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I'm referring to this post of mine from a Conversion disorder thread:
https://www.cptsd.org/forum/index.php?topic=15572.msg141952#msg141952

As I request at the bottom of that linked post, please put any conversation, comments, validation etc on that final post of mine over HERE on my Recovery Journal so as not to derail the very important topic of Conversion Disorder. Or if not really directed to me and my experience but rather your own experience, please consider using your own Journal or similar so as not to derail my Journal - you'll want responses/validation to your experience among your own writings. Thank you kindly.


So my reaction this morning to my post      on the imagery that turned up. That's all I want to write for the moment.

[Edited next day:]

I was reading Ghost's post about PNES and started googling it. One thing led to another and I saw "conversion disorder" which was mentioned in my latest inpatient report in combination with what they're labeling as OSDD atm because they're still not 100% sure where I am on the dissociative spectrum. ...

"Conversion disorder involves the loss of one or more bodily functions. Examples include:

    Weakness or paralysis
   
    Difficulty speaking or inability to speak
    Difficulty swallowing"

 
Difficulty speaking - yes in the sense that when things are really hard and/or I'm trying to talk about something very triggering in therapy, it can be that I can only speak in a whisper.
Difficulty swallowing - it feels that way sometimes when the lump in my throat is particularly large but I'm not sure if that would be included here. I actually had a lump in my throat for years, it was called 'post-nasal drip' then; maybe it still is. It was annoying, I was always swallowing trying to make it disappear. At the same time I also assumed that everybody had one and it was there for keeps, bad luck sort of thing.

Now I'm wondering if Difficulty breathing might belong on this list too? I am having difficulty breathing atm (past day or two at least) due to the size of the lump in the back of my throat, even though it is probably not a real physical lump. I swallow from time to time but it doesn't go away, just like I wrote above. I notice difficulty breathing particularly in singing lessons and in choir practice but the lump itself almost all the time.

I know from my previous trauma T that my shallow breathing is a result of trauma. He explained that I obviously cut off the connection between my head (cognitive stuff) and my emotions by stuffing uncomfortable and non-allowed feelings down into my body, throat on downwards, cutting off at the neck basically. Since breathing more deeply can bring emotions up, I automatically breathed in a shallow way for years at least a majority of the time, enough to have shallow breathing my go-to method. He worked long enough and often enough with me on these stuffed away emotions - for this purpose not actually directly on the emotions themselves but on allowing them to be and helping me allow me to stay in my body and not numb out - for me to eventually be able to feel something like an open pipe going from my throat all the way down to the base of my spine rather than everything from the neck on down feeling like concrete. It did take a few years, though of course we didn't always work solely on that, but it hasn't stayed. Could come again though. Anyway, today I have an internal image of 

  *** TW violence ***  (whited-out)

something tied around my neck, though more as a symbol of there being an emotional cut-off point at that place than somebody having committed physical violence to my neck since I've never been choked physically that I know of, but emotionally yes I say as images of F and B1 turn up . Not meant to exist, not meant to have feelings   Not meant to thrive. How can you thrive and be your best person if you can't fill your lungs?

Well, now I have more idea what's behind the difficulty breathing. Maybe it doesn't belong under Conversion disorder after all, but I'll leave it here at least until tomorrow when I'll re-read it and maybe have some more clarity and can then decide to move it to my Recovery Journal or somewhere.

***Edited next day: I've decided to leave this post here because my realisations came as a result of writing about my own quoted post on this thread. I will however write any further realisations/further movement sparked by this post on my Recovery Journal or Private/Mbr Journal.

I ask kindly that other mbrs (1)write about Difficulty breathing elsewhere too unless theirs might actually be on account of conversion disorder and (2) make any responses to this post of mine on my Recovery Journal so that the conversion disorder thread is not derailed and muddied. Conversion disorder is too important of a separate topic/symptom/co-morbidity to get all mixed up and 'muddied' imho. Thank you.***

Link to my current Recovery Journal:
https://www.cptsd.org/forum/index.php?topic=15145.msg129386#msg129386 See p.20 and following

[early-childhood trauma the whole physical body slows down so it doesn't digest properly, the blood doesn't flow properly]

Well actually here is some professional information on the differing affect on traumatisation on very young children versus older children and obviously teens/adults. I came across the info quoted below in another post of my own
https://www.cptsd.org/forum/index.php?topic=13694.msg104359#msg104359  (or if my link doesn't work for you, then see: Physical and Psychological Comorbidities / Co-morbidities / Physical issues / Itchy lower legs  (1st post Aug. 17, 2020)

"In one of the multiple recent free trauma seminars, they mentioned how in early-childhood trauma the whole physical body slows down so it doesn't digest properly, the blood doesn't flow properly, and things like that. I know that's what happens physiologically in a dangerous situation so that you can fight the wolf or flee from the sabre-tooth tiger. It seemed that with infants or toddlers the effect is immediate and turns chronic quite early on, whereas with an older child or adult the chronic stage doesn't happen so early. Or something like that. Don't quote me on it. It would make sense though for some of my not very serious but nonetheless bothersome physical symptoms I've had since early childhood."

Although you are more interested in the long-term emotional results of infancy trauma (most of us probably are), you can't separate them completely for reasons which my tired brain can't explain rn. Maybe tomorrow.

This is all interesting to me today due to progress I've been making regarding my problem feet, lots of realisations made today. It feels like a really big thing. There are so many, um, trauma problems connected to my feet. It feels like the first time that I'm finally realising that, yes, my feet problems developed mostly through emotional trauma including callous indifference to me and my pain. It's also a problem that has followed me most of my life, starting from 8-10 yo. Like cptsd, whose symptoms really got going when I was about 7yo. ...

My inpatient trauma T mentioned that your foot suddenly giving way when you walk can be caused by dissociation, I remember that now. But since the state of my legs and feet improved with physio while I was inpatient I figured that my foot problems were all down to weak muscles, bad shoes (nearly all shoes are bad for me in some way or other, even those that are mostly good and specially for people with problem feet) and my general neglect of my feet plus being physically inactive especially in EF weeks. In other words as FOO would say "it's all your own fault". Today I say "No"   to that, which is big progress.

It's interesting for me to re-read this today because when my singing instructor asked me about my lower back and foot pain that is constantly recurring, I explained about general physical weakness, neglected torso muscles, not quite ideal shoes (I can't at present find any better than I have due to foot problems, tho these present shoes are better than many). I had totally forgotten as usual that there is this conversion disorder. It seems constantly forgetting may be part of the trauma?? I mean, I seem to lose my knowledge of it and any realisations I've made unless I re-read them here and manage to keep them in mind for a hour or two but then they're gone again. I particularly notice because of repeating what I've basically always heard in FOO (weak, do too little exercise, own fault   )  w/o them knowing if that's even true. Even though this time I'm NOT lambasting myself, which is real progress (!), it's still taking on FOO's assumptions and in a way, FOO's bad opinion of me.

25th April 2024
I've noticed that if I miss a session of EFT and meditation on any specific day, that it definitely impacts on my inner parts.  So being reliably there for them daily - and infact I have now got into a routine where I start each day (whilst preparing breakfast) where I do 2 sets of EFT tapping.  Then mid morning I will do EFT tapping for about 5 minutes followed by meditation for about 10 to 20 minutes.  The same in the afternoon.  The same in the evening.  So that's quite a lot of routine, but I think it helps significantly. 

I'm really impressed with this routine you've been keeping up!!   I'm sure it does help significantly. For about a week I've been doing a 15 minute meditation immediately after getting up and taking my thyroid meds and I notice a shift already in various aspects. EFT does work too, I know that. I do it sometimes but not daily like you. And then you being reliably there for your inner parts    

 

I hear you've been in bed, but please hear me when I say that I doubt that you've been feeling sorry for yourself, unless I learnt a wrong meaning to that. In my mind that's negative, critical of yourself. With all that's going on medically where you 'feel so ill you don't know where to put yourself' not to mention the boiler problems, you have every reason to be lying in bed (!), trying to rest and recuperate and then keep warm as well.

I'm sending compassion        

  no more liver pain

[hasn't even nearly finished]

Here we have a new pathology topic, no? Prenatal and Infancy  Trauma... Often this is followed up with more trauma, if the "caregivers" are still around... but in my case not so much... My mom was (still is) pretty messed up but not so extreme toxicity as my biological father. So sometimes the major trauma comes to an end and "normal" childhood sets back in. Of course I remember my childhood and I was pretty messed up by that point. But at least the severe trauma was "past"... Or rather, no new trauma...
Course the question of this thread remains: How is infancy trauma "different" than later childhood trauma? And what are some ways to approach it to try to heal? Specific to pre-verbal and pre-memory...

To go back to some of your comments and questions here. I agree with Armee on not discounting how much you may have continued to be traumatised by your M, even if it might not have been intentional on her part. In your own words you were pretty messed up already by the time your bio F left, so having been traumatised already makes it easier for you to be re-traumatised by ensuing stuff.

How is infancy trauma different from childhood trauma? One way is that your brain is being damaged or wrongly wired from conception or birth onwards and so there is no healthy to go back to. You can't recover your emotional/mental health because you never had it in the first place. This is actually more of a difference between adult onset and childhood onset. An adult who got ptsd only (no complex in front) due to an accident or earthquake or witnessing too many bad things (as emergeny workers do) can recover a healthy self, they can reconnect with a healthy or healthier adult self from before the traumatising event. Even with childhood onset that doesn't really work, because a child by definition hasn't even nearly finished developing by the time the trauma starts.

Maybe a teen has a better chance, especially if traumatised outside the family and then supported by the family and doctors, therapists etc. Because a teen from a good-enough healthy stable family would normally have learnt some healthy behaviour e.g. knowing (some of) what emotions are which, being able to stay with the emotions briefly instead of dissociating, maybe have some healthy self-soothing mechanisms in place and some healthy belief-in-self (or not such a huge and virulent Inner Critic as lots of us have) despite everything going topsy-turvy during adolescence anyway.

Healing pre-verbal, pre-memory? I'm not sure that it's that different to healing trauma from a later date because processing and healing trauma doesn't necessarily mean being able to remember it detail for detail and talking about it. Traumatic memories are by definition usually all over the place in our brains and in our bodies. Trauma really does get stored in our bodies, like my body used to run cold, and my hands and arms used to get really painful. Long ago I thought that was really weird because I know nothing physical and drastic was ever done to my hands and arms like being tied up. It was actually emotional abuse that contributed to hand and arm pain.

The above is based on my opinion and my experiences and what I've read so may not be completely correct or completely based on scientific evidence, but it's what I believe.

There are different ways of healing trauma and I hope at some point you can find a qualified therapist again with whom you can work and who can work with you. A good therapist ought to be able to find the method or a method or even a mix of methods that works for you.

btw your FOO (family of origin) may think or tell you that their care and especially emotional care of you as well as your childhood was/were 'good enough' but if that were the case, you probably wouldn't be on the forum. My parents think they were 'good enough' too    

[NK]

That's a spot of humour I presume, but to answer truthfully: No NK, actually, just I probably hadn't envisaged then that I'd still be working on myself to this degree 6 1/2 years later with no end in sight and in fact me back in trauma therapy. I am of course happy about the latter, since it's necessary, but I remember the image back then or maybe in the next year or two and it was definitely deflating whereas now I don't have the image much in my head at all. It's more: once again, I'm in for the long haul. There is so much still to process and I get exhausted so easily.

If I slow down any more I'll start moving backwards...But thanks thanks thanks, support is so helpful.

The feeling of going backwards in healing or moving backwards because so slow is pretty common around here too. 25 years ago I was told I needed to do less. I couldn't believe it because I was already doing way less than other adults my age, I mean I couldn't even clean one room in my apt all in one go, never mind the whole apt the way my age group did back then. Little did I know that for some reasons that I'm still not clear on I was being triggered and my energy disappeared at the mere thought of cleaning. The more I followed the "do less" (for a lot more examples than cleaning my apt), the sicker I seemed to get, my ability/energy/wherewithal to do whatever got less and less... As crazy as it may sound, doing less and less was still the answer in my case. The less-and-less might not be the answer in yours but the slow-and-slower-and-even-more-slowly might be in your case.

As Armee says, there are better days ahead. She's right, it does get better!! Probably not 100%, certainly not in my case, but better. Just as baby steps count in active healing (what I do in and out of therapy), it's good to look for and notice the tiny shifts that come to each of us over time during recovery. If you don't notice these yourself, in time forum mbrs will notice and let you know. We're often perceptive of other mbrs' progress while not noticing our own.

  Hi Hope,

it's nice to see you back. I'm sorry you're having difficult or sad, painful dreams but I'm happy for you that you can see the good side there, that you're processing some things.

 

I'm sorry things are so difficult atm, woodsgnome

The voices of your abusers can just pipe down. May you hear birdsong instead! And continue enjoying the sunlight.

You are one of the good people, woodsgnome. You bring so much care and comfort to us here on the forum and you bring insights and I personally like your language-usage and that nature flows into your posts too. May you absorb some of the healing energy from OOTS today. 

This phase, hard though it is atm, will pass.

Perhaps someone has information or feedback about this idea: Neurological development in principle begins at conception. Thus it stands to reason that trauma will have a different effect or outcome depending at which stage of neurological development the trauma begins. Trauma at age 30 will have certain differences compared to trauma at age 15. I think the earlier trauma begins in an individual, that is to say in-utero or very early infancy, the impact is significant regarding the stage that the brain is at in its development. 

  absolutely.

The earlier traumatisation takes place, the more of a cumulative bad effect it has on child development. Say you're traumatised at 3yo and dissociating half the time to survive, there's a lot of emotional and relational development that's going to pass you by. But both are very important building blocks for your continuing emotional and relational development! Also lots of us (maybe all of us) have all sorts of unhelpful habits and behaviour patterns we learnt and discovered in order to survive emotionally in our FOOs. They can be very deeply ingrained and it's a lot harder to catch up on all that emotional and relational development stuff and find behaviour patterns later as an adult during and around bouts in therapy. I know, I've been working on this stuff / being on the healing path for decades and I'm not the only one who's ever posted on the forum in that situation.

I hope all that made sense too!

I think in-utero trauma is very real, and it seems to make sense that this would impact many other aspects of the mind-body relationship.

Oh yes, it's real. I honestly don't know if there are any qualified/respected researchers of trauma who disagree on that, I really have no idea. If there were disagreers, I would say to them - a fetus can hear what's going on in the environment its mother is in, by the time a baby is born he/she knows their mother's voice. I know this through language development - the baby doesn't just recognise their mother's voice, he/she also recognises the language, their mother tongue so to speak. Doesn't understand cognitively but there's linguistic brain development going on in-utero. That baby can then also hear any raised, angry voices and other forms of violence I won't go into. Apparently when the baby is in-utero he/she is very attuned to the mother's moods and will absorb them, so if the mother is in a difficult or traumatising situation especially over time, the baby kind of absorbs that. Not to mention any physical harm the mother goes through - that obviously affects the baby in utero too.

I think in-utero trauma is very real, and it seems to make sense that this would impact many other aspects of the mind-body relationship. To be brief, it seems trauma also fits the description of a spectrum. And maybe that spectrum is amongst other things, dependent upon the neurological developmental stage of the individual when the trauma actually starts or happens.

All sounds very plausible. As you say amongst other things because the development of cptsd within the brain is probably pretty complicated.

My T didn't say, and I didn't ask, but I'm sure that I'm over the half-way mark in processing.

Oh to be so optimistic! I think it is unlikely that I was at the half-way mark then. I wouldn't even dare to guess if I'm there now!

Welcome to the forum, Kcrystal2!

I'm sorry about all what you have gone through. And then those words/opinions on "you just need to get your act together" or similar      That's not how we see it here, we know differently.

Seeing as you need some support, I am glad you found us at OOTS and I hope you find this forum as helpful and welcoming as I and many others have found it. 

I'm doing well with the meditations from the course. I do them after I get up and have taken my first meds. I'm surprised (!) but it's easier to get out of bed for this non-early bird when I have my meditation to look forward to.

On Monday I planned an exception for some concrete reasons and didn't do my meditation till late afternoon. By the time I did it, I was all over the place - thoughts jumping here and there. There are a few possible reasons for that, so I'm going to keep them in mind and see if there's some clarity about that sometime.