“In order to change, people need to become aware of their sensations and the way that their bodies interact with the world around them. Physical self-awareness is the first step in releasing the tyranny of the past.”

Bessel A. Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score

I’ve been reading several books (thanks to Amazon) and scouring the internet for more information about what’s happening or happened with my brain and my body.  I’ve convinced myself that if I am able to logically understand the horrible body sensations that are happening, then maybe they will have less power over me.  That they won’t feel so all consuming and terrifying. This is what I do, I research and research in an effort to calm my anxiety, to keep my worries at bay. To make sense of the muck.

I have been having these flashbacks where my body feels like it’s re -experiencing some of my trauma and this is a new thing that started I think (these days my memory is for shit) in October.  After I got home from the hospital these flashbacks have been stronger and more disturbing. They happen at all hours of the day and they are very unpredictable. They happen at home, in the car, at work, and more intensely in therapy. Today I realized that shame might be a trigger (up until now it has felt like they happen on a whim).  I had a bad experience at a doctor’s office today and as I was driving back to work I could feel the sensations starting.  Surprisingly, at that moment, I asked myself what emotion I was feeling and I was able to tell that I was feeling really ashamed. I then thought about what I was feeling when it happened in therapy the day before and I was also feeling shame and anger.

These feelings and flashbacks have caused me to retreat back into myself and to have an increase in suicidal thoughts (that are shaming on their own). I feel constantly on edge, tired, and anxious.   Leah has noticed that when she is busy I have been isolating myself at home and not reaching out to friends when I have free time.  I feel so tired all the time that I just want to rest when I can, but I’m having trouble balancing alone time with feeling isolated and lonely.  I think I’ve almost forgotten how to have friendships.  I feel completely out of practice.

The other day I was having some dark thoughts and started scrolling through my phone and every person that I started to reach out to- I had a rebuttal about why I should not bother them and that I was honestly embarrassed and I didn’t know what to say. How do I reach out when I don’t have anything to say?  I’ve done such a good job at isolating myself that I’m not sure how tell someone I haven’t had an honest conversation with (in a while) that I am struggling and need someone to talk me down.  I don’t even know what I need to hear.  I don’t know what’s going to make me feel better when it feels like my body is torturing me.  I don’t even know how to properly explain what’s going on without getting super humiliated or how to make the words come out of my mouth. So I text and the emotion gets lost in translation. It’s always easier to write.   My therapist told me the other week that writing is going to save my life.  I’m not sure if I believe her, but I hope she’s right.

The shame around certain topics seems to envelope me whole like quicksand.  I don’t realize I need help until ¾ of my body is covered up.  When I reach out, I’m not able to even let the person on the other end know how serious my text exchange is. That the fact that I am texting at all is something.   They have no idea that I’m struggling unless I spell it out, which of course is extremely difficult because of the shame monster.  Sometimes I feel like I only reach out anymore when I am at my wits end.  I’ve forgotten what it’s like to have a regular conversation when the backdrop of my depression is not ever-present.  I’m really not that good with small talk anyways, if you couldn’t tell.   There are a lot of areas in my life right now where I feel like I’ve lost my groove. My week to week seems to be a strict schedule of going to work, eating, sleeping and going to therapy.  That right there feels like a lot to handle.  It’s a good week if I’ve been able to walk Penny one time.

Reading all this information is helping, but it also makes me feel like I’m drowning in knowledge without a life raft.  How do I put what I’m learning into action or at least cut myself a break?  There’s a disconnect between understanding that there are reasons why I act the way I do and having compassion for myself.  For instance in The Body Keeps The score, Van Der Kolk states, “Even years later traumatized people often have enormous difficulty telling other people what has happened to them. Their bodies reexperience terror, rage, and helplessness, as well as the impulse to fight or flee, but these feelings are almost impossible to articulate.  Trauma by nature drives us to the edge of comprehension, cutting us off from language based on common experience or an imaginable past” (p.43).  So I know that it’s normal I have trouble articulating myself and speaking with others about what is going on, yet I still get angry and berate myself when I am not able to do so.  I can’t find the compassion to let it be and to meet myself where I am.