Thread by @Fizzygrrl

I’m gonna talk about a thing here, and so, CW: PTSD.

People with PTSD commonly deal with a thing called “hyper-vigilance” and that can be in a mental and/or physical way.

Over-simplification: it means we are always clenched up and preparing for catastrophe.

Now, I deal with this both physically and mentally. I’m on medication to help with it, but it hasn’t helped much.

I’m gonna focus on the physical side.

My muscles don’t relax. Ever. I can force them to release, but it’s actually painful because my muscles are always clenched.

Seriously, my muscles always feel like rocks and piano wire.

Now, over the last few years, I’ve started blacking out. A lot. Standing or sitting up, doing yoga, turning my head, doing nothing at all.

This is, as you can imagine, troublesome.

The theory is that my blood pressure is dropping for one reason or another. But my blood pressure is fine.

Today, my doctor figured it out, and I learned something that I find so wild.

There is a big ol’ artery and an equally big vein that runs up your neck. (Obvs.) But it’s wedged in between the piano wire muscles. (Vein in blue, artery in red.)

The hyper-vigilance of my body is *literally* cutting off blood flow To and from my brain.

The tighter the muscles get, the more I black out. When I do, my muscles relax and blood flow returns.

My pulse can’t be felt in my right wrist when I’m standing because the muscles wrap it all off.

There’s nothing *wrong* with my body, physically. No deformities, no tumors. But my body is so incapacitated by PTSD-caused hyper-vigilance, that it’s constantly shutting itself down. (Blacking out seems counterproductive to being on high alert, but okay.)

People thing PTSD is mostly mental complications.

It’s so, soooooo not. It’s definitely mental, but it spreads into every cell and changes the way our bodies work. It’s a battle from every angle.

So many mental illnesses are like this.

Anxiety, depression, etc. it can all manifest physically. Body pain, blood pressure issues, migraines, lowered immune systems.

Your own neck muscles choking you out. 🙃🙃🙃

So, look. Doctors tend to love to say what an issue ISN’T but stop searching to figure out what it IS.

Keep pushing for answers. Hold them accountable to find the cause, and work to deliver solutions, or at the very least, relief.

Physical health issues definitely can and do exacerbate mental health issues, and that is a hell loop.

If you’re in that loop, you deserve better. You deserve competence and compassion.

And to not be strangled unconscious by your own neck, I’m just saying.