Poll How Much Treatment Did You Have Before Something Helpful If You Have Dissociation/childhood Trauma?

[Abstract]

How much treatment did you have before you had treatment suitable for your PTSD in the context of childhood trauma or abuse, and/or significant dissociation, attachment issues or significant amnesia? Suitable includes the avoidance of something unsuitable or harmful in treatment style.

* Where you referred or did you figure out what you needed to have and needed to stay away from for yourself?
* If it was suitable but you were unable to engage for your own reasons then it was still suitable.
* It would be interesting to hear how many therapists it took too if it wasn't the first one.
* Having various types of treatment and various therapists but all of them being suitable in different ways means you choose the time for your first treatment.
* Suitable therapy protocol but done by an abusive therapist is a separate issue.
* If the unsuitable treatment happened later then feel free to choose as best as is possible and give more information afterwards.

I am not going to endlessly list what situations it includes and excludes or define "significant" etc so do feel free to determine whether you want to participate or not. I really don't mind! The point is how you have found treatment when your needs are more complex but related to PTSD.

For me it has mostly been about dissociation. I may of course be one of the only ones who has had trouble and regret posting! :x3: but in that case will be grateful to hear that the problem is less widespread than I suspect.

Also feel free to share what you found helpful and what you didn't find helpful. Especially if something was re traumatising or something helped you avoid being re traumatised.

And yes, of course certain things are individual.
Thank you!

 

[Lucycat]

Good thread @Abstract !

Personally it was entirely good luck on my part!

When I first went to my GP in distress, she offered referral to a CPN which I declined. I thought I was strong and could manage alone - added to which my husband Rory was then ( now retired) a psychiatric nurse.

Very quickly I realised that this was bigger than the 2 of us and I knew I needed proper help. I sent a private message to a friend of Rory, saying just that 'I think I need help'. This was out of the blue for him, and although I knew he was a CPN I had no idea of his field of practice. He came up trumps and contacted Rory first just to see if I was being genuine, but did not ask Rory for details. Just confirmed that I wanted 'to talk'.

Within a few days this dear man came round to the house and had the full story. I did not know his interest was in trauma, and his supervising psychiatrist likewise. I had never heard of EMDR or Complex PTSD, although I remember telling him I felt shell-shocked! That is now 4 years ago, and Rory's friend has been my T ever since.

We had to go through a few hoops to keep it all above board. I don't live in his usual catchment area so he had to get permission for me to be on his caseload. However he does live within 5 minutes so it is convenient for both of us. Also he was very clear that he would write regularly to my GP, keeping her informed despite my initial turning down the referral she had suggested. She has been fine with this.

T is very enthusiastic about psycho - education and has helped me learn so much. He is confident and experienced. He has admitted when he has floundered, and had to seek advice. He has told me that I have been a very challenging client, but that he has found it very rewarding to travel this journey with me.

He has been incredibly professional. Being so close I do see him in social situations. We will pass conversation, but never about personal stuff or therapy or anything that either of us would find embarrassing. Very few locally even know I am a client of his, although he did tell his wife, as he was concerned about his car being seen regularly parked outside my house. This I fully accepted as a sensible way of preventing any issues.

So, in a nutshell, I got appropriate therapy from the start. T has told me many times that he wishes it was like that for everyone. He is saddened by the numbers that get inappropriate therapy - even from colleagues within his own team, as they don't all 'get-it'.

 

[Seasounds]

My symptoms started appear strongly 3 years before I was willing to trust someone. Then I found a helpful therapist, upon a friend's referral. The therapy was really too intense for me, but I kept going (didn't know how to speak up at the time, nor how to manage so many memories at once.) Due to outgrowing-learning and integrating what the therapists had to offer, I've switched therapists about every 2-3 years.

 

[WillowMarie]

I am so mad, i just spent a long time writting a response and accidently hit the back button and cant grt it back... (on a phone... Hopefully getting my computer back today)

But I just wanted to say that I have had a lot of trouble in therapy due to dissociation as well. You are not alone in that. I will write my response later.

 

[Echo]

My symptoms came on very suddenly and violently in January of this year. I was helping out with a rape awareness-raising event and did not realise I was going to get triggered massively, nor that the emerging memories were going to include the child abuse I had suppressed.

Funnily enough, a rape trauma psychologist (who I now see, and who is great), contacted me, in my role as one of the event organisers, to wish us well just a few days later. I went to my GP on 1 February and have spent ages being sidelined, offered hopeless counselling within the GP practice (sessions ridiculously few and far between), until the child abuse memories also started to emerge, and I felt I must then insist on knowing how far my original request for a referral to a specialist was progressing (by now this was May). It turned out nothing had been done.

Eventually, I was sent for a mental health assessment (at the end of September) and was referred on to a psychology assessment, which took place in November, although only after constant checking-in with them all to find out what was happening (endless papers lost, stuck on people's desks, etc.). The psychologist who assessed me triggered me completely and seemed really ignorant of the current best practice for CPTSD and PTSD.

Luckily, I had by now started working privately with the rape trauma psychologist, who had first contacted me, and had a session scheduled immediately after the assessment. It took her an hour to get me back together in order for me to drive home. I don't remember ever feeling so awful. She was furious with the other psychologist and her approach. My problem is that I cannot afford to continue to pay my current psychologist, so keep hoping that an NHS referral, preferably outside of the NHS system, will be forthcoming.

To date, I am still waiting to hear the results of the assessment and what will be proposed as treatment. My current therapist is helping to stablize me very gradually and giving me grounding tools, so that I can work a little, at least some of the time, in the hope that I can increase the hours I can do and pay for my treatment on top of normal living costs. She specialises in sensory-motor therapy and EMDR (for the last 20 years). The psychologist who assessed me does not believe in stabilising clients prior to doing the sort of treatment she favours (she would not give me proper details, other than to say it had been developed for Vietnam vets). Although my GP had requested that I be diagnosed and offered EMDR within the NHS, this woman did not seem to wish to actually ask me about my symptoms, but at our second meeting, when she asked how I would know that I was better, I gave her a full account of my symptoms, saying none of these would be present.

She did appear to be rather shocked when she realised how difficult things are for me and what has happened to me, and she did admit that perhaps I was not ready for the therapy she proposed, whatever that is. She said EMDR is not available on the NHS anyway, and unfortunately, there appears to be no budget within the NHS in this part of the country for appropriate treatment. I do think by now that a lot of the stalling by the GP and subsequently by other services has been because they do not have any budget or wish to find exceptional funds to provide help for me.

They have finally acknowledged that there is appropriate treatment available privately in the county at a trauma centre near to my home, at which my therapist happens also to work, but whether they will finally agree to fund any treatment there for me remains to be seen. I know I cannot manage without help and any week I am unable to see my therapist seems to be very difficult for me, as it currently is over the Christmas period. I do have a fear now about being offered inappropriate treatment and having to turn it down for my own safety. I know I need to keep stabile in order to function, pay my bills and keep my home. There is no-one to look after me financially or otherwise, although I do have some good friends to talk to, who are supportive, to the extent they can be, emotionally. My diagnosis of CPTSD was made by my rape trauma psychologist.

 

[Lucycat]

@Echo she is wrong! I have had extensive EMDR - all on the NHS! I appreciate it is not universally available, but to say it is not available on the NHS is simply wrong. My NHS treatment includes sensorimotor psychotherapy,

 

[Leah123]

I went for my first round of therapy at age 14, dealing with dissociation without knowing what it was, numbing, feeling stifled like death, upset and anxious, without having any idea what was going on or why. I found great help in opening up that first few months before my counselor left. We didn't treat me in terms of "trauma work" but just in terms of me presenting dealing with a lot of stress and feeling shut down, out of place. That work was the catalyst for a healing journey.

About a year and a half after that brief (few months) of counseling ended, I found a new therapist and began "trauma work" as I began to deal with a "nightmare" sense of having been abused by my father during my early childhood. But that therapist was incompetent, she was also only an intern at the time, and I left hurt by the experience, though it was the catalyst for me to leave my father's side of the family, which was great.

The most helpful work I did aside from the first few months of counseling when I was 14, which was the most empowering relationship of my life basically, was in support groups. I learned about all kinds of PTSD symptoms without ever realizing that's what I had. I didn't have the framework to diagnose, and I saw an eminent psychologist from about 16-18 but didn't trust her, her memory was poor, she was often distracted, and she was a cold type of Freudian psychoanalyst (not at all what I needed) and I don't think she ever had any idea I was dealing with those symptoms collectively: dissociation (so so often and pervasively) nightmares, avoidance, anger, irritability, etc.

The support groups were intense and had some serious downsides, they were overwhelming and gave me a militant point of view about the severity and duration of trauma that were too extreme, but, it all makes sense- you put together a room full of damaged women, self-supporting, and it's easy to get into groupthink, and an us/them mentality about life. Anyhow, I received a lot of support and processed SO much there, I am grateful for that, for being able to do the intense work at such a young age and get clear on many things, that allowed me to move forward into a calmer place in my life afterward. I attended the groups until I was perhaps 18 or so.

Anyhow, it was just about 10 months ago I started therapy again after a 19 or so year hiatus, and it's so healing, so helpful. Excruciatingly difficult sometimes, but wonderful work. So, this is the phase where we've named the PTSD and are working to treat me, help me with that better sense of context from having a sensible diagnosis, but we're careful not to treat me as a collection of symptoms like dissociation, but as a person with strengths and weaknesses, and my PTSD symptoms have been both.

P.S. I wanted to add an important element, actually, in healing from dissociation for me has been simply having years of safety and stability, a secure relationship, a secure home, secure finances. As I didn't need dissociation, I've slowly outgrown it from the point where it was frequent, intense, and terrifying once I realized it, to a place where it almost completely disappeared, until, of course, I got back into therapy and it's flared up a bit, but seems to be getting better again, hopefully.

 

[Echo]

@Lucycat, thank you so much for telling me this. It has been such a battle and seemingly, so far, completely against the NICE guidelines for CPTSD/PTSD. It really does contribute to feelings of being devalued and without hope. I hope you are finding your treatment really helpful.

 

[WillowMarie]

For me it has mostly been about dissociation.

I can relate with the dissociation and therapy. This has been a huge road block for me.

When I first started therapy, it was right before sophomore year of high school. I had told my mom, after many, many years of being depressed, that I thought I was depressed. She got me help and throughout high school I had went to a few different therapists as well as psychiatrists.

I try to play it off as I wasn't doing a good job, place the blame on me. But I know now, that the dissociation played a major role, and if I had the proper therapist, they might have been able to help me. In therapy, I would shut down and not say anything. I would sit in the chair very still and my mind would go blank, it felt like mush and I couldn't think or even try to answer questions they would ask because nothing would come into my head, I would feel like I couldn't move or talk. I don't think I would have been able to verbalize or explain what I felt or why even if I wanted to. And the therapists I had, most of them got tired of me and gave up and told me they couldn't do anything more for me, or I stopped going because there was no progress and it felt like I was wasting money and time.

This just reaffirmed that no one understood me, cared about me, or knew how to help me.

I did have a few people that may have noticed the dissociation when I was in high school.

One was a psychiatrist that my mom had taken my younger brother (for ADD) and I to. The psychiatrist must have noticed I was shut down and tried to get me to react by raising his voice and saying things to me, but I didn't react.

Another one was when I went to an out patient program. I remember I was in a room with my mom and one of the therapists. They probably noticed how much I dissociated and were asking me, what happened to you?? They also tried different things with me that they didn't do for everyone. I had some individual art therapy and touch therapy. They also talked about not "getting lost in the floor" and staying in the moment, but that still scared me because I would have to feel things.

My mom of course couldn't answer that question about what had happened to me because she is still in denial/minimizes things today. And it is really sad because it has always been someone else telling my mom that I need to get help. She has never realized, something isn't right, she thinks it is normal for me or something. I was the one to tell her to take me to therapy, the school had to call her to tell her that they had found out I was self-injuring (even though started when I was eight) and told her to take me to the program, and my therapist had to call her to tell her to take me to the hospital when I was super low.

(And this past summer when I decided it would be good for me to try a residential program, she didn't want me to go because I would be away from her, and instead wanted me to try the out patient I had already been to twice instead so I could stay at home. D: She really pisses me off!)

It was sometime after the out-patient experience, late high school or after, that I started to write down my memories and research dissociation and trauma and stuff. It helped to validate that I wasn't crazy and there were reasons why I dissociate and depersonalize. Why I had triggers and became too emotional/angry at certain situations/responses.

It made me understand why I would start to tremble, tear up and dissociate if someone was frustrated/angry and expressing it towards me. That it explained why when I opened up and started welcoming emotions and talking about my past, how intense and emotional it felt and that I couldn't stop it unless I shut down again and didn't fight the dissociation.

I did have some therapists after high school that I opened up to more than others. I remember one I read what I wrote after my dad died, and she responded, you sounded like a scared little girl. It was nice to hear, but I was fighting the emotions that were coming up and was trying not to feel them because it scared me . I was supposed to write follow up letter addressed to my father, and I remember I only wrote two lines... there was no way I could feel safe trying to pull more emotions and thoughts out, it was already feeling uncomfortably scary.

I don't remember much, but maybe if they taught me the grounding and why it was important, or what was happening to me and encouraged me it would be okay, it would have been different.

I still struggle with letting other people help me, but people have been telling me I need to do this. I have been the only one there for me for so long, how can I trust other people to help? Why can't I just keep relying on myself?? When I do try to let others in and let myself be vulnerable, if they don't respond in the right way, it hurts so much. Like if they say something invalidating or don't take me seriously. It feels like I might die.

It has been ten years since I graduated high school, and I am finally just now, hopefully, finding a therapist that fits my needs. When I started looking back into therapy almost a year ago, this is the first time I specifically looked for a trauma specialist because I knew that is what I needed.

But I have also had other therapy this year that was not very good (supposedly had experience in trauma). The therapist that didn't believe I had trauma, that I couldn't have PTSD or trauma until my memories came back. Then the residential treatment center where during individual therapy sessions, I was so dissociative and tried so hard to ground myself. I could hear myself taking slowly in an attempt to keep talking (not about anything important either) because I feared if I stopped I wouldn't be able to start again and would totally shut down like I used to when I was younger and in therapy.

(I had told them the first session I dissociate all the time and need help with that. But it was all up to me to work on by myself, it made me feel like they didn't care. When I mentioned the grounding techniques weren't working, they just said to try more and never helped me in the moment. They just let me dissociate. But I also saw them help other people in the moment, so it just made me feel like I wasn't important enough and they didn't care about me. I had tried so hard to trust the staff, but how could I when they gave other people special treatment?)

The therapist I have now is a breathe of fresh air. She often helps me ground myself in sessions and reassures me it is not happening right now if I start feeling scared or start to shake or get emotional. Even the first session, I said something and she responded, oh, sounds like attachment issues. Like it all made sense and I wasn't crazy!! I felt relieved. There are times when I have doubts, maybe because I am getting scared from sharing or something. I guess we will see as time goes on.

All in all, I don't really know how many therapist I have been to.... probably at least over ten. But researching on my own and understanding more has helped me immensely to find the proper help.

 

[Leah123]

I try to play it off as I wasn't doing a good job, place the blame on me. But I know now, that the dissociation played a major role, and if I had the proper therapist, they might have been able to help me. In therapy, I would shut down and not say anything. I would sit in the chair very still and my mind would go blank, it felt like mush and I couldn't think or even try to answer questions they would ask because nothing would come into my head, I would feel like I couldn't move or talk. I don't think I would have been able to verbalize or explain what I felt or why even if I wanted to. And the therapists I had, most of them got tired of me and gave up and told me they couldn't do anything more for me, or I stopped going because there was no progress and it felt like I was wasting money and time. This just reaffirmed that no one understood me, cared about me, or knew how to help me.

This was very similar to my experience with my eminent psychoanalyst, you said it so well. I was so scared, afraid to say the wrong thing, afraid to be misunderstood, afraid she wouldn't care, afraid to be crazy, and so often blank or muddled, that I was very often silent- it was terrible, and terribly frustrating. She seemed to think I was being difficult, told me I "made her feel like the worst therapist" in the city, when I wasn't being difficult at all. :( I was being scared to death and so frustrated at how scared/dissociated I was. It's something I just talked through with my new therapist and she said sharing how my silence meant fear or how I changed when really dissociated made her understand just how wrong she was the one time she thought I was being passive aggressive- I do think for those w/PTSD especially dissociative subtype, this is a real obstacle to therapy. Hard for people to realize they need to empathize from the outside without realizing what's going on behind the silence/disconnectedness.

 

[Upside Down Eagle]

I first went to see a psychiatrist at age 16 because I was having anger and anxiety issues combined with reclusive behavior. She was completely inadequate as far as I can remember. The only thing she really did is ask me tons of questions and then when I answered any of them her response would be "uhu, I understand". I doubt that she ever really understood, she was like a student fresh out of psychology classes that was just figuring out how to deal with damaged people. In fact after that my anger issues got worse, because I got to talk about my issues but not get something done about it. This was in Spain.

Later I moved to the Netherlands where I figure healthcare is a bit better organized. I got a referral to the "mental health care" institute of the city I was living in and spent three to four years talking to a social worker. In the meantime I also went into adolescent group therapy which consisted of a majority of every day, it was like an internship except we went back home every evening. In the group theraphy we had a combination of modules. The modules were art theraphy, game theraphy, discussing, and psychomotoric theraphy.

I have to revise my choice in the poll now, I choose "it took me more than four years (to find adequate treatment), but I had forgotten that the flashbacks and the nightmeres did subside while I was in this theraphy. I was on antidepressants for about two years, paroxetine. However the other symptoms -the anxiety, anger and intrusive thoughts/images/dissociation remained more or less the same. The social worker was a nice person, I liked her. She had a "can-do" attitude that said "let's tackle this". I also liked the psychomotoric theraphy because it would just get your mind off stuff and you would discover how to interact physically with others.

However in the end I also felt rejected by the social worker. She diagnosed me BPD, and I wasn't sure about that diagnose for a very long time. I felt like she treated me differently because of it, I felt like she took extra distance from me because of it. At some point I lost my house and I tried living in a "borderline home" which was a room in a house with two other borderlines, who didn't have ptsd. There'd be help there with everything, you were supossed to do everything togheter, and I hated it. I value my alone-time and I don't appreciate being told what to do and treated like a toddler generally, since I've been independent for a long, long time.

I wasn't able to tell the social worker about my biggest issues because I wasn't really aware of those issues until now, I was aware of them but in a unconscious way, where there still was no possibility of me putting it into words. Also I was so extremely tired of talking, talking, and more talking. I wanted a practical approach. That's why I'm trying EMDR now.

 

[stuff]

I lucked out. A friend gave me his card for referral with a therapist he never followed up with and I called her. It was a complete fluke. I had absolutely no trust and I was a mess, but it just clicked. I don't know what would have happened if it hadn't.