Stress Induced Trauma
TRIGGER WARNING, PLEASE NOTE: I have been sitting on this one for some time now. I wrote it a while ago. I have shared my story here and there, but this is me fully reliving it. I won’t lie, its traumatic. To look at it all laid out nicely, chronologically. It took a while before I felt healed enough to read it again. This whole chapter of my journey really changed my life, and the trajectory of my path and purpose. While I am now grateful for everything experienced in these previous chapters know that I have been working on and with this pain and trauma and healing for over 5 years at the time of posting this. Healing is no small thing. I am not a doctor or a therapist, these are my personal opinions and personal stories. If you notice that reading this triggers you, or you have a similar story I really do invite you to seek assistance. Whatever that may look like for you. Having a counsellor does not make you crazy, it does not make you less than. It makes you strong and brave and amazing for taking the steps necessary to be the best version of yourself. So wherever you are in your journey - even if it’s the denial phase, you can see I spent a lot of years there… I applaud you for being here and showing up.
Let’s talk about something that sounds both very important and aggressive, and also somewhat made up. Or maybe those are just the thoughts that went through my head when I heard these words. This ties into my healing journey, but I want to talk a little bit about why I even need healing in the first place. As it seems both shocking and unrealistic (to someone without a psychiatric degree) that everyday occurrences can cause a trauma response in anyones body, let alone mine! Well, thats what happened. That’s how I got here. So let’s talk about the red flags and how that looks, so maybe I can help you avoid a complete shut down of your body, or worse.
Stress
Seems small and simple enough. It’s just a little stress. People “thrive under pressure”. Did you ever think about what that constant stress is doing to your body though? Let’s take it back a step further.
It’s the stone age… yes, we are going here. We are our previous “less advanced” selves, and we have been created with this automatic response in our bodies that lets us know, “oh shit, there is a massive sabbertooth tiger trying to eat me, better get outta here!”. We now call that our “fight or flight response”.
Fight or Flight
The fight or flight response is an automatic physiological response to perceived threats from our environment. It automatically triggers our sympathetic nervous system to fight or flee. In evolution, this played a significant role to ensure that our species survived. It probably saved us numerous times from “here cute kitty with sharp teeth that ate my brother” to “grab the spears, this things gotta go”. This was a natural response, to our natural environment. Our whole life 24/7 was not lived in this heightened state of awareness.
Speed forward to today, our body - as smart as it is, cannot tell the difference between a perceived threat that is natural or of our own making. So while you are “thriving under pressure” you are actually keeping your system suspended in a constant state of survival. Keeping you constantly in this sympathetic nervous system.
Sympathetic Nervous System
This system is crucial for your body to respond to threats to your wellbeing. But, when always kept in this heightened state your sympathetic nervous system can become overactive and unbalanced with your parasympathetic nervous system. You may suffer anxiety, panic attacks, adrenal fatigue, etc. This is your body’s response to the perceived threats preparing you to “fight or flight”: increased blood flow to your muscles, reduced digestive function, quickened breathing, release of extra adrenaline. If you are always in this state, these parts of your body are always over working, never getting a break or a rest. Have a quick look at your life and ask yourself, “Do I have issues in any of these areas?”.
What this has to do with me being sick.
Here I am living my life as a cute young kid, obviously I was cute… no question about that! My parents divorce. Now let’s be honest, that is traumatic for any child. But say, you happen to respond differently and unknowingly that starts to cause some reprogramming in your brain and the way you process situations. It starts with people pleasing, trying to act like an adult, repressing your emotions, etc. Yes, I’m skimming here to give you the overall big picture and some things you may not have realized could effect you. So, now you are growing up, your brain is still developing, but you have all these other worries in there as well, so every decision you make is overanalyzed as if the fate of the world rests of your shoulders - because honestly, you feel like it does. You’re in college, friends / relationships come and go, you are getting little sleep and always striving for deadlines. You feel stressed and under prepared at every turn. Failing a friendship, you feel personally responsible, why were you not good enough? They had to leave you too. Fast forward to your career, you are “thriving under pressure”. Sure I will work 12 hour days, 6 days a week - that’s what it takes to “make it”, no? You haven’t responded to that client email yet, someone is calling you, someone else is standing at your desk with a question, and you have a meeting in 10 minutes. But it’s ok, you are important. You can’t sleep, you dream of work ALL THE TIME, your stomach starts to hurt, you want to cry all the time, [insert your struggle here]. You aren’t aware of therapy, or nervous systems, or stress, or trauma. So you keep at it, it will get better, you are just transitioning your roles. A few years in, you are now miserable, and everyone knows it. That’s it, it’s time to find a new job. You do, it’s something you’ve always wanted to do! But you have to… MOVE BACK TO YOUR PARENTS! You have failed. You failed your career, it beat you. You said you would never move back to your home town, let alone with your parents, failed at that too. You better be good at this job, you better “make it”. And you are, its going great! You buy a house - check that off the list! You have a life again, with friends, freedom living on your own, in your own house. But something feels off. Work is stressful. It’s not what you signed up for. You aren’t “good enough” at it. You start to get upset, all the time, your back starts acting up. Now you are really questioning, am I good enough? Apparently not, your company goes in a different direction, and you no longer have a job. You have literally failed beyond belief. You are sitting in the house that you own, with no job, balling your eyes out, clenching your stomach because you are in so much pain. Then you are numb. You push down the feelings of failure. Always in the back of your mind questioning: am I good enough? But it’s tamped down, so it’s not in your face. You get a new job in your career path, this is literally your dream job. But wouldn’t you know those insecurities are lurking, you never dealt with them. Am I good enough at my job? Do I deserve time off? Did I do that right? Word that right? Am I taking too long? Next thing you know, you are miserable on Sundays. Then, you can’t get out of bed on Monday’s. You are either late, or have to call in sick. You get home from work and can’t do anything but lay on the couch. Weekends are the same, you just don’t care, you are busy over analyzing everything - does that friend even like me? Everything is stressful, but you don’t really realize that while you are in it - your back pain is back. This time it is getting worse. You started seeing a therapist, so you are hyper aware of your short comings and trying to process it all. The pain has migrated to your neck and shoulders. But you are successful! You have a house, a new car, friends, a great job, you are working on being a better person. Everything should be good. But you are getting worse. Until one day, you finally manage to get out of bed, get to the shower, and you almost pass out you are in so much pain. Your legs are burning. You crawl to the living room floor, where you do not leave for 2 - 3 months. You have quit your job - you can’t get there anyways. You are no longer a functioning member of society. You are at a loss. You go to the emergency room in pain, get an ultrasound, there is nothing wrong with you.
Then one day someone mentions, “physical manifestations of stress” and “stress induced trauma”. You think, no way. There is nothing traumatic about my life. No, not as one major trauma. But all those little emotional and mental scars have added up. They have been bottled up in your body. And they have now come out as a physical shut down in your body. You have been forced to make a change, you are out of time to do it on your own. Your body is not waiting around, it cannot live in this constant state of panic.
And so, here I am. Trying to heal a mystery illness. There was nothing wrong with me, all I can do is try to better myself and connect inwards to find what makes me happy. Try to be more calm, live more in my parasympathetic.
I realize this was pretty long and rambling. But I want to bring awareness to the fact that everybody is different. What effects you, may not me. My trauma, does not have to be the same as yours. I invite you to take stock of your life, notice if you have any of these feelings. And then see what is important to you, how can you align more with your values so that you can give that fight or flight response a little break.