Following the breadcrumbs to improve mental health

[indigo22]

Hi everyone,

The last few months have been somewhat confusing as I have discovered more about my mental / physical health and how it has all been connected. I had not put the pieces together, I am not sure why, it seems so obvious now.

I have dealt with Dysthymia since about 12 and Major Depression since about 14 but was not diagnosed until my 40s and had no idea that had been the problem all along. I knew I wasn't like everyone else but thought I was just born that way. Back then mental health was not a subject that was openly discussed and the signs mostly went unrecognised and untreated. I had about 10 years of talk therapy with a social worker that helped immensely.

I have had a sensitive digestive system for a good portion of my life, not so much that I sought treatment, just things like indigestion with certain foods, bloating and the like. I suppose I thought everyone had those types of issues.

I have also had nervous system reactions over the past 15 years, like involuntary shaking in certain situations, that I had put down to getting older and being less resilient having been through a lot of difficult challenges.

I have been seeing a psychotherapist who also does somatic work (turns out you were right mmmekitty, I did need some more help). The first session of somatic work, in this case EFT (tapping), brought up a deep and long standing belief that I did not deserve to be helped. The emotions were buried so deep that I was not even aware of them. After that session things went haywire physically for a few days and took some weeks to start to settle.

Being the type of person who needs to have an understanding of what is happening and why, I have been reading many books on the symptoms I have had. That is when I began to join the dots about how interconnected by mental and physical health actually were. It has required a lot of processing on my part, and an acknowledgement of what I have been consciously unaware of, but it has been necessary to finding a way forward. This will be an ongoing journey as new symptoms show up that need to be looked at.

I know now that there is a lot of unreleased trauma in my body that is a contributing factor in not healing mentally or physically and I know now what needs to be done to improve. There is only so much that the medical profession can do, I believe the rest of the responsibility lies with us in digging deeper to find the causes and the answers. In many ways, that in itself becomes empowering.

Take care all.

indigo

[TrueSeeker]

Hello Eagle Ray

I've been reading your story and I'm so sorry that you're going through all this. I've been in a similar situation and I thought that it might help a little bit for you to understand what is happening and keep going.

A while back I greed to experimental cancer treatment that completely removed production of one hormone. Both medications had anxiety and depression as a common side effect. It did have very good physical results but caused daily small anxiety attacks and extreme sweating that I kept complaining about it but got ignored. I stuck to the treatment for years. I lived with anxiety nearly whole my life so I thought I can handle it.

One day I got really excited in a good way and weird things started happening. My vision got blurred, heart was doing weird things, I couldn't stand up, my emotions were going extreme without me acting on it and my thoughts didn't make sense. We called ambulance and when I got to hospital, I became fully paralysed while
fully aware of my surroundings. I recovered after couple of hours and neurologist said it was an overload and that I'm fine. Months later it was diagnosed as extremely low potassium that can cause temporary paralyses.

I couldn't fully recover, my emotionality hit extreme levels, everything became either really good or really bad. The weird thing was I didn't act on it and my thinking was fine. But it was really exhausting and traumatic to live with it, after a month I had enough, I couldn't live with it and ended in hospital for depression. While there I got diagnosed with psychosis by a doctor that wasn't really altogether herself. It caused a huge paranoia in me that I'm losing my mind and the medication that stopped me from thinking was making it much worse. Later, I ended up with so many diagnoses and medications and it caused severe anxiety, depersonalisation and derealisation. I I had enough and decided to sort it all by myself. 

It took me a year to learn how to relax and face all my thoughts and memories in a calm way so I can either make sense out of them, prove them wrong or accept them and try to find peace with them. They were all just a result of my past and needed to be dealt with. I did get there, now I'm fully in the present and focusing on the future. I actually feel better than before, I'm not escaping my thoughts or emotions any more and feel much lighter for it.

I hope that it helped a little bit, if you have any question just let me know

[Eagle Ray]

Dear TrueSeeker,

Thank you for sharing your story and I'm so sorry you went through all those effects from the cancer treatment. Those symptoms would have been very frightening. I am also so sorry to hear about the wrong diagnoses and impacts of the medications. It sounds extremely traumatic. I think your decision to take the matter into your own hands makes perfect sense. It's like you were being traumatised by the way you were being viewed and treated medically.

It is really encouraging that you were able to eventually find a place of calm and healing and you actually feel better than before. I have read of some people who have had an adverse reaction to EMDR describe being in an absolutely horrible state for a year following EMDR treatment, but eventually after a year they have a breakthrough and feel so much better. Others still have very awful symptoms several years down the track. I am really hoping to have a breakthrough of sorts, that this experience won't all be for nothing and that some good will come out of it. It may be that I ultimately break through the chronic terror that has plagued me all my life but was made hugely worse by the EMDR. Some say it has to get worse before it gets better, though I prefer the notion of more gradual, gentle healing over torturous experiences that push me to the edge.

Were there any particular methods or activities you came up with that you feel helped you work through and make sense of memories? Or was it sort of an organic process that just played out on its own?

Thank you again for sharing and, yes, it does help to hear of your experience 🙏

(Hi indigo 👋 I don't want to take over your thread with my stuff so I hope it's ok discussing it here? I can shift it elsewhere such as a thread I started on EMDR in the Treatment section if need be).

[indigo22]

Hi ER,

As far as I am concerned, this thread is for both of us, nothing to worry about. You can talk about anything you want to here. It's good to see you have another supporter.

I didn't realise your psych already had knowledge of the protocols but didn't use them, I am really surprised she would do that with you knowing your background. As you say, there may not be enough emphasis on the reactions that it my cause if not handled correctly. I am so sorry you were blindsided like that, it was a very irresponsible thing to do when you were making progress with somatic experiencing. I hope she is, at the very least, researching ways to help you through this.

Will check in with you in a couple of days to see how you are.

I hope your session goes well.

Hugs,

indigo 💜

[Eagle Ray]

Thank you indigo,

I see her tomorrow and have written out some questions to ask (because if I don't do that I tend to dissociate and not remember to ask them). She is actually trying to help me and has offered 3 free sessions going forward. She says she is learning from this experience. But I still have some trust issues I'm hoping to clear up tomorrow. I am also kind of devising my own treatment plan going forward working with my dissociative parts who are actually very helpful to me - it is like having an inner team. Some people with OSDD/DID have a lot of conflict between parts and challenging behaviours in the parts. My two main parts that are much more active than the rest are very co-operative, like the family I never had in a way. They have really always been there as dissociative states but haven't come to the fore as clearly differentiated identities until about the last 5 months. I feel this has happened for a logical reason within my psyche and may also link with neurological changes that have affected me in perimenopause - thinner dissociative barriers in my brain. I've kind of switched from OSDD1a which I probably had since very early childhood to OSDD1b and more recently possibly Partial DID with some new dissociative switching involving amnesia (caused by EMDR which is a known side effect for people with a dissociative disorder). I don't want to end up with full DID but I don't think that's going to happen, as the parts are mostly very co-conscious and I have good communication with them. Anyway, I am going to put my treatment plan idea of working with these parts to my psych and see what she says/thinks. I am feeling more positive this evening.

I hope you have a lovely day tomorrow and weekend too 🙏

[TrueSeeker]

Hello Eagle Ray

Thank you for your support, it was hard not to be heard and being stuck with wrong diagnoses that is still on my record and being brought up even though it was corrected number of times.

My main focus was to "discharge" the extreme emotions so I really had to learn how to relax. I did extensive research on that and what worked for me the best was "grazing" meaning mild physical activity like walking, chores. It couldn't be mentally demanding so I could still think and deal with the mess in my head. Sometimes, it's easy to get stuck in freeze mode, especially because I love my computer so I needed to move around more. Also reducing body temperature helped when it got too bad, like less clothing, cold water at the end of shower,
washing face with cold water or just even cold water on my hands. Also focusing on the physical surroundings around me and appreciating how peaceful physical world is, it doesn't argue with me, it's stable, not moody, reliable, predictable etc.

Once I got myself into relaxed mode and was ready, I started facing the traumatic thoughts and memories. I've noticed that just facing those thoughts in a relaxed mode was enough to "discharge" the extreme emotionality. It usually took around a day of thinking about one event or thought to get more calm about facing it. I kept bringing up more thoughts and memories and targeting them one at a time. I tried to align the thoughts with reality as much as I could as number of them were just a creation of my anxiety or unhealthy coping mechanisms from childhood or beliefs that didn't really work for me. I also had to accept that others are just trying to survive and choose a way of dealing with people that I don't approve of. It's their choice, I just don't want to be around it any more. It's all in the past, it's not happening any more.

Once I learnt how to relax enough to face the thoughts, I started processing them to make sense out of them.
A lot of times, the thoughts can get processes automatically just by thinking about them and aligning them together. Eventually, a lesson is learnt, a general rule is made so it can be put to peace. I definitely learnt how to prove a lot of thoughts wrong as some of them were quite stubborn and didn't align with reality and weren't beneficial to my life and how I want to live it.

Once I got better at it, I started enjoying it as every time I solved an issue, it was so relieving. I've decided that I want to be able to face all my mind and not to be afraid of any thoughts and emotions any more. Now, I'm telling myself "bring it on", I can handle it and sort it out. I'm still not fully there but I definitely got tools now how to clean it all up.

It was very hard sometimes and I had to deal with some thoughts later as it was all too much so I played with the easier ones first and slowly got to the highly emotional ones.

[Eagle Ray]

Hello TrueSeeker,

That would be really hard, not being heard and having those wrong diagnoses still coming up on your record. It's incredibly frustrating and I feel the medical, psychiatry and psychology professions can get it really wrong sometimes. I feel there should be a safeguard built into the system that where a wrong diagnosis is made, the seriousness of that is fully acknowledged and it is clearly corrected.

I relate to some of what you write about "discharge" which fits in with the Somatic Experiencing approach I have learned, where the discharge is done in a gently titrated way so as not to overwhelm the nervous system. It's sort of tapping into a feeling/emotion/experience ever so slightly, but always with an island of safety to return to. Little by little the nervous system releases the trapped trauma/emotions/sensations/feelings and restores the nervous system to homeostasis. I have also done the cold water at the end of a shower and have found it helpful and rebalancing. And orienting to the physical world I can relate to so much too. I find going into nature especially important for me.

I feel like what you describe with the bringing up of thoughts and memories to process sounds similar to EMDR, but like a safer self-directed version where you are processing as you feel ready. It's like you are working out your own way of desensitising yourself to those thoughts and memories. I think one of the hardest things is helping the nervous system know it is safe in the present, that as you say it's not happening anymore.

Right now my struggle has been that no matter how cognitively conscious I am of there being no actual present danger, my nervous system is ramping up intensely with fear, especially when I first wake in the morning. I seem to be in preverbal, precognitive memories triggered by the EMDR so I am trying to find nonverbal and non-cognitive solutions. I found expressing anger has been one of the things that has helped and I discussed it with my psychologist today. She understands that and is encouraging me to express that. I've finally managed to sleep after letting out the anger a few times now, but up until that point I was really stuck and severely wired.

I really like how you describe that you started to enjoy the process once you could see you had solved an issue. That is extremely positive and I think it's like the engaging of our curiosity and exploration which I have read calms the trauma circuits in the brain - that curiosity and trauma circuits cannot run at the same time. I sometimes think that is partly why I like to research things to understand them. They become something of interest and exploration, like solving a puzzle. That really actually helps my brain and nervous system. 

I think what you describe is the development of mastery. I think once you can feel "bring it on" you are in a good place. It would have all been very hard though and I think it's amazing the way you have worked to heal yourself. I have this sense that it is these self-discovered ways that help us the most. We are the wisest person to actually know ourselves and know what to do, but it can be easy to hand that power over to others when we are going through something really difficult and seeking help. But as you've described and I've experienced, sometimes the external help can harm, and that's when you have to come reflexively back to yourself and find grounded and peace within yourself. It's actually really empowering.

Thank you for sharing your inspiring courage and creative solutions 🙏

[TrueSeeker]

Hello Eagle Ray

thank you so so much for your understanding and making me feel better about myself. I'm really glad that I found this community where I feel I can freely share my stories and be understood rather than being judged based on a checklist. So thank you very much to all. 💙

Mental health system is not perfect and is still developing. As much as they can make us feel worse in one area, it is still great that we get help when it gets really bad. I do feel that they are trying their best and learning from their mistakes.

How our mind works has been a life time hobby for me as I have struggled with mental health from very early age. I try to take a holistic approach to it and have researched quite a bit on biology and structure of our brain. I try to take practical approach to things as for something to be right, it needs have good results. I'm playing with AI at this moment trying to replicate how our brain processes information, something that I might not ever get there but it's fun trying.

Just like you I struggled with the mornings for months and I put it down to elevated cortisol levels. I fully cut down on coffee and tea as it can increase cortisol production. I'm fine now but it took a while to accept that mornings can be very hard and just calmly wait for the cortisol to stabilise. Middle of the night panic attacks weren't as persistent but harder to deal with. I usually tried to ground myself in the peaceful reality around me.

I fully agree with you that it's us that can deal with our problems most effectively. We have a life time of memories and thoughts to process and it's nearly impossible to pass it onto someone else so they can fully understand. Most of the time we just need love, support and peace so we can find the strength to deal with our past and move on.

Thank you again for understanding and support, it did make me feel much better 🙏

[Eagle Ray]

Dear TrueSeeker,

You are so welcome here and I'm glad if it is helping you to feel understood. I have really come to the conclusion that that feeling of human understanding, care and validation is so central in processes of healing. We can do so much ourselves which you are so clearly doing, but it can help greatly to feel empathic support from others too. And I can tell that is what you are doing with the kind support you give people here.

Yes, there are of course people within the mental health system who are trying to help. It is great when they do learn from mistakes, especially if we can have confidence that they have grown from them and we are safe going forward. Safety is a big issue for me and I have to have my safety detector/intuition activated and really sense into situations as to whether they are wise to engage with or not.

I really agree with you - that for something to be right, it needs to have good results. There is a quote I have heard that is something like "the right medicine is the one that works". That medicine can also refer to methods and modalities, not just what we ingest. It's like our system knows when something clicks and is working. AI is a fascinating area and I have read of a few people now using it in their healing, even as an alternative to psychotherapy. While one argument may be that you are missing the human connection, I have heard people say they actually prefer AI because it is non-judgemental and logical, and also highly responsive based on probability. It's like as long as you understand its limits, it can be an incredibly useful tool.

I can relate to the high cortisol and I remember mine was detected as being very high when I was 16, so I think there's long been instability there for me. Since the EMDR I have been dealing with high adrenaline surges on waking and also panic attacks like you describe. I agree that it can help to focus on the surrounding reality. For me this has been a sensory thing, like the other day I was listening to the wind and rain outside as a sort of distraction. It's been most unusual though as the EMDR seems to prevent the effectiveness of strategies that used to help me a lot more, and reading the experiences of others online they describe the same thing. One person was pacing 10 hours a day to cope with the adrenaline surges. I am finding that enduring through seems to be all I can do a lot of the time, but I can feel my system improving and I think after 2 months now it is starting to de-escalate.

Yes, I think we really are our own best healer, and it is actually the most empowering way. But, as you say, having love, support and peace provides that holding space in which the unfolding of our own healing can happen much more easily. Since a child that holding space for me was going into nature but I am working on developing safe human spaces for myself as I know how important that is in the process.

Take good care and it's lovely to chat with you,

ER

[indigo22]

Hi ER,

Just checking in to see how you are and how your session went on Friday.

Updates on my situation.

Have been on the iron everyday for about 10 days and it is binding me up so have cut back to every second day and sent an email to my doctor today saying I would like to discuss the infusion as an alternative.

I took the plunge this week on supplements to try and get things running properly again. Have purchased the Turmeric blend to get my inflammation under control and the vegan omega 3 to help my brain (it needs all the help it can get 😄). Also decided to trial the Ritua products 'Stress' for the nervous system and 'Focus' for those times when I need to concentrate and having difficulty. Will let you know how I go with them.

I hope you have had a little more peace over the weekend.

Hugs,

indigo 💜

[Eagle Ray]

Hi indigo,

That's annoying about how the iron is affecting you. So, yes, discussing the infusion sounds like a good idea. Hopefully the supplements will really help too. In terms of the binding up, the slippery elm may be helping to counter it to some extent but it sounds like it isn't enough. What a frustrating thing when you had gut issues going on already. I don't know much about iron infusions but I really hope that helps a lot if it's a path you decide to go down.

I'm ok. I'm slowly improving in terms of EMDR side effects. Not feeling well since yesterday morning and I'm wondering if I picked up a bug at the dentist on Thursday, even possibly through the scrape and clean itself as she cut my gums a lot and it hasn't felt right in my mouth and throat combined with what seems to be a fever. I might have to contact them tomorrow for advice but going to the city for work on my car as well tomorrow. Not sure if I need antibiotics.

My session on Friday went ok but afterwards I had a lot of tension in my body and something is telling me it isn't going to work going forward with my current psych. I'm gradually adjusting to that reality. I'm struggling to trust again based on a few factors other than the EMDR issue itself. I know when I get a bad feeling in my body and I ignore it, things don't turn out well. She has good intentions overall, but increasingly I am realising a mismatch between the kind of complex trauma I have and some of the approaches she takes which are just not attuned to my nervous system and what it needs to heal. She's tended to persist with these approaches when I've already communicated that they don't fit me and why. It's a situation where my deeper intuition is speaking to me and I don't think it's wise to ignore it. But it is sad and disorienting as things worked out so well initially and the somatic work has been really good for me.

I've been following the CTAD Clinic YouTube channel which specialises in dissociative disorders and when I watch that I feel my nervous system just able to breathe. I feel validated and understood just watching it. Dr Mike Lloyd, the clinic director, makes the videos and if I could find a psychologist like him who is so attuned and responsive to dissociative conditions, I know I would feel at home and safe. For me safety is a huge issue, especially after what I've just been through which has induced PTSD-like effects in itself that I'm now trying to prevent getting lodged in my system long term. I'm doing what I can to normalise things and assure my body it is safe. I need to turn to and focus on the things I know that are stabilising for me. After coming back from the city I will try the Bowen therapy again which I find very gentle.

It's been cold here today (for here anyway). I hope you are managing to keep warm and cosy where you are.

Take care and I hope you have a good discussion with your doctor to work out the way forward.

Hugs 🤗

ER