Thanks to the effects of compound trauma on the brain, my resources for many things I used to enjoy have been quite limited for years. Most of my resources for social encounters are used for visits with my doctors. There’s little left for personal relationships.
Of course, for me, that means the disappearance of many former relationships, particularly since I’m also disabled from traveling to see people and from hosting them.
My social circles have become quite reduced through the indescribable isolation our culture creates for those of us whose nervous systems have been deeply harmed by those who abuse their positions of power, especially in the guise of caregiving.
The social safety network I built over decades was shredded the ravages of psychiatric and medical abuse and neglect. My capacity to feel safe and to connect with others and even with animals and nature was deeply damaged.
Adding to and compounding my accent trauma was that of being bereft of connection with nervous systems around me. Of course, the coming of the pandemic was part of that. It compounded the trauma and widened the chasm between me and all other living beings.
Isolated, virtually bedridden, barely able to function enough to stay clean and get some food, my nervous system was so depleted I’m certain I would have died if I hadn’t understood exactly what was happening and why.
I was dying of hypercritical allostatic load caused by a lifetime of too much cruelty and contempt, particularly at the hands of caregivers and other abusers in positions of power. Neurophysiologically, this combination is the most potent neurotoxin made by human beings. They make it with their bodies because they are dysregulated.
The antidote is sufficient psychosocial support, particularly in the form of attunement, compassion, and empathy. These are particularly potent from the hands of caregivers and others in positions of power.
Most egregiously, I was also deprived of that. My primary care physician and my psychologist were so triggered by the idea that their patient might die they couldn’t recognize that they were contributing to that equation in their denial of my lived experience.
The physician and the psychiatrist each did exactly the wrong thing for my condition and needs. They replicated the dynamic that caused the problem in the first place: deny my reality per their authority, for their personal comfort. This is highly toxic to any nervous system and particularly so to one that’s already near death. It’s like they were trying so hard to protect themselves it didn’t matter if they were also pushing me into the grave.
But something in me refused. I decided to stay and fight. Fight for my life one last time. Fight for the victims of poisonous psychiatry and deadly medicine. Fight for justice where there has been none. Fight for a culture designed to foster widespread human thriving rather than the insatiable greed of the few at the top.
Seven years after the psychiatric abuse, 6 years after the surgical abuse, I still fight to regain my former social engagement network, the parts of my brain and nervous system that allow me to engage and enjoy social interactions of all kinds. As much as I love people my tolerance my capacity to be around them is limited. Especially if there are a lot of them or it’s noisy in the room. As much as my capacities have increased, most things are still very hard for me. Private messages are among the hardest. And so, I continue to struggle due to chronic lack of necessary psychosocial support. This is what America does to trauma survivors.
