Pandora's Box Opening

[risingsun]

I recently started therapy feeling massively depressed and with symptoms of such anxiety and panic. I've been there about four times. The therapist seems nice enough but we started talking about my traumas and I now feel sickened. I feel like I'm having a nervous breakdown all over again. I cant let this happen. Not now. I contacted the therapist and the T gave me a quick grounding exercise.

Oh my god, my stomach has hurt since the last apt and I'm pretending to be okay and whatnot and the truth is I'm not okay. I am sickened in my stomach and frightened. I am feeling highly unwell emotionally as well as physically. Whether I continue or not, I feel Pandora's box has opened and feel I shouldn't have talked about my past in such detail. . . . but what's done is done. I'm really starting to feel like I did before I was hospitalized the last time but that was years ago. I am really scared.

 

[illusionist]

I'm so sorry for everyone who has to go through this, including yourself risingsun.... all I have to offer is that it does get better...though I know you don't believe it right now...been there. Please hang on in there and use what you are being taught in grounding etc. Sadly, it is a process I think, we have to go through to come out at the other end. I so wish I could feed my strength into you, but , in time, I know you will find it all by yourself by reflecting back on what you are going through right now. You are getting there...just try to do what you can do to get there.

 

[Hope4Now]

@risingsun, I understand exactly what you're feeling. I still feel that way sometimes after 16 months of therapy. But as @richter scale says, it really does get better with time and as you learn to trust your therapist and yourself. It is such hard going. Hang in there. You are so brave and strong to be doing this for yourself. It IS very frightening. Please share your feelings about this with your therapist...you may need to move much more slowly.

 

[WillyKat]

Our culture teaches us that falling apart, hitting bottom is a bad thing. Yes it hurts like hell, but as @richter scale indicated, you have to crawl through the River Scheisse to reach the other side. Hitting bottom is a necessary part of the process. Sucks but true. Good things can happen after you hit bottom. For one, you sort of have to bounce. More importantly, shedding light on all the hurt enables you start sorting it out, knowing what you're enemies are and that's all part of cleaning house.

Remember, there's one thing that doesn't escape from Pandora's box: "there's always hope."

(Boy, aren't we just full of metaphors today.)
(BTW, "box" is a mistranslation of "pithos" which means something closer to "jar". Think if a medium sized clay urn with a lid.)

 

[illusionist]

So true...there's always hope, never, ever give up on that!...that certainly got me to where I am now. Hope got me to where I am now.....cried with happiness tonight on realising I've got so much good in my life ( I do this often)...you WILL have what I've got right now risingsun...Hope will get you there.

 

[risingsun]

I appreciate all of your supportive posts. There's a part of me still so confused. What if going back will keep me back? What if I am only supposed to talk about the here and now and just not talk about what brought me to this point? I always struggle with this. What if going back to horror will keep me stuck there? I need to get focused in therapy? We went from talking about the here and now to going back in time and now my mind/body doesn't know how to cope with it all. Please god don't let me fall now.

 

[WillyKat]

@risingsun.

You won't get stuck there.

Here's how it works. The traumatic event is stuck in your mind and body right now. By going back, recovering the memory fragments, you get the chance to move them from the parts of your brain that control fear through those parts that manage ordinary events. Along the way, you defuse the hurt and the pain and all the other crap that comes with it.

This is a process that we all go through and we all come out stronger for it. Trust your T, trust your support network here on the forum. This process is well-known to us and, while there's no certification stamp, many, many of us can vouch for its effectiveness.

 

[illusionist]

To me, there was no going back once I'd opened the box up. I had to pull it all out and get to the bottom of it, start again if you like, putting it all back in, in its place. Instead of a jumbled, mixed up box, I've found everything being put back in its place....I know now where connections are in regards to dealing with a lot of things....I find my answers more easily.

 

[risingsun]

Thank you all. I just want to feel safe and well. I don't want to be up well before dawn frightened everyday. And I don't want to live a life in fear. I hope this works out with the therapist. I hope I can pull up and pull up fast. No hospital. Thank you for all your wise supportive comments.

 

[illusionist]

I wish you well in getting there.

 

[risingsun]

get to the bottom of it

I guess its time for me to really, really release these terrible things, the things that shook me to my core and threw me into a land that i have not fully come back from.

I wish you well in getting there.

thank you richter scale.

 

[risingsun]

I hope this therapist can help ground me and not just have me open up, share and have another nervous breakdown.....of which i already feel is happening.