How Do You Stop Getting Lost In The Grief Of Your Traumas?

[Cool Cat]

Two questions in a row, sorry.

Anyways, I think it is important for us to pay attention to our traumas, and what we need. BUT I also feel that by spending all your time thinking about it or grieving the childhood you didnt have, you are stopping yourself from living your current life and tackling issues in a non-safe environment (ie. like not in a room with a trained professional)

I dont want to block it out either, which I did for years and years.

But theres a balance. Where is it? And how do you achieve it.

 

[Friday]

For me, it's easy. I went through several spectacular fits as a child (including flat out grief for 2 solid years) because my life would change on a dime every 6-24 months, and I could see who I would be if we didn't move. Generally, I love moving. Both then & now. But a few moves were "perfect". In one, I fell into Olympic Training. Would I have made the Team a few years later? Who knows. And, honestly, I have no idea who I would have become... But as a kid, all I knew was the potential. I was special, here. I had a shot. And it was taken away. A few moves later, I was in the most amazing school... Ever. All kinds of Hogwarts before Voldemort amazing. I was happier there than I ever had been (or have been since) in school. This was a school that the kids all went on to Oxford/Cambridge/Harvard/Yale... Or crazy arts internships with Cirque du Soleil, or mechanics & engineering with Indy500, or NASA, etc. Amaaaaaazing place. Looked at each child individually, and propelled them through the stratosphere towards their dreams. Seriously amazing place. And then it was gone, too... And I was back to being a problem child in the principals office in a mediocre mudhole being told how much I sucked. Great. Fantastic.

So I spent years as a child going through that hope & grief process. By the time I hit trauma as an adult? WTFO. Like this is anything new. Yep. Everything changes on a dime. Yeah. Already learned that lesson in spades, thanks.

But I simply cannot transmit that lesson into my sons life. I've spent the past few years with not only my own trauma stuff giving me fits, but countless hours locked in rage and grief and might have been over my son.

I am 12 kinds of furious about my son. I worked extremely hard for 10 years to give him the childhood I wanted him to have, and 5 years to give him the education that would open pretty much every door in the world for him... No matter where he wanted to take himself. I never wanted kids. And I've seen so many dead kids, so many amazing kids who never got a shot... That when I did fall pregnant? I took it on as a sacred duty. Okay, kid. For all the kids I could never help, for all the kids I've buried, I'm going to do right by you. They never had a shot. You will.

It's incredibly difficult to let any of that go.

What I wanted, what I worked for, that's all just... Gone. Worse than gone. Sabotaged. Deliberately destroyed.

12 kinds of rage. 12 kinds of grief. I can't adapt to it. I can't let it go. Serious powerlessness, and helplessness, and straight up fury. I not only cannot give my son the life I want him to have, I cannot protect him. Which tips off all my own trauma stuff and makes things even harder. My past and present slammed together like a freight train. And I can't cope with either. It's... This stationary thing. It doesn't allow forward movement. I think letting go requires too much trust. I can't manage any kind of trust at the moment, much less the volumes of it that are needed for this kind of thing.

 

[Upside Down Eagle]

Maybe it's a matter of feeling the grief while you are in the Now. Can't say that it is easy. But there is a difference between going back with your mind, or going back with your heart. When I go back with my mind, I get stuck on all the resentment and the thousands of impossible questions. But when I feel what actually happened, it's easier to stay in the present.

 

[rightkindofme]

Well, I found that I had to set aside specific time for grieving in order to move through it. I had a few years where I woke up between 3 and 4am every day to spend 3 hours crying before my day started. I haven't done that in a long time. It didn't work as processing until I was completely safe and I could really sob out the grief. It was hard to give myself so much space for doing it. I constantly told myself I was "pathetic" but I tried to counter it with, "I have decades of grief to cry about. Nothing pathetic here."

And now I don't do it after giving myself permission to do it until I needed to stop. I haven't felt the need to cry like that in many months. I feel like I'm in a much better place... mostly because I gave myself permission for all the wild grief.

 

[ghotiff]

I'm confused too. I spent most of my life very aware of my problems but avoiding spending any acknowledging them. Now Ive started therapy many hours a day are spent on reflection of my childhood and how it has impacted me.

Most of this time I believe is constructive as I need to understand my own childhood so that I can carefully parent my own children while avoiding (as much as I can) dragging in my unhealthy past in. But...I can't see when this will stop, and it's unpleasant and time consuming to do this...and at what point is it no longer healthy?

 

[Cool Cat]

at what point is it no longer healthy?

I ask myself that question a lot!

 

[desiderata310]

I've been meaning to respond to this but haven't been able to

because my life would change on a dime every 6-24 months, and I could see who I would be if we didn't move. Generally, I love moving. Both then & now. But a few moves were "perfect".

@FridayJones My family moved on average every 6 months from the time I could remember. I never put down roots till I was an adult and even then the longest I stayed some place was 5 years. (in a house) I kept the same job for 7.By the end of that I thought I was going to go crazy if I couldn't leave. I've been in my new place for a little over a year and I am ready to pack up and move again but I am really stuck here for about 5 years. I already feel trapped. Staying in one place feels really scary.

The rest of it?

I'm still trying to find balance.

For years I have packed it down, packed it away, pretended it wasn't there but having really terrible times when shit leaked out. When I moved, I thought it was connected to where I was living. AH! It will soon all be gone. And for a moment, I was right. Then I found that it was leaking out again. Therapy started.
AH, I thought, Now I can dump and move on.
Only that didn't happen either. It resists dump and run. Damn
I found that the seals are all broken. I can close the lid, pretend I'm ok, push through and then, BAM I'm not ok. Or sometimes it just constantly drips and builds up pressure till I find relief.

Yeah. Therapy made it worse in a lot of ways. We opened the box and it had a pretty awesome seal on it. The seal it broken. the box doesn't close as well.

I don't "set aside" time to grieve or anything like that. I try to realize that there are moments when I can't hold back the flood gate and I try to hold on and not do something stupid.

So... This week is hard for me. I remembered things that I had not realized before. I've had horrible sleep and nightmares. My SH has been way up, my ability to control impulses and suicidal thoughts is way down. It's made worse because I don't sleep. I'm trying more "self care". For me that means more miles running. It means more medication so that I am less triggered and sleep.. more-ish. It means that I am on here during the day at work because I am in a bad spot.
I have no choice but to acknowledge it because it is staring me in the face all day. I can't get my work done because of it.

I'm hoping it will pass. I THINK it will.

I had a couple of really GOOD weeks. I was sleeping at night with almost no or very little medication, I was not medicating during the day. I was not having intrusive thoughts. I had hit a good spot with my therapist, too.

The only think I HAVE figured out is that it's a really terrible roller coaster. I'm hoping it will ebb a bit soon. I intend to medicate heavily tonight, go in prepped for my session tomorrow. But the truth is I'll be happy if I get a couple of hours of sleep and just show up to my session.

When I'm like this I write more. More in my journal, more here. I sit in my room away from my son. I isolate because I need to.

I haven't figured out how to just acknowledge it and move on. I'm sure there are those who have. I look in the mirror every morning though and find myself thinking "You were never supposed to have been born".


I don' t know if any of this makes any sense.

 

[Cool Cat]

Here's a question, what brought you to initially open that box?

 

[desiderata310]

Depression and being suicidal when I thought things were going to be better.
too much leakage...
therapy opened the box.

 

[ghotiff]

Here's a question, what brought you to initially open that box?

My eldest reached a critical trauma age and then innocently found (and was upset by) porn on the Internet - long story, still upset over the filter failure. Thing was.... I had no idea how to respond. Apparently what I did was right, but I reallised that my frame of reference (my childhood) which was all I had as a guide for parenting my kids was not going to work well....and all the sex stuff was going to completely freak me out (apparently they are panic attacks, but I struggle to associate this descriptor to myself).

 

[Dana1010]

I look in the mirror every morning though and find myself thinking "You were never supposed to have been born".

I could start a whole thread about this.

I was just thinking about where to draw the line between processing and dwelling. All I can offer is that telling yourself "Stop" has never worked for me. If you want the thoughts to stop, the only thing I've found somewhat effective is standing back and simply noticing the thoughts without fighting with them. At least I get like five seconds of peace before they're back again--maybe if I keep it up, it will increase to ten seconds.

 

[desiderata310]

I could start a whole thread about this.

As could I. Just... not today. I'm not up to that at the moment.