In this episode:
Venessa: After trauma, the world can start to feel different. Places feel harder to go to, situations feel less safe, and slowly, often without realising it, life begins to shrink. Mari, looking back, what were the first things you found yourself avoiding?
Mari: I didn't want to go out at night anymore, which is ironic because this happened in broad daylight. Again, it's like my brain just links different things.
Phil: Mm-hmm.
Mari: It becomes a logical thing that although this happened in broad daylight, 12 o'clock, in sunshine, London is unsafe when it's dark, which then, for half of the year, happens very early on in the day. So it doesn't just become about, oh, do I go and have dinner with friends in town? It's like, oh, I have to get home by 4:30 because then it gets dark, and that's a huge problem.
I also found that my nervous system was constantly firing, and it still is to an extent. So it's almost like there is this invisible line around me. So if I'm walking in London, lots of people as we know, and somebody crosses this line, I will flinch.
Phil: Mm-hmm.
Mari: And again, it doesn't matter what time of day it is, it doesn't matter who it is, I will just react. And it's like a second where it goes from zero to 1,000, and then it goes straight back down, but it is very unpleasant. And also, I don't want to be a suspicious person, particularly when people are walking with their hoods up.
Phil: Mm-hmm.
Mari: Because the guy in the park, he had his hood up. So disguised people. I even say to my partner, he has his hood up when it's cold, and I say, "Can you just put it down?" And he's like, "Why? You know it's me." And I'm like, "Yes," but even on a micro level then, there's something that happens that I can't explain and can't describe. It just is uncomfortable.
So I try and rationalise things away, but you smile at me because that only gets you so far, doesn't it? Like rationalising, and I sometimes think myself into corners, and I don't know how to get out of them.
Phil: Yeah. I think we all do that because we know the answers.
Mari: Yeah.
Phil: Or we know the answers we want, and then the rational brain versus the emotional brain are on different wavelengths.
Mari: Yeah.
Phil: So we need to sort of work with emotional speak rather than rational speak at times.
Mari: Yeah.
Phil: But that's really tricky.
Mari: Tell me about it.
Venessa: Thank you. So Phil, avoidance is one of the most misunderstood trauma responses, but why is it such a common, powerful, and proactive mechanism?
Phil: It just makes sense, doesn't it? Avoidance. You just described it perfectly. Why would you not avoid that? Why would you run into it? Your brain's telling you this is a really dangerous thing to do. It's a dangerous place to go. Things bad happen. Oh, yeah, let's go and do it. No, the avoidance bit goes, no, we've got you covered. Just don't go. It's so logical that avoidance works so well. It's so powerful, and underneath everything, that's your core programming. So you've got to overrule your core programming, which is telling you, this is what you need to do, beyond thinking, to the thinking part of, but what do I want in life? How do I go from surviving to thriving? And that, I think, is that shift of why avoidance is so powerful and why it's so hard to shift because it really taps into that biological sense of safety-
Venessa: Mm-hmm.
Phil: ...of I don't want to remember a certain thing. I don't want to go back to a certain place. I don't want to be in that danger again. I don't want to feel a certain way. We don't want to feel bad. Why would we? That's okay until it gets to a point where it causes us problems.
Venessa: Yeah.
Phil: And then it's that point where you've got to take that courageous step to turn towards what's distressing and behind it all, rather than avoid.
Venessa: So as you said, avoidance just seems to make sense. Why would you go towards something that was making you feel that way? But at what point does avoidance begin to shrink someone's world, and how do clinicians gently approach that without pushing too fast?
Phil: It's probably not going to the park with their... But everybody's different on what that looks like and what people can tolerate, and we talk about windows of tolerance, of where do we feel we can take that next step? And it has to be guided not by the clinician. It has to be guided by the person in the room that's experiencing this. I don't know the level of distress someone's telling me. It might not be that. It might look like a straightforward thing. Everybody's different on what is difficult for them. And the thing is, actually, sometimes we don't even know which bit's difficult for us. We think it's going to be going to the park, and actually, the park wasn't the difficult bit. It was the bus journey coming back.
So it's about trying to do little parts and little bits in collaboration, not, "Here's your homework. Go and do it." Okay, what's achievable? What do you think? What's the most difficult? Where do you want to start? What do you feel safe with? How could we do this?
And I think it's understanding it as much as possible and trying to demystify some of these bits and working out it's okay to feel frightened, and it's okay to feel scared, and that's normal, and that's natural.
And what can we do to start moving things forward? Maybe not back to what they were. I don't think we ever go back to who we were. We go to a different version of ourselves every time something significant happens. We learn from that event. It's how we learn the positives, not just the negatives. And that allows us to move and take that next step on the journey.
Venessa: Thank you. So Mari, it sounds like there was an emotional tug of war, if you like. You were wanting your life back, but you were feeling unsafe stepping into that life again. So what does that push and pull feel like for you?
Mari: Oh, it's really hard. It's just a constant debate with yourself about wanting to do something and wanting to experience life to its fullest, and especially the things that you used to do prior to the incident. And you have a very good memory of the person you used to be. It's not like you suddenly forget the things you like to do. And I always loved socialising. I'm a people person. Can you tell? And to lose that ability to just meet friends in the evenings, on weekends, et cetera, that was really, really hard. So of course, there was this tug of war thing.
It's almost like you're trying to have a pros and cons chart for everything you feel uneasy about, and trying to guess what kind of emotion could come up, and how much I would be losing out, and how bad I would also feel if I didn't go. Because I would then sit there and be angry at myself, be embarrassed. Maybe I would've made up an excuse. Maybe I would've been honest. Both didn't feel good.
Venessa: Mm.
Mari: It's like you're constantly having these lists. But I don't know if you can tell, but even thinking about it right now, I feel like my hands get a bit sweaty and my face gets a bit hot. My lips are dry. It's just thinking about this, and that is what it constantly feels like. It also has turned me into a bit of a jealous person, because I look at people who I perceive to live carefree, and they do all these things, and they don't have to think about any of it. And I don't want to be envious of other people's joy and carefreeness. That is not a trait I'd like to have.
Venessa: Yeah. So if someone's watching and they feel that their life is getting smaller and they're judging themselves for it, what would you want them to hear?
Mari: The most important thing, I guess, is to accept your own timing. I think we always say everything happens individually, et cetera, and that's also true for the timeline of your traumatic response, I guess, and how you handle it.
And I think cutting yourself some slack, some serious slack, is really important, and we don't do it enough.
And to not do what I did, which is bulldoze through it and think that you can outsmart trauma. It doesn't really work like that. And I really don't think that was good for me because I wasn't even allowing myself to feel anything or have any pain. I was so adamant that this was just something, okay, if we just keep going, then this is not going to fester because head on. The only way is through, so let's rip the Band-Aid off and just do this. And I really don't think I did myself any favours. It felt like I was doing the right thing at the time.
If I would've had somebody who would've understood what I was potentially at the beginning of going through, and who would've said, "Look, it's really fine right now to even take a couple of weeks off or however long you need, and be..."
It sounds cheesy, but be kind to yourself. It's so easy to fall into that trap that we have learned as a society to just keep going no matter what. It is a trap because it'll backfire. If you would have a visible injury, if you break your leg or whatever, you're not going to hobble around on it and hope that it gets better by running a marathon. And that is the same than your mind. There shouldn't be any difference.
