Traumatic event has stopped anxiety

[Giraffestail]

After reading another thread I thought I’d see if anyone else has had this experience.

I had a few things happen to me in my teens/20s sexual assaults (more than once), violent and abusive partner. I haven’t had a sheltered life. I now have a successful career and children.

I have always been told I was a worrier. I struggled to live in the moment always rushing about and felt I had to get stuff done. This made me extremely successful at work I would focus 9/10 hours a day 5 days a week. But I would be driven by worry. I didn’t understand living in the moment. I wasn’t keen on too much change.

Last year I had a traumatic event. I was devastated. Rock bottom does not describe it. I could barely function and I’m pretty sure I had a breakdown. I did not seek medical support. I was thinking suicide was a good option. This traumatic event was on top of a couple of big life changes and coincided with me starting HRT. I have used meditation, exercise, books, rage and crying to get through the last 18 months. I think I’m on the other side. I hope I am!

But The worry has diminished. I live in the moment. I enjoy peace and quiet. Being at home pottering. My attitude to life is better. I am happier. It is really really odd. I am calm. It’s rather nice.

But how did it cure my issue? Was it just the HRT? (I was a worrier from being a young child though). Has anyone else found the same has happened to them? Was it realisation that my worry cannot change bad stuff happening? It’s not cured everything (I’m an awful passenger in a car still). But I’m getting there.

Any thoughts or analysis would be appreciated.

I'm sorry you've experienced such difficult life events. I wonder if the big traumatic experience just put all the small worries into perspective? Or maybe it changed your view about your ability to cope - I handled that, so I can handle anything.

I kind of get this, I had a really difficult few years in my early 20s and suffered through some major bereavements and it's like it set my tolerance level very high.

Now unless the outcome is likely to be worse than what I've already dealt with, I know I'll get through it so it doesn't factor as an issue just something that will happen and I'll deal with when it does. If there's a sensible way to stop it then I do otherwise I just don't worry about it and sort it out as it happens.

I’d say the rage releasing and crying will have done wonders as that’s what you’re carrying around otherwise, it’s good to regularly empty yourself out and release stuck emotions

I had a traumatic event a few years ago which nearly destroyed me. I wouldn't say I was overly anxious before but now I am through the other side I feel much calmer and more settled.

I'm fact my story sounds very much like yours. Domestic Abuse, sexual assault years ago, followed by focusing on being successful at work.

Then traumatic event which left me a shell. 2 years later I'm now feeling settled, happier in myself and able to enjoy simple things again such as reading a book.

Before, if I didn't have stuff to do all day every day I'd make sure I booked it in. I never stopped. Now I actively plan days of doing nothing.

Could it be menopause? I have read on here that it often changes your personality slightly especially the worrying/giving a shit part. I hope this is true, sounds blissful!

I also kind of get this - I was talking to DH about general life angst and I realised that since I had an EMCS where DS1 and I could both have died, and then two serious illnesses where I also could have died (sepsis from a burst appendix, and then pneumonia where I was in the hospital for weeks on oxygen) I have been so much happier and less anxious about how my life will work out. Work stress seems so much less significant, I care far less what anyone thinks of me, I no longer worry about what my authentic life is or whether I'm living a meaningful life because I know I am - just by being alive and living the life I have now.

He hasn't had these near-death experiences (though he had to cope through mine) and as a result is asking mid-life crisis questions like "how do you know you're living your authentic life" or "do you feel like you're living the life you were meant to live". Those questions just feel completely meaningless to me now - this is the life I was meant to live because I'm living it, right now. There is no "meant" or "authentic" about it, it just "is" the life I'm leading. And I feel a great sense of peace and acceptance about that.

Thank you for your replies. I am at work (not focusing as i once did 😂) so my reply will be brief for now.
I am early 40s and have normal periods so peri. My anxiety was getting worse and sleep was awful so I went and got HRT (cured The sleep issue in a month).

Interesting responses though. Planking our events sound similar - i am sorry about what happened to you. I was definitely always a worrier though. I also had a bereavement in my teens that really upset me. I just avoided talking about it. That’s come out a fair bit in the past 18 months.

It feels like I hit rock bottom and have reinvented myself a bit.

I too have music and reading back in my life. I’ve read so much in the last year - mainly non fiction and academic texts.

Yep, had a heart attack (stress related) at 53. I survived and thrived... it immediately flicked some sort of switch where I no longer bothered so much about "stuff".
If I don't want to do something I just dont... instead of catastrophising what will happen if I either don't do it or say I don't want to.

Weird, but lately menopause has also helped another level - Peri was full of anxiety, full menopause ... no worries...

It sounds like the traumatic event put everything else into perspective a little more.

Out of interest op has your job remained the same one throughout?

I have also had this - which I don’t fully understand as I’d have thought the various traumatic events I had in my teens/20s would have had the same effect ( instead like you they made me extremely anxious). I’ve also had some difficult times later.

Last year though I had several things go wrong and then nearly died ( which had also happened to me when younger). Oddly this has had the effect of making me far less anxious and just generally more accepting. In addition I’ve also started doing a bit more of things I love but had somehow let slip.

Also peri but not on HrT.

Maybe it has put things into perspective, maybe you have just compartmentalised it and not dealt with it yet.

@Giraffestail when I read this part: It feels like I hit rock bottom and have reinvented myself a bit. reminded me of Dabrowski's theory of Positive Disintegration.

I had boxed up the sexual assaults and domestic violence in my mind - I’m good at compartmentalising. So I don’t think they were rumbling on. I had a few counselling sessions last year but then went on to read a vast amount of books and process slowly what I was thinking and feeling. I don’t think counselling contributed to curing the living in the moment issue but it helped me get through each week for a while as she was the only person I spoke to about this incident.

Beyond - sorry that happened to you. How are you now?

Xiaoxiong - I am glad you found positive in your horrid experiences.

Does anyone think seeing awful events as having positive aspects helps us? So instead of dwelling we say bloody hell that was awful but hey now I’m better at x,y and z. I wouldn’t wish my experience on anyone but I am glad it has helped an issue I had every single day. In the long run I may have wasted more time and energy on daily worrying and racing through life had the event not happened!

primrose - same job but changed company once through this awful time! It’s a specialist role so wouldn’t be easy to change role and remain at the same level. Do you think that may be a factor? I don’t like change 😂.

I’ve had this happen. For me, I’d been suppressing everything because it didn’t feel bad enough to bother dealing with, easier to just ignore it. Then once the major trauma happened my mental health became too bad to just ignore anymore, so I was kind of forced to unpack everything and go through it all with a fine toothed comb to get better. I guess I processed all my adolescent trauma while I was at it🤷🏼‍♀️

As a fellow compartmentaliser who learnt particular coping strategies when I was a child, the reading I have been doing recently about “fight,flight or freeze”may be relevant…..perhaps the incidences when you were younger and when you were unable to flee the situation left you in a freeze state…it’s life preserving but it’s emotionally and physically a very unhealthy place to sit long term…..the traumatic event you had more recently ,awful though it was,may have enabled you to finally release a lot of stored up emotion (it sounds like you carrying a lot that you were deservedly angry about)and perhaps you have moved on to a way of being in your life that ultimately will be much healthier. Being able to be present and let our emotions “run through us” and release is a great benefit of learning meditation and mindfulness. Good luck to you!

Hmm.

I had a significant event a couple of years ago - I was harassed to the point of generalised, but thankfully acute anxiety disorder.

I've come out the other side a much less stressed, but also less organised person. One thing I've found is that it's now near impossible for someone else to push those buttons. I can worry about something if it's worth worrying about, but I just seem to reject anxieties imposed by other people - deadlines, getting amped up, arguing.

Same thing happened to me after my husband died, although I do feel the anxiety sneaking back in a little bit lately.

I had this, always a worrier; told I was timid etc, yeah you become a bit timid being slapped about whenever you speak as a kid! Anyway yeah, DV, watched dad die.

Then had a traumatic time mid 30s, almost like hitting rock bottom and it’s like I stopped worrying after that. I had counselling and the counsellor said sometimes it works like that as a new issue/event can help resolve older ones or something.

Although now my partner has metastatic cancer and I’m back to a jibbering mess which is fun fun fun in the middle of a new job!!

@SerenityNowInsanityLater Great post x

I wonder if you subconsciously feel that you are now living a bonus life? I don't know how to explain it better, but my Dad nearly died in his late forties from Legionnaires and before it he was quite stressy about a lot of things, both little and big. Afterwards he used to say that he should have died and so every extra year was a bonus that he wasn't supposed to have had and he just let the little stressors pass him by because he wasn't even supposed to be there to stress about them.

A couple of things that occur to me are that:

I wonder if anxious thought cycles are perhaps a habit. When the traumatic event happened it paused everything because it was bigger than everything. Maybe it broke the habit.

Also, something I've definitely experienced myself is that a big serving of adversity can really make us appreciate a normal day. Just a quiet day where nothing eventful happens and we potter from one hour to the next with no major happenings.

I find the bigger picture overwhelming but when I just do a day at a time life is perfectly manageable on the whole.

Thank you all so much for replying. I will read and digest later when I have a bit more time.

It is interesting that others have had the same happen. When you google it just looks at anxiety stemming from trauma. I sometimes wonder if the new issues cancelled out the old but that seems a bit daft!

I know I am not a dweller. I have an awful memory for dates and times, so a date on a calendar doesn’t make me dwell on an event a year or two ago. For example I cannot remember the date my grandmother died. I think of her often and speak to her but I can’t remember the date and I am glad about that.

‘love yourself like your life depends on it’ by Kamal Ravikant is a good book if anyone reading this wants a bit of help with feeling at rock bottom.