's connected to grief and emotional pain, I still don't understand, but knowing what's going on when I feel that pain is helpful.

I have that reaction to certain things, especially as you describe, seeing or hearing about others being loving towards each other, especially towards children. It's like it unlocks the grief-box for what I never had. I was at a Friday night happy hour with a bunch of coworkers not long ago and one guy around my age was talking about singing to his two year old at the doctor's office when she was crying and afraid of getting her shots, and it happened--suddenly I was overwhelmed and had to get up and go to the bathroom for a few minutes to compose myself with some deep abdominal breathing. Nobody could tell--it was a big group conversation where people get up and come back constantly. But it's stuck with me.

 

[Teasel]

Thanks for sharing that with me @LadyZane

It's become pretty huge for me, happens all the time. I think when I was younger it would mostly only happen when I was alone and not nearly so often.

Really deep breathing does help doesn't it.

I don't suppose you still have that info?

I found a bunch of info about the vagus nerve and how to calm it down. WHY it's connected to grief and emotional pain,

 

[LadyZane]

Thanks for sharing that with me @LadyZane

It's become pretty huge for me, happen...

I'm not sure exactly what I was reading a couple months ago and of course I can't remember my search terms, but I found this and it's really helpful. At the end it has 5 everyday techniques you can use to switch off fight-or-flight and switch on rest-and-digest, which calms the vagus nerve AND the mind.

I realized I do the "humming" one without realizing it! I've always been prone to motion sickness and on my commute to work in the morning sometimes the bus or train is really lurchy. When I sort of hum quietly to myself, it stops me feeling sick (public transit in my city is noisy, so nobody can hear me).

I also do the "conscious breathing" one, but I do the 4-7-8 breath count instead of the one suggested here.

Hope this helps!

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