Day 10 Sneaky Triggers

[Reelo]

When I think of my triggers and start looking into what correlates with my feelings and symptoms, things appear murky. However, if I push to be more honest with myself I actually realise something quite interesting.

When writing a letter about my current stresses today, I picked my job. At first I saw it simply as "my job is stressful and a lot relies on me, so therefor it stresses me the hell out, causing a worsening of emotional and physical state"...however things don't always line up with my symptoms and mood.

Then I thought honestly, and a new angle opened up. Yes, I do work a super demanding job, but quite frankly there is no denying that the job's reliance on me has become an unhealthy way of feeding my internal self worth meter. As horrible as it is, and as much as I dislike the idea of it, I need to be needed to feel okay. This means that in many cases, when work is stressful and things need fixing, I often feel more calm and have less symptoms. When things are running smoothly, I get uncomfortable and my brain looks and craves for worth or a reason to be needed.

Maybe when the worth meter is not being filled the symptoms are also a cry for attention from my subconscious? An empathy call? A simple distraction from feeling the emotions that rise up when I feel worthless and redundant? Or even a combination...

This is not a binary situation of course, and sometimes if the reliance on me overloads me, it also leads to emotional stress and symptom spikes. A complex little relationship! But that's okay, knowing that I was honest with myself and gained a little more understanding of my body's reactions (even if just a little) is a good step.

 

[JanAtheCPA]

Nice insights, @Reelo!

This is for sure the key:

if I push to be more honest with myself I actually realise something quite interesting.

When I was doing the SEP, many years ago, I suddenly had this realization that my brain was trying to convince me to leave things off my lists during the writing exercises! And the messages I was getting were pretty hilarious, things like "oh you don't need to include THAT, it's not important" or "that's a bit embarrassing, you can just skip over it".

It was really interesting how hard it was to force myself to be completely honest and list everything that came into my head no matter what. When I wrote about them later, they weren't earth-shattering by any means. At the time I repressed those thoughts or memories, my brain must have thought they were too dangerous to acknowledge because they had caused me to respond with stress. Acknowledging them so many years later was quite freeing and gave me more compassion for my younger self.