Processing Trauma

[digger]

No actually I hadn't started therapy yet with the first post.

Now I'm confused. Lol. In your first post you said...

I've been seeing my T and my psychiatrist for about 4 months now

my T knows about my CSA but we just deal with my current trauma

So is this not the same T?

No he has not given me any maintenance skills for trauma.

Perhaps you need to have a conversation with him about this? You're going to need to work on stabilising and grounding if you want to work on the trauma. I would be worried if you're T wasn't working on this with you given that you've told him how badly things affect you outside of the session.

Have you asked him whether he thinks you need to process the CSA, and if he is planning on coming back to it with you? And if so how he plans on approaching it with you? It may be that he already plans to do much more grounding work with you before going there, but then I thought he would have done that before tackling the other trauma too...again though, I'm a bit confused now as to how long you have been seeing this T? I was basing my response on the T you were seeing before and the work you had been doing there.

 

[TonyG]

@Notsowild
Yes grounding has been discussed but my anxiety is so overpowering I can not see it working for me, I can get along just fine without the anxiety.

 

[Notsowild]

Yes it is worth it. I was agoraphobic and unable to work for 12 years after I got PTSD. Processing for 12 years enabled me to return to work and that has been awesome!. I have supported my family and am saving for a home.

12 years!!! Yikes really. Did you do weekly sessions? Was it with a trauma therapist and did you suffer from childhood abuse? Only if you want to answer btw. And a big congrats on getting better. Thanks for your encouragement.

My choices were to process or continue justifying irrational responses while living with flashbacks, et al. I chose to continue for a very long time, but it kept getting harder and harder. Finally there came a time when processing started to look like the lesser evil. I

I'm in therapy, definetly dealing with my symptoms of my traumas. I think I'll ask him next session how important it is to process the CSA. Thanks for your response and kind words and support.

 

[Notsowild]

Wow @digger... You should be a lawyer. Actually I can use one right now. Know anything about discrimination. Okay I started seeing my psychiatrist in February. It was her that put me in stress leave for 3 months. I was seeing another insurance- paid therapist then too. She was awful - I got nothing out of that. Now I found my new trauma therapist in May.

I like him, I trust him ( I don't trust men). I'm sure we'll come back to the CSA. Just too soon and there's lots of other current problems he is helping me through right now.

I pledge to the best of my knowledge what I wrote is true. If not I give up. Shock treatments for me. Lol Thanks digger

 

[Notsowild]

@Notsowild
Yes grounding has been discussed but my anxiety is so overpowering I can not see it working for me, I can get along just fine without the anxiety.

Are you taking any meds for your anxiety? My psychiatrist helps with my anxiety. Like she says its the core of all my other issues. So working on it is number one.

 

[digger]

Okay, it is the same T you were talking about in the other post then.

Just wanted to make sure because I was basing my responses on what you've written about your relationship with this T already and the work you've done with them, and obviously if it was a much newer T then I might have different responses, especially re. the grounding work.

So are you saying that even though you've done trauma work with this T, on your more recent trauma, he hasn't given you any grounding skills? Is that what you mean by 'maintenance skills'?

I know you like this T, and its really good you've built up trust with him, but if by saying he hasn't given you any maintenance skills you mean that he hasn't given you any grounding or coping skills to use both in and out of sessions since you started seeing him in May, that would worry me. And it's no surprise then really that it affects you so much. Talking about it will still affect you when you learn the skills, but it would make it more manageable.

Edited to add - Do I think you need to process the CSA to recover? Yes. Do I think processing it with a T who hasn't given you any tools/skills to help deal with the fallout from it is a good idea? No.

 

[Friday]

Wow ... You've never had therapy? You did it all own your own.

Oh... I did way more that made things worse, than put things to rights. It was luck, pure and simple. And I wasn't always alone. Part of that luck was a series of perfect people for what I needed at that moment in time.

Why did your symptoms come back after so many years?

More trauma. And a series of unfortunate events. But my brain decided to go resurrect old ghosts instead of laying on new ones. At least, as far as I know.

 

[TonyG]

@Notsowild
Taking Zoloft 50mg and Diasapam 5mg on bad days like today, it only dules it and I get some sleep,

 

[Chava]

Good question @Notsowild . I've wondered if it's worth the extra effort and how awareness and vulnerability also bring about new kinds of confusion and pain. But I'm sort of caught because my life was not going very well and I almost know too much know...I understand how terribly I manage stress and am more aware of some of my relationship issues. Before I just distracted myself for almost every moment of my day. That doesn't work anymore because I recognize it. So it depends on where you are at and what you want to heal. But it helps me to consider it takes time to unravel this stuff that's been part of me for so long (my fear, shame, isolation, and all habits around those).

The grounding stuff is important, and building more positive resources on a broader level...connections to others in some way, even if a small number of people, good feelings, good experiences, and good body feelings/sensations (examples: self-soothing skills, good feelings like feeling strong or empowered or just okay...some of this I find in things like yoga or just walking in nature). It feels like a lot of the work is outside of therapy and I'm glad I'm trying to make some changes, but it's pretty hard. If you're dissociating a lot, are you able to talk to your therapist about it? Can you slow down the process from where you are at and work on more of the grounding, centering, presence stuff? I do a lot of this and don't talk about my past in huge amounts in therapy...lots of going between feeling okay and grounding, finding feelings of safety, and working on the harder stuff (but I'm not doing talk-focused therapy, more Somatic Experiencing, body/movement stuff)

Be clear about what you need. Your therapist should have loads of ideas for helping you feel safe and grounded. May therapist let me take a stuffed bear off her shelf to protect me...and I took it home and back to appoitments and back and forth for weeks. Also what helps me find safe or protective feelings. Or soothing and calming. Or empowering or creative. I have to do a lot of writing, doodling, and walking, and yogaing outside of therapy to keep myself grounded in the present.

Hang in there!!!

 

[Abrasky]

12 years!!! Yikes really. Did you do weekly sessions? Was it with a trauma therapist and did you suffer from childhood abuse? Only if you want to answer btw. And a big congrats on getting better. Thanks for your encouragement.

Your welcome. I know what it is like to be processing at the beginning. It is nice to know that there are some positive aspects to re-going through trauma which is a really awful experience.

I had monthly sessions with my psychologist because it was all I could afford. It took 12 years for me to recover because it took 5 years to get a proper diagnosis and one year I didn't get proper treatment because I could not find a psycholoogist that successfully processed memories with me.

I had very bad PTSD because many of my memories had fragmented and created mood personality states. My PTSD was bad because I had been through multiple traumas. My mum was in a violent relationship with my biological father until I was 3 1/3 and while through this my sister died at birth ,making more violence, and then a violent (threats of life/ sexual abuse/ extreme control/ emotional rages from a violent psycopathic father and a narcisstic mother. My mother emotionally blackmailed me.

The only positive aspect in my life was my 'really connecting to others around the community' grandfather, who was also a foster dad for me at 3 1/2, who worked at the local grocery store. I guess that is why I work at the local grocery store now. He was my only connection to reality at the time! But I couldn't re-connct wtih him until after 12 years of processing.

My psychologist for much of my processing was a trauma psychologist, it is her speciality. My second last psychologist was not a trauma psychologist, and released to much processing for me to handle causing me to 'flood' non stop for 3 years. Glad that is all over then!