u/healthseekerjunkie

So I found TRE earlier this year. I do 2-3 session for 15-20 min a week most weeks (I did miss a dozen since starting maybe combined) for the last 10+ months. I get plenty of lower body tremors. It never goes above my hips. They go until I stop them generally. Various intensities and small to large movements patters too. Mechanically I see it’s “working” but emotional cognitive or internally I feel and function exactly the same as I always have. I don’t sense any changes otherwise.

Others speak of these emotional release or less body tension or “healing” this or that and I just don’t sense anything like that.

Some things I’m working or hoping it helps is my overthinking hypervigilant mind due to possibly a lack of internal safety from childhood parental divorces? Like I’m very “mature” for my age type A controlling perfectionist and so on which I’ve read can be survival mode or functional freeze. I don’t “feel” emotions in my body. I think them. I intellectualize everything including emotions. My mental chatter is always with me optimizing analyzing performing protecting planning and intellectualizing and so on. Why does this matter to me? Well I am 43f and have never developed sexually. Never had an orgasm and only ever “felt” arousal once in my body at age 30 when rocking my 1 year old to sleep. So in my journey and research it appears my survival mode sympathetic dominant nervous system state might be blocking capacity and access to parasympathetic which is the only way to get arousal. I’m always serious. Never playful and only time I can access imagination is in deep hypnosis.

Anyway nothing has changed for me so far. I still have my bodyguard on duty at all times and I’m still in go go go mode with the full plate of life and if I drop a ball the ship sinks survival thinking— which is true though cause I’ve tried to remove things off my plate and the kids suffered for it. The ship started sinking. So I had to pick the baton back up. I’m worried I will burn out though as I’ve been this way for 35+ years now. I’m loosing joy or pleasure in life in other places. I don’t want to go anywhere or do anything. My favorite part of my day is bedtime. When the house is quiet and the lights are off but I have insomnia where my mind keeps me up thinking with mental chatter. Even during intimacy with my husband random intrusive thought will show up. It never stops. I can control it sure but another intrusive thought it right behind the one I just kicked out.

Anyway just wondering how to know if this is the right path for me or not. Somatically and nervous system regulation type stuff if what I’ve been told to work on and I read about TRE being one that bypasses the mind. That’s what I need cause my brain is busy and overthinks everything and turns all therapy into homework automatically and how to optimize it. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Hey 👋🏻 everyone. I’ve recently learned about terms in the nervous system world like functional freeze and hyper vigilant or arousal. I apparently thought those were just personality traits of mine but may actually be nervous system stuck issues but lifelong from childhood possibly. I never “feel” anxious or worry or fear or things of that nature but rather “think” my feelings or intellectualize them and sort of always have I guess and just didn’t know it as it’s all I’ve know so I thought it was how everyone experienced life. For me feelings are generally thoughts. Acute Sadness may be an exception for me as I do and can cry when sad, upset, or even intense gratitude or joy. 🤷🏼‍♀️ When I was young I remember “feeling” heat in my head and ears when I would get angry and I have felt flush before when embarrassed and if I’m speeding and suddenly see a cop pull out or turn around I’ve felt fear in a sense of my gut dropping. So I can somewhat understand emotions can provoke the body to have sensory but for me the thoughts proceed the sensation usually and it’s super rare I feel those things. The anger heat in ears- I don’t ever feel or think it even happens anymore as my ears use to turn bright red too when hot and angry and that stopped happening by the time I was grown I think.

I workout in the gym and get muscle soreness and I do stretches and can feel my body just fine when doing things like this. So I’m not sure if I have what is referred to dissociation or not. I have went to PFT and discovered to have chronic pelvic floor tension which may be why my hips are always tight feeling when stretching to me especially external rotation. When I read about manifestarions of hypervigilant arousal such as sympathetic dominance I check many of the boxes lifelong but I have strong emotional control like I’ve never had a panic attack and see myself as highly emotionally intellectual or emotional intelligence and analyze them all the time instead of reacting. I also have a lot of the manifestations of functional freeze. I seem to only ever be in one for the other. Pendulating between go go go with chronic mental chatter and very goal and production perfectionism oriented or crash and freeze from exhaustion and overwhelmed state.

I don’t know if I’m ever in the parasympathetic or relaxed state. Example also- when at pelvic floor therapy I was told to relax my pelvic floor. To which is said “I am relaxed” cause my experience of relaxed was all I knew and far as I could tell I was neutral aka relaxed. The therapist said to me- look at the monitor (I was hooked up to leads) you are holding onto you pelvic floor for dear life. So this makes me wonder if I do not experience true relaxation anywhere and only my version of it? Like I don’t think I ever get into parasympathetic states unless maybe when I’m asleep. I do also battle chronic insomnia since 3rd grade at least. I’m now 43f. I don’t have day dreams and struggle to do imaginary stuff like guided visual meditative work cause I can’t see the visual stuff in my minds eyes only think it. I can see memories just fine though. Lately I get drained at having any plans or being around people. If I go hang out with friends or go out to dinner with people I come home feeing wiped out. I just want to be a homebody and do nothing. Yet my mind is carrying a giant todo list and mental load so I’m constantly trying to optimize everything and turn it into an algorithm or system and process improvement and so on. It’s exhausting being in my brain that is always active and alert using up all my RAM daily chronically.

I’ve read about somatic work including this modality as being helpful for nervous system down regulation or balance. I also began doing TRE since it doesn’t require any mental effort as I tend to turn everything into an intellectual exercise an homework.

I am wondering if anyone has any input on this or experience themselves on solving decades long (lifelong) issues like this? Again I was just living life thinking I was normal just a rather serious black and white blunt overachieving serial planner analytical driven type A strong willed boss lady perfectionist intense intellectually curious very self disciplined an controlled personality who seems to thrive under pressure or in chaos… I had no idea this could or likely is a nervous system issue. I want to be more careful free less intense and able to be playful or joke like others. I’ve even read people have sensation in their body when happy or enjoying something like a scenic place such as a sunset. Like they literally feel warmth maybe in their chest or butterfly in their stomach type of stuff. Also I have never had an orgasm in my lifetime and never knew why. Only once at age 30 did I even learn female arousal existed when it randomly happened to me all at once when rocking my 1 year old to sleep. I still don’t know how to get sexual arousal ever since either. This is actually what led me to the discovery of these nervous system issues as a potential root to my sexual dysfunction and inability to feel or sense sexual pleasure or activate arousal. Since I don’t seem to ever have access to the parasympathetic state arousal is blocked before it can ever be triggered.

My question is I don’t really know what to “tap” on or like why I’m like this exactly. I don’t even know if my hunch on this is right or if this is just my personality or if tapping works for this sort of stuff. 😮‍💨 See my analytical overthinking brain in action there? 😂

There were several times in my childhood that life was hectic or chaotic due to approving parents and moving or changing schools and things like that so I guess you’d say dysfunctional broken home family stuff. That’s the only hypothesis I have. I had a lot of adult like responsibilities on me young due to those dynamics but I was always mature for my age and very responsible even young and very obedient always coloring inside the lines so to speak.

I’ve read online from Google that 40-60% of ghosters 👻 return and it’s most likely 6-12 months out. Of course I don’t just trust Google but I am curious if anyone knows if this has been studied and do dynamics matter? Like in person relationships return rate vs online only connections? Or friendship only relationships vs romantic or intimate ones? Or short term under 1 year dynamics vs longer term >1 year relationships. Does attachment theory play into their return rate or not?

Would love to hear from those who have ghosted and or have been ghosted on the data to see if it aligns with the Google numbers it threw out at me… 🤔

235 days of an relationship online but with phone and video chat that was very intense to start and unintentional as it was all revolving around me seeking information and him reaching out to answer my questions and then he was curious about my situation and it built from there. He got flirty and I enjoyed the conversation and banter. 400-600 messages a day for 16-17hrs a day he was chatting with me rather obsessively and almost right away. He never went a day without messaging me the first 180 days! He love bombed me for 13 weeks like crazy calling me his dream girl a goddess and all sorts of things. That his love was for life and he was never going to allow this to end and would last forever and I was his everything and how badly he wanted to meet me and so on. Then he began to suddenly drop the intensity and volume and less love bombing. I mentioned it and he gave excuse. Then he began limiting me to only his working hours on the low time. Breadcrumbing me with low effort yet declaring he felt the same. No charge and he was never going to stop or reject or abandon me and so on. I began to mention he had avoidance attachment behaviors and it was triggering my anxious attachment feelings and essentially deregulating my nervous system an making me moody based on if he was low effort bread-crumbing me mixed with intermittent reinforcement of the love bombing you are my goddess and dream and my love for life talk. I tried to give him an out few times or say maybe he is too busy for me so I should just sign off a while. He always assured me and was dismissive of my emotions and gas light me saying I was overthinking it and negative assuming the worse when he’s just busy with new job and so on.

Then while about 7 days into his 2 week vacation he sent me a video smiling saying “hey what’s up?” I got it the next morning as we were in different time zones and I replied with smile and good morning. He read those messages about 15 min later. I sent him some morning videos of what I was up to- morning coffee. He never opened them to read and has not opened any message ever since. 17 days ago now. He also changed that same day (I noticed) his privacy around seeing when his timestamp for last online status. So that made the ghosting obviously intentional as if the vanishing act isn’t sign enough.

I can’t believe he did this considering all the times he promised or said I was crazy to think he could ever go, his love was for life and he would never reject or abandon me and it was all just in my head. I don’t have any clue why he decided that moment was it for him as it was unprovoked and I had no warning. I guess his breadcrumbs were too much effort that I wasn’t worth that level even of effort… or the respect of a proper goodbye. It’s so easy to just be mature enough to say “hey, this is not working for me so I’m going to sign off now. Bye.” Some closure is better than having no clue wondering how or why you can send a happy smiling video like most every day for 235 days to then just vanish as if I don’t exist. 💔💔💔💔💔

How many sessions and how long of sessions generally does it take to know if anything is helping the nervous system or not? What am I to look for as a clue or sign if anything? I’ve been 3 weeks now doing 2 sometimes 3 times a week for 15-20 min sessions and so far I don’t seem to notice anything after or later in the week in how I operate. 🤷🏼‍♀️

I’ve casually done TRE intermittently over last 3-4 months the but trying to do more consistently 1-2 times a week the last few weeks.

Anyway today I had a strong tremor pattern going and it was even moving a little higher than my hips which didn’t ever happen for me as it’s always hip down for me but after 15-20 min everything jus stopped all at once and didn’t return so I ended the session. I was near ending it anyway but when it began to travel upward some and had never done that I didn’t want to interrupt it but I guess it interrupted itself. Literally my hips and legs were shaking and rocking and had my body sort of moving north and south in a rocking type motion and then like someone flipped a switch it just all stopped and went still. I waited about 2-3 min and adjusted my legs to see if it would return but it didn’t. So I’m curious if this is just par for the course and normal or routine stuff or if it’s meaningful in any way? I’m still learning about somatic work as a whole in trying to heal my sympathetic nervous system dominance and learn to feel my body be use it as a tool… that’s what led me here anyway since I struggle in certain private areas of my life.