When the post-trauma feels worse than the trauma did at the time?

[Ecdysis]

Okay, so maybe I'm going to be the last person in the class to have understood this...

Maybe this is classic PTSD and everyone gets it except me... until today... sigh...

Until now, my model of understanding trauma has been that this awful-harrowing-overwhelming-unbearable thing happens... And then with PTSD, over the years, you get these fainter "echoes" of the actual trauma...

Today I had an aha moment, where I think that model often doesn't apply to me, or probably to many others.

Often, in the moment of trauma, I numbed out, dissociated, just focussed on surviving/ getting out of there... So the actual experience, while obviously distressing and overwhelming... was emotionally kind of... numb? muted? eerily calm?

And then later, what I get is not some "faint echo" of the traumatic event... Rather, later ALLLLLL the emotions of terror, rage, helplessness, confusion, panic, sobbing, distress, dysregulation come up...

So that the "later" bit will actually FEEL so much, much worse than the traumatic event did *in the moment where it happened* cos dissociation kicked in so quick and effectively, that it spared me 90% of my feelings in the moment, so that I could focus on the 4 F survival responses: fight/ flee/ freeze/ fawn.

So... sigh... ALL these years, I've been feeling like an utter idiot for being in MORE distress post-trauma than in the moment of trauma... I feel like I've been somehow doing it wrong and that it shouldn't be like that.

And obviously, there will be many, many examples of trauma which do fit that other model - where the moment of trauma FEELS absolutely beyond all limits terrifying and people have the full range of extreme emotions *in the moment*.

But I guess there may be two models - one where the emotions are intense in the moment and then more muted later and also the exact reverse - where the emotions are muted in the moment of trauma and then come out with a vengance, once the danger has passed.

Yeah.. who knew? Probly heaps of people, but I was today years old before I realised it...

 

[gorgonzola]

But I guess there may be two models - one where the emotions are intense in the moment and then more muted later and also the exact reverse - where the emotions are muted in the moment of trauma and then come out with a vengance, once the danger has passed.

Mine is the former; at least I'm pretty sure it is because I currently depend really, really heavily on amnesia about the details and I'm very numbed up generally these days. But then again, my presentation of (DSM-5) PTSD is a bit weird.

Trauma was definitely drawn out, for what it's worth. Just now realizing that I don't actually know how long for, but a floor of 6 months.

I have no particular expectations and shit's weird, yo, so I'm just going with the flow of symptoms that have cropped up in the last few months e g. "oh, derealization? What a curious experience. Triggered into an abject terror that takes days to recover from? How interesting, I never knew brains worked like that" etc etc.

So I find out things that are new to me about this shit all the time it seems. Some experiences or sets of experiences I find out are common, others less so. Some awful stuff is beyond my experience, some is well within it. Learn something new every day, I guess.

 

[Skyler1962]

Ecdysis, not new to the class at all. I was recently diagnosed with PTSD, which started 40 years ago! The traumatic events just kept coming over 30 years (always either firearms or fire) so for me that was just normal. It was my physical health going down the toilet that finally alerted anyone (The Body Keeps the Score).

Going through initial therapy and then an actual assessment at at hospital, I finally understood why I relived the events in the third person, I told them that my life is like watching a movie of me.

Always learning something, and feel at my age it's who I am, and comfortable with that part. Because it was so many events over time, I'm always hypervigilant and feel that's a good thing, especially in a big city.

The hard times are always at night in bed, as I start reliving the events. I've tried the Calm app, but it just gives me a soundtrack to the trauma.

 

[Movingforward10]

Yep, for me processing the trauma felt worse than the trauma. Because at the time of the traumas, in my mind , "there was no trauma". Totally split it off. So, all those traumatic feelings were saved up for decades later to come out at a safer time.

 

[Skyler1962]

The one odd thing when talking to the first therapist was when I said I had forgotten about the time I had a automatic rifle a foot away pointed at my head with the finger on the trigger. I said "how do you forget something like that!", and she just said, your brain did, already traumatized so something like that was just normal. So yeah was happier when things were just set aside in my brain, but the rapid health downturn meant having to figure out what was wrong

 

[arfie]

launching from a platform of full trauma induced amnesia, i don't really trust my memories of how bad theP pains of the initial traumas were. for sure, finding the courage to allow myself to remember was a trauma i remember all too well. far worse than any of the memories i have reclaimed of the initial traumas.

dunno, but for sure my psychotherapy team is rallying in my head with the chant of, "DON'T COMPARE! ! !" pain is pain. K.I.S.S. K.I.S.S. keep it simple, silly.

 

[Bamboo]

Yep, for me processing the trauma felt worse than the trauma. Because at the time of the traumas, in my mind , "there was no trauma". Totally split it off. So, all those traumatic feelings were saved up for decades later to come out at a safer time.

Same