Therapy While In Distressing Situation

[TTC18]

I have a long-term stalker who has threatened my life multiple times. So this is an ongoing situation. I'm currently seeing a therapist but it's difficult due to the fact that most therapy seems to be about dealing with traumatic things that have happened in the past, so you can feel safe... not stuff that's happened in the past and is currently happening. (No, I don't have a restraining order, since I don't have a location on the person who's threatened/stalked me. I do have a local DV advocate involved, etc. )
I'm wondering if anyone has thoughts about therapy during an ongoing situation, vs. therapy after you're out of the situation and safe. Thanks!

 

[Rumors]

Definitely in an ongoing situation and after care. Sometime when I am so tired from the stress it is reassuring and helpful when someone else is there to help carry the load. I don’t get that from anyone else.

 

[DharmaGirl]

I think that therapy during the situation results in less traumatic stress than waiting until the situation is resolved. Hopefully you can get the situation resolved.

 

[piratelady]

I think both during and after also. The situation adds stress, which therapy can help you cope with so your ptsd cup doesn’t overflow.

Often, my therapist will spend some time on last trauma and some on present stressors. I think it creates a helpful balance

 

[DharmaGirl]

Well said, @piratelady.

 

[Deleted member 47099]

I've been thinking about this today too and wondering about the "feeling safe" aspect.

So much of trauma therapy seems to be about "you're safe now".

So what if the person isn't safe, or only relatively more safe than they used to be?

How does that translate into therapy?

Is it "you are safer now than you once were, and you will continue on your road to greater safety and one day you really will be truly safe" ?

 

[grit]

Hi Tryingtocope18
Have not seen your posts for while but thought about you nevertheless.
Glad you are in therapy and figuring things out.

I will respond to this sentence:
"therapy during an ongoing situation, vs. therapy after you're out of the situation and safe."

Therapy is not for any particular thing for a particular time in such that you cannot divide Tryingtocope18 of the past from tryingtocope18 of today. You are all in one body, one mind, one psychic and one experience so the therapy must work wtih the full of you not just a part of you.

In other words, the safety you are speaking of is not only physical (if just physical then you should call the cops) but when it is so global from your past with this person to your thoughts that this is still going on, then safety is much harder to define.

The safety therapist most talk about unless you are in a dire and dangerous situation physically, is the mind safety.

And the mind safety in therapy is more or less you feel one single moment in therapy that you are feeling safe. No one can actually tell you what that feels. YOU WILL KNOW when it happens.

Those of us who did not have safety as children and never internalized from parents are the hardest.

my advise to you is this:

Rather than trying to divide the two feelings, stay with it. Talk about safety yesterday (in traum), safety from this person who stalked you both past/here) and safety right at the moment you speak to the therapist and try to see they are all in your body.

Hope you find that safety (of what others call a peace of mind).

 

[TTC18]

Thanks, everyone.
@grit - in therapy, but not feeling like I'm figuring anything out, really - just flailing in the company of a therapist instead of alone, which is an improvement I'm sure. :)
It's not just physical - but at the same time, it is a real physical threat. And I can't call the police because he's not right in front of me. I think about it like living in a horror movie. When it started, that's what it was like. He'd pop out of anywhere - behind my car in the parking lot, behind a door, he'd walk up on the street, as well as showing up in the middle of the night and trying to knock my door down. I called the police all the time, but he was really good at getting away just in time. It was a total mind-game - he thought it was hilarious that he couldn't be caught, and could do whatever he wanted. Until the day that he missed something. He thought a neighbor's house was empty - he didn't know I had a new neighbor who had a phone that had *just* been turned on a few hours before. So I was able to run next door and get the police there in time for them to pick him up. I don't know what they *should* have done - but they 'had a talk' with him, and he left town at that point. That was 20+ years ago and when I get the call letting me know that he's found me, and reminding me that he could do all that again, it takes me back to those horror-movie days. It wasn't anything about me, my strength or my abilities etc that saved me that day - it was the fact that he wasn't paying 100% attention. So I feel like I'm relying on HIM to not come here and be evil again. That there's nothing I can do to prevent him from being evil, so I'm stuck just waiting to see what he'll do. Like I was 20 years ago. I have security measures in place - but when it's an unknown like 'what will an evil person do when they've said they want to do something evil?' it's a constant source of stress. And I realize I'm giving him power etc etc. but it'd be foolish to *not* take his threats seriously when he's been violent etc before. There was more than one occasion when I was certain I was not going to be alive for more than a few more minutes.
I have felt safe a *bunch* of times. But only when I totally bury all this and tell myself it never happened. So I know what 'safe' feels like - I don't know if there's a difference between authentic 'safe' and denial 'safe, but I'm game to find out eventually. :)

 

[EveHarrington]

I think that therapy for current traumatic events almost always trumps therapy for things in the past.

If the ship is currently sinking, you need to figure out how to keep afloat and not go down. In this sense, dealing with the past needs to take a back seat.

Of course you can argue that it’s all important, but I’d still say that dealing with current trauma is more important for survival. (Past trauma is dealt with more to moving into thrival.)

 

[TTC18]

I think that therapy for current traumatic events almost always trumps therapy for things in the past.

That makes total sense to me, but how does therapy deal with current trauma?
-I mean - there's no such thing as 'current trauma' because even if it only happened 5 minutes ago, that's still in the past. And if I'm in the therapist's office, whatever-it-is isn't happening right-that-second - it's potential future trauma, and past trauma, and current waiting/stressing about both. I think that's my big confusion - how do you deal with the past/present/future potential stuff when it's all globbed up together? My therapist referred to it as a 'complex situation' which is a nice way to put it, lol.

 

[grit]

Hi tryingtocope18
I wonder why (and I should be careful cause I deal with the same in my therapy (-:) is it important for you to dissect the process of therapy so deeply?

Because now what you are trying to discuss is not so much about your feelings and affect states but more like the techniques and how to. Maybe this is why I am most attracted to your posts but to me this sounds like, you are very much trying to stay in the head and either not aware there is a body attached to the head, or your fear (rightfully so) put you in some sort of inertia like momentum you ar thrown and still falling or you are more solving a problem not knowing the problem yet...so many factors.

I think your intelligence is sort of barrier. Can you sit in the therapy room and close your eyes? can you feel the second of a time any where or any time.

I think your terror (the fear you experienced) is so great that you are honestly in a psychological flight. If you were in a movie, you would be running on the street and there will be like captions of your terror as a flashback. Like you are not out of the situation yet.

I can relate to your fear cause I had that for all my life and at least you are trying to put it in words but for me it was a way of living and never realized until I broke down in therapy how high I was flying to get away.

I hope you also realize that it is one thing to dissect the process and it is another to also say I do not know what I do feel or do not feel and I want to know. Open yourself to other possibilities.

 

[TTC18]

...to me this sounds like, you are very much trying to stay in the head

....

I think your intelligence is sort of barrier. Can you sit in the therapy room and close your eyes? can you feel the second of a time any where or any time.

It's so funny you said this - I actually told my therapist this week that I am aware of a tendency in myself to distance myself from uncomfortable stuff by intellectualizing - and here I am doing it, haha. I told her so she'd catch me doing it, since I don't always see it myself until after. (Case in point right here, lol)

I can be in the present - but it's difficult, and I don't feel like I'm all here, if that makes any sense. Like part of me is withheld - or holding back, or even just busy thinking other thoughts, or something.

I think your terror (the fear you experienced) is so great that you are honestly in a psychological flight. If you were in a movie, you would be running on the street and there will be like captions of your terror as a flashback. Like you are not out of the situation yet.

I can relate to your fear cause I had that for all my life and at least you are trying to put it in words but for me it was a way of living and never realized until I broke down in therapy how high I was flying to get away.

I hope you also realize that it is one thing to dissect the process and it is another to also say I do not know what I do feel or do not feel and I want to know. Open yourself to other possibilities.

Yes, exactly, on all counts. I also didn't realize till recently how hard I was trying to run away/hide my head in the sand, wrap a blanket of anonymity and invisibility around myself, etc. I do want to dissect, and I also want to know what's going on in my head. I feel like I spend too much time just FEELING but I want to put words to those feelings, and figure out what they are and where they come from and then I'll have power over them. If that makes any sense at all. Thank you for sharing your thoughts!