Session 1 of Neurofeedback: Rollercoaster

I want to write about the last few days, but before I get, I really want to document my first experience with neurofeedback:

So today I got lots of sleep, felt really good. Chatted with Courtney this morning, and generally felt confident and happy. I was laughing at things. The sun was out. I didn't eat that much, but didn't care.

Before the session I drank some coffee (might have been a bad choice?)

When I got there I was still feeling good. Started feeling a little nervous when we were scaling things, then felt my normal anxiety/embarrassment when she asked me to choose something on netflix or youtube and I couldn't decide. This was the normal level I would experience, and after picking Parks and Rec, I calmed down just fine.
I am going to amplify some of the word choices here to express the feeling of it, even though it was much more subtle when I was actually experiencing it, yet afterwards I was really creeped out and needed to put words to the experience (thus amplifying to really understand). This experience felt kind of similar to taking drugs. For someone like myself that is so used to being able to recognize, name and process feelings, it was completely unsettling.

The show began and I felt enthused, laughed a lot, felt like I should be multitasking a bit more, and started to watch and think about related things. I was intrigued by the process and wanted to know how it was working. It felt really good, and then suddenly I noticed feeling less enthused, less energized and a little bit uncomfortable in my stomach. This came on slowly enough that when she started asking me questions, and I couldn't think clearly, I didn't know what to say. Suddenly I realized my body felt weighted down internally, as if I was completely lacking energy, I wasn't excited or motivated, I could barely form words or pay attention to anything. Multitasking felt impossible at this moment, the show, her voice, the room, my body, there wasn't enough energy to deal with all of it. I would say an amplification of this was almost like being catatonic, and it had occurred so without my awareness that I felt I must be tricking myself into it. I had thoughts like "I'm fooling myself." "I feel crazy." "I feel stupid"  as this continued, I feel like the closest feeling for what I was experiencing was shame. She asked if I felt nauseous and I said yes, and then felt a little better because I truly wondered if I was just being stupid.
This feeling of nausea and weighted down internally gradually shifted into feeling low energy, but weighted both internally and externally (like a weighted blanket mixed with a heavy uncomfortable meal, thoughts were there, but only in short spurts, and though i could watch the show, it wasn't as funny, and everything was making me sad. I realized this felt different than a few minutes before, it felt like grief, like that moment when you are about to cry and don't even know why, or have any ability to stop yourself, or maybe don't want to.

After a few minutes of this, I felt tension in my stomach, but it wasn't the same nausea. It was more like having an ache. I could think clearly again, and didn't feel like crying but I was unsettled.

A little while later (I may get the order of this mixed up) I started to feel a range of nervousness anxiety excitement fear, this began with a little nervousness in my stomach, then in my diaphragm, then later in my chest, I would say at times it felt like the nervousness of stage fright, while at other times anxiety/emotional dysregulation, and other times like adrenaline, or even fear, at a certain point I had the thought "if this continues I will have a panic attack" and kind of found it intriguing. At one point, I recognized my right palm was sweating a lot. This period was such a subtle range that it is hard to describe thoughts or feelings. I was able to concentrate and laugh again at the show. I did not feel agitation or anger externally, but did feel it in my limbs, stomach, and chest, at different times. I also started to have to pee really bad. I did feel annoyed that she kept asking about the tension/ and my headache which had come on suddenly at some point and stayed but ranged in degree, it was almost entirely centered in the back of my head on the right, and through my neck and shoulder. It was not strong enough that it bothered me, but being continually reminded of it made me a little annoyed, when my attention was much more fixated on the rest of my body.
-at a certain point during this phase, I started feeling fine again, and she stopped it to adjust one of the sensors, and the moment she stopped it I had a spike of anxiety that ran through my whole body, and made feel really uncomfortable, plus more racing thoughts than I'd been experiencing all day. When it started again, I don't think that remained very long but I have forgotten the order. It was after the adjustment that I realized my left palm was sweating a lot and my right no longer was.

Near the end I started to feel more like I had at the beginning, only much less settled. At this point my stomach was still sort of nervous, and I felt like my legs NEEDED to be on the ground. Like I did not have control over this, and every moment that they were not on the ground I was losing focus (very similar to when I need to wash my hands). The closest I can describe to the last part of this is the end of a roller coaster when you are pulling in and know that it is done, but you're still feeling the adrenaline. My mind, body and emotions felt fine again except I felt creeped out. I felt a very strong need to be grounded, and was put off by the lack of control I had.
She briefly reminded me this was all normal and ok.

I went to the bathroom and felt a little better but on the ride home, I felt really unsettled still. One of the thoughts that was going through my head was that I shouldn't go on days when I am already feeling good, because I will leave feeling worse. I took a shower and felt much more calm. Decided to eat a salad, but after eating I was suddenly nauseous again. Ate some chocolate, felt a little better. Then went and walked around the lake (and tried to think through the experience). I really wanted to talk through it more, and also I have been craving sweets since being there.

Its unfortunate that I can't remember the order of the nervous/anxious part better. I had the distinct feeling of it being in my stomach, diaphragm and chest, and that they felt very different from each other, but that my body responded similarly like my limbs, or different parts of my limbs felt activated, and the headache stayed similar.

It really makes me want to learn more about the frequencies and compare to chakras and emotion/thought processes, because it felt soooooo out of my personal control.