I started a book last summer that had been recommended to me by a therapist, The Body Keeps The Score, by Bessel van der Kolk, M.D. He has been studying the effects of trauma in adults and children for decades and shares his findings in this book, written for both scientists and us regular people. It’s been a best-seller for several years and references other scientific work throughout. In short, the book explains how our bodies will hold the effects of various types of trauma, from stomach issues, joint pain, and fatigue to vision problems, muscle tension and even cancer. It’s a good book.
I finally finished it a few weeks ago because, since this past Spring, I’ve also been reading various other books more specific to complex-PTSD, wheras Dr. van der Kolk’s book has a lot of focus on PTSD (but he touches just enough on the long-term and complex trauma that it’s still very relevant).
Let me change subjects now…
Last summer, about fifteen months ago now, I began to itch all over without explanation and without any skin issues. About two months into the itching, I had some hives pop up on my wrists and back. About then I started taking antihistamines every other day and it has kept the itching at bay, but I must now take an antihistamine about every two to three days or I begin to itch almost uncontrollably. I went on a five day vacation recently and itched there too, perhaps even a bit more than at home, so that confirmed that it’s not something within our rental house that’s irritating me in some way. I went to the doctor over a year ago where I was told that “no one really knows what causes hives”, but if the antihistamines were working, stay with them and if it didn’t go away, come back for a steroid to maybe take care of it…I have not gone back…yet.
Let me change subject again…
I found this article from Washington University in St. Louis which followed four elderly patients with no history of allergies who developed an all-over itching sensation and also did not have any skin rashes to go along with it. In those four people, they found some common markers that pointed to inflammation and immune system irregularities. The small amount of information from this tiny sample sounds a lot like me. Here’s the article: https://source.wustl.edu/2016/05/itching-no-reason-immune-system-may-fault/
So now I’ll put this together…keeping in mind, I’m not a scientist, I’m not a doctor, I am not the person with the answers, I’m just trying to do my own research on myself. I always encourage you to seek professional medical advice.
I now know that I’ve been traumatized by my parents my whole life. It’s just been in the last couple of weeks that a few things have become clearer to me as to some of the extents of that traumatization. I’m 99% sure that I have an attachment disorder because neither of my parents had the capacity and understanding to take care of me and my needs as an infant. I have a mother who was severely abused as a child and I can see now how that affected her, but it’s also a person’s responsibility as a parent to not follow the same patterns as their own parents. Yes, she did “the best she could” but, no matter how cold this may sound, it wasn’t good enough. And my father wasn’t a picnic either. This past week, all I’ve been hearing in my head is “these lazy kids…”.
It’s not like my childhood was something from a tv movie where parents were screaming at me about how terrible I was. It wasn’t like they were high or drunk all the time. I had clean clothes, a warm bed, plenty of food, Christmas presents, sleep-overs and other normal childhood things. There were a few times when Dad would read us books and I even remember a couple of family game nights. But that’s part of the attachment disorder. I now understand through books (written by a variety of trained therapists and psychologists) that a child is generally in awe of their parent and is completely dependent on them for survival. These people are supposed to have it all figured out. Even if we know as adults that’s not true, to a child, adults are all-knowing and protective people. So when those people alternate between protection and general care and then yell at us for not cleaning our room or doing chores or folding towels correctly, it’s confusing. And these scientists (and I testify they are correct in this) have found that the child will come to understand that “I am a bad person. I am a worthless person. The people who are supposed to love me actually hate me, therefore everyone will.”
This is nearly irreversible damage.
I don’t know if I’m lucky to have discovered this about myself or not yet. I guess I’ll say lucky, but in many ways it makes me even sadder that my young adult years were stolen away from me because of these programmed messages that my parents planted there – most likely before I was even six months old.
And now…back to the itching. I should also note that my feet have been swelling more the last few years while sitting at work and I’ve been told I have a condition that makes my fingertips go white and numb in the winter time if it’s too cold outside (much faster than a “normal” person’s). To me this signaled that I had/have a heart and or circulation issue.
Well…thank you Covid-19 for bringing the science of breathing and our pulmonary systems to the forefront of our brain. Turns out that breathing correctly and blood circulation are related. Last Spring, during my one week of joy, I felt that I could breathe freer and deeper than ever before. I didn’t feel the aches and pains that follow me every day. I could sleep. I wanted to exercise (actually exercise!). I wanted to move around I wanted to smile at people. Then that faded away and now I’m back to shallow breathing and/or forcing myself to do breathing exercises in order to try to re-train that pattern. But it feels so forced and takes energy away. I want that feeling of free-breathing I had several months ago.
And that made me think that if I wasn’t breathing well, my blood wasn’t circulating well, therefore my feet would swell and my hands would get cold. And then that led me to the immune system article and the itching.
So here’s where I’m at now. I know I have been stuck in fight or flight mode for over forty years. I can now feel the tension in my body. I attempt to lower my shoulders all the time, I try to take deep breaths, I’m trying to ask my body to relax, I’m trying to get my nervous system to get out of fight or flight. I’ve developed the theory that my body has been holding the tension of my trauma for so long that it’s always on the defense, because my emotions are always on the defense.
I think our minds are mysterious things we don’t quite understand and in my case, I believe that somehow my brain is telling my cells to fight and they are doing just that…causing me to itch. Why do I think this? Because of a couple of weeks in between jobs last Spring when I could chill out, I didn’t have as much itching. I think I went almost a week without taking any medication. Now I like my new job, but am worried I’m failing at it (see all the above about authority figures, C-PTSD, crappy parents, disappointing people=catastrophe, etc…) and thus elevated stress. In some ways it’s a good stress, but I don’t think my body can tell the difference because it’s been stressed since birth and has always been on the lookout for ways to survive without getting yelled at or making someone angry.
Well, my newest thing to try (aside from trying to calm the hell down) is to change some of the foods I eat as one more way to combat what could be inflammation caused by stress. I’m not a person who thinks food cures or kills anyone, but I would agree that a different diet can help overall. There are tons of articles on the internet that document certain types of foods as anti-inflammatory, like leafy greens, cinnamon, certain types of nuts, and so on.
And that means I’m doing a little more experimenting in the kitchen. Something I never thought I’d do. Thank to our recent vacation, my ongoing exploration of who I am, my willingness and determination to get healthier and find a way to heal emotionally, I’m actually trying out new foods. I’m not sure where this will go, but I can say I have a lot more different foods in the cupboard now than I ever have before!
Food aren’t the only way to reduce inflammation, reducing the stress is another. So, I will continue to find sound frequencies, do some tai chi, stretch, read, write, get massages, try to exercise and attempt to tell my body to let go. This is very, very, very hard for anyone who has been in fight/flight mode their entire life. I can’t undo a lifetime’s worth of faulty brain coding in just a few months. I admit I’m scared that it’s permanent and can never be undone (and therefore my quality of life may always generally suck). I find just enough out there in the world that says it’s possible to change and I’m clinging to that. I have only been on this new journey for about six months and I know I can’t change all this in that time.
But I thought I’d make a better attempt at listening to the symptoms within my body and not completely dismissing them as purely physical and ‘old age’ but also consider if they are the physical symptoms of a scared little kid who was just yelled at too many times and whose parents spent more time trying to work on projects than being attentive to their own kids’ needs.
