Healing. Trauma. Trigger

This one is wordy and wobbly and that's ok.

I responded to someone elsewhere about frenzied problem solving.

So I'm putting my words here in case it helps someone else.

Theories are just theories. Great and insightful but just theories and sometimes more than one theory can apply.

Why might we rant and share lots of words and problem solve urgently instead of gently pausing and processing?

This is my story.

I used to respond and chase solutions quickly. No pause time.

I'd describe this for me, as a mix of being an external processor, also being triggered (which isn't necessarily bad but isn't easy) and maybe attachment stuff too.

To give more context. I had relational trauma.

New partner now, of 5 years, is the only partner who healed that relational trauma and modelled healthy attachment. Accidently. They are just very kind and patient.

Having healed, I now have new healthy brain pathways that support me slowing down my 'response time' enough to connect with self. Why? Because the relationship with self improved after the Relational Trauma healed.

Now, if I become hypervigilant, or if I trigger, I can slow down just enough to validate self and trust self and I'm less impulsive because I've got my own back.

In some ways, historically, I've felt psychologically isolated with an urgency to solve my stuff, because I've felt on my own (insecure attachment).

From a 'pack animal' perspective, isolation is a threat to life. Now my connection to self is stronger, I feel less threatened and more secure.

Now when I trigger, I trust that I AM picking up something genuinely threatening/off rather than my triggering being an over reaction (although my triggering WAS appropriate to my Intrapersonal and interpersonal Trauma). So triggering now has less urgency, mostly.

I am also an auditory processor/stimmer. I use my mouth lots.

Chewing my gums as a stim. Crunchy food stim. I suck my thumb. I talk loudly. I chatter. I have big flavour stims (salt and sugar). And I talk out.

This is why I talk out, am wordy and process stuff externally.

This is my way and my thing. It's not everyone's way. It's not right or wrong.

Nowadays it's just mostly less frantic. And that's what healing does. It takes off the sharp edges but I'll still always be Autistic/ADHD/Monotropic.

First published 7th August 2024 on NeuroDiversity University Blog FaceBook Page

Close up of my feet. I'm wearing height flip flops. Pink/white skinned, on grass. Right ankle has a brown bracelet and same foot has a bell silver rattle over my toes so I could shake them rhythmically in tune to music.