Listening to our bodies

Stress can surface in our bodies in many ways and it's only through listening to our bodies, understanding the physical, mental and emotional cues that we can detect when stress is adversely affecting us.

Sometimes these cues can be really subtle: a patch of dermatitis that won't respond to treatment, irritability with loved ones, disproportionate responses to experiences or a numbness to things which we usually find really enjoyable.

Even when you know the cues your body gives you, over time, our cells are regenerating, neural pathways are shed and new ones are created and so stress finds new ways to scare the shit out of us.

(Did you know that our body reacts to stress like it's a foreign body? The brain literally triggers the creation of proteins to seek out and find where the foreign body is and when it can't find any, it turns into a toxin which causes inflammation in the body.)

Sometimes, our bodies whisper and if we don't join the dots or feel trapped and unable to free ourselves from the things which make us miserable, our bodies will change tack and starting shouting.

For me, my body used to have a foolproof way of scaring the hell out of me and my loved ones. I suffered "Drop Attacks". I would usually get a feeling of wanting to go somewhere quiet and alone, and then with no one about, I would violently convulse. The experience wouldn't usually last too long; a few seconds maybe. Sometimes, if I was in a really bad place, I could get a cluster of them at once. I only ever passed out once in public and it was a good one; on a tramline in Amsterdam. My wife and best friend somehow got me back to the hotel. It was so embarrassing. I felt so ashamed.

I lived it with it for probably about 10 years and then things changed. I remembered a memory my subconscious hid from me and the drop attacks stopped and instead I had all the classic Chronic PTSD symptoms of flashbacks, disorientation and irritability. I spent 6 months on sleeping pills just so that I could get some rest at night.

Slowly, over time, I explored the sensations in my body and tied it back to the trauma I suffered earlier in my life. I started to understand the cues that my body was giving me to process things that I found stressful. I used sound to help me relax when nothing else seemed to work and to help me explore those darkest of experiences on my own. I treated the PTSD and disregarded the drop attacks because I regarded it as Unmanifested PTSD.

In fact the drop attacks are part of another condition that is now called FND (Functional Neurological Disorder)*. Rather than being an issue with the physical structure of the nervous system like epilepsy, strokes and MS, it's a problem with the way the brain functions; it's like having an issue with the operating system rather than the actual hardware. It's also not that uncommon; it affects about as many people in the UK as MS or Parkinsons.**

Last month I had my first drop attack in over 10 years. Only unlike before when every medical professional thought I had epilepsy, it went down as a mini-stroke (TIA). The cues had changed. The impact and intensity was far, far worse than anything I'd encountered before. It left me paralysed on one side for over 2 hours and took me days to recover physically. When the paramedics arrived, they opened my left eye and just saw one massive pupil and no iris. But worse than all the symptoms it made me question whether I had anything else left in my tank of trauma that I needed to explore further.

The reality is that it only occurred after several months of intense stress in my full-time job.

We all have our breaking points, even when we're doing all the right things like regular meditation, exercise and diet. It doesn't mean we're broken though; it just means that our bodies have given up whispering to us and have instead started shouting. In my case, I had a couple of things which hit my biggest triggers at once on top of when all of my relaxation practices were only just about keeping me afloat.

I don't create these meditations and relaxing experiences because I have all the answers. I create them out of my own necessity to keep myself healthy and if one of them can help someone else, then for me, it's a bonus (albeit it a pretty big bonus which I find it hard to put into words how good that makes me feel).

If you've had a setback in your life which you've gotten over and then something comes along some years later and knocks you for six, it doesn't mean you're broken again. It's just like a sports injury; you sprain an ankle, you heal and get on with life and and then something happens and you sprain it again. It's just a reminder than we're all human, doing what humans do; living life, getting knocked down but then getting up again.

None of us are perfect. We can only practice.

I see the experience as a pre-cursor for more meaningful change; enough of using techniques to give me some relief in between suffering. There has to be something more fundamental that changes from here, I just need to figure out what and how. And when the question of what do I need to do is too great, then the question becomes, what do I need to leave out or reduce in my life so that I can make more meaningful change take place.

I feel fairly uncomfortable with yet another acronym and the world doesn't seem short of people who disregard conditions and letters out of pure ignorance, but the condition is disproportionately known compared to how many people actually suffer with it and it's something you live with for life and for which the only treatment is a combination of therapies. Sufferers can spend years feeling alone and ashamed like I have done, so I hope this helps someone else.

The positive in this for me has been in that however uncomfortable it has been to talk about it, it has been nice to feel the support of so many people and I'm very grateful for all the kind words. Thank you.

If you or anyone you know has been affected by anything I've mentioned here, there is a charity aimed at supporting people with FND: https://www.fndaction.org.uk/.

*FND was previously called NEAD (Non-epileptic attack disorder), Pseudo-seizures or PENS

**More information on FND symptoms and treatments can be found here.