Dear Emmy:

The physicist Albert Einstein’s famous formula is e=mc2, Energy = Mass times C (the speed of light) squared. Mass and Energy constantly interact in our bodies: mass changes into energy, energy changes into mass, one form of mass changes into another form of mass, and one form of energy changes into another. Everything that we experience as humans is made possible by these changes occurring in our brain, in our other bodily organs and in every living cell in our bodies.

Chemicals like neurotransmitters and hormones make it possible for us to think, feel and act.  All of our cognitive (thinking) and emotional experiences are physical experiences because they are made possible by our physical brain/ body. In other words: without a physical body, we as humans, cannot think or feel anything.

One way to look at the word emotion is e-motion, that is: energy in motion. All that we sense by our five senses (light, sound, touch, smell, taste) involves the flow of energy from the outside to the inside. All that we sense in the inside (hunger, feeling full, feeling bloated, pain, etc.) involves the flow of energy within the body. All of our thinking involves the flow of energy, and all of our emotions as well.

For the purpose of surviving, every animal has adapted to respond to danger by primarily, either running away from it or fighting it. When a mountain lion approaches a deer, and the deer notices, stress chemicals are released into its blood causing it to feel very alert, its heart pumping a lot of blood to its limbs, making it possible for the deer to run fast and long, not feeling tired at all. When the deer successfully escapes the lion, its body stops producing the stress chemicals, and the deer no longer feels alert. Instead, it feels very, very tired and it rests. After resting long enough, the deer is back to normal.

But if you enclose the deer in a small cage for a long, long time, the deer at first feels very alert, blood rushing to its limbs, ready to run… but there is nowhere to run. And so, those stress chemicals keep being produced and released to the blood, in bursts, exhausting and distressing the deer. The deer doesn’t get to rest, it doesn’t get restored, and it doesn’t go back to normal: it is suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, the Trauma: being stuck in a cage, no way to run.

When a child is stuck in an abusive home, and the abuse happens repeatedly, with no resolution, the child is like the deer in a cage, stuck and suffering from PTSD (known as C-PTSD), the Trauma being stuck in an abusive home, nowhere to run to.

Stuck in an abusive home, with nowhere to run to, muscles are tense: leg muscles want to run, arm muscles want to fight, but unable, the muscles remain contracted/ tense. The energy involved in wanting to run away from danger is blocked. The energy involved in wanting to fight danger is blocked. Fear is blocked, anger is blocked, and love is blocked. What results is exhaustion, anxiety, depression and disorders of different kinds.

“Parents were neglectful, mother basically makes everyone turn on me…  I’m blamed for everything… ptsd” – if this was repeatedly your childhood experience, if this was your figurative cage in which you were stuck, then that was the Trauma in your c-PTSD.

“Depression is a 20+ battle, PTSD, anxiety, depression” – your fear, anger, love, all your emotions have been blocked as a result of ongoing trauma, leading to experiencing chronic stress, anxiety, depression.

“Bouts of exhaustion… once in a while, with no rhyme or reason I get this exhaustion, it lasts a day or so, and is gone after that until it returns. It is so infrequent that I can’t pinpoint its reasoning. And it is so intense that I can sleep a day away if I wanted. Can’t lift my arms tired like i had the flu a month or something” – the stress chemicals, such as the stress hormone cortisol, are produced and released to your blood in bursts, exhausting you.

“I have literally been on every single depression med available and am not well” – anti depressant medications did not unblock your stuck energy.

To unblock your stuck, stagnant energy, to free it so that it will naturally flow (and so that your e-motions will indeed be energy in-motion), and relieve the chronic stress involved in this blockage, you lit sage, slept with a rock lamp, carried and put selenite under your pillow, and wore Moldavite on your body. These have caused you to feel better at times, but did not permanently unblock your stuck energy

healthy place. com: Fatigue and PTSD: Why am I so tired?: “The stress hormone cortisol is released during trauma. It desensitizes us so that we feel less pain, and it gives us a boost of energy. In people who have PTSD, cortisol is produced in higher levels and for a prolonged period of time, which can cause fatigue, as well as memory loss and decreased serotonin levels… cortisol and other stress hormones are produced by the adrenal system. When there is an overload on the adrenal system, people with PTSD are likely to experience fatigue, exhaustion, and increased stress”.

Roland Bal/ PTSD Fatigue, PTSD Exhaustion, and Extreme Tiredness: “I think PTSD fatigue and exhaustion is one of the most common symptoms accompanying post-trauma; to be utterly exhausted, tired, fatigued, not having the will or the energy to do anything… The cause of the draining attack is obvious; your flight/fight mechanism has kicked in… Emotions affect primarily the nervous and endocrine systems, and organs; from there, the effects travel to the muscular-skeletal system where pain first occurs due to the body’s enervation. These “knots” or “cysts” in the body are holding the emotion, as though frozen. The body-mind keeps these emotional tensions–these energy cysts– in place to the best of its ability, at the cost of enormous energy”.

I hope to read your feedback about what I posted here this morning, when you are ready, no rush.

anita