One of the struggles for people with Hashimotos, is stress. When stress enters our life it affects the whole endocrine system. This is one of the reasons I take ashwaghanda and holy basil.
One of the things those of us with Hashimotos are told is, learn how to manage your stress. That being said sometimes life throws you a curve ball, and there is nothing you can do about the stress, except ride out the storm. I’m going through one such storm now.
In 2017 I found out my spouse was keeping a big secret from me. This in addition to a habit that left me uncomfortable among other things. I’m not going to go into details about what was done, because, even though I’m hurt and disappointed, and I’ve also been left traumatized, I’m not vengeful.
For the last 2 years I’ve struggled because I stayed with my spouse, hoping he would make amends, and make things right. He did not. Last fall I asked him to leave. It took until this month to get him to finally leave.
I share this information only to bring to light another form of trauma. One that affects many more people than we know. Yes, betrayal trauma. It is a thing.
For years I thought the symptoms that present with Hashimotos were only related to that. However, I have come to realize that the symptoms I had long before I was diagnosed with Hashimotos, were symptoms of betrayal trauma. While I’m not going to share here the story of betrayal, I’d like to share a little about betrayal trauma.
Betrayal trauma is the impact of being traumatized emotionally by a person close to you who has violated the trust of the victim. In my case it was my spouse.
Because the betrayal is so personal in nature, it can be more destabilizing that strictly fear based trauma (I don’t discount fear based trauma. It is terrible too). Betrayal trauma has also been associated with the following:
• Anxiety
• Hypervigilance
• Feeling overwhelmed
• Withdrawal & isolation
• Difficulty concentrating
• Difficulty regulating intense emotions
• Avoidance
• Flashbacks
• Negative thoughts
• Numbness & detachment
• Sleep & appetite disturbances
• Headaches (I had migraines all the time)
I can tell you the above list is pretty accurate. My experience included most of those on the list.
When he left, a wave of emotions passed over me. I cried tears of relief for the first day. I’m hoping I can heal from this trauma now that he’s gone. It may take a while, but I’m determined I won’t live the rest of my life like this.
If you think you have experienced a similar trauma, please know you’re not alone. I’m going to work through this, you can too.
