How Trauma Can Break the Nervous System (aka) Why (Good) Body Work is Important

I have anxiety and CPTSD.

I have spent the last 4 years digging deep trying to understand my mental health. To understand what has happened to me, what I can heal and what I need to learn to work with in a healthy way.

3 weeks ago we had a random event happen in our home that triggered a major anxiety CPTSD episode.

In the 3 weeks since I practiced all the things I have learned. Sleep, reduced sugar, no/reduced alcohol and caffeine, exercise, nature, massage and meditation. It has been slow going, some things more successful than others.

On the surface I believed I was systematically undoing the high alert that was tripped. My body had other ideas.

I have been with my massage therapist for about 5 years now. He is aware of the trauma I have experienced in life. He is mindful of the peaks and valleys of my mental health. I am grateful that he has compassion and understanding/intuition when to push and when not to.

Even when I am cavalier about wanting deeper work, he knows when to follow his intuition rather than my verbal cues. It has become an integral component to my health.

The last couple of massages it was noted my neck was resisting the attempts to soften it up. This week was by far being the worst my neck has been in a long time.

I did my home care right after the session ( a habit I’m working on building), gentle stretch, warm shower, lots of water. About an hour or so later I felt it ‘let go’. This can be very common after a treatment and one you want to make sure your clients are aware of.

It is a warm feeling like no other. It’s like the muscles get the message through to the nervous system that it doesn’t need to be so hyper vigilant. My shoulders dropped with a big sigh. There was a moment of peace, of deep relief. One I feel in various ways after almost every massage.

One of the other things the body can do when releasing a hyper vigilant state is become violently ill. The exhaustion from masking, fighting, and just trying to pull off day to day lands like brick. The chemicals that my body produces to keep me in that state are making hard for the happy calm chemicals to take hold.

This does not happen as often as it used to, like when I first started getting regular massage. But this time was different

It took about an hour and a half for the blinding migraine to take over, another 15 minutes before my body purged everything and dropped me into a dead sleep.

I felt a little better when I woke up. Ate lightly, medicated heavily ( THC candy and advil) and wrapped my head in ice as the pain once again crested.

Times being what they are ( and a friend I had been with recently testing positive) I took a Covid test the next day. It came back negative. But that is not to say in my crashed state I don’t have it. I’m vaxxed and boosted so maybe not enough to show up on the test, I am now on day 3 of the migraine but I’m quarantining like it’s Covid. Also because I don’t have the energy for interaction.

The pain has just become a lightening bolt between my eyes. I feel like I’ve been driven over, ridden down the rapids and hung to dry. This is much better than Wednesday afternoon. I had been deeper into that vigilant state than I realized.

Sleep has been my friend. Today I could tolerate light for more than a few minutes. So that’s a win.

I’m doing my best not to feel guilty for just lying in the dark for the last few days. There was tears, weird dreams and exhausted pain. My body needed to purge poison from long ago, poison that was kickstarted a few weeks ago. I could not push my body or mind to do more than basics, there was no way I could/should work.

I am horrified, intrigued and grateful all at the same time. I’ve been able to journal some today. I can feel something uncoiling still.

Often with trauma we loose connection with our bodies, but they store everything. A skilled therapist helps ground you and reconnect to the present. Also helping to release pain that is tied to mental monsters.

I am grateful for what the massage kick started. Even though I feel like shit. I feel connected to myself. I know that this is part of the healing and I must honour the process.

But most of all, I’m going to honour myself by sleeping a little more and treating myself gently over the next few days so I can get back to my life. A little freer, wiser and a little lighter.

Awkward Tales from the Shadows- Pain Contemplation

‘You deserve to be pain free.’

This statement has been sitting with me for a few days. A simple statement. One that felt like it had been in a foreign language I had never heard. I hadn’t realized until that moment that I hadn’t believed it to be true. A statement that pierced something deep- my reflex was to just talk/excuse over it. But here it sits, still rolling around my brain like a loose marble.

These last few years have been really hard on my body. I have been hard on my body.

My mental health monsters cause physical pain.

Past and current injuries sometimes sing in unison, sometimes compete for the lead.

There is not a day where I am not aware of something, burning, aching, stabbing, tightening….

It is not as though I don’t do anything for the pain I feel.

But the levels are now consistent and high enough that over the counter pain relievers don’t do a lot.

I still use them, along with multiple other things to help keep me functioning in my life. I use hot and cold, stretching, topical potions, cbd/thc and massage. Most giving me a few hours of decreased pain, massage being the one that brings better, longer relief, yet still temporary. The one thing I haven’t added in was any form of prescription pain relieving narcotic.

I have a complicated history with most pharmaceuticals. They often don’t do what they are meant to in my body. My genetic history is riddled with mental health and addiction markers. I am very reluctant to use strong pain relievers, especially in the opiate family.

‘You deserve to be pain free’

So why did this statement hit me so hard?

It was nothing I had considered before. My reasoning makes sense in many ways. Worry about side effects, cost and the biggest worry falling into addiction. It has me contemplating my hard stance.

That statement reminded me it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. That with care, consideration and proper support, it is an avenue that may be of service to me.

That gentle statement has led me to contemplating more…..

Do I punish myself? Am I resigned to carry this physical discomfort with restricted relief.? Why is this ok? How do I allow this with myself? Do I feel supported? Where do these barriers come from……

Deeper into the shadows I go for more answers.

Waking in an Anxiety Attack

Wake up from a dead sleep

So many thoughts I can’t grasp one

No breath

Feeling I’m going to split apart

Gulping for air

Fear

The smallest I can go

Arms wrapped around my self

Knees tightly into chest

Nothing slows

The speed of every impulse rushing through

So fast it may just disappear

The fog of everything and nothing

Sickness rises

From a dream? From life?

Try to count

Try to focus

Try to pray

Lose track of the mantra I cling to, to tie me down

Muscles armour, the shell protecting the insides from coming out

Smaller still

Jaw so tightly clenched, small moans escape

Inside the skull deafening screams fill the void

In the darkness I wait for the light to return

Pain

Sometimes you can’t tell just by looking.

Maybe when I move, you’ll see a pause, hear my breath. But just a little.

You can’t see the fire I feel, the ripping burn that just settles in. The raw grind and pop. The loudness of it in my head makes it hard to hear the outside world.

When asked, I pause, ‘fine’ I say- it’s exhausting to talk about any other way.

The forced encouragement I whisper to myself to move, stretch, to do what simply needs to get done, to not cry or complain.

It’s always there.

Just by degrees

A good day( usually after treatment), it’s hardly a thought. Not forefront in my thinking, not in my way.

A bad day, sometimes there’s a reason, sometimes there is not. It creeps in like a spiked steamroller. The loudest voice in the room. Some days only one sings it’s angry song. Some days it’s a duet.

At this moment it’s a four part harmony with a smouldering back drop. No steadiness, no focus available, except to will myself to the task at hand.

I do the things I can and hope it’s enough, I reassure the frustrated tired me that relief will come.

It’s all I can do, because some days you can’t tell by looking.

Sonorant Thief

Thief!! Thief!! Give it back!!
Give back the peace
Give back the clarity
Give back the quiet

No one invited you here
Your shrill drone, never ending
Nothing important to say
Digging in, drowning out the rest

Thief!!! Thief!!! Give him back!!
Give back the humour
Give back the patience
Give back the light

The gifts you’ve brought no one wants
The rigid pain, lack of sleep
No focus, giving room for past ghosts
To wake, recall, aid in your merry terror

Thief!!! Thief!!! Give him back!!!
Leave him be
Leave us alone
No one wants your destruction here.