The Messy Middle of Nervous System Regulation

I'm gonna talk a little bit, like I said, about what's actually helping me stay regulated right now.

But first, here's what dysregulation kind of feels like to me right now, how this is showing up in my life.

I'm gonna start with the body because you know that the work that I do and how I kind of conceptualize complex trauma comes back to the body over and over again.

So for me, there's this tightness right under my collarbones, this kind of bracing that my body is getting ready for the next hard thing, and often tears kind of out of nowhere, in the car, while I'm putting the dishes away.

And then sometimes a weird kind of numbness that shows up when I find myself drifting into my own thoughts for a little bit too long.

It's kind of like a part of me is checking out before I've even noticed.

And even more so, there's this pull to just do more, to get more done, to stay useful, to stay up in my head instead of my body, which is where that numbness can kind of come in.

Because I think that right now my head can feel a little bit safer than my body does.

If you know complex trauma, you might know this move, and you also might know the opposite of it.

Some people mobilize when something painful starts to show up.

Like, you get busy, you get productive, you keep moving so you don't have to feel it yet.

And other people, they collapse and shut down.

That's just a different way that your system tries to protect you.

For me, the past couple of weeks, it's been more of, like, a mobilizing kind of energy.

That's my default.

I go into over-functioning, keep things together.

I know this deeply about myself.

Kind of like holding the people close to me up as much as I can.

And then there's also this kind of, like, dropping in and being with myself and my own emotions every once in a while when it kind of feels like there's space for it.

And I just kind of wanna name this, this mobilizing, this doing.

We know that it can come from a lot of different places, right? If we're kind of conceptualizing complex trauma.

It can be because vulnerability never felt welcome growing up.

It can be that there's this great fear of being a burden or the role of being the strong one that got, like, handed over and never taken back.

And, you know, really whatever the reason is, it's likely a part that learned a long time ago that staying useful was safe.