Session 2

Transcript:

0:01

I used.

To throw up whenever I was overwhelmed with anxiety.

But when that was happening, I didn't have the words for what anxiety?

Was I was 3 or 4?

It started when I was.

In nursery school.

At the YMCA didn't like being around people there.

0:21

Was a pool in the YMCA and once a week we would go.

Swimming and I was.

Terrified of swimming, so, especially those days.

I was prone to throwing up, to disrupting the class, to causing a scene.

0:42

Scenes of tiny children disgusted with me, frustrated teachers and.

A lot of emptiness because nobody seemed to know.

0:58

What to do with me?

Was it for attention?

Was it to be disruptive?

But I would sit and cry.

I would just sit and cry.

I remember.

This one instance, and I brought this up in therapy when we were creating the trauma timeline for EMDR I talked about.

1:20

Must have been a Friday, a swim day and we had to.

Go down the stairs to the swimming pool.

And I just couldn't take it.

I couldn't take it.

The feeling of the anxiety of being so overwhelmed was so it just it was.

1:40

All consuming that while we.

As a class lined up to go down the stairs, I threw up all over the stairs.

It was a tile lined staircase, small, narrow.

1:57

Only, you know, single file line down, in and out, just no space.

And I remember the screams from the other kids when the smell of vomit hit hit them.

2:14

And I remember sitting on the.

Stairs and crying, and I remember being yelled at by the teachers frustrated.

With this scenario that had played out again and again.

It's going to take long after that for the teachers.

2:31

To speak with my mom about my behavior about these.

Issues and instead of being comforted, I was removed from preschool.

I actually have a friend to this day.

Who was in preschool with me?

2:47

Who remembers this?

Because she remembers her, like, being traumatized by that whole.

But what she also?

What lets me know is that the.

Teachers were mean, she remembers.

Being pushed and pulled on and hugged at by these teachers whenever the kids weren't agreeable.

3:07

And what do you expect?

3:00 and 4:00 year olds to listen, do you expect?

That it's funny because now I'm a mother of myself and I have a four year old and I have these flashbacks of when I.

3:27

Bring him to school and he's not.

And I can tell he just doesn't want to go.

He just doesn't want to do it that day.

And I try not to see me and him because I know that we're different and he's his own person.

But there are times I can't separate that.

3:43

Feeling, and I leave upset because he wasn't that.

Agreeable going in.

But I do know that we're different.

We're not the same people.

My son is the most social person I have ever met and has forced me in against my better judgment to be more social for his benefit too.

4:12

But I remember telling my therapist this story.

And her acknowledging her, letting me know that it wasn't my fault, that there should.

Have been an adult there.

4:28

To let me know that it was okay.

But I went a good actually.

I'd say the majority of my life with these.

Feelings, being overwhelmed, being nauseous, constant.

4:46

Tunnel vision just.

Overwhelmed with everything in second grade, I cried.

Every day.

Most days I cried every day.

And I had to teach her.

Send me to the nurse, because I was a.

I would go to the nurse and I would sit there until I felt a.

5:05

Little bit better.

Sometimes she would let me call my mom, and my mom would, you know, talk me off of this ledge that this sad. 2nd grader constantly.

Was looking over and I would wait until I felt a little bit better and I don't know exactly what.

5:24

Was triggering these feelings.

I just.

Couldn't control them.

I couldn't focus well in class.

I couldn't understand how to.

Communicate and play with my peers I've had.

5:43

Few friendships over the years.

And when I hold on, When I make a friendship, I hold on.

I hold on too tight because the effort that.

Goes into making a friendship.

Takes so much out of me and The thing is I.

6:00

Never saw My parents have friends I remember in high school.

Just being frustrated with my situation and I went to my mom and I'm like, I just need new friends.

Like how do I make new friends?

And making friends in school didn't seem possible at that point.

6:17

Not when you're, you know, 1415.

It's like the clicks were already.

Made the groups were already.

Set and there was no crossing lines and my mom was just said, well you just go make friends.

My dad offered nothing and I left.

6:36

More frustrated than going into that question, so to this day I still have.

Those same friends, which is such a privilege at this point to have friends that.

6:54

Span your entire life.

And if it wasn't for them, it's such a.

A huge distinction that I see.

When I look at my brother's life, or what Sky's life was like, like I held on tight to the people.

7:17

That knew me best.

My brother and sister never.

Formed such friendships never later in life Sky.

I found some friends in college and I'm sure they meant the world to her.

7:40

It was.

The first time I remember seeing her open up and grow there was a good.

An unprompted smile that was just on her face whenever I saw her, but I also.

8:02

Don't know how well they knew her.

I don't know how well she knew herself.

I wish.

She was around so we could talk about our childhood, so I can.

8:22

Better understand.

You know what she was feeling?

What?

She needed and what wasn't provided to her.

Because I know that my parents did the best that they could, but there were.

8:49

Emotional needs that just were not met and something I want to make clear is that when I went and have been going to therapy and.

Trying to get help, I don't place blame.

On anybody.

9:06

You can have a duality.

You can be angry with certain aspects of your life.

And the people that.

Were there or not there, you can be angry about that, but you can also still love them.

9:23

You.

Can and have to live with.

That kind of duality, it can be both.

I don't understand the need or the desire to be labeled.

To fit into certain categories or, you know, labels.

9:43

It just it leaves you pretty shallow.

If I'm in my opinion because there's depth.

To relationships and some will grow, some will deepen, and some will fade.

10:03

And there will be if you have somebody that is with you.

For years, relationships.

All relationships will go through.

Different phases and it's expected.

10:21

And you can't be mad when people grow and when people need to change, so going back.

To my issues early on with extreme anxiety and the physical feeling of, you know, needing to throw up and the tunnel vision, the unfocused behavior.

10:54

When I talked about this in EMD, RI actually scored this, probably higher and Skye's disappearance.

I scored it.

At like an 8 and I think about it all.

11:11

The time, but I've given it space because you need to, even if you don't understand entirely why you felt that.

11:34

Way and what was going on, because I can't really place what would make me have felt that way as a three-year old.

But I remember the feelings that I remember the intensity.

That intensity has never left me, but that fear was so.

11:56

Consuming more so than anything else, but as I.

Went through school, I had adopted methods basically due to.

12:12

The shame of that kind of behavior, of the crying, of the throwing up, just because I.

Couldn't not be afraid.

I learned to control it.

And I learned to.

12:31

Blend in and hide and fade away.

I did really good in school.

Once I figured out how.

I did really.

To work within the system, I would go into class.

I would see homework written on the board and that's what I would do.

12:50

I would take the time that was given to me in class and look ahead.

Read ahead.

Look to the back of the chapter.

Read all the.

Questions that were being asked of me and then I knew where to how, knew how and where to find the answers you look for bold.

13:09

Word, words and bold and you look for keywords and phrases.

I would take snapshots of in my mind of what the pages.

Were and how the?

Books were formatted and I.

13:30

Never missed a homework assignment, but the truth is I also never listened in class.

I was able to pass all the tests because I understood.

The format and the formula and I competed with myself and I would reward myself with an A and if I didn't get an A that would be fine, but I would figure.

13:53

Out a way to get an, A and I'd figure out.

And I would use that feeling of success and then pair it with a successful.

Day that I didn't cry and I used that same emotion and I learned how to self soothe and cope.

14:10

I learned this early on.

It was probably 3rd or 4th grade.

When I learned how to.

I guess gamify school and I did really good because I taught myself.

But unfortunately, what this did, what this did Learning how to just skirt.

14:38

The rules and work within the system or kind of beat it, you you force yourself to just kind of fade away.

Because you're doing good, you're not disrupting the class.

14:57

You're you look like you're smart, and maybe it is smart.

I don't know.

I think the verdict's still out, but it helped.

15:17

Me change.

My focus shifted off of how.

I was feeling constantly and it gave me purpose to see where.

I was going, but the truth is, it was.

An avoidance tactic I still felt that way.

15:33

I still felt overwhelmed with.

Anxiety when things were shifted.

When something came up that was unexpected, sometimes the unexpected and the chaos was a place where I thrived.

Because I was on, I could focus.

15:49

But when things we're shifted.

Just slightly not in a way that I wanted.

It caused the.

Disruption and the anxiety flooded in.

But I learned.

16:08

I learned to cope with that and I would cry sometimes in.

Secret when I was overwhelmed, careful not to let teachers or other.

Students know because I just.

Didn't want to focus on me.

16:23

I didn't want that feeling amplified.

I was in control and I had to be.

The one to make it better because.

I already knew that nobody else was going to be there for me the way that I needed, I learned.

That early on as.

16:40

A three-year old in preschool and something that I think about a lot too, being a mom.

And going through those experiences and having really, really intense, unregulated feelings at that age.

I'm very careful of.

17:00

How I approach my own son.

Because if I can remember what happened to me as a child, I know he's fully aware of what's happening to him now.

And I trust him.

I trust him in a way that I wish somebody trusted me.

17:24

I think that's the best I can do.

You trust and you give space to the people you love.

You let them feel and you let them be, and you encourage them to speak to you, you.

Teach them the words that they need to know but you hold.

17:44

Back when they're not ready either.

17:56

So as I discussed this preschool.

Situation with my therapist.

She had me meditate on it, had me picture myself as a child, as that child.

18:13

And then also me as an adult and what I would do for that child.

Had I been there and we spent time there, we.

Sat in it.

18:31

And I felt those feelings again, but with all the time that has passed and all the other experiences that I have.

Lived through, I was able to focus.

18:53

And gain control and take that little girl out of that situation.

19:10

Eventually.

When we talked about the level.

Of the intensity of the feelings that I felt.

In that moment, with me as a little girl on the stairs throwing up, being scared to swim, being scared of everything, I was asked how I felt about it after.

19:36

Sitting in it after.

Letting those feelings wash over me and absorbing it and crying about it.

And then I gave it a three because it it's never not going to be gone.

19:59

Every feeling has to have an origin story, and I'm still learning the origins of some of my my feelings.

20:16

But I learned that I could help myself.

I learned that I could.

Help a younger version of myself too, and that helped.

I can't control or change the past.

20:35

Or the intensity in which I felt all of my feelings and fears.

But I can live with them, and I will live with them because it's me and there's nothing wrong with that.

21:19

This is therapy, notes Session 2.