Milkandhoney's revovery journal

[Hope67]

Hi Milkandhoney,
I wanted to say that you have been so supportive to people in your replies, and also to me, and I am sorry that I haven't been here so much lately - because I wish I could also be supportive to you - you're going through a lot at the moment, and it's horrible to be facing those things.

I wanted to thank you for what you wrote in my journal too - I didn't feel able to reply to people individually at the time I read what people wrote, but I felt supported and it was nice to know people cared.

I want to say to you, that I hope that you don't feel alone with things. 

(if that's ok)
Hope 

[Armee]

It's so much to be going through.  Keep your feet on the ground. This is a rough patch but there is still a life waiting for you on the other side of this mess. Wherever it goes you can rebuild something better.

Until then, yes fall apart and be afraid and feel the betrayal because those are all real things. This is such a shocking thing to go through.

What are you feeling today?

[milkandhoney11]

Thank you Hope and Armee,
it means so incredibly much to me to have your support. So far, I always had to face all challenges in my life on my own without the support from anyone, so I am really grateful to finally have found people who understand and who care. At least that is one good thing that has come out of this mess. It's a terrible situation to be in and it weighs a lot on me but I am starting to gain a sense that this is an important step in my journey and that I can find a way to build on this foundation somehow. If these things had not happened and I had not been in quite so much pain I would probably never have found this forum and never sought help from a therapist, so I am trying to see the positives here.
Most of this week has been quite difficult and my sleep difficulties have been worse than ever since my anxiety went completely through the roof, but today I finally felt a little bit more like myself and almost as if I had a little more strength to fight for my future.
I hope it stays that way.

[milkandhoney11]

So, I had another night without sleep and am really struggling to keep going at the moment.
I'm just so exhausted and tired of dealing with all of this and feel like there is no way out of this situation.
I have very little or no control over my life at the moment as my entire future seems unclear and I sense that I am starting to lose control over my body, as well, which I am finding very scary.
I've never had any experience of the "shakes" until a month ago but these incidents are becoming more and more frequent and I am finding it hard to comprehend what is happening to me.
Last night, my body was captured by shakes and body tremors four or five times, always starting with my left arm and then moving on to different body parts. And I just can't help but feel scared because I am not used to losing control like this and it's hard when there is nobody there to protect you and keep you safe.
Why is this all happening to me? I guess that my life is very much rules by anxiety and fear at the moment. During the day I normally manage to stay in control of these feelings but at night I can't suppress them any longer and they start to act out violently.
I've tried to seek help from different agencies and applied for a referral to a psychiatrist that might give me a diagnosis of what exactly is happening to me, but unfortunately it seems like there is no help available for me. Apparently I am suffering a lot but not quite enough to be eligible for support.
So it seems like I have to try and figure everything out by myself.
One thing I have discovered is that, weirdly, the word "happy" seems to be a very negative trigger for me that causes my body to tense or move into another episode of the shakes. I'm not sure why that is and can only say that happiness is a very strange concept for me. I can't remember ever feeling happy or safe in my life and I certainly cant imagine ever feeling happy in the future, so I guess that this might be a reason why this triggers me so much. It makes me feel like a failure, someone who doesn't really belong into this world and, therefore, can never find any form of content. And, of course, there is so much pressure in this society to feel happy all the time and to not let anyone see that you're struggling, so this only makes things worse...

[paul72]

Hi milkandhoney
I'm so sorry you're struggling so much right now.
What you are saying about the shakes resonates with me. I was shaking so bad this morning in bed that I had to get up. I've been reflecting on an observation I've made over my coffee ... I'm going to share and I hope that's ok.
It feels to me that my shakes get worse with the anxiety you talk about. Losing control is a big one too. But these shakes also protect me from the big ones. It's like they keep my nervous system satisfied. These are the shakes I have most of the day. They're a nuisance more than anything else to me.
Then there's the violent ones you mentioned. To me those are the scary ones. Like I'm thrown in the past and I'm just terrified. My body reacts violently too. It sucks!! I get these throughout the day sporadically but they really come out at night when I try to relax/sleep. I don't try to relax during the day or I'd get them too.
I think it's awesome that you noticed where they started and how they moved.
My guess is that's important somehow. Just a guess but it's a hopeful one.
I think these violent shakes are the ones that release trauma for me. It just seems so counterintuitive to just allow them to happen. I'm not suggesting it. You'll know more than me when or if it's time to do that.
Have you read Waking the Tiger?
I loved it so much and he really explains so simply all about shaking. I had no idea. I've been shaking since I was a kid. I was tested for Parkinson's maybe 35 years ago. But no idea why ever came out.
Anyway, I hope your anxiety eases. It's so hard when you're afraid of the past and the future
I'm sending a big tremor-filled hug your way if that's ok with you.

[milkandhoney11]

Thank you so much, Phil.
I really appreciate the hugs and your insights. Since this is all quite new to me I often feel overwhelmed and don't know how to deal with this, so I am very thankful for any kind of advice and it helps to know that there are some people out there who understand.
I'm trying to allow these shakes to happen whenever I can but sometimes I am still too scared to let them take over, even though I feel like you are right about releasing the trauma.
Thank you so much for the book recommendation, I will see if I can get hold of this as it seems very promising

[Armee]

It makes sense to me that "happy" would be a trigger for these shakes. If you don't remember ever feeling happy or safe it's likely that whenever you did feel that way as a kid something bad would happen. So feeling that way now or even the word is a signal that something bad is going to happen. I'd have the same thing except it was feeling safe and connected to my husband. I'd relax and feel safe lying next to him and then BAM! It was incredibly frustrating and confusing. After awhile I began piecing together what was happening and why. I do truly believe you'll have the ability to feel happiness without all these repercussions as you go through the process of healing, too. It isn't fast though and it doesn't come by just wanting to be happy. You're not a failure for not being able to "just be happy." I'm sorry you've never felt happy or safe.

The shakes to me seem like a good sign for you, that you are starting to release instead of bottling up all the trauma. This is happening to me too right now and it is very very disturbing to have no control over your body.

[milkandhoney11]

Thank you so much, Armee, your words are giving me hope that I can get better with time. Right now this is all so raw and fresh that I feel incredibly overwhelmed, but I want to trust that this is a good thing and that I am able to release some of the trauma I have carried with me for such a long time.

[rainydiary]

M&H - it is overwhelming.  Our bodies and minds are used to holding so much and that takes so much effort.  I hope you continue to find small things that support you each step.

[milkandhoney11]

Thank you, Rainy, your support means a lot.


I'm probably going to write a little more later, but I've just received the news that my mum has had a heart attack, so I'm trying to deal with that
Don't know how to feel right now but I'm just... overwhelmed

[Armee]

Oh honey. Not one more tthing. 



Hang tight ok. Minute by minute.

[Papa Coco]

Hi M&H,

A quick shout out to Phil. Your compassion and detailed explanations of your experiences with The Shakes has been an enlightening learning experience for me too. I feel like M&H and all those on the forum who experience The Shakes are lucky to have your helpful inputs as we try to understand them ourselves. Phil, I hope you don't mind being given some kudos, but I see you as my leading expert on The Shakes, and I'm always feeling grateful that you share your experiences with us in such easy-to-understand postings. Before you disclosed that they are so severe for you, the only thing I knew about The Shakes was that Charles Dickens had them after he faced certain death in the Staplehurst Bridge collapse, and that animals shake after they've survived certain death. You are the first person to ever disclose to me that they happen to you, and now I see others chiming in with their own experiences as well.

M&H, for me, the shakes are nowhere near as severe as yours and Phil's. Because of their less severity, up until now, I'd never associated my experiences of being a mild version of The  Shakes. I always called them my Frozen Heart.  They only come upon me when I try to intentionally relive my sexual abuse from when I was 7 years of age. I don't intentionally start the shakes, but I know that if I try to visualize the faces and acts of my abusers, The Shakes, or The Frozen Heart, will automatically begin. I also know that I can stop them by choosing to change the subject in my mind. I believe that I have this control only because my Shakes are so mild. If they were attached to something larger than a single event, then I would not have this much control over them. For me, since they are so mild, if I'll just tuck the memories back into their file drawer in my brain, and lock the drawer, The Shakes just stop. I guess I'm lucky there, that I've been able to identify their trigger, and it's a single trigger.

I believe the reason I have The Shakes when I visualize my CSA, is likely because my life was threatened. For some reason, I became convinced that if I exposed my abusers, I would be killed for it. Perhaps I was threatened that I'd be killed if I told, or perhaps I was just so absolutely certain that I'd be exiled and thrown into the wilderness by my family if they found out. Either way, I believed I would die if I exposed my abusers. The Shakes, for me, are tied to the natural process of dying. I can think of all my other traumas without going into the shakes, but if I think about anything that reminds me of believing, with all my heart, that I was going to die, that's what triggers my experience of icy-heart/shakes.

My experiences with The Shakes are mild compared to those of yours, Phil's, and many other people whom I just now learning about. I just thought that maybe if I share my own lessor intense experience, it would be another example to use to compare and learn from a broader spectrum of intensity. Like just another Case Study to ponder as you work through your own understanding of your own personal experience.

[milkandhoney11]

Thank you, Papa Coco, I am always glad to receive your replies, it's good to hear your insights and really helps me to calm down and find a way forward.
This situation today is affecting me a lot and I don't know how to cope with this right now. It's so hard to receive negative news like that and have no one to tell, no one to turn to, no one who can hold me and comfort me. So, I guess the only option I have right now is to find some relief here on this forum and talk to my T about it tomorrow.
I have always been quite close to my mum (despite the fact that she never did anything against my father's abuse and never even once stepped in when he used to hit me), so hearing about her heart attack was a real shock and absolutely terrified me. Outside of this forum she is probably the only genuine connection I have and the only one in my family who still supports me, which means that I really don't want to lose her (and certainly not right now in addition to all the things that have happened recently, it's just getting way too much).
hearing that she is in the hospital right now also triggered a lot of negative memories from my past. When I was a young toddler she got terribly sick with rheumatoid arthritis and couldn't really get out of bed, so obviously she couldn't actually take care of me and my new-born sister, which made me feel incredibly neglected and alone, especially since my father couldn't quite cope with the situation and would often take his anger out on me, so this is when all the physical abuse first started.
I don't know, I've probably been propelled into a really bad emotional flashback right now, but somehow these circumstances are threatening to overwhelm me. I was already feeling very fragile due to all the recent events and my experiences with the shakes, so this is too disturbing to deal with right now. I feel like every time I make a step ahead with my healing something happens to throw into turmoil again, probably further back than I have been before. It's like one step forwards, two steps back every single time and it just feels so... frustrating and hopeless.

That's all I can say at the moment, maybe I can write a little more tomorrow after my therapy session, but everything's a little too confusing, raw, and painful at this time so I can't quite order my thoughts enough to write anything coherent

[rainydiary]

M&H, I am thinking of you as you navigate your mother's health.

[Armee]

Hi Milk and Honey,

Just sending some warm thoughts your way. How is your mom? How are you?