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Recovery

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Meadowsweet

MyPTSD Pro
I have multiple traumas that I had never spoken about to anybody. So when I started therapy, I had the idea that if I told somebody about my experiences during therapy, I would then be able to leave it behind.

I visualise it like removing the trauma from my body and leaving in the therapy room, and going home without it.

But I've talked about the most significant traumas at least once (some more than once) and progress isn't as fast as I had hoped it would be.

I dissociate when I'm talking about it, which I guess doesn't help, because the emotion doesn't come. And the small progress that I've made is that the dissociating is getting less than it was. I am also crying as I realise the emotional needs surrounding the abuse not being met, although I still feel less emotional about the actual traumas.

But I get so sick and tired of bringing up trauma, I just want to get it out of my system and move on. So I'm wondering how many times do I need to talk about trauma before I can move on? Or, what do I have to do to be able to stop it being such a big thing?
 
My fantasy fave is surgical removal. Just snip off the affected parts and toss them in a bio-hazard bag. I could even put up with a prosthetic or two. It would be nice to do it in a single out-patient visit, if you don't mind...

Sigh. Here in my stubborn reality, it does, indeed, seem to move agonizingly slow. Like a lizard staredown.

In my personal recovery, my goal is not to make the traumatic events my favorite conversation topic. It is to get past the symptoms. How many times do I have to talk about it to get past those symptoms? It takes what it takes.

Gentle wishes, meadow. Easy does it.
 
A year ago, I think I was exactly where you are now. I somehow believed that therapy would be a quick fix, and then I'd just move on with my life. It's normal that you dissociate when you first start talking about this highly stressful stuff. And talking is a good thing! By exposing yourself to your traumatic memories in ways that are tolerable (not comfortable, mind you--it never is), you're actively working through it. It can be a long, hard slog, but it's worth it!

When I decided to share my experiences with family, friends, and therapists, I felt like each time I spoke of my trauma (or even of my feelings at all, really), I felt like I was forcing myself to dive off an impossibly high diving board. It was SO scary at first, and so painful. All kinds of feelings I didn't expect came up, and it would push me right into dissociation. For the first few months, therapy for me was mostly in a dissociated state. Slowly, slowly I got used to talking and thinking--and feeling--about my traumatic past. It's been a gradual process, and it hasn't been linear (there are setbacks, and that's part of the process). BUT, it's been incredible. I can't get over how different I am today compared to a year ago. I still feel the pain of my trauma, but I can hold it in my mind now without dissociating. Talking is still hard, but it sure doesn't feel like diving off a cliff anymore. I even feel some positive feelings now when I think or talk about my trauma, like compassion for what I went through, and hope that I can finally get past it (some day). Sometimes I have "good days," and occasionally "great days," and these days seem to be getting more frequent, even if it's all very gradual.

I know I wouldn't have made it this far if I had not started by making myself talk about the trauma. I do believe you're doing a good thing for yourself! Facing your traumatic past with compassion and clarity takes incredible strength, and many never do it. You're obviously strong, as you've decided to take the positive measure for yourself of starting therapy. You're already doing what you need to do "to be able to stop it being such a big thing." :) One small step at a time will get you there!
 
@Meadowsweet,

I think it's complicated. I started by telling some of my trauma history to a supportive friend. It was incredibly hard, but helped so much. Then I started writing about my trauma in my Trauma Diary and then rereading it over and over until it started to bore me (unbelievable, but if you read it enough, it does happen). Then I spent time writing about how I felt about it all (emotions). This has worked again and again for me, for straight forward trauma. For stuff like childhood neglect and some other things, it doesn't quite work the same way for me, or maybe I'm not digging down deep enough. It's incredibly hard, though, and seems to work better on the trauma that I've been actively suppressing for years, as opposed to new memories that are surfacing as some of the other trauma is getting processed. I think I have to sit with those new memories for awhile and just get used to them, and then write. And yes, dissociation is very difficult to deal with... but the only way is through. It's only because I've been able to talk to a friend and then write that I was ever able to even open my mouth in therapy about anything related to my trauma. But because writing worked for me, most of my time spent in therapy is working on developing better habits and not rehashing trauma.

I haven't done exposure therapy with a T, but my understanding is that you talk about your trauma again and again until it starts to bother you less (I'm no expert, though). I wish it was just one time and done, but I don't think it works that way, or at least not often. I wish I could tell you something different!

I hope this helps,
D123
Like a lizard staredown.
@arfie! You totally have me cracking up here! :laugh: :roflmao: :laugh:
 
I think it isn't just talking about trauma. It's talking about trauma in a certain way that heals.

I'm afraid I think talking while dissociated isn't going to achieve much, for two reasons. One is that learning not to dissociate is key to healing. It means learning ways to be present and unafraid (relatively speaking) which I think is an essential part of what we need to learn in order to heal. The other is that if you're not present, you're not processing. It's not talking that's key, but processing. Talking often achieves that, but it might not.
 
I am not someone to talk Meadowsweet as I have done almost none of the nitty grtty stuff face to face but from my experiences I agree with Hashi strongly.

Even with processing the peripheral stuff around the trauma I could speak to a standstill (and did) and it did very little until eureka I realised I wasn't present and did need to feel the emotions and be connected to what I was saying for it to do anything. When that started then I could at last feel changes for me. Not that easy of course.

Not sure if you have read it but you might like this thread too. https://www.myptsd.com/threads/what-does-processing-trauma-really-mean.27858/

Its also why I do think we have to learn to manage dissociation to be able to process trauma in some respects. It feels a bit like a brick wall around the other stuff to me and that recovery is all about sneakily finding a way through and in. For me that requires me training myself not to disconnect no matter how anxious I become. Within reason of course. Just depending on keeping my anxiety low is not something I want long term as stress happens.
 
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I think talk therapy for trauma often gets an unfair rap and some people say talk therapy isn't helpful for trauma. This is an issue close to my heart because I think the right kind of talk therapy is incredibly helpful - it's what I do, together with other things, and it's very healing for me. At the same time, I do think there's such a thing as ineffective talk therapy and - unfortunately - talk therapy that just entrenches things.

For me, effective talk therapy is where you are not dissociating. Full stop. No ifs or buts. I take a really hard line on this. I don't think many therapists or clients spend remotely enough time on grounding and safety. I don't think anyone should be doing trauma therapy until that's in place.

Nearly all the techniques people talk about are reactive - in reaction to already getting distressed and dissociating. Going to a "safe place", counting objects in the room, naming things... these are all things for someone to do after being ungrounded or starting to dissociate. Coming back to the present, coming back to reality. I think we have to have techniques for staying in reality in the first place. Never leaving it.

If grounding exercises suit you - as in literally focussing on a connection to the earth - then an example would be this. The reactive type of grounding would be things like bringing yourself back by focussing on colours or shapes around you. The staying grounded in the first place type of approach would be frequently turning your attention to your feet on the floor, the feeling of the chair you're sitting on, mindfulness like paying attention to how you came into the room and sat down - to reinforce the feeling that you are in this room, right now - etc.

Ironically because of the nature of one of my traumas, things like that are actually triggering for me, but then you find what works. In my case, visualisation and conceptualisation. I imagine dissociation as my mind literally floating out of my head and out of the door, and I imagine staying present as me pulling my mind back firmly into my skull the moment it starts trying to go anywhere.

When you do that and talk about trauma without dissociating, then you have the chance to process things - expressing them, getting validation, accepting and assimilating them, letting them become part of your history and no longer active in your present.

If you're dissociating it means you haven't yet found a way to feel safe. If you don't feel safe, how can it be healing?
 
What i am finding from talking about the trauma, is that the next time I talk, I am less anxious about talking and so the dissociation is getting milder. I'm thinking along the lines of what @D123 said, about going over and over it until it gets boring - that going over and over it will expose me enough to talking about it that I won't dissociate when I do.

I realise that I need to connect to the emotion again in order to get anywhere, and my therapist is aware of that too. But other than just keep desensitizing myself to talking, I don't know how to train myself.
 
There does come a point when you won't feel a need to talk about it. Instead you will talk about how to get on with life right now. Sure some of it might still interfere, but you talk about how it is affecting you now. I rarely ever bring up the past now a days or the trauma. Today I had therapy and we talked very little of any actual trauma. I wish it was quick and easy to get to that point, but it is not. Everyone does so on their own time and rhythm.

Just a thought to add. I had changed therapists simply because I moved. When I settled in with her I started to talk to her about trauma, the past. She stopped me and said we were going to move beyond that and talk about the here and now. After all the years of talking about said trauma, it was a different approach, and one that was much needed. I really appreciated the change, but, then, I was ready for it. It would have been different, an unpleasant feeling, if I wasn't. My current therapist also deals in the now. The one before her, not so much. I find I really appreciate the here and now approach. It helps me. I've spent many years on my trauma. I think it has had enough of my time, well at least the time I can control.
 
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I need to connect to the emotion again in order to get anywhere, and my therapist is aware of that too. But other than just keep desensitizing myself to talking, I don't know how to train myself.
I need to connect to the emotion again in order to get anywhere, and my therapist is aware of that too. But other than just keep desensitizing myself to talking, I don't know how to train myself.

Personally I'm not a believer in desensitisation. I believe in upping our feelings of power before talking about it, so that talking about it already has a different meaning.

Among other things, I think desensitisation has the risk of focussing more on the individual symptoms and less on the cause. If I've been traumatised by every letter in the alphabet, then talking about A until I'm desensitised doesn't affect how I feel about B to Z. If I take the approach of getting strong, safe and grounded in myself, connecting to my own power and worth, then talking about A has an effect on everything.

What has your therapist said about the things you're discussing here?
 
counting objects in the room, naming things... these are all things for someone to do after being ungrounded or starting to dissociate. Coming back to the present, coming back to reality. I think we have to have techniques for staying in reality in the first place. Never leaving it.

These are things that I do to prevent flashbacks.

But if i try to stay in the present when I want to talk about trauma, I find that I literally can't speak. Then the sessions turn to the kind of talk therapy where we waste time talking about stuff other than trauma, and from what I've read, that's not helpful for me. So it seems a bit of a catch 22.

My therapist recognises that acceptance and detachment is a major issue for me. One of my therapy aims is to integrate the emotional experience with the trauma.

When I open up about trauma, she listens. But then afterwards she will bring up parts of what I've said, and she will tell me that the person I'm talking about is me. That part of the session always feels quite in my face, and I tell her how I'm responding to her saying stuff like that, and we work through my responses that way.
 
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