Odd body sensations during stress

[tired]

This is super weird so I will just describe it :

I get this feeling which starts when I'm lying down and it feels like I can't move. As if my body were made of something heavy but at the same time I feel like I'm blowing up like a balloon . Then I feel this sensation of being tied with metal something or other but none of this actually sounds like anything in the real world .  I'm just using these words to try and explain but it's not exactly like this. It's a heavy feeling and feels metallic which makes no sense.  Sort of like crushing because breathing feels harder.

It happened the first time when an abuser was talking to me and I was trying to get rid of him.  Then every time I would get upset in a certain way it would happen. 

[Trees]

Tired,that is really interesting.  Do you think it is a flashback?  Maybe triggering the release of stress hormones?

Are you able to get yourself out of it, or do you just have to wait for it to pass?

[tired]

I have no idea what it is. I tried looking it up and thinking of reasons but stress hormone and body memory make sense.  It just doesn't feel like anything I can label, like say if I remember drowning or I remember being on fire.  When it happens I keep thinking of nails and how nails are made out of a very heavy dense metal and it doesn't feel like I'm being punctured but more like I'm being tied down. I have a memory of that metallic taste we all recognize like when we get a filling.

I just wait for it to pass and I have a feeling that if I wanted to I could snap out of it but in the moment it seems impossible. Like when you hear a sound at night and you're paralyzed with fear.  I also tend to stay still to figure out what it is , like if I experience it long enough I can remember or put words on it.

When I was younger I would dream I was floating around the room and I thought wow this is weird how did my mind come up with this. Then I realized it felt a lot like the willy wonka scene where they float around.  That makes sense.  This doesn't.  I have never taken drugs but maybe it's like a weird hallucination.

[EmoVulcan]

"When I was younger I would dream I was floating around the room and I though V wow this is weird how did my mind come up with this. Then I realized it felt a lot like the willy wonka scene where they float around.  That makes sense.  This doesn't.  I have never taken drugs but maybe it's like a weird hallucination.". Tired wrote.

One of my earliest memories,  scared me to confusion, as I was only 3.  I floated above the door frame inside my bedroom, looking down and observing a tiny form asleep in a bed that dwarfed a small human, made her seem adrift in a huge space.

No thoughts, no emotion, just that vision that seemed crystal clear in the depths of the night, and I at that time had such fears of he dark. I did not like to be left all alone in the dark, adrift ii a dark sea, bereft of comfort and warmth.  Waking afraid of myself, and I did not know I was Fearing myself.

This is now referred to as an out of body experience...I believe we are shown that our awareness, does not necessarily exist as an integral part of our whole...it is obvious that awareness is aware of everything.  I did not know that body on the bed  was in fact me; and when I woke up, I feared some Monster was watching me sleep, for some nefarious purpose.

I have served as a head start teacher.  I learned that the ages of three to five are termed, the infant adolescence.  The period of time when the child is beginning to sense the self as separate from the mother, and the beginnings of rebellion against the constriction of will being imposed upon the child. 

NO.  That word triggers parents, especially, and is the thing that begins familial infighting, and either increases abuse or produces a desired result that pleases the parent.  This has been personal and profound for me to realize this fact of "what is.". The first time I defiantly yelled in two year old fashion, this triggering word, I was driven from my body by a triggered parent, angrily wielding a willow switch.  Strong program restriction!

Still, more than a year later, aware, was not aware of who the infant in the adult bed was to me. When I awoke, with adrenaline coursing through me, I could not reason how I could remember, or even dream this strange thing being in two places at once....science has answered that it is indeed possible for subatomic noseeums. Bosuns, the God particles. Awareness it seems. But I, the child was scared to no motion.  Heaviness and the feeling of not being able to move, yet I felt it was just up to me and my will...but I had, unbeknown programed restrictrictions.  My parental demand to stay in my bed, until they gave their permission, to rise and do as they bid.

No metal presence, that I can remember...but heavy and paralyzed, and full of dread.  I have experienced this state too many times to dismiss this connection...and may still not recall an incident that accounts for the suffocating heaviness that accompanies the paralysis. 

Twice before now, I have successfully forced myself to move, get up and get moving....I had to...my son in a wheelchair, demanded it.  So, I see this as a freeze, and a successful exit from it, no matter how my critic tried to make me feel useless instead.  This, being hindsight, was put away from my worries as too much to process at the time.  Which is nature's wisdom to protect the mind, and body.. To continue life. hope that helps you tired.  The promises I heard in youth, the quest and questions I have been struggling to resolve...all point to the truth of the very cyclical nature of universe...it is all about life. And men superior superior, know very little about it yet.   As I know little, but am learning of feminine mystery, mystique, and indeed the divine female.

Faith of a mustard seed.

[Boatsetsailrose]

Yes I used to have similar feeling
A feeling of metal inside and a paralysing
Is it dissociation I am wondering ?
When I spoke to my t about how I used to feel she labelled it dissociation -
And that's ok - we can find ways to learn about that and what we can do to help -

Nothing ever bad happened for me from that it just felt really frightening and I felt I lost any power to do anything

Best wishes

[Indigochild]

Hi tired,
Im no expert at all, but it sounds like freezing, disassociating.
I read something yesterday online, that was talking about somatic bodily memroies-
and about a client in a therapists office.
The therapist was telling the story.
He told the client to focus on parts of her body.
He focused on anxiety and where she felt it in her body.
she felt her legs stiffen and they felt stuck. She was scared as she felt unable to move them.
As she sat with the anxiety, knowing that she was safe and grounded, noticing the chair under neath her etc. her legs began to feel warmer, and she felt that she should run if she wanted.
She was a freeze type.
She said she hadn't felt her legs before as part of her body, but never realised it.
Maybe you can relate, or maybe your not sure?

When I'm anxious and panicky, I can lie in bed and feel i will explode, but I feel stuck. I know i can get up, but sometimes in the past with depression, you feel so heavy and slow its hard to move.
I think we get used to being stuck as we were in childhood.
I hope this isn't too scary for you.

[tired]

All three of your responses really hit home.  It feels a lot better to know that what I'm feeling isn't completely nonsensical.  I relate to the feeling of being trapped, controlled, stuck, and the combination of feeling like I'm going to explode but at the same time weighed down.

It helps me a lot to understand it in the context of early childhood fears.  I don't remember much about that part of my life but there are developmental themes to work with when thinking about it.

What scares me is not making sense and if I can make sense of myself it helps. Rather, if another person thinks it makes sense.  Because I want to know I'm not delusional.

[EmoVulcan]

Because I want to know I am not delusional,

Me too, tired, I think we all do,

[Indigochild]

Im glad tired, hope i helped in some way.
Sounds like somatic memory perhaps too.
Just learning about that.

Yes, cptsd has helped me to see that maybe I'm not always delusional.