Getting help when it’s a trigger to ask

[tiler]

I’m trying to get help at the moment with medication and EMDR. The EMDR is only early and only probably had about 6 sessions, but haven’t moved on from talking. The whole point for me to have EMDR was that I wouldn’t have to talk.

I think it’s making me much worse to try to get help and the reason is because one of my worst traumas (and most of them to some extent) involved screaming to get help and not being heard and then being verbally punished for trying to get help when I was heard which made me really apologetic and blaming myself for screaming.

So now, asking for help and finding that it isn’t actually helping is making me much worse.

I’ve asked the therapist to just move on to the eye movement phase of EMDR but she says she won’t as I need to be stable first. How do I show stability so I can get on with it, what is she looking for? I need to stop talking, the only other option for me is to stop therapy.

 

[Abstract]

involved screaming to get help and not being heard and then being verbally punished for trying to get help when I was heard which made me really apologetic and blaming myself for screaming.

I'm so sorry. That sounds really complicated and I can see the difficulty.

From that, I assume asking for help at all can be triggering? But also, are you feeling verbally punished or like she is not sufficiently reassuring you in response to you wanting help? Would that not change this dynamic?

My stuff is different but I had extreme stuff around asking for help for most of my life. It made therapy difficult.

Remember your therapist isn't your abuser and is here to help and care for you. You deserve safe help.

 

[Midnightmoon]

Glad you managed to take the initial step and try and get some help, I'm sorry it's proving hard to stay with it.

So now, asking for help and finding that it isn’t actually helping is making me much worse.

Trauma therapy has an annoying habit of doing that! When we are challenged to look, see and change responses that are so ingrained in us its damn hard. Thinking/ talking/ remembering is excruciatingly painful which is why your T will be very keen to build safety and stability first, which, yes, is frustrating and scary just makes you want to give up because ideally you want it done with as quick as humanly possible?

I’ve asked the therapist to just move on to the eye movement phase of EMDR but she says she won’t as I need to be stable first. How do I show stability so I can get on with it, what is she looking for? I need to stop talking, the only other option for me is to stop therapy.

She can't move on, that wouldn't be safe, even though I know that probably feels the most appealing option, you don't want to open the box without stability, good trust and connection with your T and the skills of grounding and safe space and all that jazz. Keep talking to her, keep the communication as open as you can. Even if it's exactly 'I don't want to talk about this anymore and it's making me feel like I have to stop altogether'. A T can handle that, and will work with you on tapering stuff so it feels manageable, to feel safe enough to keep going in tiny bits at a time.

There is blind protocol, which is without having to share the memories which might be worth a look into, but you still need to be stable. Even more so if your attempting to process without a T knowing what they are helping you process...

You can take a step back from stuff too, 'waffle' as I call it definitely has it's place in good therapy. I cannot tell you the amount of times I've been in session and done absolutely no trauma work whatsoever. I've talked about the weather, the traffic, the dog anything and everything. Was I avoiding, yep, but was that what I needed at the time to keep trying and showing up, absolutely.

(As a side note there are some really good threads if you search for EMDR on here with lots of helpful stuff )

 

[tiler]

Yes I think that trying to get help is very triggering for me. In terms of the actual help itself, I don’t feel safe within any ‘therapeutic’ relationship. Particularly when they want a connection and want to be compassionate and I don’t want that because it feels threatening to me - I just want the eye movement /processing stage.

I’m not feeling punished by her, but I feel like our sessions are not private, so I don’t feel safe and I wouldn’t with anyone so the only possibility for me getting help is that I don’t want to build a connection, I just want a transactional relationship where she gives me her insights about where I am going wrong and does the eye movement phase of EMDR.

I don’t want someone to care for me, which is probably going against most therapists instincts!

It doesn’t feel like she’s an abuser and with the trauma we are addressing it wasn’t abusive, it was surgery gone wrong, so it’s a bit different I guess. I do feel like she’s lying to me sometimes though.

The only way I can see of moving forward is to remove any attempt at relationship building and just get on with the eye movement stuff. However, I can’t really say this to her as it sounds ridiculous and I don’t want to offend her.

 

[tiler]

She can't move on, that wouldn't be safe, even though I know that probably feels the most appealing option, you don't want to open the box without stability, good trust and connection with your T and the skills of grounding and safe space and all that jazz.

The thing is I started the therapy off the back of a really intense psychosis type episode that lasted for a few months of 24/7 hallucinations/real somatic flashbacks. I don’t really understand what happened to me and this is what I want to understand but am too scared to talk about. However, in terms of opening the box…. It’s well and truly open and has been for about 6 months, I want to close it!!

 

[Midnightmoon]

Yes I think that trying to get help is very triggering for me. In terms of the actual help itself, I don’t feel safe within any ‘therapeutic’ relationship. Particularly when they want a connection and want to be compassionate and I don’t want that because it feels threatening to me

so I don’t feel safe and I wouldn’t with anyone so the only possibility for me getting help is that I don’t want to build a connection, I just want a transactional relationship

I don’t want someone to care for me, which is probably going against most therapists instincts!

The only way I can see of moving forward is to remove any attempt at relationship building and just get on with the eye movement stuff.

All of this is rich fertile stuff to take to therapy, it's the 'I am traumatised 101' starter pack that so many of us carry and are adamant that we are NOT trusting, not being vulnerable, definitely not forming any sort of relationship with the T and instead want almost like a lesson in how to sort ourselves out. Like a college lecture....

I smiled and was nodding along as I was reading your post because this was totally me, I probably said all those things to my first T. (And I went to her with medical stuff too, it messes your head up doesn't it, the whole it was meant to help and it made it 100 times worse).

Would you take your post to T, either verbally or in an email or whatever, let her here your fears, and let her see if she can help?

I don’t really understand what happened to me and this is what I want to understand but am too scared to talk about. However, in terms of opening the box…. It’s well and truly open and has been for about 6 months, I want to close it!!

I'd place a good bet that that box has multi layers, at the minute the *urgh* and overwhelm you are living with is the stuff that you are consciously aware of. When you start to dig unfortunately other stuff often springs itself from said box, all the more reason to be stable as possible before any digging.

 

[Abstract]

Sadly, when we have trauma it doesn't seem to stay in nice neat boxes. Or if it does - it did for me - then there can be invisible strings connecting one to another. You obviously have multiple boxes so you don't want to inadvertently open another/others when you deal with the surgery box. And then not be able to get help from your therapist. That may make the physchosis stuff more of a risk since you've recently had that going on.

She is being cautious for good reason. She wouldn't be a responsible therapist otherwise. It's about you being able to manage the next stage rather than it being a particular type of relationship.

" I don’t really understand what happened to me and this is what I want to understand but am too scared to talk about. However, in terms of opening the box…. It’s well and truly open and has been for about 6 months, I want to close it"
This seems the place to start to me.

But it isn't really open because you want to know about it and you can't speak about it!

Does she know about the screaming for help and then being punished? It seems thats the likely first step.

 

[arfie]

empathy, tiler. one of the biggest wishes on my personal wish list is that "just getting help" was a justy as the people who keep telling me to do so make it sound. 50 years in to the long, hard recovery from child sex trafficking, i am more confused than ever by the process of just getting help. the phonebook ads which were available in 1972 when i started my recovery felt even less trustworthy than the websites i get to peruse today. the old phonebook ads looked like big bowls of alphabet soup to me. today's websites are still well doused in that alphabet soup, but at least most of them explain their acronyms. alas, when i am caught in a psychotic episode, those explanations are a tad hard to decipher.

i have been apprehended by police, in more than one country, more times than i care to count with my hyper-dramatic cries for help. facts available, but i don't care to do the research. those apprehensions have yet to lead to incarceration, but i'm knocking wood like the crazy old tinker i am as i say that. is 70 too old for fulfilling the prison family birthright i was born to? i am grateful to report that my own apprehensions led to an inside track to the help i was after. alas, the help only help. i had to do the heavy lifting myself. the help available never fit the images inspired by the folks who kept telling me to "just get help." what a long, strange trip it's been. . .

wish i had easy answers for both of us. sigh. . .

for what it's worth
EMDR was a rough theory which had yet to earn its acronym when i was introduced to it in the 70's. the shrink who introduced me to those still unnamed theories had been watching my eye movements during our talk therapy. by the time he presented the theory, he had been watching for long enough to have a fairly solid familiarity with my own, strictly personal patterns of eye movement. to work the theories, we targeted the alternate eye movements to targets far more personal and specific than he could have guided me through in the first months of our relationship. i have never participated in formal EMDR, but? ? ? could your shrink be gathering the needed information? just wondering. . . i don't care to do the research on that one, either. my give-a-damn is busted.

 

[Friday]

I think it’s making me much worse to try to get help

That is EXACTLY how trauma therapy works.

It WILL get worse, before it gets better.

It’s like physical therapy, following reconstructive surgery… you WALK in, and for the next year and a half? Are confined to bed, then wheelchair, then crutches, then cane, THEN walking worse than you walked in with, and only after all that??? RUNNING. Leaping, gliding, dancing.

Regular McTherapy? My parents don’t understand me, I married badly, I’m not appreciated at work… therapy? You feel better IMMEDIATELY. Every session, or most, walking out better than you walked in. It’s like going to doctor when you’re sick, so they give you meds that work right off. TRAUMA THERAPY?!? Is a badly healed broken bone, that needs surgery, and physical therapy. You ABSOLUTELY will feel soooo much worse. For a long time. And then? The rest of your life is better.

…assuming you didn’t choose a f*cknut retard as a trauma therapist. Which is like getting leeches for a cold. Stupid to f*ck. But a GOOD trauma therapist? Priceless

Maybe you chose an idiot. If so? Reassess & Pivot. But ALL trauma therapy? Will f*ck you up HARD, for a good long while. A few weeks/months, if it’s a single trauma. A few years, or more, with complex trauma.

What’s most alarming… to me… is that you appear to not have been informed, BY your therapist of this? Unless you were and blew them off. Which is also common… amongst the survivor set.

 

[Abstract]

I will add to what Friday describes and say that the tricky part for me was differentiating what was normal backlash and what was too much unhelpful retraumatisation or not enough containment. It seems this T is trying to ensure you have containment. It depends if its a good match for you.

 

[tiler]

Thanks everyone.

So….I think she is a good therapist and knows what she’s doing…but I don’t know for sure what she’s doing, so I feel out of control.

She redirects me when I start to talk about the trauma, she doesn’t want details, so I don’t really know what I’m supposed to be talking about, but it still triggers me just talking about nothing in particular.

What will it look like when I’m stable? What will she notice that means I can move on? I just feel a bit like now the wound is open, we may as well pour salt in it now than wait for it to heal enough only to open it back up again. If I’m stable, then I’ll probably be cured and won’t need the eye movement phase.

There have been so many triggers for me over the past 6 months that have sent me into a complete spiral that I can’t get out of. I am still having somatic flashbacks most of the day.

I just feel so out of control.