“I haven’t had a shower since Monday so that’s my goal today. Have a shower. Also go for a walk would be good. if I can. I’ll see how my pain levels are and my energy. I can ignore pain and I can push through but it takes energy. And my energy goes into holding myself upright, making myself do the basic things that keep me from going under. The rest of it just has to be flotsam,” I wrote in my journal on October 22, 2020
Hypercritical allostatic load spiraled me nearer to death each day and my two prime providers dismissed my concern.” My body says I might not make it,” I told them. I knew this was afferent information from the vagus nerve and nervous system that was telling me I was in grave danger.
“You’re just hungry,” my PCP proclaimed, having asked no question about my lived experience. They heard the word “shaky” and assumed.
“That’s just one of your parts,” my then therapist asserted, without allowing exploration of the supposed part.
Fortunately, I had long studied the neurobiology of trauma and had found “The Distortions of Life Force” chart. This helped me understand my predicament. I was stuck in the top left corner. Unfortunately, even this beautiful diagram could not resolve my providers’ certainty and lack of curiosity, a very bad combination.
Abandoned by my supposed caregivers I was on my own near death again, as in childhood. I knew from experience that, “focused attention is our superpower,” so I focused my attention on not dying, a skill I developed early.
I barely made it through and spent months focused on recovery, hardly able to function. Again, my providers would not believe my lived experience. Denial of the lived experience makes trauma worse.
I ditched the psychologist for a NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM) therapist, and cut loose the primary care provider. A year after they abandoned me I finally had the energy to find a new primary care provider.
Neuro-nincompoops make terrible providers for people with trauma. They cannot help, only cause more harm. NEXT!