Seeking Advice: Trauma and Life Event Timeline Project

[Charbella]

So I’m wondering about a trauma/life timeline. I know those are two different things. T asked today about doing a timeline with significant events. Not sure I’m signing up for that project so I thought I’d ask others.

What did you include?
What did it actually look like (probably my most important question)?
How in depth is it?
What were your instructions?

Anything else you think might be helpful would be much appreciated.

 

[arfie]

What were your instructions?

in my own case, i started with full trauma induced amnesia. i had blocked memory of my entire childhood. it took me several different therapists and approaches to accomplish any timeline, whatsoever, that couldn't be found at city hall. i have "graduated" from professional therapy, but i still run timelines for more recent traumas. my memory still tangles, projects and fissures with the greatest of ease. for all of it, with encouragement from my most respected pros, i treated instructions like suggestions more than mandates. i went with what worked.

How in depth is it?

depends on what measuring stick i use. 40 thousand leagues under the sea? 40 thousand light years from earth? 150 thousand journal pages? please don't ask me to use the word count measuring stick.

 

[Charbella]

please don't ask me to use the word count measuring stick.

That’s funny . I mean I do like math but I won’t be requiring a word count.

Do you have a linear timeline or just journals that if you knew where to turn you could find things in an order?

 

[arfie]

i go for linear timelines. my goal is to sort the facts from the psychotic knee jerks. i focus on specific flashbacks and/or incidents as they emerge and go where they lead me. example: my electric light phobia emerged as blinding light sources intense enough to carry physical pain and send me into irrationally violent reactions to people who use overly bright security lights and not many credible clues as to why and psychotic reactions to any of the bits and pieces which emerged when i tried to like anything about the people sitting under those invasive lights. it was a hideously painful process for me to trace the bits and pieces back to amateur child pornography sets and gang rape beneath a farm security light. the geophysical/social instability surrounding those events was intense enough that proof of where they happened is unavailable. even more so for the perps involved. the doubts and confusions keep that can of worms well stirred and new renditions are still emerging. with each new emergence, i run a new timeline. when i find honest and stable consistency in my reactions and memories, i begin to trust the memory. i don't have to **like** the memory. i only need to trust that it is the most accurate information currently available.

i'm not out to create a comprehensive synopsis fit for a history textbook. i am out to untangle specific psycho snot knots which are creating chaos in my current day in the here and now. i don't need to worry about the academic review board which will yay or nay my admission to their history textbook.

while in the grips of these psychotic episodes, it is all too easy to lose my place in the here and now. i simultaneously use timelines to test my grounding in the here and now. have i eaten today? am i remembering promises i made as i packed the kids off to school? when did i tell the boss a particular piece of a project would be ready for review?

 

[Sideways]

Do you have a linear timeline or just journals that if you knew where to turn you could find things in an order?

For me, when I did the timeline exercise it was about putting the pieces together. Less detail, more where everything fit together.

I’ve been keeping journals to process stuff ever since I could write. I’m also a Class A Compartmentalizer. So, nearly all the information was written down, somewhere, at some point, but I rarely looked at the bigger picture - how little me got to big me, with all those different pieces actually all occurring on the one linear timeline.

I ended up using a mix of collage and words. Some stuff was just better represented by doodles if I wanted to actually get it all down on paper.

The broad-strokes first version ended up getting refined a bit for specific periods of times. And it also initiated some revisiting of painful journal entries in due course.

But the initial exercise was very broad, and very basic: big sheet of white paper with a horizontal line across the middle. 0 years at one end, right now at the other, and a mess of lines and words and names of people or places as references to what was going on.

 

[Charbella]

I’ve been keeping journals to process stuff ever since I could write. I’m also a Class A Compartmentalizer.

Me too! I just said it to my T yesterday, especially as a kid, now too but I think that’s been part of therapy and sharing my story, making doors to the compartments.

But the initial exercise was very broad, and very basic: big sheet of white paper with a horizontal line across the middle. 0 years at one end, right now at the other, and a mess of lines and words and names of people or places as references to what was going on.

What were your instructions? I haven’t actually been assigned the project, but he definitely hinted at it. What did you do with stuff that falls in the about range (as in I was about 12-13)? I feel like I’d need a whole page to itself for 8-15. Your collage one sounds like you might’ve enjoyed it some, at least the creative aspect?

I'm not sure how successful I’m going to be about pealing apart family involvement, rather than a purely CSA thing.

How long did it take you? The basic one. I imagine the project flooded you with memories, I’m guessing coping skills are necessary?

 

[sidptitala]

So I’m wondering about a trauma/life timeline. I know those are two different things. T asked today about doing a timeline with significant events. Not sure I’m signing up for that project so I thought I’d ask others.

What did you include?
What did it actually look like (probably my most important question)?
How in depth is it?
What were your instructions?

Anything else you think might be helpful would be much appreciated.

I did this in a therapy session, without having time to prepare. It was to decide what to do EMDR about.and took about 10 minutes.

Basically I drew a long line and only included things I get flashbacks about (called them whatever shorthand I know them by). The time gaps were just big question marks- if I didn't know what happened I just drew question marks at that part of the line.

It's not complete at all but it's like an outline I could potentially fill in.

 

[Charbella]

I did this in a therapy session, without having time to prepare. It was to decide what to do EMDR about.and took about 10 minutes.

Basically I drew a long line and only included things I get flashbacks about (called them whatever shorthand I know them by). The time gaps were just big question marks- if I didn't know what happened I just drew question marks at that part of the line.

It's not complete at all but it's like an outline I could potentially fill in.

That might help, I really struggle with accuracy in everything, so that’s throwing me for a bit of a loop. Thanks!

 

[Ecdysis]

I've done several of these over the years and they're basically as has been described here, above.

I've found it helpful to start reeeeally simple - just the barest outline/ overview - because like you wrote, otherwise you just get flooded and lost in the details... And then to go over it later, and add bits in that seem particularly salient - sometimes even adding things in with my T as we're discussing it and they'd point something out that I'd forgotten or they'd ask about something and we'd add in whatever I answered...

To me, it's kind of like a "map" of what happened in your life (with the focus on traumatic events/ healing from traumatic events e.g. moving out of a toxic home, breaking up with an abusive partner, etc) and just like if you crammed a map full with "all the details" then it would be "very informative" but basically "too" informative, cos it'd be a flood of information and then you can't "see" or "read" the most important stuff on the map, if that makes sense?

So to me, less is more, at least initially (so not trying to cram in "everything") and then giving your brain time to figure out which information would be informative/ helfpul/ interesting/ important to add and what would just be adding "noise" in terms of an overview...?

No idea if that's of any use or whether it makes it sound more complicated...

 

[Charbella]

I've done several of these over the years and they're basically as has been described here, above.

I've found it helpful to start reeeeally simple - just the barest outline/ overview - because like you wrote, otherwise you just get flooded and lost in the details... And then to go over it later, and add bits in that seem particularly salient - sometimes even adding things in with my T as we're discussing it and they'd point something out that I'd forgotten or they'd ask about something and we'd add in whatever I answered...

To me, it's kind of like a "map" of what happened in your life (with the focus on traumatic events/ healing from traumatic events e.g. moving out of a toxic home, breaking up with an abusive partner, etc) and just like if you crammed a map full with "all the details" then it would be "very informative" but basically "too" informative, cos it'd be a flood of information and then you can't "see" or "read" the most important stuff on the map, if that makes sense?

So to me, less is more, at least initially (so not trying to cram in "everything") and then giving your brain time to figure out which information would be informative/ helfpul/ interesting/ important to add and what would just be adding "noise" in terms of an overview...?

No idea if that's of any use or whether it makes it sound more complicated...

Yes very useful! It sounds like a project that’s going to take multiple drafts…here’s hoping my brain can get comfy with that.

 

[Ecdysis]

Yeah, and even if you do multiple drafts, it still won't be "right" in the sense that there is no "perfect" way of doing this. A timeline you make this year will look slightly different to one you make next year, in 5 years, in 10 years, because you'll be remembering different stuff or choosing to highlight different stuff or you feel differently about it or you're interpreting things through a slightly different angle cos of stuff you've figured out in therapy, or whatever... So just as there's not a "right" way of doing it, there's also not a wrong way of doing it either... So just do it "however" and that'll be what your brain came up with *at this point in time*.

 

[Sideways]

I haven’t actually been assigned the project, but he definitely hinted at it. What did you do with stuff that falls in the about range (as in I was about 12-13)? I feel like I’d need a whole page to itself for 8-15. Your collage one sounds like you might’ve enjoyed it some, at least the creative aspect?

The instructions weren’t elaborate - create a timeline of your life or something to that effect. It was for therapy purposes, so I knew what they were driving at. For example, I knew they weren’t wanting me to figure out when I lost my first tooth.

The ‘traumatic experiences’ I didn’t actually individually list, let alone detail. For example, 3-8 I just had a single word or something to capture the crap that was going on at home. Abusers were represented by a single word, and later in life, multiple abuse situations involving multiple over a period of years I also captured in a single word. The word represented a whole heap of stuff - the point was more “during this period, I was enduring this stuff, while also working as a lawyer…” - so, in my early 20s, word for those traumatic experiences, and ‘lawyer’ captured how that fit together in my lifeline. For me, it wasn’t about capturing detail, it was about linking experiences together, the relationship between experiences, rather than the detail of the descriptions themselves.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say I enjoyed it - I’ve done quite a lot of art therapy over the years and it’s about as fun as any other form of therapy!

How long did it take you? The basic one. I imagine the project flooded you with memories, I’m guessing coping skills are necessary?

Not long, but I did have to go back and put in bits that I’d forgotten to include a number of times! And examining the detail in particular periods is still something that I’m working through in fits and starts a decade later!

Actually, putting the bare facts together wasn’t particularly distressing at first. I kept it all pretty cerebral. Keeping detail out of it helped me get it all down, rather than trying to revisit the events that I was referring to. Dealing with the detail, and the relationships between events was the work for therapy sessions.

I do a lot of ‘homework’ for therapy - these days mostly self-directed stuff. So I know what I’m like and what I usually need. And always, I need to stop for a while and just engage in the exercise, then once it’s done, I wrap it up, put it away, and then fully engage in a different activity. It’s always time-limited - if I leave it out and do it in pieces and come back to it over and over it’s like a therapy session that never ends!! The follow up activity, for me, is essential.