Do You Feel Emotions When Discussing Trauma?

[recoveringfromptsd]

I go rigid when my therapist brings up trauma topics

I can relate to that, Before I got hospitalized at SP TDU if it was brought up I would immediately start disassociating and enter trauma time. The first day with my therapist during the intake which she ask a lot of questions, when she came to the section called "ABUSE", I started on the first item, and could not finish before I was in trauma time, with my head back and eyes closed. She went to something else, I had to do the abuse stuff on paper over a period of time. That before I got triggered in PHP and the flashbacks and intrusive stuff came back after not having it for a couple decades.

I am now able to talk and discuss my abuse, but only if I had my frozen orange(s) to keep me grounded. If I don't have them I quickly go into trauma time and become unreachable.

 

[MisterCatLady]

I can relate to that, Before I got hospitalized at SP TDU if it was brought up I would immed...

I'm sorry, frozen oranges?

 

[Slh64]

@Sih64 - I so relate to what you've described. When I get hit by a load of feelings and it becomes con...

Yes and that draw undermines anything I'm trying to say or think. I should have something to say. Some sort of response but then comes nothing. I've noticed this my partner has also but until I confessed to my therapist I was doing it that it became so obvious. It's my defense as much as I hate it. I'm full of emotions I want to express them and to let it out but it just keeps bottling up inside like a silent scream. And now I have this huge amount if guilt for not handling it when it first occurred and taking this hostility out out on those I love. Becoming this monster that doesn't have any means of redemption.

I didn't even know it was a working clock until the end of the session!

 

[recoveringfromptsd]

I'm sorry, frozen oranges?

Frozen Oranges are a very common tool used to stage grounded, think about it, if your holding a frozen orange that is so cold its hard to hold onto in the same place too long, that is going to consume your attention, keeps your mind on the moment, and not in the past. when it comes to using it in therapy it helps me to stay in the moment, while reflecting on the past, the difference being I am not being controlled by the emotions of the past as I would be if I could not stay grounded.

Try it sometime you will see what I mean by putting the fruit in the freezer, oranges, lemons, limes, etc. all work well for this.

 

[katz]

I hope that this does not upset anyone-if so, then I'm sorry. This thread caught my attention because of how numb I have always been. I've never read or heard of anyone actually wanting to relive the trauma...God forbid!

(And I'm sorry if I'm repeating myself)

But since I wanted to "feel" so badly, I actually went back to the area that "it" happened. I found that I was able to cry and mourn for the loss and pain that 'that little child" went thru so long ago. I went back a couple more times and did more crying. Always by myself, since I have a lot of trouble showing any emotion in front of someone. (Don't worry, it was a safe place to go back too)

I found out for myself that the crying helped heal me. I was able to mourn and feel the sadness of the past. I also have noted that since I did that, I have almost no thoughts of what happened that day. I can remember it of course, but, when I remember, I can just acknowledge the thought and go on.
I really feel--for myself only-that this "feeling" helped me a lot. Just like mourning for a loved one when they pass away, I was mourning for that "little child" who was alone so many years ago.

 

[katz]

@Slh64 - I so relate to what you've described. When I get hit by a load of feelings...

I did/do the same thing sometimes. I have always used the corner of the ceiling for a focal point when I "go away" for a few moments.

 

[amosmorris]

I had one of my most disconnected therapy sessions ever this week. It was after a week-long holiday break and I think that threw me off, made me feel like my t was too foreign to me or something...in fact I even felt like she looked different (I dont think she really did) and this made me anxious...I felt nothing, could not feel any emotion, and yet rattled away about sexual triggers and how I have to trance out during sex...and I just want to add that I study these dried flowers she has in a vase in her office, and the cement in between the bricks in her office wall....All that to say--I can relate :(

 

[Draiocht]

I've noticed my conscious emotional reaction has heightened since I've found the right fit with therapy and have developed a bit of trust. I used to be the same way. I've been over and over and over it, different therapists, psychiatrists, etc over the past 12 years and I never felt a thing (that I recognised, looking back I realise I reacted in other ways). The other month I was linking something in my present back to the feelings I had during an aspect of the abuse and for the first time it was difficult, I felt myself becoming tensed up, it was hard to get the words out and I couldn't look at my T. It was one of the easier aspects to talk about as well. I've never directly discussed details of the sexual abuse with these Ts, they wanted to build up trust and then work on my resilience. Wondering how that will go.

 

[The Albatross]

Crap it's amazing sometimes how hindsight is 20/20. The OP said, "I think the dissociation/reliving of the trauma in the first few sessions was so strong that my subconscious associates him with danger now. How am I supposed to cry in front of someone I find dangerous?

I know this sounds absolutely insane and for lots of reasons I can't do this, but I swear the only way to get through this would be to have sex with him. I really think that would heal me in so many ways..."

Apparently I hadn't come back to this thread until someone hit a like button.

I think more to the question about whether sex with your shrink would be healing because you think that perhaps your "subconscious associates him with danger now" and you asked, how you are supposed to cry in front of someone you find dangerous.... would be self examining the thinking behind the ideas that seem to me to conflict in a pretty significant way.

"The only way to get through this would be to have sex with him" v.s. "How am I supposed to cry in front of someone I find dangerous?" Huh? It would be healing to be MORE vulnerable with a person you perceive is dangerous by having sex and be intimate so that you feel perhaps able to cry in front of them??? Something is fundamentally perceptually wrong with that, to me anyways but I have a background with rapes. In no way, shape or form would I be willing to get naked and be intimate sexually with someone I perceive is dangerous. I think I'd take a hard look at why you think that.

Also maybe refute it like, "What facts do I have that sleeping with a person I may think is dangerous would be healing" or some such. It's a safe service provider based relationship, if you don't feel vulnerable enough to cry if you want/need to due to safety in sessions... entertaining thoughts or sexual relations could be avoidance or acting out some sexual hardwiring. Only you can know.

Just struck me as odd that it got passed over in the rest of the comments. But then it wasn't in the opening post, it just got slid in there later.

Off the opening topic, sorry but couldn't let that get glossed over or passed.