{"id":7611,"date":"2023-02-15T13:30:12","date_gmt":"2023-02-15T18:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=7611"},"modified":"2024-01-01T14:57:21","modified_gmt":"2024-01-01T19:57:21","slug":"collapse-phase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=7611","title":{"rendered":"Collapse Phase"},"content":{"rendered":"

I knew I needed to ask a couple of people for some practical help: to deal with medical insurance and how to work my new phone. I wasn’t until I was terrified by the strange noise the phone made when I tried to call Jeff, that I understood that I was terrified to ask for help. This is a result of being made wrong for asking questions and for asking for help when I was very young<\/a>.<\/p>\n

From my journal for February 13<\/p>\n

I tried to call Jeff.\u00a0 T<\/span>he phone made a terrible squeaky noise.\u00a0 <\/span>So I called Reception to find out if the phones were working.\u00a0 <\/span>Nicole answered, said the number in the book was wrong.\u00a0 <\/span>I wasn\u2019t quite ready to call him, so I called Don Vogt and left a message.\u00a0 <\/span>I don\u2019t actually know if he can help with my phone.\u00a0 <\/span>After I hung up I burst into tears.\u00a0 <\/span>Don\u2019t feel capable of talking to Jeff.\u00a0 <\/span>Mocha left to drink some water and then went to her crate.\u00a0 <\/span>I feel rejected by everyone.\u00a0 <\/span>Well, I know that\u2019s not reality, that\u2019s the fear that is triggered.\u00a0 <\/span>Especially by asking for help.<\/p>\n

Can I talk to myself kindly?\u00a0 <\/span>There, there, dear.\u00a0 <\/span>You are badly triggered into a very young helpless state.\u00a0 <\/span>Trying to explain it to someone who doesn\u2019t know about trauma.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Writers\u2019 group in the evening:<\/p>\n

I want to write about what\u2019s going on for me, but I\u2019ve found it very hard to describe in words.\u00a0 <\/span>I was so exhausted for a couple of days I could barely function.\u00a0 <\/span>When I talked to my therapist about it she asked a lot of questions.\u00a0 <\/span>For example I talked about going to Rose to learn about the fitness machines.\u00a0 <\/span>She asked how important was learning something new?\u00a0 <\/span>How important was my sense of agency?\u00a0 <\/span>How helpful was Rose?\u00a0 <\/span>She asked if my tiredness was really boredom \u2014 I don\u2019t think so \u2014 or loneliness \u2014 I burst into tears.\u00a0 <\/span>Loneliness was a huge part of what was going on.\u00a0 <\/span>I don\u2019t have enough people in my life, not ones I have a comfortable relationship with and meaningful communication.\u00a0 <\/span>What about outings: theater? museums?\u00a0 <\/span>I used to go to theater, it\u2019s something I really enjoy, but I haven\u2019t been to anything since COVID.\u00a0 <\/span>What if I go out into the world?\u00a0 <\/span>I would be criticized or punished.\u00a0 <\/span>Erica said that I was dealing with the collapse phase of trauma, which happens when the reptilian brainstem concludes that you\u2019re going to die.\u00a0 <\/span>I remember seeing the video of a leopard chasing a herd of antelope-like creatures.\u00a0 <\/span>It was leaping for a young one, but before the leopard had even touched it, it collapsed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Notes from work with Erica:
\nWork with machines
\ndid something new in terms of working on osteoporosis \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>new = 70% \u00a0 <\/span>working = 85%
\nRose 90% helpful
\n[She asked me to tune in to each item and assess how helpful it was as a percentage]<\/p>\n

Getting up this morning lonely \u2014 95% \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>[I burst into tears]
\ntedious \u2014 95%
\nunsatisfying \u2014 95%<\/p>\n

Missing theater but feeling really scared.
\n\u201cExhaustion\u201d is more: loneliness, scared \u2014 COVID?\u00a0 <\/span>scary because…
\nGoing to theater \u2014 so scared \u2014 going to be attacked or made wrong \u2014
\nmakes me believe the world is unsafe.<\/p>\n

Looking back, I realized that the diagnosis of extreme osteoporosis was a shock.\u00a0 <\/span>I felt like my bones couldn\u2019t hold me up any more.\u00a0 <\/span>I started feeling wobbly when I walked.\u00a0 <\/span>I started feeling really isolated, disconnected.\u00a0 <\/span>When I couldn\u2019t see the waning gibbous moon on two mornings when there was blue sky with only a few clouds, I felt bereft.\u00a0 <\/span>I don\u2019t know why seeing the moon grounds me, but it does.<\/p>\n

There were two days when I managed to connect with people at dinner and felt a lot better and I thought I was pulling out of it, but then an empty day knocked me down again.\u00a0 <\/span>I realize that I\u2019ve been in the trauma vortex since COVID began and we were in lockdown.\u00a0 <\/span>I was comfortably numb during lockdown, in a state of freeze.\u00a0 <\/span>When we started eating together again, without masks, I remember feeling like I had been flat as cardboard and had suddenly filled out.\u00a0 <\/span>But then I went through a period of terror \u2014 flight. \u00a0 <\/span>[TIME!]\u00a0 <\/span>Had to raise medication and work hard with my therapist<\/a> on rescuing younger parts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I had hoped to write more, but time ran out \u2014 we write for 20 minutes in writing group \u2014 and two days later I can’t think well enough to continue. So I’m in a pretty tough place. All I can do is try to treat myself kindly and do the lovingkindness prayer.<\/p>\n

Trying to find a post where I talked about feeling three dimensional, I found one from May 2021<\/a>, which actually describes how I felt in lockdown so much better:<\/p>\n

Then, because of the social distancing, especially when in quarantine or when the whole community was in lockdown, I started finding it harder and harder to be alone. \u00a0Because I was traumatized by being left alone<\/a> as an infant, being too much alone can trigger feelings of being very isolated and helpless. \u00a0This has gotten worse and worse as the months went on, and finally I have started having episodes when I feel totally disconnected from everything and life is totally meaningless. \u00a0I also feel helpless to do things I need to do, like making appointments for medical checkups. \u00a0Even brushing Mocha has become difficult. \u00a0I don\u2019t feel \u201cterror through the roof\u201d which I have felt in the past, somehow this helplessness and meaninglessness feel worse. \u00a0I realize I simply can\u2019t explain it adequately in words.<\/p>\n

Then they started allowing us to have dinner together at small tables set far apart. Only a third of the community could do this at one time, everyone else had to get meals to take out. \u00a0After my first meal with four friends, eating together in the body, with masks off, I felt \u201cthree-dimensional.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But soon I began having too much trouble with terror, which I describe at the end of the timed writing.<\/p>\n

I feel like this post is somewhat cobbled together, maybe even doesn’t make a lot of sense. That’s a pretty good reflection of how my brain is working right now.<\/p>\n

A post that might help make sense of this is one on the Five Stages of Trauma<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I knew I needed to ask a couple of people for some practical help: to deal with medical insurance and how to work my new phone. I wasn’t until I was terrified by the strange noise the phone made when … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,11,4,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal","category-present-day","category-trauma","category-work-with-parts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7611\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}