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This is a really useful site for information on ME/ Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, particularly how to do pacing, graded increase in muscle activity and relaxation:

https://www.epsom-sthelier.nhs.uk/chronic-fatigue-syndrome

“The lively world of our emotions, fears and responses is like a great forest with its fauna. We experience those feelings as though they were wild animals bolting through the foliage of our thick being, timedly peering out in alarm or slyly slinking and cunningly stalking, linking us to our unknown selves” (Paul Shepard).

Species develop adaptive survival mechanisms to keep them alive, whether to avoid detection and attack. This is not always about winning, but surviving so a freezing state or submissive posture is sometimes best. These fight, flight and freeze (immobility response when fight or flight seems impossible) responses are very primitive so they predate the reptilian brain and are found in all species including humans. When threatened we can fight, flee or freeze, this is not a thought out process, but are instinctually orchestrated. The aim is to survive and deal with the consequences later when the danger has past.

When freeze response is activated, which is common in trauma responses, the energy that would have been discharged if flight or fight were activated, is constricted. This energy is then amplified and bound up in the nervous system, resulting in a very anxious and emotional state. The frustrated anger response erupts into rage, while the frustrated flight response erupts into helplessness. If one can release the energy through fight or flight and thus defend itself, trauma will not occur. With the frozen energy states of helplessness, terror and rage are common.

Traumatic anxiety is an aroused, hypervigilant state that will not dissipate and leads to an almost continuous state of anxiety. There is a continuous sense of danger and search for that danger, dissociation, a feeling of helplessness, fear, panic and as if you are on the brink of insanity. Importantly, this is not a permanent aspect of one’s personality, but indicative of a nervous system temporarily, albeit perpetually, overwhelmed. With unresolved trauma, we repeat what we have done before, but inevitably this leads to the circuit not being completed and a sense of trapped energy.

These traumatic symptoms affect one’s emotional and mental states, but also one’s physical health. The trapped energy from being in this hypervigilant state will use any aspect of one’s physiology available to it in order to release this energy. Trauma can make a person deaf, blind, mute, have paralysis in arms/legs, have chronic pain, chronic fatigue syndrome, asthma, severe PMS, gastrointestinal problems, migraines and many psychosomatic responses. As Peter Levine states, “any physical system capable of binding the undischarged arousal caused by trauma is fair game”.

The fact that the freeze response feels like death is partly why humans struggle to stay with the felt sense of it long enough to reach its natural conclusion. We respond emotionally to flashbacks in the same we did when it happened, but the way out of immobility is to experience it gradually, in safety through the felt sense.

“And no Grand Inquisitor has in readiness such terrible tortures as has anxiety…which never lets him escape, neither by diversion, not by noise, neither at work or at play, neither by day or by night” (Kierkegaard).

This is something I do with younger people that you might like to try with your own children, or find useful to do yourself.

Materials Needed: Colour pens, a large piece of paper and a private space.

Instructions:

• Know that you will be drawing a tree with all its different parts such as roots, ground, trunk, branches, leaves, fruits and seeds. Any of the pens can be used for each part of the Tree of Life and it can be elaborated as you like.
• Start by drawing the ROOTS of the tree and write down the identity of the roots. EG Where do you come from? This can include places you come from, the people, the ideas, traditions, books, religion, language, ancestry etc. Who are the people who have taught you the most in life? What is your favourite place at home, a treasured song, dance or item?
• Then draw the GROUND. Then write how you identify with it. EG. Where do you currently live? What activities do you do in your everyday life?
• Now it is the TRUNK of the tree and write down how you identify with this. EG. What do you value? What skills and abilities do you have? What do you believe passionately in? What qualities and characteristics do you have? What are you committed to and what is your purpose(s) and source of meaning?
• Then draw the BRANCHES of the tree and identify in the branches: What are your hopes, dreams and wishes (these could be for you or others)? Where would you like your life to be heading?
• Draw the LEAVES of the tree and identify in the leaves: Who is important to you?These people could be alive or deceased, or children or adults, or people who you haven’t met but contributed to your life in important ways (an author, artist, musician, or historical figure).
• Please draw the FRUIT of the tree and identify in the fruit:  What “gifts” have you received or what legacies have been passed on to you (this includes being cared for, being loved, or having acts of kindness done for you)?
• Then draw the SEEDS of the tree and identify in the seeds: What are the legacies or gifts you want to give others (this could be specific, such as, “I want to give the gift of unconditional love to my children.” Or this could be general, such as, “I want to be remembered as one who made things light-hearted, or was willing to notice those in need.”)?
• Finally, draw a COMPOST HEAP near the tree and identify in the compost heap: Who has been harmful or abusive in some way, but should still be remembered (it may be possible that people in the compost heap are included in other parts of the tree)?

Here are further details and some examples

Another tool i like is rather than seeing your life in terms of the standard development phases, fill in the key events that have been critical in your development:

Finally, this can be useful with children. I think it is best when you draw your own houses and fill them in accordingly:

House of Worries

Then of course Headspace, breathing exercises and practising mindfulness is integral. I also promote healthy eating and exercise while also undertaking therapy, to take a holistic approach to mind and body.

I think keeping a journal is a vital reflection tool and this can take any shape and form. However, if you struggle finding the motivation to do this there are some online journalling systems that I know some clients have found helpful, this is just one of them – Mind Journals

“The most spiritual human beings, assuming they are the most courageous, also experience by far the most painful tragedies; but it is precisely for this reason that they honour life, because it brings against them its most formidable weapons”.

In the August edition of The Psychologist an article discussing autism in women quoted Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Penelopiad’ to encourage those diagnosed with autism to not let their challenges stand in the way of them fulfilling whatever they want to do, which I liked:

“Water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away at stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can’t go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does”.

This is cited to highlight how with autism if you cannot go the neurotypjcal route, find your own route. Understand that your obsessive attention to detail is a great strength that will enable you to excel at many things. But also understand your challenges as this will help you to mitigate them, so that they don’t have to stand in the way of your future. I worked with someone diagnosed with autism who  thought speaking in public would be impossible due to her difficulty with social interactions and communicating and having been told so often what she could and couldn’t do. However, she presented at a conference and captivated the audience, something that she never thought she was capable of and I certainly could not have done. Eloise Stark, the author of the article mentioned above also described how she will strive to become a clinical psychologist despite people’s beliefs about her ability for social skills and Theory of Mind and I hope this acts as motivation and inspiration to others.

Take autistic inertia, this is resistance to change in state, so starting something or stopping something. This is core to the difficulties that people with autism face, but as Fergus Murray highlights in his support for the theory of monotropism in autism, it’s also immensely valuable. Similarly, the description of ‘restricted interests’ is often used, but taking the stance of monotropism that rests on the idea of an ‘interest system’, we are all interested in things which help to direct our attention and certain interests will be more or less salient at different times. In a monotropic autistic mind, less interests are activated at one time and take more processing resources, so it is difficult to cope with things outside of where the attention is currently directed, but this can be seen as ‘focused interests’. It is true that autistic individuals are strongly pulled by their interests compared with most people, but just because one cannot fathom their failure to be interested in things that are similar to or important to one’s own interests, doesn’t mean that they should be called ‘restricted interests’. This is a huge asset in so many fields where intense focus is indispensable – maths, science, technology, philosophy, music etc and workplaces and schools should facilitate this being celebrated and meet each individual where they are at and explore, engage with and harness their passions, rather that just trying to pull the individual out of what’s important to them. It’s important not to pathologise ‘special interests’ and much of autistic behaviour is an attempt to bring back equilibrium. Needing stability is vital in autism as not feeling understood,  being surprised by the actions of others’, being monotropic in a polytropic environment, and being pulled out of an attention tunnel is severely destabilising. As such, maintaining stability, enabling a sense of being in control which self-orchestrated routines often assist and minimising mental overload is key.