Safety First

“The single most important issue for traumatized people is to find a sense of safety in their own bodies.” Bessel van der Kolk

“If you aren’t thinking safety, you just aren’t thinking!” My husband

Air travel can be unpredictable. You never know if you will face long line ups, be overbooked, delayed by weather or have a crazy person sitting next to you on a 14 hour transatlantic. Ugh! I suspect most of us have experienced the dubious nature of today’s skyways. One thing that does not change, however, is the safety announcements. Many a joke has been made of the flight attendants pointing to the window exits, fastening the fake seatbelts and demonstrating the tuck position for an emergency landing. (If you haven’t seen it, British Airways created their own comedic take on the safety video featuring Mr. Bean and a variety of famous faces that is worth a YouTube view.) The safety announcements are mandated by law and the plane can not take off until they have been completed. When it comes to air travel, safety has to come first.

Let’s back up maybe seven or eight years ago, to when I first I started to explore the role of trauma in the development of chronic illness. I was hearing a lot of buzz around the idea of cell danger response, limbic system impairment, and physical manifestation of emotional issues. I can’t say I was sold on the idea but I am, by nature, super curious, so I grabbed one of the books being talked about - “The Body Keeps the Score” by Bessel van der Kolk. Should you not have had the opportunity to peruse it just yet, I suggest you grab a hold of a copy ASAP. If I were stuck on a desert island and could bring only one of my rather copious amounts of neuroplasticity books with me, this would be the one. It is accessible to read, incredibly compassionate, insightful, and inspiring. I could literally underline every other sentence!

Dr van der Kolk is a pioneer in the world of trauma research and the recognition that trauma lives INSIDE the body. He proposed the idea that our internal structures do not forget the past but the events live on inside the person who experienced them. Since trauma takes us out of the present moment and keeps us stuck in the anguish, rage and terror of the past, our bodies feel as if the trauma is happening on repeat. Over time this additional pressure on the body, physically and emotionally, can lead to a variety of health issues including the so called “invisible” illnesses like FM/ME/CFS, mental health concerns such as depression and anxiety, relationship challenges and so on. Trauma could be overt and obvious – what is often called Big “T” Trauma (such as child abuse, combat fatigue, sexual assault or violence) but can also be more subtle – or what is referred to as little “t” trauma (like issues in school or relational rejection). It is hard to get to adulthood without having some form of trauma that has impacted our systems!

I found this new understanding of trauma to be so applicable in my life. As a teenager, young adult, wife, and mom, I was not aware of how my system was so attuned to a sense of danger. It was like my alarm bells were always ringing quietly in the background of my nervous system 24/7, and also ready to sound the gong loud and strong at the slightest provocation. I had a super intense startle reflex, a self-protective posture and a sense deep inside my mind and body that bad things were always around the corner. I would worry incessantly about situations that might seem crazy to a person without a trauma history, such as having a heart attack, getting struck by lightning, being in a car accident or losing my mental faculties.

The trauma I sustained as a child did not just alter my life story, but it changed my brain and my biology. I recall years ago, when I was a Social Worker doing adoptions, I attended a conference focused on adopting older children who had been through a lot of difficulty in their young lives. The presenter talked about how the brain scans of these kids looked decidedly different from those who had been raised in more secure home environments. When the children themselves were studied, their behaviours were also quite different in their posture, their focus, their relational skills and their educational performance. There were marked differences in their brains and bodies and researchers were just starting to make the connections to secure and insecure attachments in childhood and the role of trauma in potential issues later in life. It hit me super hard at the conference and I remember being in tears on and off throughout the weekend. I could not have explained it but it impacted me in ways that have stayed with me a decade and a half later.

Fast forward some years and I read Dr van der Kolk’s book and it was the same kind of thing. Fireworks going off inside, tears pouring down my cheeks. He was describing me. My biology, my fear, my self criticism, my self imposed busyness, my overeating, my constant need for validation to keep the wolves of doubt at the door.

I started to read and learn more. I began to see how I really never felt completely safe anywhere. At Disneyland I could worry about a ride breaking down while I was on it. On an airplane I was sure this was the flight that would stall out and crash. At home I would sit down and have a sudden sense of upset in my gut. Usually, I would try to handle these feelings by hitting the fridge for a snack or taking on a project to distract myself (those books need rearranging right this moment) or grabbing my cell phone to play a game, stare at the screen or watch copious amounts of you tube videos (I mean those cute kittens deserve a like and subscribe right?) I was doing what I could, the only things that I knew, to make my life feel manageable. The constant fear I was about to die somehow was not made easier with chronic health issues. Although I now know it stemmed from some issues when I was young and my life was threatened, I didn’t understand that it was still with me as I got older. When chronic illness set in, I was now confronted daily with a very real sense that my body did not have enough energy to survive. A rather vicious circle!

I was always looking for outside support since it felt like inside me there was not enough wisdom to make good decisions. It was a devastating way to live. I eventually realized that these fears stemmed from my younger years as a child trying to solve adult problems but lacking the capacity and resources to do so. Not having anyone to talk to or help me often left me feeling terrified and alone. I learned to “fake it till you make it,” so many people saw me as extra competent, and I was often given even more adult level tasks to do. Part of me felt honoured to be considered so mature so I attempted these assignments with abandon. And I was good at it and that felt rewarding. Parts of me loved it. But other parts of me were just 11,12,13 years old and they were wanting to feel safe at home and be a “normal” preteen/teenager and know that my home was a safe space… which it wasn’t.

So here is my takeaway from all of this. FEELING SAFETY inside the body - not repeating mantras or visualizing security (although those can be helpful at times) - but really EXPERIENCING the felt sense of safety, is the most important thing we can focus on if we want to heal. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs tells us that safety is the very bottom rung of the ladder towards Self-Actualization. If we don’t have safety we can’t move up the ladder because our brains will be stuck in their more primitive modes, desperately seeking a stable space. I probably could not write my masters thesis while running away from a bear chasing me in the forest. My mind would solely be on finding a way to get away from danger.

 Our fight flight freeze response is a powerful mechanism and wholly necessary for our survival. It is a great thing that our kidneys and adrenal glands can produce needed adrenaline and help us rev up when we must run fast or fight a dragon. But when they are on all the time, even at moderate levels like mine were, it is incredibly taxing on the body. I can’t say for sure that is what caused my chronic health issues, but I am quite certain there is at least a solid link between the two.

My husband works in a safety-based position and he used to joke with me that his motto at work is “if you aren’t taking safety, you just aren’t thinking.” Although it was a just a silly slogan from him to make me laugh, it has actually become the bedrock of my life and my practice. We absolutely must help our bodies (slowly and gently) to learn how to feel safe if we want to get better. As we practice our own proverbial onboard safety speeches, the fake seatbelt buckle ups and our ability to point at various windows and exits inside our nervous systems, we learn that there are mechanisms in place so that we can fly safely. Then we can sit back, relax and enjoy the view.

van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Viking.