A Felt Sense of Safety – From Disassociation to Embodiment

Iarrived at my 18^th birthday 20 pounds overweight, insecure, and foggy, thanks to Depakote and Zyprexa. It was the perfect way to start my senior year of high school. My lovely psychiatrist, Dr. Volls, advised me on the concept of “mood management.” I depended on her expertise to keep me out of crisis, while the medication kept me grounded, sleeping, and helped me forget. My first experience with psychosis had occurred just four months prior, and I was not about to go through that again.

With every pill I swallowed, I drifted further and further from my authentic self. A nutrition geek and nature fanatic who loved learning about the healing power of food, I could not wrap my mind around how I needed prescriptions to balance my brain. Little did I know how much damage they were causing. These medications helped my family feel safe, which made me feel safe from ever experiencing a psychotic episode again. Diagnosed bipolar at 17 meant that I had no rights. I was considered a child. No one respected my opinion, and even though I intuitively knew that enforcing medication was not the solution, there was no alternative.

I grew up in a chaotic household where we each took turns experiencing a crisis. Everyone participated in some way. In theory we were all safe within our dysfunctional family structure, playing roles and adapting as needed. I played the victim role most of the time. When my sisters went to college, I shifted into a caregiver role with my brothers, promising myself I would be the older sister to them that I never had. I wanted them to feel safe, nurtured, and loved.

When my sister attempted suicide by overdosing on Benadryl, I remember feeling frozen in shock upon hearing the news. This was sometime after she had been treated for her eating disorder at a facility in Arizona.

Years later, my youngest brother was hospitalized for type 1 diabetes.

My other sister eventually became pregnant out of wedlock in college.

As my brothers entered high school, they started dabbling with drugs and alcohol. Both were eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Both got on medication. One brother got off of all of it over the course of 10 years. He was the pioneer in my family. After two years of lithium, he got off completely, holding down a job and supporting himself through the entire experience of withdrawal.

Don’t ask. Don’t tell. That was my family motto. I always seemed to tune in on what was going on behind closed doors, at least with my closest brother. We shared a bond from being treated for bipolar with lithium, and I learned so much from his healing journey, before I even attempted to get off medications.

During family gatherings, we never talked about anything of substance. I operated out of an anxious, disassociated state, while other members of my family quoted movies and laughed about our bad genes. I pretended to feel safe. It was an expectation to show up to every family gathering, every holiday and birthday. As a good daughter, I showed up, I observed, and dodged criticism by inserting the occasional funny comment as I deemed appropriate.

When it was my turn to create a crisis, mine was a big one.

Paxil-induced psychosis, on an airplane, just moments after takeoff. The antidepressant, prescribed by a neurologist, had unearthed my “predisposition for bipolar,” the psychiatrists would later claim.

Thrust into the welcoming arms of the mental health system, “safety” was a portion of my care plan completed by a social worker before I was discharged from my first emergency week-long hold at the psychiatric ward of Parkland Hospital in Dallas, Texas.

My safety plan started with the question,“What are you going to do to make sure you don’t have another episode?”

“Take medication. Go see my psychiatrist. Maintain my sleep schedule,” I dutifully wrote down on a worksheet. At the time, I was foggy and slightly delusional after a week of enduring abusive psych techs who threatened and terrified me into taking medication.

I spent the summer listening to Dashboard Confessional, frozen, in my room making collages and jewelry. Trapped in a childlike state, traumatized, and without a voice. I felt helpless and controlled, like an injured bird who would never fly again.

Safety was an unfamiliar concept, even before my bipolar diagnosis. The only time I felt a sense of safety was in the woods. I missed the creek behind our old backyard where I wandered for hours among the cedars and the oaks. When I spent time in the forest, I felt peace.

I felt connected.

I felt safe.

Inside the home was a feeling of chaos and fear. While there were moments of calm, my mother operated under constant low-level anxiety, fearful of what would go wrong next. My father was working most of the time. They both showed up in times of crisis, and they followed doctor’s orders, encouraging us to take our medications.

My senior year of high school was the year my heart stopped speaking to me. There were no more dreams or desires. I told myself that my dreams no longer mattered. Stability was more important. I finished high school, graduated from college, and got a job. My heart continued to long for travel and adventure, but I ignored it.

When I discovered power yoga, I was 24 years old, working for a leasing company, and living in an apartment in Dallas. Lying on the floor in our final resting pose after sweating and bending for 45 minutes, I relaxed every muscle and felt my body fully supported and held. The teacher’s soft voice soothed my restless soul. For the first time since my explorations in the woods, I felt safe.

I felt safe enough to let go.

After that class, I was hooked. I started practicing yoga twice a week and within a year, I practiced every other day to balance my long-distance runs. Yoga felt like a miracle drug. All I had to do was move through a sequence, push myself to the edge and then, just when I felt I would collapse, I was given permission to relax. Lying in stillness, I listened to the hum of gentle music and the calming presence of the teacher, who often quoted authors like Pema Chodron or Rumi at the end of the class.

I practiced sometimes six days a week, even twice a day at times. I felt safe inside the walls of the studio. It became my safe space. Here, I learned about self-love, acceptance, and the concept of mindfulness. Inhabiting my body and paying attention to how each pose felt was also a different way of being. Nurtured by the words of my teachers, I carried their message inside my heart where it began to blossom.

Unfortunately, after feeling so good and experiencing a period of happiness, I consulted with a psychiatrist. She encouraged me to consider that I did not have bipolar, and I got off lithium too quickly. The bliss of discovering these new tools and living with fierce independence was gone the instant I found myself waking up on a bed in the emergency room, listening to the sound of my pulse on the monitor. This episode was once again another extreme crisis that I created, induced by alcohol, drugs and psych drug withdrawal. The anxiety I experienced after this episode was so intense, even practicing yoga daily could not ease my fear.

A therapist gently encouraged me to consider that I might have PTSD. I had no idea what that meant, because I was convinced that I was a terrible person with bipolar who simply could not handle her life. The therapist explained that my behaviors were self-sabotaging in nature. This was another new concept for me, which I chose not to explore, because I decided I was bad and I needed to be more disciplined.

Four years later, I became a yoga instructor. Although I remained relatively disassociated from my body and emotions, I loved how I felt physically.

At the time, I did not know what disassociation meant, although I lived and breathed it every day. I made sure to exercise at least five days a week because it was the only way I could relax. The sensations of freeze and anxiety came in waves, but I thought they were just part of what was wrong with me.

Yoga was a way to connect with myself and other people, and to focus on something life-giving where I could help other people and myself. Teaching classes was meditative and kept me centered in the present moment. It became a way for me to travel. While in Colombia, I learned how to teach in Spanish. I taught travelers from Spain at a rock-climbing hostel, and later taught refugee women from Mexico.

At age 32, I was introduced to a concept called “a felt sense of safety.” I began to perceive my experiences within the mental health system and my family unit as trauma. My somatic therapist taught me how to observe my body and my surroundings to come back to the present moment before and after a session. I began to learn how to respond to the messages of my physical body and grow more curious about my heart’s longings.

Listening and responding to my yearnings has helped me cultivate a deeper sense of self-trust. I recently took a long-awaited trip back to Central America where I reconnected with old friends, made new ones, and explored beaches, jungles, and towns I had never visited before. I followed my curiosity, with mindfulness and presence. I changed plans and shifted gears when I needed to, and I experienced the joy of connecting in community.

As I reflect back on these seasons of my life, I feel a deep sense of serenity. I feel whole. I feel grounded, and I feel connected to my true self, deep within my body.

I know now that I can trust myself and listen to my intuition. Within the mental health system, I trusted everyone but myself. My bipolar diagnosis meant I needed to submit to the authority of a doctor, reporting to her what I felt, and I needed to rigidly manage my life. My life was not meant to be lived. Instead, it was contained and controlled.

Living without medication, psychiatrists, and the mental health system has forced me to learn how to check in with myself and discern between feelings, needs, and the daily actions necessary to maintain the freedom and independence I have gained. When I went through a period of intense sadness, I cried a lot. I wrote and I danced to discharge the feelings of grief and move through it.

I created a safe space for myself to feel what I needed to feel. There was no shame about it or fear that there was something wrong with me to be ‘fixed’ or suppressed.

When I feel off or become too busy, I have learned to pause and ask myself:

“Am I getting enough exercise, food, water and sleep?”

“Am I spending time with friends and reaching out for connection?”

“How is my heart?”

“Am I feeding my soul?”

The shift from suppressing ‘symptoms’ to seeing them as messages has given me a greater sense of safety and stability than any medication or system could provide. I don’t look for what’s wrong with me anymore. There will always be something I can change or improve, but I choose not to place all of my attention there. The safety and stability I feel within my body is rooted in my self-trust. It takes practice, but I’m getting better at trusting my intuition and listening to the messages my body expresses. Doing the work is harder than taking a pill, but for me it’s worth it. Feeling alive and aligned with myself is worth it.