Walking has become part of my daily life.
It’s been over three weeks since I started walking every day. I walk for about one to two hours daily, taking anywhere from 12,000 to 20,000 steps—roughly 13 to 15 kilometers a day. I walk at a slightly brisk pace, work up a sweat, watch people pass by, and jot down or organize the thoughts that come to mind along the way. There’s a certain enjoyment in that. There’s also a sense of accomplishment in the act of walking itself.
I believe that to get better, I need exposure training to external stimuli, and nothing works quite like walking. Entering enclosed spaces like libraries or cafés still feels overwhelming, so I decided that walking outdoors was the most appropriate choice for now. As I kept walking, I also discovered the simple pleasure of walking itself. I kept thinking, “Just a little more,” and before I knew it, 20,000 steps no longer felt like a big deal. It’s not the same as weight training, but I like the mild muscle soreness and the feeling that I’m building some muscle. Of course, my weight hasn’t dropped, and I haven’t visibly lost fat yet. That part is a bit disappointing. You’d think walking this much would lead to weight loss, but I suspect my habit of eating to cope with dissociation or insomnia plays a role.
Signs of War
But when I walk, my neck quickly stiffens and my shoulders tighten. Soon after, pain spreads to my neck, shoulders, back, and lower back, followed by headaches and a foggy feeling in my head. These are major symptoms of CPTSD.
When people hear about mental illness, they often assume it can be overcome with sheer willpower. “If it’s mental,” they say, “can’t you just toughen up?” My mother has often told me the same—that I’ll be fine if I just steel my mind. But when a mental illness reaches a moderate or severe level, it’s not just mental anymore. The symptoms manifest physically—what’s known as somatization.
Somatization refers to psychological pain expressing itself through physical symptoms. Psychological stress, trauma, anxiety, and suppressed emotions appear as headaches, dizziness, indigestion, pain, fatigue—physical symptoms that can’t be fully explained medically. My habits of scratching my body, experiencing severe motion sickness, and suffering chronic toothaches, headaches, and dizziness all fall into this category. This isn’t just a matter of feeling emotionally distressed; it becomes physical, and that physical suffering, in turn, makes life even harder.
It’s a War
In my case especially, walking triggers severe tension in my shoulders and neck, mental fog, and intense headaches.
Chronic tension is likely the main cause. The tension along the “neck–shoulder–scalp” axis becomes fixed. With CPTSD, the body remains in a constant state of alert, and the neural connections involving the parietal lobe, occipital lobe, and amygdala—where traumatic memories are stored—become overactivated. To prepare unconsciously for threat, the body lifts the shoulders, tightens the back of the neck, and bows the head. Over time, the nape of the neck, the trapezius muscles, and the temporalis muscles (at the temples) become chronically tense.
When the neck and shoulders stiffen, they compress the vertebral arteries. This reduces the amount of oxygen reaching the brain and prevents proper release of carbon dioxide. As a result, the brain becomes foggy, and memory and concentration decline. Reduced frontal lobe function makes emotional regulation harder and judgment less clear.
When I’m exposed to unpredictable stimuli during a walk, the sympathetic nervous system activates, causing muscle contraction and peripheral vasoconstriction. This reduces blood flow to the head and triggers headaches, which may appear as tension headaches or migraines.
In short, chronic excessive tension causes the muscles, arteries, and peripheral blood vessels to constrict, reducing blood flow and oxygen to the brain and resulting in pain. The episodes I experienced before—blurred vision and the sensation of being struck by a hammer—are likely related to this mechanism.
Why the War Exists: Fear of Sudden Change
So why do I experience such chronic, excessive tension while walking?
It stems from overinterpretation—the feeling that others see me as a useless person. This is known as a negative self-schema, associated with a damaged sense of identity. People with CPTSD often grow up internalizing beliefs such as “I have no value” or “I don’t deserve love.” As a result, even a simple exposure situation like walking can lead to the assumption that others are constantly evaluating and judging me.
Another factor is hypervigilance following trauma—the fear of unpredictable human behavior. The amygdala detects threats and sounds alarms, and in CPTSD, this alarm system becomes hypersensitized and fixed. It’s like a fire alarm going off every time you boil ramen, setting off the sprinklers and soaking everything repeatedly.
CPTSD doesn’t just preserve memories of past trauma; it creates a bodily sensation that danger is ongoing in the present. Each passerby can feel like a potential threat. For me, strangely enough, places with many cars feel safer than places with many people. Cars are predictable—their turning radius, distance, speed, acceleration, and signals allow for anticipation, and they follow traffic rules. Pedestrians, on the other hand, don’t follow clear movement rules, and their behavior is harder to predict. So walking through crowded pedestrian areas makes me more anxious and worsens my somatic symptoms.
A War I Fight Alone
I call this my “war I fight alone.” No one notices, but every day I walk through a battlefield of external stimuli. I avoid crowded places as much as possible. If someone is walking a pet, the unpredictability increases exponentially, so I won’t even take the same path—I’ll change routes or cross to the other side of the street.
I analyze the gait, objects carried, gaze, and clothing of people approaching me, staying alert in case they suddenly attack me or veer into my path. That’s how I fight this war every day.
And yet, I keep walking. Because this is a recovery routine. I believe that with repetition, my amygdala’s reactivity will gradually dull, and the overactivation of my sympathetic nervous system will slowly subside—like people who endure muscle pain while lifting heavy weights.
Right now, walking alone gives me headaches. But I believe the day will come when I can feel affection at the sight of a dog on the street, or freshness in a gentle breeze.
So today, I walk again.
This war has only one purpose:
to end the war itself.
#Thought_No_20250616
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