Physical reaction to EF

[NarcKiddo]

I had to get some cases down from our attic today in preparation for an upcoming road trip.

My old schoolbag is up there, containing letters, photos etc from various periods of my life. I had decided some while ago that I would get it down and go through it next time I was in the attic. So today was the day.

There was loads of stuff in there from my boarding school years (age 11-17), letters from friends and family etc. That was interesting and did not trigger me at all. I didn't expect it to. Boarding school was intensely difficult for many reasons and I believed I missed my FOO. I probably did on some level due to enmeshment, but I was also safe from my FOO while at school.

But I found two school exercise books from when I was aged 8. The books themselves were not particularly interesting in terms of shedding light on me. One was a maths book and the other some sort of general studies book with bits and pieces of history, geography, science and what have you. The books were full of gold stars and 100% marks. That was no surprise - I knew what FOO expected of me.

However, the period from age 6 to 10 was the absolute worst of my life. As I went through the first book I suddenly felt a tightness in my chest and a sense of impending doom. I honestly thought I was about to have a heart attack so I put the book down and did some deep breathing. The feeling went away quite quickly. I was able to resume looking at the books with no further incident.

I did not feel emotionally triggered at any time, but I can only suppose that the feeling of doom was actually what it was like for me back then and those books reminded me.

[dollyvee]

Hi NK,

I think it makes sense that you could begin to feel that way at a reminder/link to that time. It's been discussed on the forum about the Bessel Van Der Kolk's, The Body Keeps the Score, where the body will hold onto memories even if we're not fully conscious of them. What you experienced could be 'somatic remembering,' or experiencing.

From my own experience, I know that I am/can be very cut off from my body (in certain ways), and existing rationally is probably how I survived (along with dissociation). I recently bought a somatic IFS book and had such a negative reaction (emotional) to the exercises, which helped me be more in my body, or look into what was going on in my body, that I stopped reading it. I've also had a lot of inexplicable things pop up when starting to process stuff. I mysteriously had a skin tag start leaking (sorry TMI probably!) when I first started IFS exercises. The doctor said it was probably my underwear even though I'd had the same pair for over a year and wore them regularly. I've broken out in a strange all over rash after chiropractic adjustment, which I thought was muscle tissue releasing toxins etc. But I wonder if it had to do with the energy work course I was on that weekend and the fact that it might have freaked out my parts in some way.

I'm learning now with dissociation that the reasons and why's for parts acting up can be very much hidden from our conscious selves. For me, it was after I asked to know the parts that "are running the show" that this dissociation stuff started to come up/be shown to me. If one also has preverbal parts they can show up as body sensations because our preverbal selves didn't have speech to communicate with.

Hope your road trip goes well,
dolly

[Bermuda]

NarcKiddo, what a very brave thing to do. I can't imagine being able to do that. More than sad that I have no things to look back on, I feel glad. When the last token was taken from me, a journal, I felt intense sorrow, but then sudden relief. I was a new person. I can't even imagine what it must feel like to have those things in the attic, knowing they are there. I think I would feel dread. It's very brave.