Numbing and Running - Emotional avoidance and coping

I USED so many things over the years as a way to cope and avoid how I was feeling

The busier I was the less time I had to feel all of my feelings or even have time to stop and reflect on what my reality had been or was

👇🏻Numbing and running also looked like using:

▪️Alcohol

▪️Drugs

▪️Sex

▪️Work

▪️Food

▪️Over exercising and not enough rest

▪️Physically hurting myself

◽️I now see that I used these as ways to cope, ways to disconnect from my physical and emotional self, ways to fill the empty feeling I had within myself, a way to try and keep myself safe from getting hurt again or from having to feel the feelings that felt too much,

◽️Some of this was necessary and was the only way to survive some of the things that happened, but as I find myself in a place where I am safe, it has become important to finally allow these feelings to be felt and to no longer numb and run, but to be present and work through my feelings. In order to do this I have needed HELP, and LOTS of it!

👉🏻Specialised trauma therapy

👉🏻Talk therapy

👉🏻Peer connection from those that get it

👉🏻Mindfulness in my every day life

👉🏻Journaling

👉🏻Unlearning all of the ways I have been conditioned to cope and feel safe and knowing I can try something new and it will feel uncomfortable and that’s ok

❤️I’m learning to unlearn to relearn and this is the beautiful messy untangling I am growing though

👇🏻What have you used to cope/numb to get you through?