My journey into this round of therapy has reached its one year mark. The hard thing about therapy is just learning how to do therapy. A typical session is me whining over some surface issue (work mostly) for 55 minutes and then at the end of the session mentioning something that hints at the deeper issues just to say “well that’s all our time”.
It’s an avoidance maneuver. I know it. My therapist knows it. Thankfully she’s been super supportive about it and helping me learn how to get comfortable and feel safe enough to start doing the hard work. She asked what I was scared of and I told her I’m terrified if I go into the dark stuff, I won’t come back out. The last time I was deep in those old wounds I almost didn’t survive. There’s so much more at stake now and I’m not willing to risk this precarious stability I’ve built.
But then I read the book “The Body Keeps the Score” by Bessel van der Kolk. Apparently this book is having a moment right now. It was recommended by someone in my book club and I put it on hold then forgot about it for a few months until I got the notification that it was my turn to listen to it.
It is not exaggerating to say that this is the most important book I’ve ever read/listened to. It’s also one of the most difficult. Listening to detailed accounts of other people’s trauma is definitely triggering and there were many times where the book was too much and I had to put it down. But ultimately I got a lot out of it and when I went to therapy last night we talked about it. I was glad she’d already read and liked the book. It offered a good starting point and for the first time I felt comfortable pulling back some of the layers to get to the core of my issues.
I’ve never really felt right about calling my experience “trauma”. To me trauma felt like a singular event with a clear before and after that happens and derails someone’s life. But what I learned from this book is that growing up in an environment of extreme and long term stress without a sense of safety is a trauma that has long lasting physical impacts on the mind and body.
This book helped me understand that thing that’s been eluding me. The “why” of my situation. Previously I wrote about how the problem was I know what the goal is, I know what I have to do reach the goal but I just can’t do the thing consistently for long enough to make progress. Last night was like this epiphany where I put together that my entire life has been in a constant state of fight or flight. All those stress hormones have been flooding my body and wrecking havoc since I was a child. The dangerous and toxic behaviors were all just ways to disassociate from that chronic feeling of always having to be on guard. I always knew they were ways to escape my feelings but I never could wrap my head around just what feelings I was trying to escape.
My life was always on the defensive moving from crisis to crisis putting out fires. When I was younger it was trying to navigate the explosive environment I grew up in. When I got older it was trying to managed relationships, cope with poverty, finish school, find a job and keep my fragile tether to the world from breaking. Over time I learned how to use that constant state of fear to propel me forward in hopes of escaping the environment that kept me afraid.
Last night it dawned on me that there’s no more fires. There’s no more crisis. I’m safe and there’s no more danger to escape. This is all unknown territory and the brain doesn’t like unknown. The brain craves familiar and retreats to the “comfort zone” to find it.
Without an external danger to focus on, the threats have been coming from inside the house in the form of uncomfortable feelings and negative self talk. My brain goes back into fight or flight mode against these feelings/thoughts and escapes to the thing that provides comfort and feels safe and familiar. For a long time now that thing has been food.
This all brought me back to my original issue when I started therapy. The original problem was knowing what needs to be done, knowing how to do it, having every resource to get it done but still not being able to do it. Why?
Without the fire, without the crisis there’s no fuel to move forward. There’s no sense of urgency because the only thing at stake is me and for the longest time I haven’t allowed myself a place of priority in my life.
In the book he talks about “notice that” and “what happens next”.
I’ve noticed I am the fire and now I have to make a plan for what happens next.
Now it’s time to start really doing the work of processing the trauma of the past and learning how to welcome the whole spectrum of my feelings instead of hiding from the painful ones. My therapist is going to help me work on mindfulness and getting to know myself as a full person. My nutrition coaches will continue to help me develop a healthier relationship with food. My CG trainers will continue to help me develop a healthier relationship with my body. My friends will continue to cheer for my wins and offer a safe place for me to lean on when I struggle.
Healing is not linear and I know better than to expect drastic changes immediately. I know this is a process that I’m going to have to trust. I know it’s not going to be easy. I’ve done so many parts of this so many times but I think this is the first time I’m actually starting in the right place; working from the inside out.
thistlesandweeds 