Stress

[aumentou]

I've been going to a weekly "stress control" course. It's six sessions, of which I've just come back from the second. I've had a bit of a problem going to it - going to a large room full of strangers and having at least one of them look at me is not fun - but a lot of what they've had to say so far has sounded sensible and matched my own experiences pretty closely. Today they were talking about the physical side of things, and how stress is constant or at least over-frequent flight/fight triggers, which matches my own experiences well, especially my own early transition experiences. I feel tense, nauseous, and unhappy leaving the house because even with a year and a bit of "no problem" on my side, I still remember and expect the constant hostility that accompanied the first two years.

As an aside, this is a serious problem with the UK's transition pathway. By requiring people to go out and (almost inevitably) fail to be taken seriously in their new lives before offering any of the treatment that might help us actually do that, the GICs are pretty much setting us all up to hate and fear interacting with reality. Cheers, fool doctors!

Anyway... back on topic. The first half of tonight was talking about exercise. Minor issue with the course: it's really longwinded. I can sum up the first half as "Exercise is good. You don't need to be a champion boxer or anything, just try and do few hours of something a week. Even walking". The second half was kind of where things went wrong. There was a "relaxation exercise" at the end. Basically sit there, tensing various parts, then untensing. I can see a certain amount of theoretical sense in that, I think. But for me, it didn't work. I'd tense a body part, feel the physical pain, untense, and be left with an afterimage of the pain. Tensing my fist with its old broken finger was particularly bad. By halfway through I was holding back tears, partly from the pain and partly because I could feel it not working and hating the fact that it didn't. Then at the end, countdown to exit and when I did suddenly I was even less relaxed. Instead of being trapped in "relaxed" space with an overwhelming sense of pain and despair I was back in the real world, and very very angry both with myself for doing it and everyone else who that technique ever worked for because they are so fucking numerous they get taught useful techniques for them while I get to be the freak girl AGAIN who needs to find her own path AGAIN and whose path probably involves being very very angry AGAIN.

So I went home. I sat on the bus, being once again astonished the the depth of my rage was not enough to make buildings explode.

And now... now I'm wondering whether to ever try it again, or to do something more relaxing, like sword forms or punching things. I'm thinking sword forms. Punching might hurt my finger more.

Comments

[little_frank]

Re the GIC pathway thing, I'm currently fighting PB and Department of Health on that over the new guidelines, and quoting the Human Rights Act as well as the WPATH SoC 7 which H.R.S. still claims to support. We shall see.

[little_frank]

Re relaxation: There are many techniques, different ones work better for different people. You might get better results from one where you lie (or sit) as still and relaxed as you can and just pay close attention to each body part in turn, or where you imagine your out breath flowing down your body and washing tension away. What I'm trying to say is, don't despair because one technique doesn't suit you. Also, it gets easier with practice, like riding a bike or learning to dance.

Doing it sitting is more difficult, because you have to use muscles to support yourself. They probably chose this rather than lying because of limited space, it's less likely to trigger anyone's blood pressure problems, but also there are always one or two people who fall asleep and snore their way through the whole thing (I have some pretty big resentment for these bastards, wish I could go to sleep that fast!).

Also, you need to be somewhere you feel safe and warm.

[little_frank]

P.P.S. I like the idea of a less stressed Mrs Face ;-)

[mr-s-face.livejournal.com]

"and just pay close attention to each body part in turn"

The OT at the GIC tried that one, it was really painful. "Here, focus on your body, one piece at a time!" "But most of me hurts and my real life involves putting my consciousness somewhere away from the pain in an attempt to avoid it!" "Oh, sucks to be you, then."

Yeah. I have various suggestions for alternatives from various people, so I'm going to try them out.

[lilith-k.livejournal.com]

Sensible course they've sent you on there, if they have no alternatives to the physical to help with stress relief!

I know it's probably not much of a suggestion, but my yoga teacher used to do a guided visalisation exercise after class to help people leave feeling chilled. Basically in a soft relaxing voice she'd describe a scenario to us which we would visualise, it would be something like sitting by a cool stream with the sun on your face, dipping your feet in the water, or climbing a stone stair to a calm temple and meeting a monk who told you that you could stay as long as you wanted and none of your worries could touch you while you were there. It sounds a little cheesy, but it was a calming sort of escape from how your body and mind were actually feeling at the time, and I found it very helpful.

I'm sure you can get CDs of things like that, which at the very least might be worth a try rather than letting some ignorant tart force you to concentrate on your pain!

[tiggothy.livejournal.com]

I used to relax by kicking the Biffa bins at work.

Obviously, this was years ago, but the basic principle is that they're big & solid enough, but also with a bit of give so as not to damage you... on the other hand, you've already mentioned alternatives...

[glitterybint.livejournal.com]

I second what Frank said as something I did in yoga. you don't even concentrate on relaxing that bit of the body, just move your awareness around your body so right thumb, right first finger, second finger, third finger, fourth etc and go all around the body, not dwelling on any one part (so not going "yeah that bit hurts") just moving around. The idea is to keep your mind focussed and not allowing it to dwell on any stressful thoughts. similar to counting sheep

another thing to try, wchich might be less emotive for you might be to imagine a journey that is familiar to you and just go through that in steps like you would around your body. Same effect.

[child-of-chance.livejournal.com]

Stress isn't getting uptight, it's not having an outlet for the uptight-ness. It's fight-&flight without the flight. So, the sword-forms sound like a plan. You always used to be able to make anger/stress into a kind of power-source, so maybe that will still work for you.