Why Did I Shake In Therapy?

[Cool Cat]

I do both, when you disassociate can you try and control it from happening or does it just happen no matter where or when ?

So if I'd like to control the disassociation and shaking, that's possible? Like if I'm in therapy recounting a story I know is emotive and I'm not connected and I'm shaking I can say "hold on a sec, I want to feel this?"

 

[fly away home]

@Sammyiam, I have no control over the dissociation but only recently noticed that when I'm triggered I get a sickening sense of overwhelm just before I slip into the slow moving 'honey brain' state. I literally feel quite ill in that moment then it all goes to mush. Personally I prefer the dissociation but I'm guessing that's just me avoiding the pain of the traumas. I often find myself dissociated with no apparent trigger or reasoning for it but since the dissociative blocks so much out, I can't be sure there wasn't.

 

[Friday]

Does the shaking have a name? is it a good or a bad thing?

It's anxiety / shaking & tremors / fight flight response.

It's neither good nor bad.

If this were a situation where you needed to run from a bear, for example... The exact same thing would happen. But you wouldn't be trying to sit still. All those chemicals would be flooding your bloodstream and muscles empowering you to run like blazes, a zillion times faster than you could race, and not feel the pain of needing to do so (including torn muscles, thornbushes, claws too close). The problem arises when you aren't trying to run from a bear, but be sitting calming discussing something that doesn't "need" the fight/flight response. All those chemicals dump into your bloodstream, anyway, but have no use.

So... Good thing if a bear is after you. Bad thing if you're trying to have a coffee with friends.

You don't treat the shakes, themselves. That's not effective. You treat the anxiety. Get your brain to stop dumping those chemicals in the first place. There are tricks to deal with expending the chemicals, though, once they're already in play. But the way to get rid of them entirely is to process through the trauma, so your body doesn't kick into fight/flight at even the bare mention of it.

 

[Friday]

Mmm... Some of the other symptoms that go along with an adrenaline dump include (but are not limited to, and don't all exist at the same time all the time)
- Shortening breath
- Pupils dilate / constrict
- Blood flows away from extremities & skin into core
- Cold sweat &/or body temp fluctuates
- Nerve tingling
- Increased heart rate
- Increased awareness of heart rate (often reads as pain). I can always feel my heart, but when this happens I can feel it pump put to about as far as my elbow and knees. Other people feel chest pain. S'why so many people end up in the ER thinking they're having a heart attack.
- Roughened vocals
- Decreased Pain transmission (also increased, quirkily)
- Tightened awareness / blurring of the outside world

All evolutionarily useful (blood to your core means you bleed less if you're cut, so you have time to clot, for example), but they do wreak havoc when you're trying to do the grocery shopping.

Trying to deal with just the annoying aspects (like shaking) is about as effective as trying to just deal with your pupils going wonky. Frustrating & generally impossible. Calming down, and bleeding off the adrenaline & endorphins? (not literally) That's what works in the short term (log term is treating the anxiety). People usually start with breathing, since we have the most control over that, or grounding becoming more connected with the outside world (the blurred aspect).

 

[Cool Cat]

Someone earlier on said shaking is an early sign of recovery, what comes after?

 

[BeatenMan]

I used to get the shakes badly when doing EMDR. I would just almost shiver. Not sure but in Peter Levine's "Waking the Tiger" he describes this as a response to releasing trauma. For example when a gazelle escapes the attack of a lion, they have observed that the animal being attacked will shake for a few minutes and then proceed with normal life. This is why animals don't develop PTSD in that theory. Just a tidbit to think about, not sure if its valid. I do know that when I had a rough session with the aching and shakes involved, it was very unpleasant but those were the most productive sessions. Good luck Cool Cat.

 

[passerine]

I shake a lot in therapy, too, and I dissociate when I am recounting parts of my history. My therapist helps me by helping me recognize what I am feeling in my body, and he provides things for me to do while I am talking about my feelings, like playing with clay or drawing, which seems to help.

I am currently in a trauma sensitive yoga group and a lot of stuff comes up during the talking part of group and the yoga practice, which together is about two hours, which I have been shaking all the way through. The facilitators told me that shaking was a good sign; that my body was "discharging" trauma energy, which actually makes a lot of sense to me. So, yes, I think shaking CAN be a sign of recovery, depending on the circumstances, although I'm not sure what comes next.

 

[Cool Cat]

I used to get the shakes badly when doing EMDR.

What is EMDR?
I was just vibrating pretty much non-stop, I took a break in the story to try make myself stop and basically, when I'd get one leg to stop, the other would start, when I'd get both legs to stop, my arm would start!
Interesting theory about the animals.

 

[BeatenMan]

It stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). It is a type of trauma therapy. It worked awesome for me, others haven't had as good of luck. It makes life worse before it gets better so Its definitely hard on people. There are tons of threads about it on the forum. Yea my legs shake a lot and have for a long time. When doing therapy I would go into more of a full body shiver like I was extremely cold.