Spiralling with trivial thoughts

[WishyBee]

I’m hoping someone might have some insight or advice if they have dealt with similar issues to me.

I seem to be most affected by trivial mistakes I have made in my life. I am triggered by a small remark (the worst if it comes from a stranger) something like “please move you’re blocking the exit” or a car horn tooting at me will send me spiralling into continuous negative thoughts and over analysing. This will also bring up a lot of trivial mistakes from my past, some mistakes I think about are from when I was a small child, so time doesn’t seem to lessen the affects of these incidents, they just accumulate. 
I know logically that these remarks/incidents are mostly meaningless and sometimes nothing to do with me personally, but the way I feel about them is utterly devastating. 
If I try and share these thoughts with family and friends I really start to give myself a hard time to the point where I feel suicidal. 
I have no control over when or what I will be triggered by or how long I will be agonising over these things. Sometimes I could be feeling this way for ten minutes, sometimes it’s for days. I cannot sleep during these times and I get by on autopilot as the thoughts are all consuming. 
I have had plenty of traumatic events and major problems in life that I don’t agonise over it’s only the insignificant things that seem to affect me. 
Has anyone else experienced this or found an effective coping strategy?

[Eagle Ray]

Dear WishyBee,

I would say it has occurred through the work I've been doing with my psychologist over the last couple of years as well as the research I've done myself in recent years in relation to the somatic effects of trauma. I've actually learned how and why I am so hypervigilant. I've done some work with a method called Somatic Experiencing with my psychologist. It is a method I've really connected with. I read a book by the guy who developed it, Peter Levine, called In An Unspoken Voice.

Basically, my nervous system is becoming less reactive as I learn how to make myself feel safer. This, in turn, seems to also extinguish the power of incidents from long ago that once so affected me. In the above mentioned book, Peter Levine tells the story of a young woman named Nancy he worked with early in his career. She was still carrying trauma from a hospital procedure she had aged 4 at the age of 24, but didn't know this was what was still affecting her. She had chronic, severe anxiety and fibromyalgia among other things. It is hard to put it in a nutshell here, but her body actually went back into the trauma involuntarily during a therapy session. Peter Levine had no idea at the time what was happening to her, but sensed she needed to run (in her imagination) from a perceived threat and found himself advising her that. A long period of time then ensued where her legs moved in a running motion and she actually completed the escape she had wanted to do but was restrained from as a 4 year old. She was able to explain to him afterwards how she could now see that that childhood procedure was what had been affecting her for 20 years. Following this session she had an incredible healing and recovery. This was where Peter Levine really started developing his methodology whereby people gently touch into the feelings of a past experience, knowing they are in a safe place with the therapist and a place of safety within themselves that they can always return to. As they touch into the experience they get to complete past processes of trauma recovery that are trapped in the nervous system.

Sorry, that is so wordy! But basically I went through a very similar process with my psychologist in only my second session with her when we processed a traumatic incident I'd been through this way. This involved me turning and facing an abuser and hurling a couch cushion at the (imaginary) abuser. I allowed my body to defend itself as it couldn't at the time, so I was coming out of the freeze response. My psych got me to repeat this in slow motion. This is where the integration happened - the abuser became a hologram, then dissolved, then I was left with the peaceful night air and my body returned to homeostasis. The memory was now integrated instead of a recurrent PTSD event/trigger. This has been the beginning of my body knowing how it can make itself safe. The more my body knows this feeling of safety, the more it naturally is experiencing less threat in the environment and I've found along with this that various past experiences, including those seemingly mild yet impactful ones, also simply fade and just integrate as normal memories rather than trauma activating ones. Basically, past experiences are being integrated and I've found this to be an organic process that occurs through the body.

So while I still experience a very mild activation of anxiety in relation to the TAFE lecturer incident, it is so small it is inconsequential. Whereas before I would be flooded again with toxic shame. I was made to feel toxic shame a lot as a child, so I've also been growing the capacity within me to care for my inner child who totally lacked care for decades. I'd say I've only really started to know how to care for that child within me in the last 1-2 years. That part of me was almost invisible to me for most of my life, like I denied my own value and couldn't even see myself, even though I was highly attuned to the worlds and feelings of others.

I hope maybe that makes a bit of sense? Happy to chat further if it helps. I guess the way I can express it is I'm increasingly desensitised to past experiences as I learn how to make myself safe in the present, and to simply know in my body that safety is possible. It is still a work in progress but progress is definitely happening.

[WishyBee]

Hi Eagle Ray,

Thank you for sharing the methods you have been using, I will definitely explore this further. It’s great that you’re making progress.

Your insight is really helpful to me.

 I appreciate your detailed replies. 👍

[Eagle Ray]

Hi WishyBee,

I’m glad if that was helpful. With me it is all about addressing things in my nervous system that were already well established before I even had conscious awareness. I’ve found understanding my nervous system allows me to make total sense of why something seemingly small can have such a big impact. Because of the nature of complex ptsd I still get suddenly and strongly triggered at times by things that others might see as minor issues. But at least I am aware now of the sensitivity and why it’s there. I’m slowly learning to self soothe when something is triggering, and in some cases there are things that no longer affect me, including particular past memories.

Most importantly, be gentle and kind with yourself.

Kind regards,

Eagle Ray