20 Years of Pain, 18 Months of Clarity: C-PTSD, Toxic Shame, and a Frozen Diaphragm
I have c-PTSD, severe depression, and chronic pain. I remember that it all started in my childhood, around age 7 or 8. I often tried to explain to my mother that I needed help. She dismissed it as growing pains and never took me to a doctor. In general, my feelings were always "too much" and were seen as an attack, so I often had to fight just to be seen. From that point on, I learned to cope on my own.
At age 14, I was beaten up because of homophobia. Someone's fist suddenly hit my throat from behind, and I had been threatened on social media beforehand. When that incident happened, I went to my mother afterward. She said she didn't know what to do and kept smoking her cigarette with pleasure. My narcissistic brother just said I deserved it.
Three weeks later, the tension in my thoracic spine increased dramatically, and then the pain became constant.
At 21, I ended a relationship because of unexpected betrayal, and it threw me into a deep hole. I feel like I never processed it. Three weeks after the betrayal, the tension became so entrenched that it spread to my pelvis and my legs. I was treated for rheumatism for 7 years and even injected biologics. In a rehabilitation clinic, they found out I don't have anything rheumatic because I don't have pain at rest – my worst pain comes with movement. I stopped the medication, and since then I've been on disability because nothing works anymore.
I noticed that I can't breathe properly. When I exhale, my entire abdomen trembles. I have the feeling that the trauma is stuck in my diaphragm. When I'm around people, I'm always hypervigilant and it stresses me out so much that I've been living in isolation for 2 years.
I figured out that toxic shame keeps the nervous system in a state of chronic arousal. Anyone familiar with breathing and the nervous system should know that exhalation is associated with relaxation. When I exhale, I feel extreme pressure in my abdomen, in the extremely tense muscles of my thoracic spine, and the pain moves into my pelvis. It's the worst pain.
The body knows why it keeps this tension. If I never experienced safety, my body keeps the protection. "I am not allowed to exhale, because it's not safe here. I keep the tension in his diaphragm because we have to be on guard."
Yoga, meditation – none of it helps. Because the diaphragm is so central, it can't be stretched at all – it's very counterproductive. After stretching, I feel weakness and tingling in my limbs and in the tense areas.
Toxic shame is truly the worst feeling that causes and maintains chronic pain. I am the embodied horror.
It took me 15 years to make sense of this state because the perpetrators were in denial and I couldn't trust my own feelings. Today they lie and say they did everything for me. "There was food, haha." Emotional security?
Trauma therapy hasn't helped much so far.
To anyone with pain without a physical cause, I really recommend looking inside yourself. What do I think about myself? What was my childhood like? In 20 years of pain, it only clicked in the last 18 months, and I said goodbye to the idea that there was only a purely physical cause. It was hard for me to admit that, because my caregivers often denied my pain. As a result, I stopped trusting my own perception.
Similar experiences? Is there anyone who has somehow released their diaphragm without meditation, yoga, stress balls, mechanical methods, breathing exercises? None of that helps me.