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

[Eagle Ray]

Dear indigo and Croix,

Well much of today was extremely hard. For most of it I was fluctuating between a state of vacancy/nothingness and terror. It was pretty intolerable. But late this afternoon my psychologist spent an hour talking with me, free of charge, just working through what is happening. She helped me connect with things going on in my body somatically and gradually drew me out of myself as I was so shut down. I think for me EMDR is too much. I do not want to do it again. Somatic Experiencing is fine, but not EMDR. It changed my brain in disturbing ways that I could not cope with, bringing up severe trauma overwhelm and also splitting me off from my inner resources as well. It was really quite damaging and I am still in repair, but I think I will be progressively ok. Obviously that was not the intended impact and it's not like my psychologist didn't do it carefully and gently because she did. I would say I am super sensitive in very vulnerable ways. I am certainly better now than a few hours ago.

The release of toxic residue makes a lot of sense. The body definitely does that. I have felt like my body is toxic the last few days and that the toxins were trapped. I am hoping now it gradually dissipates. For me it was very much in the solar plexus and heart where I felt extreme effects but it also felt like toxins were going through my veins. But I hear you about the gut and I've had strong gut reactions before too. It's good your psych has identified hypervigilance may be the cause and given you those exercises. I find hypervigilance is such a strange thing as we can be so unaware of it. I'm often holding my breath without realising it and then catching myself doing it. In fact I noticed that while I was doing the EMDR, probably because I was concentrating a lot, but it may also indicate that my nervous system was not in the best state at the time. 

Croix, I find your chicken jokes hilarious 🤣 I had fun devising some of my own. I think when you replied to this thread you thought you were on Paws' thread rather than indigo's thread. If you go over to Paws' thread you will find that there are antics involving penguins in zodiac boats.

It is just getting to 8pm here and I am going to bed early. I hope you both sleep well and thank you for your support 🙏

Hugs,

ER

[indigo22]

Hi ER & Croix,

ER, I hope you are seeing some improvement today.

I agree with you that EMDR is probably too much for your sensitivities to process at this point in your healing journey. I will do EFT again despite the physical fallout, but it would probably be a different story if I was facing a lot of my baggage all in one hit, it would be too much for me to process too. Some people find EMDR works really well for them, but Somatic Experiencing seems to work best for you. You never know unless you try.

I know what you mean about being unaware of the hypervigilance, but I am aware that even when I think I am relaxed, there is always still tension in some part of my body. I often hold my breath too, particularly when I am concentrating. Wouldn't it be so much easier if we could consciously just delete our problematic programming and replace it with an updated version (without having to delve into our depths to find where the trauma is hiding) and get on with living the rest of our lives in peace. What can I say, I am an idealist. 😅

Croix, thank you for the advice on medication for the gut pain. I have a good GP so will ask him about it when I see him in a few weeks, I am seeing a psychologist so she would not be able to prescribe anyway.

I hope you both have a very pleasant evening.

Hugs,

indigo 💜

[Eagle Ray]

Hi indigo and wave to Croix,

I feel like there’s something going on that causes the EMDR to affect me so much. I had trauma from birth and things immediately started being done to me - tube down throat, into humidicrib etc and no human contact for the first 10 days. Then home to a mother who could not bond and was severely dissociated from me and a father who ended up doing the same. Then subjected to repeat emotional/verbal/physical abuse. I was terrified of hospitals from my earliest memories and of all people too and especially any situations where I felt like something was being “done to me”. So I think EMDR feels like something is being done to me out of my control which initiates terror, along with all the horrible memories it trawled up in one go. I’ve had adverse reactions to EFT too and I’m realising I think it’s for similar reasons. But EMDR was worse. It does change the brain and for people with complex trauma that can lead to flooding and intense and disturbing experiences afterwards. Somatic Experiencing is very different in that it’s like you are guiding the process yourself with the therapist there for support. They may prompt here and there, but the prompts are to help you guide yourself, not them directing you. Last night I was even having flashbacks of fingers moving in front of my face like a trauma memory in itself from the EMDR session. My body was just writhing in distress. So my brain and body absolutely hated it, not at the time it was happening (though that felt weird) but in the delayed response afterwards and how my system went haywire. I’m know to never do that again. There will be people who are really ok with it and get great benefit, but it really taught me about what helps and doesn’t help me. A positive to come out of it is me realising that I have good intuition about the things that do help me. Today I could feel myself gradually reconnecting to my own inner resources again. I was glad to be able to email my psychologist and tell her I’m improving and going to be ok. My brain still doesn’t feel normal but it is less traumatised.

I know what you mean about thinking you are relaxed and then finding that part of the body still isn’t. It can be a form of bracing in the body. Yes, it would be so wonderful to be able to delete programming a replace ourselves with version 2.0. Certainly mindfulness meditation can help and I also find the vooo technique very helpful in bringing awareness. As Peter Levine describes it, you are giving the vagus nerve and digestive system a masssage, feeling it in the belly, and it can lead to that release in the nervous system. I know he used it with emergency nurses in hospitals during the height of Covid as a way for them to be able to re-centre and keep going in their job which must have been so challenging. I am an idealist too so I very much relate ☺️

I am about to go and pick up a take away from the local Chinese restaurant to make my life easy tonight. I hope you and Croix too have a really lovely evening.

Hugs 🤗

ER

[indigo22]

Hi ER,

Just wanted to check in with you, are you feeling any better?

I was thinking about my last session and about the tension that remains when I think I am relaxed. I still have trouble identifying feeling in my body although not as much as 18 months ago. I did identify that there was constriction in my chest, like my lungs don't fully expand. When she asked me to feel into this and try to identify why there was constriction, I wasn't 100% sure but my first thought was that it goes back to being mum's carer and her judgemental attitude on a daily basis, compounded by all the other judgements from family when I was younger. I think I am still unconsciously bracing for judgement even after all these years. Like I still can't just be me for fear that regardless of what I do, it will never be enough. Like I am always waiting for the other shoe to drop. I hope that makes sense. It has become a well entrenched habit that I am not sure how I am going to break.

I hope you have been able to find some peace over the weekend.

Warm hugs,

indigo 💜

[Eagle Ray]

Dear indigo,

I think not being able to easily identify feelings in the body can be a very common thing. It’s good you feel the awareness increasing. Sometimes I find when I become aware of a particular body feeling that an image and/or emotion comes that tells me what the feeling is about. This will be something directly from my unconscious that up till that point was not receiving attention and awareness. It’s certainly possible that being your mum’s carer combined with dealing with and bracing against the judgements of others could leave patterns of tension. I have found Somatic Experiencing helpful for that sort of thing by taking a particular incident that feels pertinent in relation to the pattern and working on it. So in your case it might be a situation you recall where you braced and then just gently touching into that and allowing the body to sense/feel what it would have liked to do at the time but couldn’t. It can be good to do this with your therapist. In an actual SE session you might simply allow the body to just unfold as it wants to and then the therapist can check in with how the body is responding. If it’s something active you can repeat it in slow motion and this will often lead to an integration of the memory and a resolution of the bodily symptoms associated with it. I’ve done this with several past traumas now and it’s led to the release of bracing patterns - so the body leads the way and a change in associated somatic patterns (e.g. breathing) and thought patterns follow. It’s kind of the opposite of how we’re often taught to think, that we are supposed to use thoughts to change the body (mind over matter). But I’ve found for unconscious stuff in the body it’s the other way round. The body needs to be allowed to complete a process and the resolution allows stuck somatic patterns and thoughts to naturally shift. At this point more cognitive awareness/processing can help, but working with the feelings/sensations first is how you get there.

For me post EMDR it has been horrible. I’ve had enormous amounts of trauma flooding. It worked at the time on the specific incident I was processing but led to awful effects over the past week as emotional flooding and surges of fear just keep happening. I’ve found it brutal compared with SE and a very different thing. It’s a brain/memory modification process rather than a wider somatic/nervous system recalibration like SE. My brain has never felt so awful and out of control. At times it’s been terrifying. The Blue Knot Foundation have been amazingly helpful. I’ve had the complication of having the dissociated identities in me affected as well. I have two active dissociated identities at present and the people at Blue Knot have completely understood about this which is a common trauma phenomenon and they’ve known how to talk to me about it. I can visually see what is happening to my alters in relation to the EMDR. One became completely shutdown, traumatised and comatose in response to the EMDR. The other has had the capacity to remain active and conscious and has been my tether to sanity when I’m taken over by emotional flooding and fear. I seem to be experiencing horrific intergenerational trauma stuff now too that was previously compartmentalised. It’s like all my dissociative barriers that were protecting me have come down and it’s way beyond what my brain could cope with. So I’m really trying to rebuild some barriers to have some inner protection again. I did have one memory fragment appear about 24 hours ago that presented itself for healing in the way it’s supposed in EMDR, showing that the reprocessing is trying to occur as intended by the therapy, but overall it’s been far more damaging and distressing than helpful. But I know I have a particularly sensitive brain with particular sensory issues, so I’m probably impacted far more severely than some other people would be. I think for people with severe early trauma there are risks that need to be managed very carefully.

Anyway, I’m feeling slight improvement since last night. I hope you had a lovely weekend and maybe got out into your garden if you had lovely weather. The weather here has been incredibly beautiful. I’ve gone to the river daily and lay on a rock or a bench next to it. I just keep repeating that as a way to try to heal myself. The wind is picking up outside so I think the weather is changing today.

Have a wonderful day indigo 🙏🌸💖

Hugs,

ER

[indigo22]

Hi ER,

I have something very interesting to share with you. I am on a mailing list and received information about a movie that will be out sometime this year about the true nature of who we are which we have discussed in many of our conversations. The full length interviews of the all the people (60) who appear in the movie are available to watch for free and I have just watched the one with Christian Sunderland who I think I told you about early on in our conversations, I have his book 'A Walk in the Physical'. There are so many interesting interviews to view but wanted to start with Christian who, some years ago, remembered all his pre birth planning and seems to be able to articulate things in a clear way.

I think, especially now while you are feeling this chaos, these interviews will be really helpful. Search 'every soul knows' and the website will come up first in the search. At the top of the web page you will see a tab for interviews which are all in alphabetical order by surname. Some of the people are well known and some are not so well known, but all will have a perspective that is from an NDE, mediumship, psychic, experiential or channeling perspective.

I hope it helps you as much as I feel sure it will help me at this time.

Have a lovely week ER and let me know if someone stands out in the interviews for you.

Hugs,

indigo 💜

[Eagle Ray]

Thank you indigo,

At the moment I’m still experiencing really strong and disturbing side effects and have very altered brain function, so it’s hard for me to take in new information and engage with things. But I will try at some point to look at it. I’m experiencing surges of extreme fear interspersed with severe blanking out. I don’t recognise my own brain and I cannot feel positive emotions. Even writing out a message here is really hard. But I will try at some point to look at those things.

I hope you are having a lovely weekend 🙏☺️

Hugs,

ER

[indigo22]

Hi ER,

There is no need to reply to this, I had a feeling you were still having problems and I am so sorry this has turned out to be so difficult and out of control for you. I hope you psychologist is working with you to find a way to bring you back out of this tormented state.

I was once advised that laying on volcanic rock will draw negative energy from the body and I assume it would also be very grounding. If you have a place like that near by, it couldn't hurt to try. My thinking is that since most of what you are feeling at present is in the head, you possibly need to be more grounded right now. Any black crystals or dark brown like smokey quartz will help. If none of those are available, try using the colours I mentioned in the form of clothing, shoes, a blanket etc. Visualise your trauma energy leaving your body through the soles of your feet and going into mother earth to be transmuted. Then visualize earth energy rising up through the soles of your feet and filling you up with grounding energy. These are just some suggestions in case you are not up to visiting your favourite grounding locations at the moment.

I hope things improve for you very soon, I will be thinking of you until you feel well enough to communicate again. There is no rush to do so, just take good care of yourself.

Warm Hugs,

indigo 💜

[Eagle Ray]

Thank you indigo,

I know of sone volcanic rocks on the beach of a particular town but it’s a long drive from here. But there’s plenty of granite rocks with quartz in them around here and I’ve spent quite a bit of time lying on one of those rocks in the sun in the last couple of weeks, so I think that has helped.

I’ve just finished doing an hour of a Peter Levine containment exercise for when trauma activated and it’s really helped. Every morning I have a surge of nausea and fear after waking that persists at an extreme level for about four hours, then finally settles a bit for about an hour before ramping up again. This morning through the containment exercise it has de-escalated to a lower level. I can feel my capacity to think is more online and I’m less totally paralysed by fear.

I just need to gradually work through things like this. I’ve become aware that these worst surges of fear are preverbal/precognitive birth trauma. That’s where the terror started for me and in the events that followed from the info I’ve been given about what happened to me. The EMDR has stripped away all dissociative defences I had that went in place to protect me, from this initial primal fear and multiple experiences that followed. So I’ve relived both later memories but also most intensely this initial terror memory in a way that I have fully felt the terror that the dissociation had protected me against.

While EMDR is meant to lift dissociative barriers it’s not supposed to happen with such total flooding and it’s meant to be in association with a particular target memory. It worked that way with the target memory in the EMDR session, but then my whole system subsequently went haywire and I’ve had two weeks of flooding from multiple traumatic memories from across my lifespan with the most intense of all being primal survival terror from birth. I am a bundle of raw nerves and primal fear responses. But I am beginning to understand it and the containment exercises are giving me away to begin managing it. So this morning I feel a bit more empowered and a bit less at the mercy of overwhelming terror. 

I hope you have a really lovely day Paws and thank you so much for your support 🙏☺️

Hugs,

ER

[Eagle Ray]

Hi again indigo,

 I just reread my message and realised I called you Paws at the end as I had just replied to Paws before that. My brain still not quite working. I’m definitely feeling a bit more empowered and hopeful though 🤞