Woke Up Triggered - Help

[BlueMoon_]

To be honest, I have been feeling pretty awful all day today. I woke up with this panicky doom feeling in my chest, like I am on the verge of a panic attack. I get this every once in a while and it sucks every time.

I kept getting intrusive thoughts about something that has been bothering me for a while. I have had suicidal thoughts about it because it feels so hopeless.

Every time I got a thought about it the panic feeling would come back. It made it hard to think straight.

Anyway, all day I tried various things to calm myself, like exercises my therapist gave me to regulate my nervous system, and self massage, and exercising, and ignoring the thoughts. Now I am calmed down more but not completely.

Can anyone relate to feeling like this? How do you cope/get un-triggered?

[Armee]

I'm sorry. It's really hard to get through those periods of time. I'm really proud of you for keeping on trying the exercises. 

I do unfortunately relate. Luckily it happens less often now than it used to and lasts for less time.

Keep on practicing the things that seem to help a little. Keep on processing with your therapist. It's a slow process. It isn't that you aren't doing something right or aren't doing it enough. It just takes time and lots of practice to settle the whole system down.

Finding ways to really remind yourself and feel safe is super helpful to really truly orient you to the present. Identifying that what you are feeling is from the past has been really helpful for me.

I've also had a lot of luck recently doing neurofeedback focused on the vagus nerve. It's helped me feel safer and calmer and has helped me be able to breathe and calm down. I haven't tried the various exercises designed to activate the vagus nerve at home but you can do some searches for those and see if any seem to make a difference. It's probably the best thing I've found in 7 years of trying things.

Keep on hanging in there. It can get better, just not quickly. Truly just keep reminding yourself the difference between the past and present. Logically you know, but there are parts in there that are still reacting like you are still living in trauma.

I hope you feel better tomorrow. 

[Trust]

  it's hard to know how to say this so please accept it as genuine sorrow for what you're going through.  I've woken up triggered most mornings and battle with myself as to whether I'm really going to wake up and get out of bed.  It can take hours. Something I've learned to do is to literally talk outlook to what I'm feeling including to the past of my body I sense is most involved. I.e. I simply say I can tell you feel sad, scared, panic etc. And it seems like it's showing up on my throat, belly etc. I want to help even if I don't know everything.  Feel free to share with me. I will keep it safe.  It seems to calm my body down and then being silent for a bit and putting my right hand on my heart. Sometimes it calms down a bit but then rises again.  Just repeat it until you can feel a shift to calm in your body. You may or may not get a sense of what's going on but don't be surprise if it occurs to you in your mind someone afterwards or sometimes the past of screaming out just needed some love and comfort for the moment.  It has helped me wake up without sweating and wanting to die and also when I get panic impulses in my body for no visible reason. It's like Armee shared this is slow going stuff and growing into patience with our pain and fears. Peace to you.