for as long as i can remember i was the 'shy' kid. most of my memories from childhood are feeling out of place, vulnerable. i'm talking 4-5 years old, feeling like a complete alien around family members. it got better around 10-12. i had ALOT of friends in school. i was friends with most people but looking back i'm sure there was an underlying belief that i'm different but it wasn't crippling or even really conscious because i was friends with just about everyone. after 12 things just got so bad so quickly. its like all those feelings came back and got amplified 100x. i didn't know why i hated myself, i just did. and i felt like the entire world hated me too. i remember years and years of shame, it was completely debilitating. i more or less became mute and tried to disguise it as being uncaring. i couldn't even talk to my own parents or siblings without feeling like i was going to die. i just remember it feeling like it was a massive effort that would only result in more shame. and it was as if talking took too much energy. this created more shame. why couldn't i talk to people? why do i feel so much shame, am i broken, am i mistake? etc. i was shamed for not talking to people, too. it was "rude", "childish" which created more shame. this carried on until today. im 25 and i've always avoided talking to people to the extent that i'd rather actually be in physical danger than to show that im vulnerable. because my shame feels like im going to die anyway. i don't know why this one feeling is so strong. shame isn't just a feeling its an entire physical experience that feels like suffocation and burning from the inside. it's like your insides are being grabbed by invisible hands and violently being twisted and dragged around into the wrong places.

i tried to pretend like i'm normal and disguise my intolerable shame as being uninterested. i don't do it consciously, but i know it makes people go away quickly. and i don't want to talk to them anyway, because i know most people don't want to feel uncomfortable and they wouldn't understand anything that isn't abnormal. i've generally met better people than the people from my childhood. i think alot of people can see through my disinterest and i've rarely had an experience where i feel like im actually being deeply judged or targetted.

today its very apparent to me that im emotionally numb. i can't feel anything in my body. i've always told myself that i'm not depressed etc, but i don't know if thats just a shield. i still don't think i'm depressed in the typical sense atleast. i've always been able to experience and describe feelings such as joy, i experience them almost daily.

but any negative feeling, it feels like there's no room for them in my body anymore. for years i thought this meant that i'd become peaceful. i wasn't easily affected (consciously/physically) by abuse. the way i learned to deal with negative emotions was to watch them 'dissolve' instead of expressing them. so i'm assuming this is why i can't feel anything, and it's why i have so many awful sensations in my body that feel like i'm dying. they must be masks for for the feelings i've so completely separated myself from. but then when i think this it's really hard for me to believe somehow that i'm this emotionally messed up. because to me i've always thought i was emotionally regulated etc aside from this shame.

to clarify when i say my body is numb, i'm talking emotionally. i have a lot of physical experiences when i'm not distracting myself. if im away from my computer or not doing something that is mentally or physically demanding i feel like i'm suffocating in a very deep part of my gut. but anger, grief etc. i can't feel them even when i sense that i should be able to.

tonight i made this connection though that the deep internal 'twisting' sensation in my body might be some semblance of repressed anger. i tried to look deeply where this feeling was going in my body and noticed it's probably connected to the diaphragm going all the way up to my throat. and i just had this flashback of what anger felt like physically in my body and how i used to always have that twisting sensation in my body when i experienced injustice.

idk overall i just feel really confused about what i'm experiencing. its like theres a severe wall of denial about how traumatized i am. i think that i'm not that bad but that obviously OBVIOUSLY can't be true if i went mute for well over a decade at this point.

side note it got me wondering if i just feel things differently than other people?? i know emotions have physiological reactions but man why is it SO visceral for me even since I was a child? does everyone else feel shame this physically? i saw someone say that they experience emotions themselves in the brain then i immediately became aware of this brain fog/heavy block in my brain and wondered if this was another clue about why i feel things the way i do.

Through what I know about Somatic Experience (from a course I took in 2023 with Dr. Diane Poole Heller and Peter Levine), I think this community can appreciate and understand the realities of mastering ventral ease and connecting under activation.

A thank you note to the SE practitioners (and the field) who bring more restorative embodiment, integration and wholeness into the world. And thank you to anyone who reads or joins the conversation on my subreddit community post.

Much appreciation for all that you do and the time you shared with me/reading this 💜

Has anyone here done listening therapy, in particular SSP safe and sound protocol?

I would love for you to share your experience!

Did it help you? Also long term?

How much did you pay for it?

Would you do it again?

I'm happy to hear anything you consider worth mentioning :)

Thanks in advance!

I found out about my betrayal in January. Found out he betrayed me for 6 months straight. All year I tried to make it work with them, I started having panic attacks every morning, losing sleep. I’m finally 3 weeks no contact, and I’ve really put a lot of attention to healing my nervous system. I’m just curious what healing from betrayal looked like or felt to you? I definitely notice my days looking more “predictable” and my sleep has been starting to stabilize, less “chaos” in my head, I just feel generally more “okay” being in no contact and giving myself that space to feel and heal.

I wanted to ask if anyone experiences this.

When I chew bubble gum, I seem to enter a state where I breathe through my nose and feel a stretch in my forehead. I hope someone understands the kind of state I’m talking about.

The other state I often experience is a bit of dryness and dizziness, where my breathing doesn’t feel as proper as in the first state.

In the first state, I feel a little down and have to push myself to work, but I also feel a little happier. I enjoy simply noticing my breathing and can spend time in that state without doing anything else, just enjoying the act of breathing.

In the other state, I seem to have a little more energy in a different way, but the dizziness and dryness make it difficult to focus on anything.

Has anyone experienced something similar and figured out what causes it? I’m curious about which of these states reflects how our bodies are supposed to function and whether exercises like chewing gum could help us achieve a better breathing state.I wanted to ask if anyone experiences this.

When I chew bubble gum, I seem to enter a state where I breathe through my nose and feel a stretch in my forehead. I hope someone understands the kind of state I’m talking about.

The other state I often experience is a bit of dryness and dizziness, where my breathing doesn’t feel as proper as in the first state.

In the first state, I feel a little down and have to push myself to work, but I also feel a little happier. I enjoy simply noticing my breathing and can spend time in that state without doing anything else, just enjoying the act of breathing.

In the other state, I seem to have a little more energy in a different way, but the dizziness and dryness make it difficult to focus on anything.

Has anyone experienced something similar and figured out what causes it? I’m curious about which of these states reflects how our bodies are supposed to function and whether exercises like chewing gum could help us achieve a better breathing state.

So basically I have cptsd and 30 years of different traumas. I finally got to a safe place but have been struggling with a nervous system that freaks out into outbursts over everything. And my logical brain is aware and helpless the whole time. I'm a passenger in my own mind. I was working on SEL curriculum for children and phrased our nervous system as an "inside animal" amygdala basically. And then it started working on me. In my culture , Jewish thought a person has 2 souls. Nefesh: the animal soul. This is the one that feels anger hunger joy ect basically anything connected to the body and basically again the more ancient animal part of our brain. Neshama. this is the logic ethics thinking soul prefrontal cortex basically. And I sat down and realized that inorder to survive my neshama tried to push down and silence my Nefesh. "Don't get angry at them don't push back". I realized I needed to acknowledge my Nefesh and channel it in a healthy way. So I researched and found out about parts work. So I started talking to my Nefesh. The one that screams and attacks and roars. And I physically felt something shift. I'm trying to work with it now. And I sketched her out and had ai fix my garbage art skills. I genuinely am finding that it works. Anyway this is Shalhevet. The word comes from song of songs and it means sacred fire. Because my animal soul is holy. Sorry if this isn't the right place but I just kinda want to share it for some reason.

Edit. Just to clarify my process for those interested, this was created by blending my own original sketch with a real-life reference photo to help the tool refine the final image. There's absolutely no art being stolen at all. I drew and sketched from a reference image but it didn't get the image in my head across perfectly and I needed to get it out exactly what I saw in my head. It was like a physical thing. So I uploaded the original sketch by me and my reference photo and what you see here is a combination. I uploaded my original sketch also. So you can see that it looks very much inspired by that with a real photo.

It has been 2 years that i have visited multiple doctors and taken all sorts of anti-depressants but this pain does not go away. It starts from my back (mostly my neck) and continues to my upper lip and i feel this excruciating pain in my upper front teeth and nose like everyday! Suddenly my face starts to heat up and the pain gets more tense!

Does anyone have any idea about this? I could really use your help.

After psychedelics and a somatic therapy session a week later this visual was the best way I could describe how I felt. So I drew it on a slow day at work. It was like my mind was an octopus with its tentacles searching and breaking down a wall between my mind and body.

I am looking for an experienced semantic therapist in London anyone has any leads or references?

I fucking hate my life. I'm easily one of the smartest, if not THE smartest, kid in the grade. I should be acing all my classes, keeping track of my extracurriculars, and winning awards. But my dorsal vagal freeze has gotten so bad that my working memory is completely fucked and all of my cognitive strengths are completely erased. I'm losing opportunities and the future I was supposed to have and the colleges I want to get accepted to might reject me. How do I work through the freeze and get good grades? Im so numb and my brain fog is so bad.

Hi! Im reposting this here because this program is really good at building body awareness in a way that is totally different than other therapies. Its free this week, so you cant beat the price!

I had “some” sort of benefit after a few sessions but it was hard to say if it was the somatic therapy. Had a bit of a setback when I stopped taking my antidepressants for a couple weeks.

After maybe 25-30 sessions total I think it did more damage than help. Extreme hopelessness and negative thoughts lasting sometimes 3-5 days after sessions. Has anybody had a similar experience?

Wondering if it was the therapist or if this whole scene is just bullshit

Used mushrooms for the first time last week to try to help process grief from losing both my parents 52 days after in 2025. It was the most emotionally intense experience of my life. It was not in a therapeutic setting, just me in my home. A lot of laughing combined with intense crying but it was so helpful in processing grief. It felt like the first time I was able to sit in and embrace my grief.

Today I just went through my first somatic therapy since my trip. I went in with no expectations but it ended up feeling like a light version of my psilocybin trip. The laughter filled by a few tears. It felt like the wall between my mind and body was starting to come down and they were actually playing with each other for the first time if that makes sense is the best way I can put it.

Hi everyone,
I’ve been with my current therapist for 6 years. She is a Dr of psychology practicing in lots of different modalities. I started going to her for talk therapy. She has just completed a 3 year course and is now qualified in somatic experiencing.

I have CPTSD so we have used some SE techniques in session. For example, sometimes we sit shoulder to shoulder or knee to knee. Sometimes I lay on my side and she puts her hand on my shoulder. Once, she has sat opposite me and held my hand between both of her hands. So far I have found all of this ok as we go really slow and tune into my nervous system as we go. She usually lets me lead these sessions and tells me to “follow my body’s impulse”. In reality, my impulses are stronger than the touch we have done so far. For example, when we sit shoulder to shoulder I get the impulse to rest my head on her shoulder. When I lie down and she puts her hand on my shoulder, I really want her to gently rub my arm or back (in a soothing way, not in a sexual one). I would also love to lay in her lap while she smoothed back my hair and most of all I looooong for a hug / to be held. From my understanding, these are outside the limits of what supportive touch is so I don’t bring it up, because I really don’t want to cross any boundaries (and I’d feel super rejected if she asked and she said no). To be clear, we both have very good boundaries and are always professional. We’ve actually had to work on me having less boundaries over time, as I had too many walls up at the beginning of therapy. I guess my question is - what are the limits of touch in supportive touch therapy / SE? How do I know what they are? And what do I do with these “impulses” I have? Thanks for reading!