Messages

Thank you again to everyone who responded to my post--it was all SO helpful.  Chart, I'm especially floored at how similar our situations / symptoms seem to be in this case.  Thank you for sharing your experience, it has helped more than you know! The latest updates are below:
I apologize for being away from the forum for so long--I had an intense several months (including getting Covid, which was a ride but a story for another time). I didn't have an opportunity to practice alone time or observe how my nervous system responds to being alone overnight until this spring.  First I had a trip to visit my siblings in another state.  Travel is generally pretty stressful for me (flying alone in particular), but I have my routine now so it went ok.  The trip itself was incredibly stressful for several reasons, including just general chaos and busyness of my family's schedule and a particularly troubling situation with one of my sibling's kids that triggered a lot of parentification trauma for me.  But the relevant part is that I was going to be "on my own" (i.e. the only responsible adult) watching one of the kids while my sibling and family were away over night. I had a good deal of anticipatory anxiety the night before this event and some trouble sleeping--finding a new video with some calming techniques helped in this situation, as did doing my best to remain curious about the unfolding and ebbing and flowing of sensations. Since I clearly knew in advance that I might find the solo caretaker night challenging, I planned an evening of low key activities with said kid, invited someone over for dinner and a movie with us, and most importantly, tried situational meds (in this case meclizine, which is the non-drowsy Dramamine sold over the counter--I chose this since I take it for travel anyway and had it on hand).  I took it at the part of the evening (7PM) that I normally start to feel a big buildup of dread and....it really helped! Evening was pretty ok, very low symptoms, and I was able to sleep. And no doubt it helped knowing that there were pets and the kid in the house as well and I wasn't truly alone.   

The next opportunity I had to practice was when my partner had to go away overnight for a work trip in April.  Given my decent experience withe the meclizine, I decided to see if I could trial aother situational med to get through things more easily.  In consultation with my therapist, I contacted my doctor and tried (*before the trip*) both hydroxyzine and clonazepam.  The hydroxyzine made me feel more obviously "drugged" and weirdly made falling asleep more difficult because I would start awake every time I fell asleep (so a really pronounced "hypnic jerk" kind of thing)--it felt to me like my nervous system was like "we can't actually be this relaxed" and my hypervigilance was fighting against the sedation effect.  So for me, a no-go.  I called the Dr's office back and got a scrip for short term clonazepam.  Tried it a few nights later (all these drug trials I did with my partner still in town so I didn't have to worry about trying new meds alone on top of my normal panic).  The clonazepam was totally uneventful and I didn't feel groggy the next morning.  So working with my therapist, we came up with a three-legged stool of a plan: I would have meds on board--taking them earlier in the evening (several hours before going to bed), I would have a loose sort of schedule (not rigidly trying to plan every minute) BUT would add in a "social" aspect by using the virtual co-work platform I use during my work from home days to have others "virtually" there with me.  A note on the virtual co-work thing: It's CaveDay, you do stints together with others via Zoom and chat in breakout rooms before starting and then come together at the end.  You can leave your camera on and see others working as well.  Many people use it for household things as well as working--so you'll see people making dinner, doing chores, eating, taking breaks, doing their bedtime routines, etc.  Lots of ADHD-ers are basically using it for body doubling the activities of daily life, as well as folks using it to get work done on their computers. Then the third thing I would have on hand is all my nervous system calming techniques that I use (weighted blanket, breathwork, somatic movement techniques, ice /cold water, etc.)

And folks, it worked.  My symptoms never rose above a 3 out of 10 all night.  I didn't have the crushing dread, severe diarrhea, frozen panic, closed throat.  Just mild anxiety that came and went in waves.  I slept. I was able to eat.  The next morning I felt pretty good.

I am VERY proud of myself for taking this step.  It was SO hard to ask for meds from my doctor (I really did not want to have to go into my trauma or my symptoms, but he just heard "CPTSD" and "trauma triggered by staying alone overnight" and "have been working on it for 5 years with my therapist, who thinks it's time to try situational meds" and was totally fine writing a prescription.) I also told myself that I have dogs with severe anxiety (at the vet and also staying alone) and I have no problem thinking of medication as a necessary part of their care and don't I want to treat myself as well as I treat my dogs? 

I also think this was the right time to try meds--if I had just tried them *without* the other two supports (the social aspect of CaveDay) and the nervous system work (AND without the accrued knowledge of what was actually happening when I experience these freeze / panic / EF responses and what the "theme" of this trauma is), I don't think the meds would have worked as well on their own. Standard disclaimer that this is not medical advice: meds are not for everyone / they are a very personal choice, clonazepam is a benzodiazepine and therefore meant for short-term use due to addiction risk, etc. But I was very happy to learn that what I feared (that meds would worsen the freeze / trapped response) did not come to pass and they really helped.   
            

I just want to say very quickly THANK YOU to everyone who responded to me about this puzzling situation. I have an update (sort of like lots of updates) but will have to come back later today to write it all out. 

Chart, I appreciate your taking the time to respond, and also your thoughtfulness. I didn't see the initial post so no worries there. I will look at the link you shared about explicit and implicit memory—thank you!!

dollyvee, thank you for your reply! And for the links.  It did get worse after my illness (acute vestibular disorder that became chronic). It also got worse after the sudden death of my father about 10 years ago, which makes complete sense.

Hard to know if this exacerbation was due to the physical piece or the added medical trauma piece, or the just generally greater nervous system dysregulation. I've had lots and lots of testing and don't have any increased inflammation markers or signs of MCAS, though I'm sure that like most people I probably have more inflammation going on than is ideal. (Doing my best with that with diet and exercise.) The preventive meds I'm on for my illness also work with inflammation so that's helpful. In general my health has been much, much better lately. And my fears around symptoms and about appointments etc. are incredibly improved and well-managed.  As is my baseline anxiety. That's why I'm still puzzled by this continued nighttime issue—but my therapist says "first on the bus, last to leave" which is pretty resonant here.

I did do something just for fun which was ask ChatGPT about how we would distinguish between these things (panic attack, freeze response, flashback etc) in my case and it came down on the side of freeze response from trauma. And recommended blending grounding techniques with mobilization—being aware of the mixed nature of the events and responding differently depending on whether there is hyperarousal vs hypoarousal. It also said that exposure therapy is not the way to go here which confirms my instinct. And this info has motivated me to return to movement practices like Qigong and Somatics that are gently mobilizing and calming at the same time. I'm also assembling a "kit" of things that help (particular essential oil blends, teas, etc. as well as short lists of practices) so that I don't have to try to remember it in the moment. I have a similar kit for vestibular migraine attacks and it's been super helpful.

Standard disclaimer to not use AI as therapy here: In general I'm very suspicious of AI and there's privacy issues and it's only as good as the information you feed it, but this is a case where it was helpful for me (I can share the info if anyone is interested).  It also helped for my spouse to read this info so that it's clear what I'm going through.

Thanks again and I'll share more as I uncover it!

I don't exactly know where to put this post because I'm not exactly sure what to call this.  I have described it as separation anxiety, but it only happens in specific situations and I'm not troubled by fears that my loved ones who are apart from me are in danger or have catastrophic thoughts that they won't return, nor does being alone during the daytime bother me (both major criteria of sep anx). 

I could use any tips, strategies, tools, or advice that has worked for you--because in general the advice out there for panic attacks or general anxiety that I use at other times is not super helpful for these situations. (I'm talking about calming strategies like breath work, talking yourself down, meditation, weighted blankets etc.) The 13 steps for Emotional Flashbacks are semi-useful but not really hitting the mark.

Basically, I have struggled since my 20s (I'm 53) with being along at night / overnight--at that time there was a long trip my partner took and I was unable to sleep hardly at all, it was miserable, lasted for days, and sparked an extended anxiety period. Therapist thinks, however, that my symptoms are indicative of a freeze state and suggest pre-verbal trauma, so prob something happened before I was 3 that we won't ever know about (there was plenty of other traumatizing things we do know about as I grew up with a mother with untreated schizophrenia, among them being suddenly taken away from my father and family home for a period so that she could move in with her random new lover).

Symptoms are kind of like a panic attack but with clear triggers (being alone at nightfall and also going to bed alone and trying to sleep) and none of the "sympathetic" activation (so no increased heart rate, sweating, difficulty breathing / hyperventilation, etc.). Also it does not resolve in about 20 minutes as panic attacks are "supposed" to do.  Instead, I have an increasing feeling of dread throughout the day and then when night falls, there's a peak of paralyzing dread that can last a loooooong time.  GI distress (severe diarrhea), difficult / impossible to swallowing, massive lockdown of muscles (whole body in spasm), feeling cold, shaking, etc. There's also some derealization / depersonalization because only someone who knows me really well would be able to tell anything is wrong (I can have a conversation, for example, but not really a "present" one, and my heart rate is usually normal).  At its worst it might last for 10+ hours, can abate during the day and then start again the next night. This has been an issue again since I developed my chronic illness four years ago and the attendant medical trauma pile-on.  Once I got my CPTSD diagnosis, I began working on it actively with my therapist and the first step was asking for help and requesting a friend to stay with me overnight while my spouse needs to be out of town. This helps enormously but isn't always practicable (I have two friends I feel comfortable asking this, but only for a night at a time, and the second one has lately been expressing that it's hard for her to do this.)

Then I worked my way up last spring to spending a night on my own while my spouse was at a hotel 10 minutes away (this was a planned absence).  I had symptoms for about 3 hours around sundown but was able to go to sleep.  Then we did a second solo night, where spouse was about 2 hours drive away.  That night I had more severe symptoms and wasn't able to sleep at all.   

This past week, my sister and her kids were coming to visit and spouse was taking the opportunity to travel to visit my in-laws.  I was on my own between spouse's departure and sister's arrival.  Despite the fact that I knew family would be here around midnight, I had the severe dread / panic and symptoms from about 6 to 9PM (and then it abated).

Things that helped: gentle mobilzation / movement, singing, chamomile tea, distraction (television). I also normalized ("we know what this is, I trust that I can take care of myself") while I was in it and tried to make a game out of noticing when the symptoms were abating / decreasing, so I was able to be aware of the wave-like movement of the sensations.  Later my dog laid on my legs and that helped (I want to train him to do this!). But yeah....it still massively sucked. And I'm bummed that, as is normal (yes, I know!), healing isn't linear and when I thought I was doing better, here we are again. 

So any suggestions would be helpful.  I'm thinking about asking Dr. for situational meds, but am on the fence about benzos (I take them occasionally for my other chronic conditions) because I'm not sure if they would make the dissociative symptoms worse.  I suppose I could plan a "test run" and see how I feel on them at night without being alone. In general, I'm doing TONS better with anxiety outside of this and am actually tapering off my (incredibly low, almost homeopathic dose) of nortriptyline (was taking for migraine, but worsened my nightmares).     

Anyway, any and all advice or validation welcome.  Partly it just bugs me that my experience doesn't quite seem to clearly mesh with EF, "freeze," panic attack, or separation anxiety descriptions, though there's a bit of all of it in there.        

 

Ok final update! I did hear back from the Dean—it only took him two days to get back to me (wow). They are changing the locks on my office and restricting access; the person who entered will not have access (and has admitted entering and will be spoken to by HR). I  requested that it not be cleaned by anyone, which they will honor. If I need to make a housekeeping request I can put one in. There will still be master key access but they will do what they can to notify me of any planned access to my office unless there's a last minute emergency. I am SO pleased and reassured that I was taken seriously and that prompt action was taken and I feel like this will go a long way to making me feel safer at work. Yay us! Thank you for all the help figuring out how to advocate for myself. 

Wow, Pangur—welcome and I'm so glad you are here. Just think, by posting and not deleting it, you helped me feel less alone and you were the catalyst for all the little grains of wisdom everyone else posted—and these are helping me as well! Hearing Kizzie and Chart talk about what gives them meaning and contributes to their healing is like a balm for me. And you made that happen—-your presence here is already creating positive ripples in someone else's life. So thank you. 

Welcome Léon! I'm so glad you are here and have been moving toward your own healing. I can really identify with your struggles with shame. I hope you find support and community here!!

Thank you for the validation, blueberry and lostwanderer. And thank you so much to everyone on this board for supporting me through this. With your help, I was able to take action.

I am really pleased with myself for reaching out today to another administrator—-a Dean in the school. I was getting stressed thinking about how to advocate for myself: imagining talking to any of the three people nominally in charge of these issues was making me teary and shaky, so I then thought I should write a letter to those people, which made me feel just exhausted and overwhelmed (ugh the time to craft it and cite the regulations, not knowing if it'll be read, etc.) Plus my chair had forwarded me an email chain of my complaint last year and the supervisor of facilities had said in it "why is she only reporting this now?" Which just...ugh. It had the effect of making me want to not say anything else, even though it was written last year and this was a new event.

And then I just had a brainwave that this particular Dean has always been a really good problem solver, he's responsive, and he's the institution's Title IX coordinator as well. So I immediately called him, was able to explain the situation to him calmly and without crying. And he said "you are not the only person experiencing this, it's been a problem elsewhere" which made me feel better and also "I'm on it—give me a day or two to see what's possible and I will get back to you." I immediately felt so much better! It's super hard for me to ask for help but finding the right person to ask makes it feel a whole lot easier.

So even though I don't know what's going to happen, I can soak in the glimmer of someone at the school really caring to help and saying "I'm on it". And I'm soaking in the glimmer of you all and your incredibly helpful words. 

Thank you, Chart and DesertFlower! My supervisor forwarded me the email he sent to the relevant departments and I found a policy in the handbook that says no member of the community can enter a private office without express or implied permission of the employee or relevant University official. I will use this to ask for the locks to be changed because tbh, I'm not confident that this problem can be solved by asking people to stop.

I will keep your words about safety in mind—-the basic point is I can't do my job well if I don't feel safe.

Long story, sorry about that. I'm looking for validation and support that I'm not overreacting, I guess.

TW for space/boundary invasion I guess?

I've worked at the same university for 20 years. I have been given my own private office—a modest room filled with battered, decades-old office furniture and some of my own things (small cheap couch, microwave).  I use the space to prep classes and meet students—I'm an educator.  My name is on the door and it's in a short hallway of faculty offices in a remote corner of the school.

For years I had the icky feeling that someone was using my room when I wasn't there—brought it up with my department and was told it was probably just custodial staff cleaning it.  But it wasn't clean—I'd find trash in the bin that I hadn't put there and the microwave all gross even though I hadn't used it.  Combined with the fact that my bulletin board was often vandalized and this space just being meh, I began to feel less comfortable  spending time there, although I do still need to use it regularly to store all my materials and meet TAs and advisees. I reported the bulletin board stuff to security and for about half a year they had increased patrols in the area. Then they stopped. I would occasionally think about installing my own webcam for security but it looked like that would be illegal, so I didn't.

Last year at this same time, I was meeting a student in my office when  suddenly someone opened the locked door with a key (no warning knock) and started to enter. When they saw the room was occupied, they quickly hid behind the door (I couldn't see them), said whoops I just wanted to empty your trash and fled. In other words they weren't making their way down the hallway of offices, they came straight to mine and then left when they found me there. I reported it to my higher ups along with my observation that people seemed to be using my office through the years, was told that the appropriate departments had been notified that this was unacceptable and that it wouldn't happen again.

Yesterday, I was coming to my office from class to meet with a student (she was behind me and saw the whole thing). When I opened my locked door I found a woman lying on the (tiny) couch looking at her phone. I was dumbfounded and asked what she was doing there—-this was my office not a break room. She jumped up and apologized, said no one told her and then left. I notified my chair and another admin.

Folks, I was livid—-alternating between enraged and scared. Shaky and ruminating all day long. Driving home  I wanted to either burn the entire office down, strip it of any furniture but a table and chair, or quit my job. Clearly I'm triggered. I have had similar reactions when for example an hotel mistakenly issued duplicate keys to my room (ie they double booked it) and a mother and daughter entered the room while I was there alone. They were perfectly nice, it wasn't their fault, an innocent mistake etc etc. But afterward I was shaky and on the edge of a panic attack for about 6 hours.  And yes, I can see these are outsized reactions so the past is bleeding into the present. I have been using all my calming techniques to get through this.

But moving forward, I want to take some middle of the road action. I'm thinking of either asking that the lock be changed and that only me, my department head, and head of facilities have access (instead of it being a space accessible to anyone with a master key). Or alternatively giving the space a makeover so I feel more comfortable there—-removing all things that make it attractive as an unofficial break room (my own couch and microwave) and spending my own money to make it a sparser but nicer and more functional space.

The first option requires me to be assertive and insistent with supervisors (to ask for something totally outside of policy) and the second to spend more of my own money than I should have to. I anticipate pushback from my employer—-technically this is "my" office but I don't think I can actually control who has access. And my spouse is not all that sympathetic of my desire to redo the space ($$). There was some "I hope you can get over this soon" last night that was difficult to hear.

So, I guess I'm trying to figure out if these really are "too much to ask"—-I want to feel safe in my work space and I realize this situation is triggering my own stuff. Relying on others to help doesn't seem to be working (core belief popping up there) and I feel like I want to act (in a measured way) to stop this from happening rather than just working on my feelings.

Thoughts?

Wow, that's major!! Once I've opened a tab it's hard for me to not just fall into researching/ info gathering. Having the space to make a different decision is awesome. Good for you! 

Thanks, Dalloway, Chart, and blueberry for your comments—-I really appreciate the support!! 

May we both experience deep rest and peaceful sleep soon, lostwanderer!! My weekend was a nice reprieve but now that the week has started up again, sleep is iffy. 

I've had to work really hard not to make everyone's else's problems and feelings my own and for me anyway that comes from having an NM. In order to be safe I would take care of her feelings and issues which she loved but it left me ruminating about her constantly instead of focusing on my own life.

In the past I've even found it difficult here not to get caught up in members' issues...

I so relate to this, Kizzie! Definitely a very ingrained pattern for me and related to caretaking of my mentally ill mother when I was far too young. And it's strange how it can mess with healing spaces too—I really want to be around people who get it, AND I need to take care of myself even more. This is why I find working in groups/support groups so hard.