I said in my last post that this pandemic, this global crisis, was easier in some ways because it was not new or crazy for me to feel anxious and unsafe much of the time.
That\’s true.
But what is also true is that in many ways, we trauma survivors may have it much harder during something like this.
When you spend most of your life fending off the \”what-ifs\”, trying to manage physical and psychological symptoms of anxiety, and one of the \”what-ifs\” COMES TRUE, you are living it…well, I\’m not sure how to describe it. So I\’ll just describe my experience.
I feel mostly calm in my home (although it\’s starting to wear on me-more on that in a moment). But when I leave? The more this goes on, the more bad news there is, the higher the death toll gets, the more \”what-ifs\” get piled on top of the one we are already living (what if I get sick? What if too many health care providers get sick and more people die because of that? What if our access to food and supplies is limited because the people who work there get sick?), well, the harder it\’s getting to stay centered. To stay calm.
Reminder about trauma trigger: it happens when something reminds you of the original trauma.
It may be something big like COVID-19 and shelter-in-place, or it may just be a song or a scent or a tone in someone\’s voice. Or anything in between.
The brain is brought back to the original trauma, and the fight-flight-freeze mechanism is tripped.
You may be totally and completely safe in real life in that moment-but THE BRAIN DOES NOT KNOW THE DIFFERENCE.
We can learn to discern the difference, even as the brain does its thing. I know for me that was a very long process, and a lot of work. AND, know this: being triggered is like being hungry, or having to pee. It\’s a biological function. You may be able to manage it, but you cannot prevent or control it.
And here\’s the thing about (C)PTSD and Anxiety: it can feed off of itself. It can snowball. If you do not have good inner resources, or outer supports, or a way to catch yourself, it can snowball a lot before you realize it.
I am fortunate, I have pretty good inner resources. I didn\’t always; I had to build them as an adult, it was, and is, a lot of work. I am fucking blessed with great outside supports. But those work best in person, which I can\’t do right now. And some of the things that keep me grounded, I can\’t do right now. There is no shelter-in-place substitute for being by the water, or hanging upside down in an Anti-Gravity hammock, or doing yoga WITH PEOPLE, or some of the other basic things I do that fuel me and keep my anxiety and PTSD in check.
A quick story:
I am afraid to fly. I\’m better now, but I used to be TERRIFIED. The 48 hours before I flew no one wanted to be in my presence because I\’d be a jacked-up, freaked-out irritable mess. I have had anxiety attacks on the way to airports, in airport bathrooms, on planes. I don\’t dislike flying, like a lot of people do. And yes, I know it\’s safer, statistically, than driving. I just have a visceral fear. I\’m not in control, and we are tens of thousands of feet off the ground.
But all of my family and many of my friends (and many things I like to do) are further than driving distance away, so I fly fairly often. And over the years I\’ve gotten better. Mainly due to the fact that my brain created this nifty work-around. Yes, my brain did it. I can\’t tell you how to do it, because I don\’t know how I did it-it just sort of evolved.
So how flying is now: I functionally shut down part of myself in order to not feel the fear. And not only is it automatic, but my brain knows my landing time-so it sets itself to stay partly-shut-down until I land. So I can drive the the airport and get Starbucks and read my book and fall asleep as we taxi. If there is no turbulence I may even forget I\’m on a plane. I often cannot make small talk, and I seem to be short with folks-because I\’m partly shut down.
Those wheels touching down is still one of my favorite feelings, though. I breathe a sigh of relief.
There is ONE hitch.
My brain does the timing thing SO WELL that if the flight is delayed, especially if it is way delayed or delayed over and over or cancelled and I have to re-book…I start to melt down. That mechanism in my brain shuts off–or rather, it short-circuits. Which is worse.
It\’s as if my inner four-year-old is saying: \”look, you told me we would have to be in this scary situation for FOUR HOURS. So I prepared to hold held my breath for FOUR HOURS. But now it\’s been SIX HOURS and I can\’t hold my breath much longer. Also, I\’m tired from holding it. And you can\’t tell me when it will be safe again!\”
(I mean, not SAFE, safe. Just safe on the ground, not flying.)
And even if I could re-set the mechanism in my brain-which I cannot, because I don\’t know how the damn thing does it in the first place–what if I don\’t know a time to which I can re-set it? What if I don\’t know when it is safe to stop holding my breath?
That is how I\’m starting to feel about now. These first few weeks were not only not anxiety provoking, they were eerily calm for me. Not just calmer than a lot of other folks (which was weird enough) but calmer than maybe I\’ve ever felt in my life.
But now, my inner 4-year-old is saying \”UM, HELLO! HOW LONG DO I HAVE TO HOLD IT TOGETHER?\”
And I have no answer for her. We don\’t know.
The worst part? I feel fairly confident that when we ARE no longer sheltering-in-place, that it\’s going to be a whole new cycle of anxieties about going out and about and what\’s risky and what\’s not and waiting for the next cycle (which they are predicting will happen) to start.
Anxious if I\’m home, anxious if I\’m out.
(that may be a good working title for my memoir.)
So please-if you are someone who, like me, is using a ton of energy to manage all of this trauma trigger and anxiety, please, for the love of Nutella, BE GENTLE. Talk to someone. Do the things that soothe you. Yoga, running, drawing, Netflixing, writing, bathtaking, singing, whatever does it. If you don\’t know what soothes you–no shame in that, I did not until well into adulthood-now is a good time to try some stuff. If you notice yourself stuffing the anxiety or trigger response down, see if you can find a way to make safe space to let even a little of it out. Give it back to the earth, she can handle anything.
And if you know someone who has a trauma history or anxiety, and they are acting strange or not themselves or unpredictable, please try to have some empathy. Ask what they need-don\’t assume-and if nothing else, give them some space. Safe space, like I-love-you space, not get-away-from-me space.
We are all in this together.
But we are not all experiencing it the same way.
[image: close up of face of woman wearing medical mask]