Tag Archives: ptsd

Fear of Being Seen

facing fear

At some point I realized that I was terrified of going on stage at seminars as a demo. The fear was dominant and so, I avoided going up as a seminar participant.

Now that I have been onstage as an instructor and feeling scared but centered, then more comfortable, I am beginning to look more deliberately at this fear. Turns out, after some inner dialogue, that I am afraid of being seen. “What would happen if I was seen?”, I say to myself. I’m afraid I would be taken. I would disappear. This brings back the memory of being on my bike and being run off the road and kidnapped. If I hadn’t been seen, I wouldn’t have been taken. I feel fear, then hear John’s voice “let yourself be taken”. Yikes! After some thought and being so, so tired of being afraid, I am open to letting myself be taken, however that comes about; not knowing where that will go.

My diaphragm contracts, yet I put my words out on the MFR chatline in hopes of creating momentum in doing what I fear … being seen.

What does John say about day 2 of unwinding class? Chaos. With chaos surrounding me, I could feel myself slipping into an old familiar place of disconnection. But instead of getting lost in my old patterns, I pulled myself into the present long enough to be aware of what I was actually feeling. Then anxiety would overwhelm me and not wanting the expression of that to come out, I would do things to distract me from feeling. I could feel it building inside though. It wanted to come out. It wanted to be free.

Day 3 of unwinding class – integration of my goals. I reach out to the chat line, asking for help and receiving it. I was not expecting that. I mentioned to Dave at breakfast that I had posted on the chat. He said “I know”. I said, “oh shit”. I had not expected anyone at the seminar to be reading posts. Then, while we are walking between tables instructing, he purposely bumps into me. “Sorry, I didn’t see you.” He gives me a few more intentional bumps. Yeah Dave, I read you loud and clear.

Part way through a rotation of a three person unwinding at the tables, as I was walking between them, I came to a path that crossed John’s. I stopped. I knew our paths would cross. Hesitation. Avoidance. I waited for him to pass, then looked out on the tables to feel where I was needed next. Unexpectedly, I felt John’s arm wrap around me from the side, gripping me tightly. I was caught off guard. “I see you”, he said. I became aware my solar plexus was tight. He placed his hand on it. “You can soften now” he said. A wall comes down. I begin breathing deep and fast. “Don’t control your breathing”, he says. I let it go where it wants. Another wall comes down. He gives me permission to go with it. “Find a place to sit down”, he says. “Don’t worry about the tables.” I walk, wandering; feeling my way to where my essence needs to take me. I am being taken.

My essence takes me to the side of the stage where I sit. Then the thaw happens. Crying, shaking, then a feeling of coldness leaves me. I cough violently; gagging on nausea rising up. I let the feeling go through me again and again. John comes over and puts his arm around me again. “You are having a quantum shift”, he says. “Stay with it.” He leaves and I go on. The physical responses subside and I am stood up by my essence. I walk a circuitous path which takes me to the back of the room. Then it says “leave now”, so I do. I walk out the door into the lobby. I walk right up to a mirrored door and look into myself. My eyes look old and dark. I begin to cry. Seeing myself cry without looking away I look ugly. I hear a door opening from the seminar room and I panic and walk towards a distant washroom. I walk in and there is also a full length mirror in there. I look into myself again. Same ugly crying. Then, I soften my focus and step back. Still crying, I look beautiful. Which one is real? Both. Neither. I let the waves of crying come, continuing to look. Curious.

I walk back into the seminar room. John is reading The Scared Little Boy and the Warrior. I feel the words – they sting. So familiar is the warrior. So familiar is the scared little boy. Then he reads the final sentences:

“The boy frightened and in tears stepped from behind the wall,

not sure of what to do he looked frantically around.

Then he heard the Warrior whisper.

“Be yourself and you’ll be fine.”

Tears rolled down his face,

as he watched the warrior die.

But the warrior smiled as he watched the boy begin to live.”

My body begins to tingle and grow warmer. I want to live too. Out from behind the wall.

Dave and I then pair up for the two person seated unwinding. I go first. I start sitting, then push myself to standing slowly. Anger erupts and Dave is there with a pillow. I walk into it, pushing hard. My voice yells loud and deep. I am pushing my kidnapper away. Then with a final shove I turn and walk away. I walk away from my past. I walk away and my fear of him is left behind. I keep walking and my essence takes me to the stage again. Right before I get there I stop. The gravity of walking away from my past hits my fearful self. Am I ready? The urge to move forward is too strong for my fear and I start walking again onto the stage; right to the table and I stand in front of it. More emotion comes up and I let it go through me. In the dark, I can see the crowd of people clearly. I rotate my body to one side, then the other and notice how little range I have. My world is not much beyond a set of blinders. My peripheral vision is a place of fear. The place where the car came up to me on my bike and ran me off the road. I stay up there until the waves of fear dissipate and I become calmer standing and looking out at the crowd. I am more comfortable there now. I leave the stage.

Next, the group does an on the floor self unwinding followed by an inner journey. My body is moving freer. Emotion and sound is coming more easily than ever before. I hear more words than I have ever heard when John talks us through the inner journey. A little girl appears to me and takes my hand. The younger me. She is smiling and happy. She whispers in my ear “I’m ok. You can rest now.” I see myself outside of myself. I see the little girl looking on the older me with compassion and innocent joy. I see her looking down at the older me like a child comforting an adult. She is perfectly confident and undisturbed by what she sees in me. I realize that I am not hurting her by having her see me like this. I relax and let her take me. I hear John say “find what you are passionate about”. The little girl, still leading me by the hand, sits me at a table. She puts a pen in my hand. She wants me to write. My left arm begins to tingle; it gets stronger and stronger. I am shaking all over. Waves of tremors move through me. I don’t want to do what she is asking, but the innocence of her request is too much to ignore. The feel of her holding the pen in my hand and the calm joy in her request are burned into my body memory. It is too strong to ignore.

Later that night, as the instructors are having dinner, I am feeling all kinds of sensations I have never felt before. I take the time to notice the feeling of each one. Remembering. John asks “are you all right or are you still processing?” I am both.

Still later into dinner, I look at John’s profile beside me. I think, ‘I can’t believe I’m here’. I did not think I would be alive to witness this moment. I could not believe I was sitting, looking at the profile of the man who started me on my path to living. Waves of gratitude washed through me. How do I thank him for that. It is so big. How do I thank John for saving my life? The tears come now as I write this. Feel this John. Feel my gratitude. See me living. See me free. See me sharing my experience in my writing and speaking. This is what I am here to do.

Thank you John. I love you.

I Belong

sis and me

Back in 2009, about two years into my new career as a massage therapist, my sister and I attended our first myofascial release seminar together. My sister introduced me to John Barnes Myofascial Release back in 2004, hoping it would help me heal. It did more than that – it gave me my life back. Attending a seminar together meant a lot to both of us, but it was tough. As a patient, turned therapist, I was now in her territory. This was her career, not mine. She is an amazing therapist and I was not coming into this career to one-up her. I was coming in to help people as I had been helped. We are both very good at what we do, in our own way. We are also very good together, now that we’ve reconnected.

Here’s what I wrote about my experience . . . and then read in class . . . with my sister sitting beside me.

***

Hi tribe,

I wanted to share a realization I had this morning on day 4 of the Advanced Unwinding course here in Sedona.

I have been doing this work as a therapist for 2 1/2 years now. My sister has been doing it for over 10 years. This seminar was the first one we have gone to together. Siblings all have a history and a story. . .

When my younger sister is talking on day one of the seminar, it feels very intense. I feel her anger towards me. I’m taking over her space as an MFR therapist; the thing she had that was her own and she was really good at. I sit beside her and make myself as small and quiet as I can. I’m afraid of her. I remember my perception of how angry she was when I was kidnapped – I left and didn’t come home. And when I did, I felt my whole family was angry. I came home physically, but really I never came home. I felt the anger and interpreted that as “you don’t belong”. I have been homeless. John asks the two of us to come up with goals – both individual and separate tonight. Mine is to come home and to reconnect with my sister.

Day 2 and 3 of the seminar, I am thinking I should speak up. Lots of people have come up to us and are relating to our sibling story. Hearing my sister speak and seeing me remain silent.

Half way through day 3, I start becoming very quiet again. I can feel myself getting smaller and quieter. I want to become invisible. We go to Therapy on the Rocks so my sister can receive a treatment. I wait on the waterfall deck. As invisible as I was trying to be, another seminar therapist (also an older sister), comes down and tells me she’s been watching me be so quiet – holding myself together. She sees my shell becoming tougher.

I confide that I feel I don’t deserve to take up space; I don’t deserve to take up people’s time by speaking in class. Old thoughts of suicide are coming up. Thoughts I thought were gone. I picture drowning myself in the hotel tub or hanging myself. This therapist brings me out of my shell enough to see what I am doing to myself.

That night, we go to bed and I wake up at 4 am. I go into the small feeling again. I get very small and feel the anger towards me. Then a moment of grace happens. I realize that my sister was not angry when I came home after the kidnapping. I realize that I had left such a giant, gaping hole in my family when I was gone, that their love had nowhere to go. They were sending it out like a calling card to me so I could come home. And when I did, my heart was so closed the love was bouncing off me and back at them. The love was so powerful that it created turbulence. That turbulence, I perceived as anger. Really, it was love in disguise.

I pictured the gaping hole I had left. It was really big. Geeze, I took up a lot of space. My family needed me to take up that space, so I could do my part to hold them together with me and now there was this whole and only a thin thread holding them together now. This is when I realized I belonged . . . I was essential to the whole.

I then had another realization, from my time in the hotel room with my kidnapper. I realized my willingness to comply with him – to be raped and sodomized – was me opening myself and letting his stored-up energy – flow through me. I learned afterward that his girlfriend had just broken up with him the day before. He was desperately trying to love her, but she wasn’t receiving. So he forced it on me. My ability to absorb this turbulent anger/love was not me being weak. In fact his energy was discharged and I know this is why he let me go and didn’t kill me. In my greatest moment of fear, I finally had the courage to open my heart. How wrong my perceptions had been.

Now, lying in bed in the hotel room in Sedona, I feel myself and the gaping hole I left. I feel myself filling the whole. I feel my whole body warming and tingling. I am coming home. I am home. I belong. I feel and see this whole – my family, embedded in a larger whole – my MFR family – and a still larger whole – it looks just like a fractal.

I hear John’s words “just stay with that”. And although it comes and goes and feels very, very raw, I will do just that, for as long as I can.

Thanks sis, for waiting for me to come home. You’re the best.

Love,

Patti
***

After I had read this to the class, my sister and I hugged and cried. John had the whole class join together and embrace us. The feeling was amazing. I will never forget the feeling of connection I had that day.

Thawing Trauma

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Photo taken “off trail” across the road from Therapy on the Rocks

Over the week I gradually feel more comfortable receiving treatments at Therapy on the Rocks. This comfort vanishes abruptly as I hear words come out of my therapist’s mouth that slap me clear across the face – “Rob will be in to see you shortly.” Wait a minute. Did she just say Rob? That’s a male therapist correct? My mind was quickly calculating. Something it loves to do. Shit, it had not occurred to me that there would be male therapists at the clinic. Duh. John’s a male therapist, what did you expect? Yeah, but I signed up for the two week treatments that didn’t include John. I was not ok with this. The only male who puts is hands on me is my husband. OK, before that there were boyfriends, but, this was neither of those. OK, there were the obgyn’s who delivered my daughters, but I wasn’t in my body then. How am I going to get in there and have him put his hands on me? All the familiar feelings of the rape came to mind. Fear enveloped me. My mind went blank. I felt helpless.

Rob knocks and says “is it ok if I come in?” “Yes”, I say on queue. He opens the door a crack. He says something like, “I could feel you not wanting me in here all the way down the hall.” Then adds, “if you don’t want me in here, I can have a female therapist come treat you”. His acknowledgment of my fear and giving me a choice softened me a bit. I thought of the money that had been spent to get me here and decided I would go for it. “You can stay,” I say. It is a real challenge, but he is very patient. He meets me where I am. He nudges and tests my barrier, but never invades it. I begin to feel the difference between past feelings of invasion and present healing occurring. I begin to sense what healthy touch by a man feels like. Tears still well up every time I read this sentence I have written. Yes, it is possible to feel healthy touch from a man that I am not married to. It is not bad. It is not invading. It can be received. I don’t feel it as love, but it feels productive to my healing. As the treatment goes on, I feel, with his touch and words, a deep, deep deadness in me. So cold and lifeless. I feel myself floating over myself looking down on me, dead. The treatment ends here.

Over the next two weeks, Rob becomes instrumental in thawing the deep freeze I have been in for the past sixteen years. With each nudge, he ignites a long lost memory of what safe male connection feels like. He never pushes. He simply waits at my barrier, nudges, then waits, tests, then waits. Then, one day, he gets up on the treatment table and stands over my prone, face down body. He holds onto my wrists and holds my arms back and out in a flying position. He holds at my physical barrier and never yanks on them. And I thaw. My arms feel weak. I let them feel weak. They start to shake. I feel a wave of shame. Heat begins to radiate out of me. I feel excruciating pain that begs to be expressed. Grunting sounds come out of my mouth. My teeth start to chatter. I feel my entire body is gripping onto my wrists, not wanting them to let go, but I let them. My arms and hands go further and further back. My chest opens up. I feel my shoulders go back and my arms get longer and longer. It is so hot in the room, Rob has to stop and open the window and dry off his hands and my wrists. Sweat is dripping off of me now. I am shaking and sweating and feeling under pain and opening wider and wider. The handcuffed position that I had been in for sixteen years feels less and less prominent. I feel a sense of freedom. Of lightness. I am shaking and sweating the heavy weight I have been feeling all these years right out of me. The sense of helplessness I felt in the group unwinding is being overshadowed by an entirely new feeling – power. It is subtle. Not the “I could kick the shit out of someone right now” kind. It is a flickering, stirring, subtle kind. Subtle but unmistakable.

**A word about the thaw response.**

When any animal, including a human, is being attacked, there are three automatic, built-in responses: fight back, flee, or, if not effective, freeze/play dead. The freeze response occurs automatically, when fight and flight are not effective or are not possible. Once the danger has passed, a natural thaw response occurs, which discharges the trapped fight/flight energy embedded in the tissues. Once thawed, the animal returns to its regular relaxed and alert state. The one it was in before being attacked. Humans don’t commonly allow this process to occur. Yet, many of us are walking around in the freeze state. If you have ever been anesthetized prior to surgery, the freeze response was present. Any kind of physical or psychological restraint, or a situation that felt life threatening, could also induce this response. The freeze response is automatic, however, the thaw response can be shut down if we tighten our bodies enough. Once in a safe environment and given permission to let go, humans will let their guard down, soften their bodies, and start to shake, sweat, cry, and breathe very deeply. The cycle will come and go in waves. Unfortunately, I don’t have a human example on video, but click here to view a polar bear thawing.

My First Myofascial Release Treatment

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John’s treatment room at Therapy on the Rocks

On the morning of my 36th birthday, I drive to the Myofascial Release Treatment Center, Therapy on the Rocks in Sedona, Arizona for my first ever myofascial release treatment. At this point, even though nothing else has worked to heal me and it all sounds good in a book, I still have my doubts. I am feeling like crap, but I know this is my best option. As I walk into the center, I look at the sign and think, “How ironic. I don’t feel any physical pain and I’m going to a pain treatment center.”

My first session is an intake with treatment for the remaining time. This is where, for the first time since writing my statement to police, I write down on paper that I was abducted and sexually assaulted. I write it this way because it sounds a little less horrible to me than being kidnapped and raped. I squirm a bit when the therapist reads and comments on this item. I don’t remember exactly what she said to me, but it took all my effort to hold in the tears. She understood my struggle intimately, yet we had only just met.

We then start treatment. She has me lie face up on the treatment table – a massage table. Her hands sink into my chest and I feel her inside it. I am caught off guard. No one has touched me this way before. No one has gotten past the wall I had put there. Not even my husband. This wall keeps everyone out. Somehow, I trust her completely. Not because of what she says to me, but how she says it, in combination with this new kind of touch. A deep, feeling connection has just been initiated. I have excellent radar for bullshit and there was no bullshit going on in her. She was genuinely connecting with a part of me I forgot I had. I named it somewhere in my journey as the essence of me. People have lots of names for that feeling. This is mine.

As she does a release of my head, neck and chest, I feel something, probably her arm, brush gently against my cheek. The gentleness of it is too much for my remaining wall to stand. In this deeply connected state, sobs escape me. Quiet ones, but the most spontaneous, heart wrenching sobs I had ever witnessed in myself. Gently, she says “that’s been in there a long time. ” Yes, it really fucking has. I hate that it’s coming out, yet at the same time, I feel tremendous relief. Thank god it’s out. She gently rolls me on my side, puts a pillow under my head and tucks me into a fetal position. She tucks a sheet around me and snugs me into an even tighter ball. It feels safe. Safer than I’ve felt in a long, long time. Then, she says: “Sometimes we need to be really tough. You’ve been really, really tough. You don’t have to be tough in here. Take as long as you need.” She leaves the room. Soft sobs come and go. It feels safe to do this. There’s no one to cover it up for in here. After my first treatment I knew this was the real deal and it was helping. My body and mind just knew.