Dysregulated nervous systems

Sometimes life piles on the big stressors, one after the other, and we feel that tightening of our chest and the pressure of knowing that too much of what matters is out of our control. We're existing just on the edge of unbearable. Maybe we're about to break. Yet we have to keep moving, even when it feels like survival only, day in and day out. It doesn't feel like real living. 

If this is a regular or constant loop for you, it can make a real difference to take a fresh look at what exactly is physically meant to maintain us in these moments and why it may feel like a persistent struggle. 

Our nervous system is meant to carry and enable us through the day to day difficulties, and there is a unique reality to each of ours. Through no fault of our own, we're set up with a baseline function in childhood which gives us a certain starting point buffer to our distress. This either enables us in our teenage and adult life, or makes life more difficult than it needs to be. The depth of that buffer is not set permanently though, and it can be utterly freeing to understand this, especially if we can do it without any of the shame or blame most of us attach to our struggle with being ok.

And yes, it's likely a path that will challenge you, yet it is still within your reach, as it is for everyone. 

Starting with the basics: the more regulated our nervous system is, the more useful and effective our response to stress. The more dysregulated our nervous system is, the higher the likelihood of creating more dysfunction and more stress, and then the more intense the feelings get that perhaps we can't manage life at all. 

A regulated nervous system is not necessarily calm all the time, but once a threat has passed, it can move fluidly from a state of stress to a centred place again, giving us full relief and certainty, and making it possible to experience the positives of life with proper joy and appreciation. There are various biological mechanisms involved in this of course - like the vagus nerve which helps to slow down your heart rate after a stressful experience and thereby helping to calm us down. So in the normal ups and downs of life, a regulated nervous system means you move through the stress you feel, over and over again, with low or no overwhelm. This means there is no need to shut down, and you stay capable of rational thought.

A dysregulated nervous system is one that doesn't move fully back to a centred place of calm. When it stays in the red for too long or too often, it gets caught up in a survival state, even when there is no immediate danger. For some it gets stuck in always being 'on', which might look like anxiety, panic and hyper-vigilance. Or it might get stuck in being 'off', in which case it can present as depression, numbness and dissociation. 

How does this happen? And what can we do about it? 

The specific state of our nervous system is created by a complex combination of factors, including biology, environment and history. The variables in those are endless, so rather than trying to unpack the whole lot, the following might help in meaningfully shaping the narrative to suit your particular reality. 

The burning house

Imagine a nervous system as a house you live in, right from birth. Like everyone else's houses, yours is flammable, and as life happens, little fires start in different places. At first, each time this happens, it scares the living daylights out of you, because all you know is that it's hot, it burns and you have no idea what to do about it. 

As a baby, you can't help but need others in every instance to put the fire out, and so people soothe you and take care of you in these moments. Then, when you're ready, those who understand what's happening in your house start helping you learn what to do to put the fire out yourself. This might be parents, teachers, extended family, etc. Throughout childhood they teach you that its ok, there are ways to deal with the fires. You learn that its just part of life. That, whether you had accidentally started the fire yourself or whether it had spread from another house to yours, it can be put out and the house can feel safe again. 

If you're supported like this, you learn that being upset when things go wrong is normal, that you have the capability to build the skills to handle a lot yourself, but that you can also reach out and others will help you when it is too much to handle, and that's ok too. 

You even learn that you too can help others with their fires, and that this protects not only their house, but also yours adjacent to it. 

With this embedded and evidenced knowledge, you are primed and ready to take on life. Then, when a big fire inevitably breaks out, whether as a slow smoulder or a fast burning inferno, you trust yourself. You know what to do. The fire is put out, and, if its your house, you take the time to repair the damage. Why? Because your house is your place of safety, and so you take care of it. 

Unfortunately, this is not how the story plays out for everyone. For many, the help offered early on is limited or misguided - almost always unintentionally so. Perhaps as a child you were too often given the message that there is no fire, and that you're over-reacting. Or perhaps you saw that your reaction to your own discomfort was too often creating a negative response from others, that it's not allowed, and that it would be better to act like everything is fine, even when it doesn't feel like it is. The fires still burn, but you learn to shut the doors to those rooms. So you shrink what you show of your internal world to be acceptable to those around you, in the hope that you will find protection and safety in others' positive perception of you. Inevitably though, you don't. With so much of your internal world shut off, you have effectively limited your honest interaction so much that you are now existing in a largely disconnected state. Without being fully seen, you then internalise the thought that you aren't, and never will be, enough, and that all the burning parts, all the things that need attention, are now too shameful to show. 

Others react differently. Perhaps their fires are too big to ignore and they can't shut the door to dull the fear. Soon, even a small fire starts to terrify them. Their fear keeps escalating and when it gets too much, they can't help but cry out. Unfortunately, their behaviour then becomes the focus. They are told they're doing the wrong thing and need to stop, while they know they can't. Against the backdrop of these expectations, their inability to stop crying out tells them that they are in fact the problem, and they internalise the unintended message that they are wrong in their being. Yet the fire burns, and it hurts. Inevitably, they then start to believe that the only way the pain and fear stops, is for them to somehow be different in ways they don't even understand. This leaves them with an impossible task - how do you fix what you don't know how to fix? How can you be ok then, if you can't fix yourself? And the fire keeps burns hotter, as the need to cry out intensifies.

In both of the above scenarios, and without a solution in either, the fear people feel in their burning houses keeps building until it is unbearable. It is at this point that they stumble upon what feels like a solution. They realise they can distract themselves by staring out a window. They can still feel the heat on their back the whole time, and they know that when the distraction ends and they turn around, the fire will still be there and they will be hit with the full force of the fear and hopelessness again. For now though, it helps to stare out the window and focus on something else to survive another day, so that's what they do. Maybe its an obviously destructive distraction, or maybe it's a seemingly harmless one, but it's always a distraction nonetheless from something that needs attention. 

Unfortunately, this distraction means that their house keeps burning, giving them less and less protection, and making them more and more vulnerable and thereby more fearful and reactive. This fills them with shame and anger at themselves. Sometimes, when they see others living with the evidence of safe, sturdy houses, they try to be brave and put out a fire, maybe even rebuild a bit of their house. But the fire burns in so many places, and getting on top of it seems such an impossible task, that they retreat again to their window, hoping to escape the pain for just a little bit longer. 

And bit by bit, they lose hope that they will ever be able to live in a safe house too. 

Putting out the fire

What to do then? If this is you, the seemingly obvious solution is to gain the perspective that it is not your fault that you didn't have the skills initially to deal with your own emotions in a healthy way, and that it is not your fault that your learning in this space was not fully supported. Often parents, teachers and extended family and friends will do their best, but they themselves may not have had the insight or skills to teach and help in the necessary way. 

This is however rarely a helpful starting point. YOUR HOUSE IS ON FIRE. It hurts! Now is not the time for logic and life lessons. The fire needs to be put out first. Not the whole fire, just enough to give you a patch to stand on. To feel hope that you can have a place from which to tackle the next bit. That's all. Just one little patch in your house that's yours to feel a bit better in, that you know you had created. 

What does this look like? It's physical. It's accessible. It can be really really small. It's not about changing you (because that was never the problem to begin with) or immediately changing your life in a grand way. It's about doing one little thing, like a walk down the road or pulling out five weeds in the garden, or sitting outside and watching life go by while breathing slowly and feeling the breeze on your skin. Something that takes you away from your window of distraction and turns you towards your suffering amd very physical nervous system with a bucket of cool, soothing water. Just one little healthy thing. A small pattern of real relief, for your body, repeated every day.

Establish that small pattern of change, maybe each time before reaching for your daily distraction. As you choose to do it, remind yourself each time, that this is you taking care of your house, and that it can be repaired to keep you safe. That your nervous system can also become regulated, just like those of people you admire. That you can do what is needed - maybe a bit later than some, but properly nonetheless. That you need to see yourself put out a bit of the fire, for a little while, to have a patch to stand on and take the next step from. 

It might not feel like much. In fact, it might start off not feeling like anything useful at all. But keep doing it, and keep building on it. Walk a little further each day, even just to the next lamp post or tree. Ask a friend or a parent or a colleague to join in once a week. Or spend a few minutes longer in the garden each time, maybe even to the point where you create little projects for yourself. 

Regular movement, being outside and slowed, deliberate breathing is medicine. Cool, soothing water for your burning nervous system. If you keep it up, it will clear a patch. It will show you that you can make a difference, through your own actions, to put the fires out. At some point, this could even bring you into better sleep - a critical cornerstone for every regulated nervous system. 

At first, you will still have that hollow, fearful feeling. You will still worry that the fires will always come back. But what you're working towards, is knowing that you can make your house safe. That you can develop the skills to first put out some fires, then learn how to make your house stronger so they don't flare up so badly that they overwhelm you. You are in control. You can do this. You are not the problem. 

Start small, ask for help, keep going. 

You already live in a magic house that can help keep you safe if you take care of it.