An adoptee's experience with somatic therapy

My name is Amy and I was adopted as a baby at 6 months old in 1984, after being fostered for the first 6 months of my life. As an adoptee, I have always struggled with my flight/fight/freeze/fawn responses and really struggled with being triggered back to a there and then response (from the past) rather than a here and now response (what is actually happening now).

My nervous system was dysregulated, and I constantly woke up with adrenaline running through my body with an anxious thought which would set my internal alarm system off, resulting in a fight/flight response. I have dealt with this for nearly 40 years, which looking back I’m not sure how I have coped with it for this long, but I suppose I had no other way of being or any other option than to survive.

After my daughter was born 7 years ago, my adoption and how I felt was always at the forefront of my mind and it was starting to affect my life a lot more noticeably. I was a nightmare to live with for my husband and would have a very short fuse and spent all my time being there for my daughter while keeping everyone very much at arms length.

I knew something had to change, so I put myself down for talking therapies with the NHS, which started with CBT and made me realise that I felt safe with my husband, so I started appreciating him more and trying to repair our relationship. I had counselling next, where I explained about my adoption and all my other traumas that have happened since and soon realised it was starting to become a lot to deal with and I could no longer box it up in my mind and not think about it anymore.

I was also searching for more support from people that would understand the complexities I was feeling around my adoption. I found a lot of really great blogs and support from Claire at How to be Adopted, Adult Adoptee Movement, The Dunbar Project and Adoption Matters online support group. I was finally within a space/community where I felt understood and started to share my story with people.

During the online adoption support session I heard a lot of new terms that I had not heard before and was taking notes and doing my own research after the calls. Some of the terms I heard were ‘dysregulated nervous system’ and ‘somatic therapy’, so I found a Mind-Body Therapist (Somatic Therapy) who was local to me. I went to a Somatic Solutions Workshop that was running not too far from me with no idea what to expect.

The morning session was meditation with primal touch (slow and gentle stroking, compression, rocking) which calms down the nervous system using longer breaths out and the afternoon session was a somatic movement class which was very slow gentle movements which can help the body relax and let got of tension.

After the first class I was so calm, settled, relaxed and practically floated out of the class. Then reality kicked in and something really minor happened and my system was flooded with adrenaline and I was back feeling anxious and easily irritated.

I knew I wanted more of the calmness and peaceful feelings I had after the classes. I started doing the meditation sessions on my own at home and booked in for another class and I just could not believe the difference I felt. I would sit in my car after the sessions and have a little cry at how I was feeling it was like a relief that I could feel different more settled and calmer. I started to feel like myself, which for me was a very odd concept, I started to accept myself and look after myself more.

I knew I wanted more so I booked in for a trauma discharge massage which was primal touch with a therapist and again my body felt relaxed, calmer and at ease. I started to book in regularly with my therapist and I’m about 12 sessions in and I feel amazing, I don’t have the adrenaline controlling my system or the anxious thoughts, I’m not constantly in a state of flight/freeze I don’t lash out at people and I’m a much nicer to be around (says my husband). I meditate regularly and do a movement session every so often to keep myself in a good place.

I still have my bad days and things still get overwhelming for me but I now have the tools to calm my nervous system and put me back in the good place. I feel that somatic therapy has given me the chance to thrive and not just survive my situation and I’m so glad I took a chance on something different. Somatic therapy has been life-changing for me and I now have the tools to keep myself in a good place and grow my sense of self to feel more comfortable with who I am.

More information on somatic therapy:

Somatic Therapy | Psychology Today United Kingdom

Further tips and recommended reading from Paul Sunderland

Read more about complex post-tramatic stress disorder

Photo by Darius Bashar on Unsplash