8 Antidotes to Trauma When Chronic Illness Symptoms Worsen

I’ve been more tired in the past year and a half. What’s been helpful is just how much difference it makes to have an understanding of trauma. It makes it easier for me to recognize what is happening, to have more patience, and to have more self-compassion. These are eight easily underestimated antidotes to trauma that can be helpful when you are experiencing a worsening of chronic Illness, symptoms, and flares. These apply because understanding trauma offers context and tools that serve as counter weights to the load that adversity can bring. For many of you, these are just reminders. For others, these will be new. Here are 8 reminders that are making a difference in my day to day life.

1. Context

There are quite a number of reasons I’ve been more tired since early 2023. A big one is that my father died last year and there have been repercussions, large and small, expected and unexpected. I’ve had a lot of feelings since then. It’s been much more complex than grief. This is new to me. The impact has primarily involved old attachment patterns I experienced in childhood that have risen to the surface. I’ve written about this here and can’t yet speak to it further for many reasons, including that I’m still working through some of these particular feelings. Another part of it is a shift in family dynamics and needs, as my mother now explores being on her own for the first time in 60 years.

What’s been helpful and serves as an antidote to trauma is context. Context provides a knowing that I am experiencing more feelings, that many of these are more difficult emotions to be with, and that this adds to the trauma load my nervous system bears and that this drives my symptoms. Difficult emotions take mental and physical energy to be with, work with, and move through. It also takes time. Knowing this is an antidote to trauma because there are counterweights that can reduce these impacts of adversity.

Context gives me clues on what to do and how to be. I am working with my feelings. I am taking in support, such as talking with and taking in the gentle presence of my husband who gets it and who gets me. During the time that this takes I am reminding myself to be kind with this state I’m in. Trauma states suck us into feeling we are at fault. An antidote to trauma is remembering that I am not to blame (I have to do this often and regularly despite all that I know). To be patient as I keep remembering that there are important reasons I am feeling this way.

2. Nonjudgement for “Not Wanting to Do Much”

One of the symptoms I’ve had much more of lately has been what looks and feels like “laziness.” I don’t feel like doing very much. Writing. Reaching out. Housework (which isn’t usually high on my list of things I want to do but which does tend to simply be a regular task). In other words, most things have been feeling effortful. There’s been less joy, less “juice,” and more slog. These are often signs of depression, which, from a trauma perspective, is an emotional symptom of freeze. Just as is the fact that I have more constipation and my blood pressure is lower and back in the 90s/60s, when the norm, and my own norm when I’m feeling better, is typically 120s/80s. For myself, I see this “lazy state” as a form of behavioral freeze. This reduces shame and judgement. It just is what it is. It’s my body doing it’s very best because this is how it kept me alive in the past. I just need to keep unwinding the patterns.

Understanding trauma suggests that this state, for me, may actually hint at progress. Rather than living in a deep physiological state that has me bed-ridden from a body caught in hibernation and experiencing the biological consequences as profound exhaustion, I now feel it more with my desire to do – or not do. I’m not bedridden anymore. It’s not as deep in my biology anymore. Even this perspective is an antidote to trauma so that we are not sucked into believing the state itself, which can be very convincing. This is Progress.

3. Indicators of “Progress” Even When Sick

Looking at my behaviors as being the result of a body caught in a state of freeze keeps giving me context. It suggests to me to look at whether there is anything I actually WANT to do. If not, I may be caught in emotional freeze and depression. But there ARE things I want to do and that get me excited. On top of that, I have been ABLE to do many of them, even if I have to pace myself. Like painting the rooms and playing with colors here in our new space. Like creating surveys for my blog. Like loving being in my new yard and creating a garden. During the summer heat the garden just needed sufficient and judicious watering and often joined the list of things that were more effortful task than fun – and that was okay. Understanding trauma gives me a perspective from which to trust the impulses that feel enticing and filled with invitation. Looking for the impulses that feel good is another antidote to trauma. I am making room for them where I can. This is a way of adding resource without judgement. It is a way of working with states of freeze. It is a gentle way of adding resource by following what wants to happen and inviting in the Smart Vagus that is capable, with time, of suppressing fight, flight and freeze so they don’t run the show.

4. Anger Can be An Opportunity

If you live in a state of relative freeze where your feelings live in the realm of flat, down, blah, depressed, or numb, then anything else may be an opportunity for an antidote to trauma. This newcomer might be grief, sadness or grumpiness. Recently I had a lot of anger bubble up when I discovered that a project I had worked on for over a month might not meet a simple requirement. This requirement had not been well described so I had made an incorrect assumption, which might render my project unusable.

The possibility that I might have “slogged” in vain, and for so long, stirred up a lot of appropriate anger. Although I had wanted to do the project when I’d signed up for it months ago, I had lost the impulse by the time I worked on it. It had been difficult to do and to complete. After proposing a potential solution I worked with my anger while I waited to hear back since there was nothing else for me to do and I might simply have to let this one go. Since I understood very clearly why I was feeling this way, I thanked David for the offer to talk about it and instead put the raging energy into something productive that had been on my to-do list for too long: I cleaned the bathrooms. Scrubbed the tub. Washed the sinks and floors. I re-beautified them. I was super tired afterwards and needed a few days to recover but it was deeply satisfying to mobilize with such clear purpose for something that was accomplishable rather than potentially impossible. I had overridden fatigue to do so but had done this consciously, knowing that pushing doesn’t throw me back for weeks or months like it used to. Newcomer emotions present us with choice. I even had some ahas while cleaning, including realizing that I’d fallen into another cycle of self-blame for having “ugly” feelings instead of “being positive” in recent weeks. The act of moving the anger and physically exerting myself had felt good. Sometimes making room for a new emotion by taking action is an antidote to trauma. ** Note that if your baseline state of distress is one of anger (fight/flight rather than freeze) then it’s helpful to look for and pay attention to emotions that are new and different for that state, such as grief or sadness, or wanting to connect with someone in a friendly way.

5. Nudging is an Antidote to Trauma

Paying gentle, nonjudgemental attention to your body, your day, and your environment is a mindfulness practice that we learn in somatic trauma therapy. It is something we can then take with us into our everyday lives as an antidote to trauma. It helps identify the little things that can be helpful. Mindfulness helped me decide to nudge myself to transplant a few things in my garden last week. The nudge was because fall is arriving and it is a good time for plants to establish roots with more ease as the weather cools. It felt like a chore rather than a joy but I was honoring the need to make it happen within this optimal time frame. Nudging can help us accomplish something that we can then reap the benefits of. Reaping, even after a slog, can be a resource. Taking the time to appreciate it and enjoy the accomplishment is a resource. Nudging can help keep it small and doable, such as cleaning the toilet and not the whole bathroom and feeling good about that one task being done. Nudging can be a gentle way to try something out.

6. Appreciation is an Antidote to Trauma

While I was nudging myself and transplanting the Ruby Mantle sedum to its new place a foot from the catmint that had grown larger than I expected, I appreciated just how well it had done over the summer. I noticed the beautiful red tinge on its leaves. This stirred a little appreciation in my system. Appreciation calls us out of states of freeze and can provide wiggle room for social nervous system support. The social nervous system is where our bodies operate from when in optimal health. It’s the state where we feel the joy, the juice, the warmth and connection, the sense of belonging in the world. Anything that supports heading in that direction can be helpful. Appreciation is another Antidote to Trauma.

7. Shifting Out of “Slog”

While I was slowed down in appreciating the red hue on the leaves of my little plant, I noticed the soft buzzing of a bee in the Purssian Blue catmint’s blue flowers. The gentle buzz grazed my attention. And for a moment I was carried away to the sense of spacious, happy, carefree, lazy times in summer during my childhood. Picking raspberries. Chasing butterflies. Wandering in the meadows. And my whole state shifted. From chore to delight. From burdened to light. I could suddenly take in how much I like playing in the dirt. Preparing for spring. Making updates to my garden from what I’ve noticed in the past few months and had to wait for the right timing to act on. That’s how quickly a state can shift. The practice of mindfulness makes it easier over time to notice these little things with more ease. To give a moment of delight more space and to pause long enough to allow that to come into awareness. Although gardening was still tiring, I was able to accomplish my plans over a few days with a thrill. To enjoy the updates. To picture what I want and make it happen. And now I’m ready for spring :-).

8. Antidotes to Trauma are a Counterweight

Understanding trauma’s role in chronic illness means that we can more easily recognize how the layers of adversity can add up to affect our symptoms and the frequency and severity of flares. When we are experiencing more stress and have an underpinning of trauma from the past we become more sensitive to additional stressors in the present. The load can grow and we can be more heavily impacted by the difficult things such as what is happening in the world, in our communities, with challenges a family member is facing and more. These layers influence how our nervous systems operate and whether they may be oriented more than usual towards dealing with threat, which is how trauma drives symptoms.

What’s really helpful in understanding this is realizing that the layers of neutral, positive, resourcing and helpful things ALSO add up. These neutral and positive layers are counterweights. These counter the layers of adversity and are antidotes to trauma. Actively looking for these kinds of easy-to-dismiss resources and nudging ourselves to include them in our daily lives, from moment to moment, is like picking flowers and making a bouquet of the good things. It’s a daily practice. It keeps us in this moment. One moment at a time. And it adds up to counter the effects of stress and adversity in helpful ways.

Now that the weather is cooling down a little and, especially now that I’ve played in the garden, I feel like sitting on my porch again. Notice what is still in bloom. I want to look out at what I did. See how things are doing. Look for what they need. Cut out the dead leaves in my new grasses that struggled so that I can better assess if they are starting to do better or need more help. Seeing my happy makes David feel happy. We’ve enjoyed time on the porch together for the first time in many months. Looking to see “who” needs what in my garden feels like nurturing now, rather than a burden. Another layer of resource is rippling into more antidotes to trauma. Progress.

* I’m Speaking at 2 Upcoming Events

– Free Virtual Autoimmune Community Summit 2024 Oct 17 & 18

My free 20 minute talk on the role of trauma in autoimmune disease is now available in the category called “Hot Topics in Autoimmune: What’s New and Exciting” starting at 42 minutes.

– Somatic Experiencing (SE) Online Summit 2024 Nov 7 & 8 (Fee)

I’ll be giving a 90 minute presentation on the research supporting the role of trauma and SE perspectives in chronic illness. Register here. This summit is for all comers – from SE students and practitioners – to other health professionals – to people curious about and new to somatic trauma therapies, and more. Recordings will be available after the summit for those who register.

My talk is Friday Nov 8th from 12:15 to 2:15 Mountain Time

The Summit is from 0900 to 4pm Mountain Time on both days

* Learn More

Other blog posts on Working with Symptoms in Gentle Ways

Guide to the Nervous System’s Role from a Trauma Perspective

Discover the role of different types of trauma in your life in these Surveys

Explore the role of trauma in chronic illness in a consult with me

Mindfulness and Making Time in Chronic Illness