My nervous system’s reaction to not being able to get away from my father…

Our bodies are truly amazing and I am thankful for the way Spirit made us. It has gotten me to survive my life.

When I was 30 years old I was on a flight from Philadelphia to Colorado with a friend of mine. I have flown my entire life and never had an issue. My friend had made a friend while we were waiting for our flight. I did not like this friend. Something didn’t feel right. I felt very uneasy around this person. This was long before Yoga and long before any body healing for me.

He was on our flight and on we came. Those two laughing and talking. When we got to our seats they swapped seats so this new friend and my friend could keep talking. I remember sitting there thinking why won’t this guy just leave. Please go away from me. But, I could nothing, but be very unsettled in my soul about this person. I am in the plane and I am looking out the window and I am breathing. That is all I could do at this point. I tried to focus. I tried to breathe, but nothing was working and this guy would not leave my space. After trying with what seemed forever I knew something was going to happen. My body was coming apart and my mind was spinning and I wasn’t able to control what was happening any longer.

I turned to my friend and said please bring the oxygen down, I need it. She tried and looked at me and said I am sorry, but I can’t get it to come down. I looked at her, with bug eyes…big and crazy I am sure and I said THAT IS THE WRONG ANSWER. From this point forward I was running for my life!

At this point now we are traveling down the runway at a good speed getting ready to lift up into the air. I stood up on the seat with my feet and crouching over because I couldn’t stand all the way up. I then proceeded to step onto the legs of my friend and her new friend and jumped into the isle of the plane. I ran screaming down the isle for someone to get me of the plane. SCREAMING FOR MY LIFE. I didn’t care who heard me, or saw me, or what anybody else thought, because I could do nothing, except what I am telling you here. I ran for my life!

The crew got me and put me in the back of the plane and got me to my head between my legs and breathe. I did this and survived the flight and landed in Colorado. I was terrified to get onto another plane, so my sweet friend drove the rental car with me to Wyoming. (where I had the best vacation of my life, by the way).

I went to the doctors while I was in Wyoming to get a pill. I was NOT GOING TO GET ON ANOTHER PLANE after that. This is long before I learned about medication and what I feel about it now is much different, but I did what I had to do to survive. She gave me one pill of something and I made it home.

I have laughed about this over the years.

I have even realized what this about over the years. This man reminded me of my father and I could not escape.

But I never felt this until yesterday.

I was finishing up my reading of Peter Levine’s book (The Unspoken Voice) and his book triggered a bunch in me. This is a very good book and a recommend it, but I had to read it in parts. Very scientific and way over my head at times, but on this particular day it sparked my little girl into realizing that she has carried that pain for long enough, and now it is time to feel that pain.

So here I am reading this as part of my training, and not that didn’t realize most of what he was saying, but something made me really feel the trauma from this event.

I got up and I wanted to kick something or punch something. I got right out of my chair…what do I do with this rage inside of me right now. I was so angry!!! SO ANGRY!! After a few minutes of being angry and not knowing what to do with it all except feel my body and let my emotions come I started crying. I started crying remembering how terrified I was on that plane. How I felt so out of control and I could not get away from this man. How I could not breathe. How I felt like I was going to die. How nobody was coming to save me. How scared I was…how totally scared I was in my own body.

I felt this in my chest the most and in my jaw. I felt this in my feet and legs. When I stood up my legs stiffened and my feet stiffened like I was trying to protect myself from what? My anger?

I realized that 26 years had passed and I have never let myself feel those feelings. I was a scared little girl back then and I never let her feel anything. I laughed it off through the years thinking okay I knew what happened…that part I get…and then I left it alone. What that means is that I stuffed it.

So I didn’t share with my husband right away. I was the only one who knew what was happening. I will be okay.

My husband and I are watching Criminal Minds. I love that show…it is just my thing! This episode was about dissociating. This man had lost his son and couldn’t deal with it. I don’t need to get into what he did, but after it was over I paused it and said to my husband, ‘I understand this.’ Once I started talking the flood gates opened…and all the tears came. I understand why this guy would behave this way because I also understand how to disassociate. To divide myself into fragments to survive. I cried and I was loud and mad, mad that I should never have to be afraid of the one person that I should have been able to trust 100%. I was mad because those feelings are real and I had to feel them for the first time 26 years later. I was mad because nobody protected me.

But then I realized that I protected me. My body that is divinely made, my nervous system/my little girl who all she wanted was love…she protected me.

Now she knows she can feel safe to feel those feelings. For those that are reading….that is no small feat. My nervous system has been through the ringer. My little girl has been protecting me through it all and that is real and felt and to survive she did what she needed to do.

So I cried and I said what I needed to say. I complained about my dad and how any child would feel this terrified to think her father is near by. I complained about my mom and how nobody protected me, when I know that she could not protect herself. But that doesn’t mean I am not allowed to be angry. I am allowed to feel those feelings and be okay with them. I am allowed. I need to feel them and express them and that is what I did.

I could go on and on with more reasons for this and that, but I wanted to put this out there to help others to know they are not alone. This is me at 56 years old healing from things that happened many moons ago.

When I was running down the isle in the air plane I was trying to hold the pieces of Eileen that were never made whole to begin with. (I was whole when I was born), but shortly after that I learned fear.

So here I am running down the isle trying to stay alive…clutching my insides like they would come apart. All my body holding itself in such a way that every muscle it seems was contracted…

This is what healing is about. Feeling those things you don’t want to feel. Little pieces come out when you are ready and your nervous system learns a new way of being. It is not easy, and I will never say that it is, but it so worth it.

All the ups and downs. This is me at 56 and I am happy to be here and feel and learn about myself as I go.

My little girl doesn’t need to be terrified anymore and today while in a TRE session I let more go and I my little girl was not the tight knot of pieces trying to hold herself together, she was/is a beautiful light of pink and purple now. And my nervous system/little girl learned to soften a little more…