u/anonymous_24601

I have a VERY difficult time with somatic work and feeling my feelings. Last night I was researching somatic release because I feel so much trapped energy in my body, and it said in the recovery phase after crying, the body shifts into a parasympathetic state, and that’s why people often feel better after.

Is this scientifically true? Does it always happen? If so, I’m very frustrated that no trauma therapist has ever told me this. Would it not help so many people to know? I know it would help my brain so much to know that the body knows how to naturally recover from crying. For the past year I’ve been numb and afraid to cry because I don’t want to activate fight or flight. Knowing how and why crying is healing would completely change how I look at processing emotions.

The reason I’m asking is sometimes in therapy I tear up and start to cry a bit, but I stay in fight or flight. If I fully sob alone I notice that shift after. I also know a lot of people don’t feel better after crying if they have very suppressed emotions or can’t soothe themselves out of it, so that’s the nuance I’m wondering about.

I would love to know if anyone knows about this topic or has experience with it.

Not sure if this is discussed by IFS practitioners or if it just varies per person, but am interested in people’s experiences either way.

I’ve experienced this a few times, where I’ll check in and parts are sleeping. Once, it was because I became extremely stressed and the part wanted me to sleep. I asked the part if it could sleep instead and other parts could watch it, and that helped me be able to stay awake.

Currently, I am in autistic burnout. I’m exhausted. I haven’t been able to do much parts work which happens with overwhelm, and I can’t stop sleeping. When I’ve checked in I get a visual of many of my parts are asleep. (Not really a symbolic sleep in this scenario, more from true exhaustion.) I’d say this mostly applies to managers. If I ask them to wake up, I feel anxious. I can see how scientifically this would make sense, being that those of us who are autistic have literal shutdowns and it feels like the brain turns off.

I’m not sure if there’s anything to do about it except let parts rest, but I’m still curious about others’ experiences.

TL;DR At the bottom

CONTEXT: I have CPTSD, am chronically ill, AuDHD and live at home as an adult. My parents are both ill and have been having marriage conflict. All of my extended family is estranged and I have no in-person friends. As of last week, my mom had to finally legally threaten my grandmother who is attempting to contact me and shows signs of dangerous sociopathic behavior.

BACKGROUND: I have seen 9 therapists over the course of 10 years. Severe trauma, largely medical. I was retraumatized by many of them. The pattern is that when I finally open up, I become severely dysregulated and can no longer handle therapy, or the therapist either don’t know what to do, or literally have a mental breakdown in front of me. One finally picked up that I was speaking in IFS terms which led me to research it, and I was diagnosed with autism in my late 20’s, which meant my past therapists had been treating me as someone who didn’t have autism.

CURRENT THERAPIST:
• I’ve seen her for over a year. She does not specialize in autism. I’ve been so traumatized at this point that I do most of my parts work alone and bring it to her. I FINALLY felt safe to bring a part’s concerns into session, and we had a rupture because she didn’t know what to do and triggered the part. We worked through it. She knows all of my history with family conflict and is one of my only therapists who hasn’t been inappropriate.
• However, I’ve hit a wall. Extreme trauma was coming up. I brought it up (not in detail) in session asking for help dealing with it and it went poorly because I went so far past my window of tolerance. I became physically ill, like I had the flu, for several days after session. I emailed her and she said we need to reset and check in more and go slowly. I tried another session which she did perfectly well but I nearly fainted from stress and became ill again. (It flared my POTS.) She’s been nothing but reassuring, and said I can cancel if I need a break.

PARTS: I’ve been in a freeze state and was finally able to do a parts dialogue over the weekend, after what was essentially a lot of screaming in my head. I want to share some quotes of what they said. (These are short excerpts from a very long dialogue, removing the questions and reassurance I was giving.) Some of the protectors are partially unburied and have access to Self energy.

*PARTS DIALOGUE*:

Protector 1 (Usually in a freeze state and will not speak, highly avoidant which I blend with, controls dissociation, holds a lot of trauma and pain, intense energy, has been very pissed, was specifically focused on disliking how IFS is being done in session):

• “I don’t like your therapist. She doesn’t make you feel safe.”
• “She keeps inserting meaning and stressing you out. None of it makes sense and none of us want to talk to her because she doesn’t follow the basic rules of respecting us. So we all just keep freaking out while you try to run the session because there’s not space for us to step in. It shouldn’t be this hard. You already know what to do and you know what to bring her. You shouldn’t fall apart every time you tell her. It doesn’t have that much of a charge until she assigns one to it or worse, doesn’t know what to fucking do with a basic concept.”
• “It should be easy for her to know what to say. She doesn’t. And we’re tired. It’s really hard to protect you when you keep putting yourself through this. I get what you’re trying to do but honey, it isn’t working.”
• “You keep looking for alternatives instead of addressing how bad this is making you feel.”
• “You’re going to build back up trust to what? Just to tell her something deep again and get triggered. That’s why it isn’t working. That’s why you don’t trust her. That’s why we don’t trust her. We want slow. But you have to look at what the outcome will be.”
• “I want what’s best for you. It’s okay for you to want that too.”

Protector 2 (I had a harder time
identifying this part because it can blend with another part, but this part has more to do with AuDHD functioning and trauma. In this dialogue had very calm energy):

• “It’s not as complicated as you think. You’re autistic and she doesn’t understand your brain. You’re going into fight or flight in sessions and not being read or understood and that’s extremely difficult for you. Even with no malice, that’s going to make you feel broken. I know you feel like you’re explaining yourself a lot but I think you’re actually just trying really hard when you shouldn’t have to.”
• “It’s really hard for me to be present when you feel misunderstood. I can’t operate at a basic level. You’re okay. You’ll be okay. This is a huge source of self hatred for you. Doesn’t it make sense that if therapy amplifies it you’re going to feel terrible?”
• “But you’re trying to learn how to feel understood with someone you don’t feel like understands you.”

Protector 3 (Main protector, holds emotions, is the most unburdened):

• “It’s not about this therapist. It’s about how you feel. It’s always been about how you feel, for me.”
• “It’s okay to want things without constantly worrying about how they affect other people. About if it’s right or wrong. Just think about how you feel.“

(My takeaway from all of this is that I’ve been in extreme dissociation and self-abandonment. I’m ignoring how I feel deep down.)

Anxious part (Reads as intense but is not actually aggressive or mean. Very wounded part, so other protectors don’t get defensive):

• “But if you stop therapy or see someone else, we’ll be alone! We’ll be abandoned. We’ll never be okay.”
• “What if is the wrong decision though? What if you’re just thinking that because (Protector 1) said it? What if you end up with no support and make a mistake?”
• “But I don’t want you to leave. I like (therapist’s name.) She listens, and she won’t leave us. If you leave again that would make us the problem right? She’s the only therapist who knows everything going on at home and knows how to respond.”
• “I just feel really sad. I’m tired.”
• “I just don’t know what else to be”

Summary of why I need help/TL;DR:

I genuinely do not know what to do at this point. I have a lot of exiles and wounded parts who are highly triggered. I got answers from parts, but I am extremely dysregulated. When this happens, due to the nature of my trauma, I age regress (blend with a teen part) and cannot pull myself out of it and make decisions as an adult without coregulation. I spent weeks trying to find an IFS therapist who specialized in autism but it was highly retraumatizing. I have been deeply overloaded (lots of appointments and health stuff going on) and had a meltdown last week
I clearly need a break, but without my usual routine and with so much uncertainty, my brain is freaking out. I’m in constant fight or flight and extremely depersonalized.

The best advice is usually “Tell your therapist!” But most of my parts will not interact with her, and no matter how hard my therapist and I try, I fully dissociate in session and become extremely ill for days afterwards. It wasn’t like this at first. The last time I emailed her, it took me four hours. My system is exhausted.

My biggest concern is that with all the conflict going on at home, the extreme isolation, and the overload, it’s not uncommon for me to have mental breakdowns, passive suicidal ideation, and need to call my therapist. (She does well with this because talking over the phone makes me feel safe, but she likes to do video.)

So therapy is making me feel ill, but without it I’ll lose crisis support and the only person I can go to for support in general.

My mom told me I’m the only one who can make a decision because it’s a personal relationship with my therapist. But I’m in such fight or flight my brain thinks this is a life or death thing. So I can’t see any logical answer.

I’m totally okay replying to DMs from acquaintances or friends, especially if it’s sending reels back and forth or, “hey did you see this post?”

When it’s full texting conversations with new people or people I don’t know well, omg. My brain is convinced I might die. It is SO frustrating. There’s that long window of “I have to send socially appropriate replies so they don’t think I’m weird, but I also have to make sure I like them but am also not being judgmental,” until you become closer (if you do) and it’s EXHAUSTING.

My mom is not AuDHD and we kind of cracked up over the difference, because she constantly casually messages people and then entirely forgets about it and has no stress about it at all. I recently DMed someone I don’t know and she was like, “So are you just going to sit there in full stress for hours until they reply?” And I was like, “YES.”

I have CPTSD so not sure how much that contributes, but with the scripting going on I think it’s pretty heavily AuDHD. Anyway, does anyone experience this the same way? Also, for the love of god have we figured out anything that will convince our brains conversations are not life threatening? It feels ridiculous how dysregulated I get. I genuinely want connection so bad but my god is it overwhelming.

I’m in my late 20’s still living at home due to CPTSD and chronic illness. I’m late diagnosed so I’m still trying to navigate everything.

So usually, sensory overload comes on when external stimulus is too much, or my brain is telling me that I’ve overdone. I’ll do sensory deprivation with low lighting, and earplugs or soft music, deep pressure, and slow breathing. Currently, nothing is helping because there’s so much going on.

I had: A rupture with my therapist we’ll have to talk through this week, a gynecology appointment where we discussed tons of options to manage my PMDD that I have to think about, making sure all my meds were called in, keeping up with things around the house, have chronic pain, and then I started my period through the pill and that alone is a sensory nightmare. I also have a psych appointment this week, AND my mom is debilitatingly ill and has an important test being done tomorrow that may give an answer.

My brain is RIOTING. It took me 4 hours to write an email to my therapist. I’m using noise canceling headphones but sounds are driving me insane, light, smells, everything. With hormones being off it’s so hard to regulate. I feel like there’s ants crawling all over me. (In a sort of “wanting to jump out of your skin” way.) I feel totally suffocated by everything, and am coming close to shutdowns and meltdowns daily. Even my mom sending me a neutral text before bed feels invasive.

So this will ease after my period, but in the meantime, what can I do?😭 I would really appreciate ANY suggestions. I have this gut feeling I’m missing something but I’m so overloaded it’s hard to think straight. I’m in total fight or flight and my brain basically thinks everything is life or death. I also (I guess from the ADHD?) at the same time am sensory seeking and feel like I’m going nuts in the quiet, then get up to do laundry or something and overwhelm myself. I usually intellectualize everything to cope, but my brain feels like a jumble of letters?

I’d love to know anything that’s been helpful for you all in this kind of state.

I’ve been to several trauma therapists and the one I have currently is very understanding and professional.

However, there is one thing that keeps getting in the way. When I tell her a fear, she validates me in a way that triggers me and causes more panic. I will be discussing it with her and letting her know it isn’t helpful, but I wanted to ask here if anyone’s therapist uses it and it actually helps them, so I can understand more.

Example 1: I opened up to her and told her I had a deep fear of betrayal. She said, “That makes sense, you never know when someone could betray you.” This triggered me badly, and actually caused a rupture. I told her it landed as my fear being valid. She apologized and said she just meant to validate the feeling.

Example 2: I am 9/10 triggered about an appointment coming up and told her I have deep fear about the doctor doing something without my consent, which has happened in the past. She kept validating that the fear makes sense because, “It’s happened before.” This sent me into even more of a panic.

I ended up telling her that I know my feelings are valid, that it’s okay to say “it’s must be awful to experience that,” but I want to be grounded in the logic that everything will be okay, and it’s not likely for those things to happen. As soon as she said that I would be okay, my whole body relaxed. (This is because the things I’m sharing are distorted beliefs from trauma.) I ran this by my psych and she said I actually need the opposite of what my therapist is doing.

My question: Does anyone’s therapist do this when you’re talking about trauma, and does it help you? I’ve never had a therapist do this. The only thing I can think is that people may find “It’s going to be okay” to be deeply invalidating, or it’s that I’m AuDHD and it’s just not landing right. My psych specializes in AuDHD though and said it sounds more trauma related. Again I will be talking to my therapist, so any insight will just help with that conversation!