LIVING WITH POTS
When Your Body Frightens You
When you live with POTS, you can become afraid of the smallest things. Not because you are weak, but because your body has given you reasons to be careful. You remember the times you sat up and felt the room shift. You remember how quickly an ordinary moment became difficult. Soon your mind begins checking on you before you have even moved. I know that feeling. I know what it is like to lie down and feel more like myself, then wonder what will happen when I get up. What helped me was beginning to understand that there were two things happening at once: the symptoms in my body, and the fear that had grown around them. Both deserved care.
Wanting answers
When I first became unwell, I wanted answers. I wanted to know why my body felt so different and when I could trust it again. Please be gentle with yourself. There is a reason you have become watchful. I found it helpful to stop arguing with the frightened part of me. I could say, I know why you’re scared. I felt that too. Then I could ask a smaller question: What do I need in this moment?
Mind Training
The brain learns from repetition. Mine had become very good at remembering what went wrong. With my previous mind training experience, I began paying attention to what happened after a difficult moment, too. Did I rest and feel a little more settled? Was there a part of the day I enjoyed? Did I manage something, however briefly, that had felt out of reach? That is what rewiring the brain means to me. I am giving it more of my life to draw from. Fear has taught it one story; I am patiently adding others.
Help the frightened part of your body settle
I also became curious about the vagus nerve, which helps carry messages between the brain and organs such as the heart and digestive system. It is part of the body’s calming system. Understanding that connection helped me make sense of why I wanted more than an explanation of my symptoms. I wanted ways to feel less alarmed while I was living through them. I began making quiet space for myself when I needed it. I would listen to music, notice what was around me, or allow my breath to slow comfortably. I learned that I could speak to myself kindly instead of demanding that I calm down. None of this made POTS disappear. It helped me care for myself during the moments when I felt most frightened by it. That is a meaningful difference when you have been carrying fear all day.
Let today be today
One of the hardest things about POTS is how quickly a difficult morning can become a frightening prediction about the future. I have had to remind myself, many times, that I do not know everything about my future from the way I feel at ten o’clock today. I can take my symptoms seriously, seek the care I need, and still leave tomorrow unwritten. If you are in the thick of it, perhaps you could begin there. Ask yourself what would make this moment a little easier. Let that be enough to think about for now.
I am still learning to do that. I share more of what I went through, and the small steps I found along the way, in my e-book:
This is my personal experience of living with POTS. Please speak with your healthcare professional about your own symptoms and treatment.
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