‘Every child deserves a safe and happy home.’
“As a 10-year-old girl, those 8 words haunted me. Every day I was confronted by them, as they stared tauntingly from the colourful sticker pressed to the brick wall behind my childhood bed.
Those 8 words were a constant reminder of the nightmare I lived every day. As I sat by the wall, tracing my fingers across that sticker, the depression nestled deeper into the pit of my stomach…” – Jas Rawlinson
With May being Mental Health Awareness Month, I wanted to take a moment to share with you my latest feature article on Medium: ‘When stress literally makes you ill – 3 powerful ways childhood abuse survivors can manage Hyperstress Response.
Due to my exposure to family violence as a young child, Hyperstress has been something that has always plagued me – and yet, it was not until this year that I finally discovered the name for my physical symptoms, and began to understand what was going on in my body.
As I explain in the article:
“For so many years, my childhood and teenage years were spent in fear. Anxiety and stress were my best friends, and walking on eggshells was my art… My constant state of ‘worry’ left my nerves shattered, and I’d literally become ill from hours spent thinking about a comment from a co-worker, or something I should have done/said better. This has been an intrinsic part of who I am for as long as I can remember, yet I’ve never understood exactly ‘why’ my body responds in this way.”
Since learning about Hyperstress Response, I’ve begun to experiment with different ways of managing it, and in collaboration with Lysn psychologist Noosha Anzab, have put together these 3 simple tips for Hyperstress self-care.
CLICK BELOW TO READ MY 3 TIPS ON MANAGING HYPERSTRESS
(If you enjoy this new post, I’d love if you could leave a comment on the article or hit the ‘clap’ button! Thanks so much!)
Thoughts From Jas 