Traumas

[Cobra]

I am reading a book that links anxiety to unresolved trauma events. I think it's brilliant, but I am curious about everyone else. I know I have unresolved traumas. Does anyone else? Talking car accidents, abuse or neglect, a shocking illness or a death to someone close to you. Assault, rape, injury. You don't have to give details if you don't want. Just say yes or no. I'm looking for a common thread that links us all together, I guess. Something that you flash back on, or that makes you feel very uneasy when you recall it.

[blondieqtpie]

My anxiety and panic I believe are from a very long traumatic experience and from a traumatic experience over a decade ago while ODed on exctasy. ( sp?). I only had ADHD and OCD before them. I am on the mental health field and funny I chose to work with teens with behavior problems. Much anxiety and mood related disorders seem to come about or are amplified with trauma. I fully believe we are ... Good and bad.... A product of nature and nurture.

[Cobra]

Thank you, Blondie. I just finished reading Walking the Tiger by Peter Levine. Very interesting book about trauma and anxiety.

[blondieqtpie]

Both are so linked from my personal and professional experience.

[acetone]

Yes.....................................

[trinidiva]

Yes here also...........long time ago, but definitely factors into what I get anxious about.

[leighlee]

Peter levine has great books about trauma. EMDR had really helped me process past trauma.

[leighlee]

Thank you, Blondie. I just finished reading Walking the Tiger by Peter Levine. Very interesting book about trauma and anxiety.

So glad you read this book. I have this one and it makes sense. I have another that helps you get back into your body. Amazing how animals shake it off and move on.

[jessy]

Yes ..., what is the book called??

[leighlee]

Walking the tiger, and healing trauma.

[jessy]

Thank you x

[Cobra]

Well, I personally suffered a lot of abuse as a child. Sexual abuse, physical abuse, and mental abuse. I always dismissed it, saying things like, "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger." But sometimes, I guess, that isn't true. I guess I need to acknowledge that I am damaged in many ways. Damaged in ways that have made me prone to this behavior. I've always been sort of untrusting and standoffish. I am very much a "people pleaser", which is often the outcome of sexual abuse, and I get greatly disturbed when people around me aren't happy. To the point where I will brood over it and let their unhappiness sour my own moods. I also tend to shrink from confrontations, which I think is a result of being physically and mentally abused by my stepfather. He was a very stiff and unemotional man. A former military man, he had very strict rules and they could often be very arbitrary, and we were not allowed to speak back to him or question anything he said. Sometimes his rules were contradictory, too, so there was no way we could NOT get in trouble, and we often got whipped with wire clothes hangers or his belt or whatever he could get his hands on for doing things like flushing the toilet when we only peed. Wasting water, you know. Haha. My biological dad was an alcoholic. He was really sweet when he was sober, but would come home drunk and beat my mom. Sometimes, I would try to get between them and take the beating for her. She divorced him when I was in the second grade. After she remarried, an older male cousin who came to visit started molesting me. I was about 10 or so. This has left me with a lot of guilt and confusion, as I am straight, but I have all of these memories of... you know, stuff. It has led to a lot of conflict in my soul because I was raised in a very homophobic environment. I've never revealed the sexual abuse or anything to my mother, who is a sweet, loving woman, but who suffered from anxiety like I do now. She cannot deal with things like that, so I always had to just man up and be her protector. But the main thing that causes my anxiety attacks, I think, is the history of heart disease on my father's side. They are all dead, basically, and all I heard from them growing up was, "Don't do that! You're going to have a heart attack!" and "Don't strain yourself!" My dad died at 51, right in front of my eyes, and I have always believed growing up that I would die young, too. I used to joke about it with my wife when we were younger. Well, it's not so funny now. Of course, I had my heart tested in January, when all this started. Stress test, Holt, and the sonic thing. I have no blockages, and passed the stress test. The doc said I had a bit of thickening due to lack of exercise, but no other issues, and that I need to walk a little more. Yet, I have a phobia of exerting myself now. I had a panic attack folding towels today because I started visualizing myself having a heart attack and falling in the floor while I folded them. So stupid. I am going to die young if I DON'T exercise! It's hard to shake an idea you've had all your life, though. Funny thing is, I thought I would die from heart disease, but the medical issue that set this all off was a pre-cancerous polyp in my colon! That, and I hemorrhaged after they removed it, sending me back to the hospital for another surgery. I was so certain I was dying that night, bleeding buckets out of my bum. I don't think my mind will accept that I survived and that I may have another 40 or 50 years to live. There is a part of me that died that night in the ER, when I went into heart arrhythmia from blood loss, I was so sure it was the end of me.

So, tell me, gang. How do I fix all that? Because I don't know anymore. All I know how to do is just keep pushing forward.

Just writing this is making me have chest pains. And even though I know it is anxiety, I still think, Okay, this is the end now. This time it's going to kill me.

[locksey]

I am reading a book that links anxiety to unresolved trauma events. I think it's brilliant, but I am curious about everyone else. I know I have unresolved traumas. Does anyone else? Talking car accidents, abuse or neglect, a shocking illness or a death to someone close to you. Assault, rape, injury. You don't have to give details if you don't want. Just say yes or no. I'm looking for a common thread that links us all together, I guess. Something that you flash back on, or that makes you feel very uneasy when you recall it.

Hi, yes mine is down to childhood things ( that's wen it started....)
What is the book called ? Will look on amazon

[Cobra]

Waking the Tiger, by Peter Levine. Very wonderful explanation of trauma, and how it happens, and why, but not a lot of exercises on how to fix it.

[str8trippin]

Yes, definitely. I want to say that most of the traumatic things I have been through have been in my adult life...but looking back over recent weeks while dealing with this anxiety I realized that I did have some trauma growing up...my Dad was sick his entire life and as a child I had a LOT of stress worrying about him dying that I think affected me way more than I thought it did. He passed away when I was 21 (now almost 27), and not having him here is another thing that upsets me more than I acknowledge most of the time. I was very close to him, and I always think what it would be like to have him here to share things with now, as an adult. There have been other traumatic experiences over the years, so when I really take the time to consider them, there is clearly unresolved hurt that stems from those things, whether it is conscious or subconscious.

[locksey]

Waking the Tiger, by Peter Levine. Very wonderful explanation of trauma, and how it happens, and why, but not a lot of exercises on how to fix it.

K.. I'll have a look ... Thanx

[brookie93]

Mine stems from problems with my dad and having a traumatic experience during my c section

[str8trippin]

Mine stems from problems with my dad and having a traumatic experience during my c section

I had a very traumatic c-section as well...probably one of the most terrifying things I've ever been through in my life. I never really think about it that way because of the fact that it came out okay and I have the most wonderful little girl, but that's definitely another underlying trauma for me.