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Thursday's Therapy
30 Major Reactions Physically Indicating
Anxiety
After Your Child's Traumatic Death
~Therese A. Rando, Ph.D., Complicated Mourning, Part Seven
The following are just the physiological symptoms you may have in your Child-loss Grief that will lead toward Anxiety. (We will examine symptoms that lead to depression, etc. next week.) I have been shocked when I have exhibited many of these anxious-type symptoms, and yet, it stands to reason:
Never in my life have I been subjected to such torment as I have in losing my child, losing her suddenly, and losing her violently.
Why should I be surprised my poor body is reeling and anxious over such a tormenting experience?!
30 Major Reactions Physically Indicating Anxiety After the Traumatic Death of Your Child
Motor Tension
- Trembling, shaking, twitching, nervous energy, "jumpy," foot/leg shaking, finger drumming
- Muscle tension, aches, soreness
- Teeth grinding, clenched jaw
- Easily fatigued, exhaustion
- Headache
- Restlessness and searching for something to do
Autonomic Hyperactivity (Being "revved up")
- Anxiety, tension, nervousness
- Heart palpitations, rapid heartbeat
- Shallow and rapid breathing, shortness of breath
- Numbness, tingling sensations
- Smothering sensations
- Dizziness, unsteady feelings, faintness, lightheadedness
- Dry mouth
- Sweating or cold, clammy hands
- Hot flashes or chills
- Chest pain, pressure, or discomfort
- Nausea, diarrhea, other abdominal distress
- Frequent urination
- Tightness in the throat, difficulty swallowing, feeling of something stuck in the throat, choking
- Digestive disturbance (such as upset stomach)
- Stress cardiomyopathy (aka "broken heart syndrome" - when you feel all the symptoms of a heart attack but it is not an actual heart attack
Vigilance and Scanning
- Heightened arousal (hyperarousal)
- Agitation
- Sense of being "geared up"
- Easily startled
- Irritability, outbursts of anger
- Difficulty falling or staying asleep
- Impaired concentration
- Heightened awareness of surroundings in order to be "on guard" (hypervigilance)
- Physiologic reactivity upon exposure to events, stimuli, and/or internal or external cues that remind you of the loved one, the death, events associated with it, and/or other painful reactions to the loss
~Rando, 2011 (In Press)
