# @janet_jones on Instagram

- **Type:** Video
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/CYP_C9CBR63
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/59651611-janet-jones-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/03a065e5f5.jpg
- **Posted:** 2022-01-03T01:39:38.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Janet Jones (@janet_jones) — https://gondola.cc/janet_jones

## Caption

➡️The impact of traumatic stress on your body is ☠️‼️

Last year, I collapsed and went through experiences I had NEVER known or heard of before.

Our bodies are equipped with sensory receptors that relay information about our environments to our brains-like surveillence.
Apparently, I was sooo chronically stressed that my brainstem and thalamus flagged my environment as being life-threatening, activating my nervous system's emergency protocol - the "life threat response" (LTR). 🚨 Yeah, we have that. And yep, I had no clue either.

I discovered how fortunate I was to wake up, given that the LTR can, in extreme cases, lead to sudden death. This response plunged my nervous system into Default Mode, our most primitive survival mechanism. 😱 I felt like a computer that had crashed and rebooted in "safe mode," with limited access to my own thoughts, almost like being half dead.

The most terrifying part? I didn't experience any warning signs beforehand!

I needed to get help & understand what happened to me- 4 doctors later  I was diagnosed with PTSD, specifically the dissociative subtype.  PTSD?!

I learned Trauma isn’t what I thought it was,  and that PTSD is exclusive to war veterans or plane crash victims.  It can be triggered when you are exposed to severe and repeated traumatic stress that leave you with feelings of helplessness. 

I learned that Shutdown dissociation is an adaptive response to life-threatening conditions during which neither flight nor fight is a viable options for survival.  In order to protect us our body responds with a shutdown of perceptual, cognitive and affective information processing.  So we dont experience pain🤯

This experience and this knowledge have entirely changed my paradigm of mental health and wellness.  As difficult as this was to share, I hope it helps someone out there experiencing the same thing and not having any answers.  Love + Light JJ 

#polyvagaltheory #trauma #stress #dissociation #ptsd  #mentalhealthmatters #vxnarmy #mentalhealth

## Stats

- **Views:** 7,950
- **Likes:** 606
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- **Comments:** 76

## Tags

polyvagaltheory, trauma, ptsd, stress, dissociation, vxnarmy, mentalhealth, mentalhealthmatters

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