The more we learn about trauma and the nervous system, the more we can start to see it all around us, playing out in many different ways.  Some of the signs are clear and outright, while others are more hidden and difficult to detect. To make a broad outline, from my own research and personal experience, if you frequently experience any of the following, it is quite possible you have some amount of nervous system dysregulation and/or trauma stored in your body:

 

• Anxiety, anger, depression, suicidal tendencies
• Tension, pain, uneasiness, hypervigilance, coldness, tiredness, constriction/contraction
• Physical symptoms and sensitivities and syndromes such as ME/CFS, Fibromyalgia, Mold Illness, MCAS, POTS, Multiple Food and Chemical Sensitivities, etc.
• Traits and personality types-workaholic, shy, analytical, drama queen, perfectionist, couch potato, thrill-seeker, narcissistic, etc.
• Difficulty with relationships and setting or keeping boundaries
• Difficulty or uncomfortableness in slowing down or being in the body
• Professions-leadership roles, caretaker roles, etc.
• Struggle with addiction or addictive tendencies whether that is smoking, alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex, porn, scrolling, binge watching, binge playing games, shopping, work, exercise, etc.
• Limiting beliefs

  

Let’s look at these a little bit closer.

 

• You often feel anxious or are prone to worry and panic attacks.

Our autonomic nervous system responds when we are under stress and threat. One part of our autonomic nervous system is our sympathetic nervous system. This is the fight/flight response. A stuck flight response can show up as someone that tends to be anxious and worried much of the time. They may micromanage and be overcontrolling of their lives and the lives of others. 

 

• You often feel angry and irritable or are easily triggered into arguments and fighting.

A stuck fight response of the nervous system can show up this way. You may be aggressive, “have a short fuse”, “talk back”, or have trouble with authority.

 

• You often feel down, depressed, or suicidal.

As we get deeper into the nervous system response to threat, into the freeze and collapse responses, this can show up in our bodies as feeling melancholy or sad. Then further along, a deeper depression and maybe even suicidal thoughts or actions.

 

• You have significant tension and pain in your body often or all of the time.

If you have stuck energy and uncompleted movements and patterns from traumatic situations in your past, the body can still be “stuck” in the past or triggered by day-to-day stresses based on past situations.

 

• You always get a sense that there is background noise running in your mind.  You have trouble being in stillness.

Again, your nervous system may be stuck looking for threat.  Safety in the body cannot be felt fully, so you might notice this noise of hypervigilance. “Chatter.” “Racing thoughts.” 

 

• You notice hypervigilance and tension in the eyes and face.

You might notice increased pain and agitation in the body in general, or in the face and eyes, especially in public spaces or crowded spaces.  Your body is responding as if there is danger and threat, although your mind knows it is totally safe. 

 

• You literally feel cold often or all the time.

If you are stuck in the freeze response of your nervous system, your body has significantly reduced your body temperature as it is conserving energy and at the extreme end, preparing for death. You may have difficulty transitioning through different temperatures.  It may seem like your body takes an extra-long time to get warm or cool, or that it is constantly fluctuating and can’t stay stable. 

 

• You have a syndrome such as ME/CFS, Fibromyalgia, Mold Illness, MCAS, POTS, Multiple Food and Chemical Sensitivities, etc.

Many syndromes have their roots in a dysregulated nervous system and traumas being stored in the body.  When the dysregulation improves and the traumas and fragmented “parts” can be felt and integrated, the symptoms naturally improve or resolve. 

 

• You have gut issues or sensitivities to foods, chemicals, smells, noises, touch, supplements, herbs, EMFS, stimuli

As more and more energy of the body is going toward the fight/flight or freeze/fawn responses, less energy is available to be used in digestion and detoxification. This could show up as constipation, diarrhea, and intolerances. Also, the brain and body can become overly sensitive or hypersensitive to even tiny amounts of irritations as it is trying to protect you from danger.

 

• Others describe you as a certain personality type such as a workaholic, a shy person, analytical and stuck in your head, a drama queen, a perfectionist, a couch potato, a thrill-seeker, a narcissist, etc.

These can all correspond to nervous system states that you may be stuck in, or coping strategies and traits you’ve developed in order to find some level of safety or stability from past traumatic experiences. A narcissist can be someone with a deep sense of shame or self-hatred at their core, rooted in a traumatic experience. In order to protect themselves from that emotional pain they create a false ego of confidence, arrogance, manipulation, and control. 

 

• How others view you is very important to you.

You have to have just the right clothes, style, car, job.  Outwardly, you need others to see you as “having it all together.” Similar to above, you may have a lot of shame you feel toward yourself. But by having at least some level of acceptance, some approval of others upon these external things, it brings you some level of safety and helps to cover over the emptiness or rejection you feel toward yourself.

 

• You have difficulty or an inability to feel or express emotions.

As you have less and less safety and resources in the body, there is less and less capacity to notice, name, and be with emotions in the body.  You may have had to intelligently shut down parts of the body to cope with past experiences and get through your life, and over time you have learned to disconnect from feeling any of the emotions.

 

• You are highly emotional or highly reactive.

If you have a high amount of fight and flight energy stored in your body, you may be quick to feel emotional, have very large emotional responses, or feel that they affect you very deeply.

 

• You feel wired but tired.

This can be a state of nervous system freeze covering over a feeling of nervous system fight and flight.  You may also feel more of this tiredness and sadness as you move toward stillness and bring more attention into your body and out of your head and thoughts

 

• You feel tired or even exhausted overall and that you have a low capacity for life’s activities.

This could be a state of nervous system freeze and collapse.

 

• You feel hopeless regularly or most of the time. Your mindset becomes “ I can’t do it. I give up.”

This can be as your nervous system is stuck or moving deeper into the shut down and collapse of the dorsal vagal system.

 

• You notice that your breathing is often either shallow and limited, or rapid, or that certain triggers make your breath change

The nervous system responses of fight/flight and freeze affect our breath rate and capacity.

 

• You know that you are a very analytical/logical and “in your head” type of person, or others tell you so. It feels scary or uncomfortable or unmanageable for you to slow your thoughts down and focus on being in the body.

When the body is under threat and stress, it can be too much to stay present in the body. In the past, this could have been overwhelming for you, so you may have intelligently learned that it is safest to keep the energy and the focus in the head. That it was best to disconnect from the emotions and the sensations in the body and stay like that for years or even decades. Now though, if you start to reconnect to the body too quickly, not only is this experience something foreign to you, but if there are strong emotions and memories stored there, it can be too much and retraumatizing.

 

• You have difficulty in forming or maintaining relationships. You have trouble setting or sticking to boundaries. You find it difficult to connect or to disconnect from yourself or others.

If you experience early life trauma/CPTSD or CPTSD even as an adult, your relationship with both you and others can be affected on many very difficult and complicated levels. Your beliefs and trust in yourself, others, and even the world, can be affected by these deep wounds. These traumas can be from threat-too much of a bad thing. Or from neglect-not enough of what you needed.

 

• You say “yes” when you really want to say “no.”

One option of the nervous system response is to fawn, to appease the other person, so that you can escape before the threat escalates.  This can be a response you may have learned to turn to as your default. So now, you never speak up for what you want or need.  You may have the belief that “I have to keep the peace. I’m just playing my part. My needs and my voice do not matter to anybody.”

 

• You have trouble with attachment.  In regard to connection and attachment, you have an anxious, avoidant, or disorganized style. You are repeatedly drawn to relationships that are toxic to begin with or become toxic, abusive, neglectful, or unfulfilling over time.

Again, these are learned habits and patterns often based on negative and traumatic early life experiences.

 

• You use your job as an attempt to regulate your nervous system and trauma patterns

You only feel valuable if you are providing care and nurturing to somebody else, so you use your profession of nursing, caretaking, etc as a way to achieve this.  Or you feel a lack of control inside of you, or perhaps a tendency towards aggressiveness and anger, so you may be drawn to being a leader or a needing to get ahead, get that promotion, step on other people to “climb the ladder” of “success”, even at the cost of ruining your friendships and your family life.

 

• You tend to be very picky or hard to please.  It is difficult for other people or things to live up to your expectations. You have a narrow window of foods, travel destinations, clothes, music, and so on that suits you.

Just a possible sign I’ve been seeing is that in general, the more regulated our nervous system becomes, the more space we have to hold our experiences, and the more we are open to new things and a wider variety of things.

 

• You’ve been diagnosed as being on the spectrum

I have little knowledge of this to be honest.  However, I know that doctors love to label everything, and these labels are not always correct. I have known several people who were diagnosed by a professional or self-diagnosed as either being on the spectrum or having Aspergers.  I have wondered in some cases, if they have certain traits and tendencies because they really have a “condition” or if they have actually just had certain traumatic events or more severe traumatic events that they have adapted to and that is all. So, something to ponder.

 

• You find yourself believing any of the following limiting beliefs

 

• I don’t exist. 
• I am not loved. 
• My needs are not important.
• I am imperfect or there is something wrong with me.
• I am worthless or have no value.
• I cannot do or cannot do enough.
• I am inadequate or not smart enough.
• I am alone.
• I am incomplete. I am powerless. 

 

• You answer yes to any questions on the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Test

 

• You struggle with addiction or addictive tendencies whether that is smoking, alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex, porn, scrolling, binge watching, binge playing games, shopping, work, exercise, etc.

Addiction is a way of coping with a lot of internal pain and wounding from traumatic events and experiences or a lack of positive experiences. Your “drug” of choice may help you to cover over your pain, run away from it, disconnect from it, etc. It may be the only effective way you currently have to bring your nervous system to some level of regulation, even if that is extremely temporary. Unhealthy, yes. But an effective survival strategy that has kept you alive and given you some sense of stability and some sense of safety.

 

So, what can be done if we identify with any of these 27 points above?

 

• Education

Bring awareness to our own nervous system and trauma states and patterns.  What are our triggers or cues of threat?  What are our glimmers or cues of safety and relaxation? This can be done by our own reading, asking questions, watching videos, and taking courses.

 

• Self-practice and self-regulation

We can learn tools that help us to regulate our nervous system such as TRE, visualizations, breath practices, self-touch, exercise, somatic movement, orienting, vagal toning, and others that we can practice in-between sessions with a professional.

 

• Co-regulation and processing with a practitioner or coach

We can practice these nervous system tools with the guidance of a professional.  We can bring more awareness, safety, and processing with Somatic Experiencing or Embodied Processing. We can get deeper into understanding these fragmented or orphaned parts using parts work such as Embodied Processing, IFS, or Focusing. We can get assistance for our attachment and relationship repair. And we can start to use touch for deeper healing.

 

Evan Ritter is the owner of Mountain and Meadow Health and a certified Tension & Trauma Releasing Exercise (TRE) provider. For appointments and more information, call 570-259-0625, email [email protected] or visit MountainAndMeadowHealth.com.