Why You Feel So Overwhelmed: Understanding Anxiety, Trauma, and Your Nervous System
Do you feel easily overwhelmed or like you’re always on edge? Learn how anxiety and trauma affect your nervous system- and how therapy and somatic practices can help.
I see clients all the time who come in and tell me that they need help because they feel that they are “just too sensitive” and struggle with their moods, emotions. After awhile I realized that so many women feel this very common experience of emotional overwhelm: feeling flooded, anxious, nervous, shut down…and they report that it often comes from what they see as “small things”. They have a part of them that criticizes themselves for this being a small thing and that they need to just get over it. They often ask themselves, “Why can’t I calm down?” and often wonder what is wrong with them in feeling that they are over-reacting.
From Internal Family Systems therapy, we look at this part that criticizes our emotional reaction as a protective part that believes it needs to take care of us by moving us away from this emotional experience. By doing so, it believes it is keeping us safe. So we first want to ask that part that feels this emotional overwhelm as a “wrong reaction/over-reaction” to give us some space here (even just until the end of this blog) and perhaps experiment with seeing the overwhelm a little differently than perhaps it’s experience of it.
If it is willing then read on. If not, stay with this part of you and get to know it’s concerns and fears.
If yes, then…
My guess is that you feel overwhelmed all the time not because there is something wrong with your personality and/or that you are too sensitive but that it is a survival response rooted in your nervous system. For women with anxiety or trauma, the nervous system is often in a state of overwhelm.
What is Overwhelm, Really?
Overwhelm from a nervous system perspective when our body goes into a place of survival and we go into fight/flight or fawn/freeze response. We go into nervous system overwhelm when information comes into the bodymind system that it needs to protect us through defenses and will automatically do so by activating us into a place of hyperarousal (fight/flight) that often feels like, “I must”. These can look like: racing thoughts, irritability, perfectionism, obsessive-compulsions, difficulty concentrating or sitting still, constantly feeling like you need to do something, etc.
The other option for our nervous system to move us into a place of survival is it will move us it hypoarousal (fawn/freeze) of “I can’t”. This can look like: people-pleasing, numbness, difficulty with motivation and energy, exhaustion, zoning out, etc.
These are normal somatic symptoms of anxiety and trauma.
The system gets flooded, not because you are doing anything wrong or are too sensitive but that your system is stuck in this place of overwhelm. It is not differentiating moment by moment so is continuing to take in information from this place of survival.
Why Anxiety and Trauma Make You More Prone to Overwhelm
When someone experiences trauma (an experience that is too much, too fast, and too soon) it creates stress for the body that often becomes chronic when untreated. The body holds what the mind cannot and will store the body memory of the experience even if the mind is not consciously “thinking” about the trauma. At times people do experience flashbacks or nightmares and cannot stop those from happening (hence the trauma is stored). When this occurs it wires the brain and body for alertness and will at the world through those eyes. This often means that out of a place of protection, trauma and the nervous system will constantly be hypervigilant, always on alert. This often then creates chronic anxiety in women as the body copes with the unprocessed trauma.
This creates a lack of “felt safety” and feeling in control which then keeps the nervous system overactivated. The nervous system is meant to flow with ease from flight/fight/fawn/freeze to rest/digest as makes sense for the situation. Rest often becomes a challenge and relaxation seem impossible. No wonder those who have PTSD then often experience overwhelm.
According to American Psychological Association, “Chronic stress causes the muscles in the body to be in a more or less constant state of guardedness. When muscles are taut and tense for long periods of time, this may trigger other reactions of the body and even promote stress-related disorders.
For example, both tension-type headache and migraine headache are associated with chronic muscle tension in the area of the shoulders, neck and head. Musculoskeletal pain in the low back and upper extremities has also been linked to stress, especially job stress.”
In Internal Family Systems, it is stated that parts (exiles) often carry the emotional burden of trauma and when trauma triggers occur (something in the environment that is a reminder of the threat), exiles will flood the system with its emotions. Again this is not in conscious control. When this happens, everyday demands (emails. decisions, social events) feel like too much.
Common Triggers of Overwhelm In Women with Trauma
Here are types of people who feel like overwhelm rules their nervous system:
The One Who Always Puts Other People First- if you are always thinking about other people and often feeling that their needs come before yours, your body only knows to ignore your needs. As a result of not getting your human needs met (physical, emotional) for a long period of time, your system goes straight into overwhelm to communicate your needs cannot be met. You may find people-pleasing as a way of feeling good enough.
The One Who Grew Up In Instability- if you grew up in a chaotic home who learned that things were inconsistent, your body then never learned to be cared for in a safe and secure way. The unpredictability of an environment leads our nervous system to naturally have to be in a place in threat on a constant basis. This creates stress in our body in the “not knowing” and leads to insecure attachment.
The One Who Was Taught You Can’t Make Mistakes- if when you were little, you were shamed for not doing the “right thing” or for being a kid and pressure to be an adult, you may have taken on a messaging belief that you are not allowed to make mistakes. Through this way of avoiding shameful experiences, you now constantly feel as though you have to get it right all the time and may have emotional triggers when you don’t. Unprocessed trauma and perfectionism can go hand in hand in wanting to keep something under your control.
The One Who Sees Help As A Failure- if you were not allowed to ask for help as child you may view the world as though you have to be independent and do everything on your own. Asking for help then can feel like a threat, that you have failed because you could not do it on your own. This can also happen as a trauma response in women from a place of shame (I should have….I could have….) and trying to live this out in their day to day lives.
The One Who Works To Be Loved- if you felt as a child or adult that in order to be loved you need to work or earn it, then you may constantly feel the need to continue to work to be loved. Internally you may feel like something is wrong with you and that is why you have to prove you are worthy of love. So you may constantly be seeking out that love and trying to find it in relationships, work, items, etc.
The One Who Is Addicted To Pressure- if you find that you feel like you need to be under pressure in order to get things done, your nervous system may constantly be looking for ways to stimulate you by putting you under pressure. From this way of life, rest is a threat and you feel guilt when you aren’t pushing yourself to do.
How Therapy Helps You Understand and Soften the Overwhelm
It is vital to begin to change these engrained patterns to have a safe, compassionate space in which you can begin to explore these areas of yourself. Changing patterns take time and having a container where you can be held and supported is key. Therapy for women with anxiety can begin to give you a felt sense of safety and control by giving you the place in which you can gently explore and process these patterns.
Trauma-informed therapy and Internal Family Systems therapy is a container to explore the parts of your system that are over-burdened from a place of protection and constantly keep you in a state of overwhelm. There is a reason they are stuck and being aware of it is the first step towards healing. Nervous System Regulation therapy happens as a result once your system can release these burdens and move into a more authentic way of regulating your nervous system. All of this helps to rewire your nervous system to tolerate more without shutting down.
Body-Based Practices to Reduce Overwhelm
An additional support is body-based practices such as somatic healing practices that can be done on consistent basis to help rewire your system. Simple grounding techniques (orienting, self-holding, breath) are nervous system regulation techniques that if done by a trauma-informed practitioner can be very helpful. Somatic yoga is a way to reconnect to the body and find calm. Teaching yourself the importance of pace and rest and not pushing through is one of the most helpful tools in yoga for trauma recovery.
Here is a grounding exercise to try for anxiety and overwhelm:
Your Overwhelm Makes Sense- and It Can Heal
As we end, I want to remind you that your overwhelm makes sense- and it is possible to heal. Healing from anxiety and trauma can feel daunting but you are not broken- you have been carrying too much for too long. You are worthy of support and care.
If you are ready to understand your overwhelm and find real relief, I’d love to support you with therapy or yoga designed for nervous system healing.
