Hypercritical allostatic load spiraled me nearer to death each day and my two prime providers dismissed my concern.” My body says I might not make it,” I told them. I knew this was afferent information from the nervous system, telling me I was in grave danger.
“You’re just hungry,” my PCP proclaimed, having asked no question about my lived experience. She heard the word “shaky” and made a quick assumption and diagnosis during a telehealth visit.
“That’s just one of your parts,” my then therapist asserted, without allowing exploration of the supposed part. When I brought it up again, she broke down crying, “I guess I just don’t have the bandwidth!”
Fortunately, I had long studied the neurobiology of trauma and had found “The Distortions of Life Force” chart. This helped me understand my predicament. I was stuck in the top left corner. Unfortunately, even this beautiful diagram could not resolve my providers’ certainty and lack of curiosity, a very bad combination.
Abandoned by my supposed caregivers, I was on my own and near death again, as I often was in childhood. I knew from experience and Relational Neuroscience that, “focused attention is our superpower,” so I focused my attention on not dying, a skill I developed early.
I barely made it through, and spent months focused on recovery, hardly able to function. Again, my providers would not believe my lived experience. Denial of the lived experience makes trauma worse. And it has been the number one impediment to my recovery.
I ditched the psychologist for a NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM) therapist, which was far more in line with my needs. A year after the primary physician abandoned me I finally had the energy to find a new PCP. Practitioners who can’t believe what a person says about their lived experience in their bodies are terrible for people with trauma. They cannot help, only cause more harm. NEXT!
