The Miracle Question

[Nevermore]

Yes goals are good. Essential really! But she wasn't asking what are your goals, she was asking what would your life look like if trauma had never happened and you did not have ptsd.
That's a very different thing!
Goals look to the future, this question seems to be asking if you could undo the past where would you be now.
Recipe for pain for me anyway!

 

[scout86]

Oh I don't think I'd like that question either. I struggled enough with the "if only"s

If I understand this correctly, the question is "What if?" which is a little different from "If only......"

Interesting topic! My T does this kind of stuff. I've kind of thought it was just him, having kind of a bizarre way of looking at things. (And my first response is usually along the lines of "What's the point of THAT?")

@FridayJones , I hate to admit this, but I've noticed that when something my T asks really pisses me off, it actually MEANS something......:locktopic:

 

[Tinyflame]

Yeah, it is loosening up something for me too. Maybe it's only for right now, but it is nice... :)

Yes, me too, something 'different' (in a good way). :)

. I think it would be best for those who are at a certain point in their healing that is beyond the initial stages due to possibly destabilizing one who is devastated by the loss that trauma has dealt. That is, to remind someone of all they have lost in life through this exercise may be too much for certain people to handle until they've progressed a bit further in their healing journey. But, in all, it sounds like it could help one look toward the future.

I agree with the principle above, but (just for me) I find it helpful for the opposite reason, I don't have any positive concept of the future, feeling of too many losses perhaps to make feeling like good things are still possible.

If you can use it as a way to remind yourself of the talents and skills that you do in fact possess under the ptsd, it could be a lovely ego boost. After all, we aren't our traumas, right?

I know with the book @Neverthesame (re: self harm) it was the opposite of 'we aren't our traumas", but rather the self hrm was a response to something we (I) never acknowledged was traumatic (which led to some self-empathy. It didn't attempt to challenge self-blame etc, just that part.)

I think it is a great question and leads me to then think, what do I want out of life? Forget what happened, forget what my parents did or didn't do, but what do I want? Realistically I realize there are things I could have done had I known differently that I am just too old to do now.. However, as it pertains to personal things like happiness, peace, self respect, judgement, etc. perhaps this prophecy is attainable and not something "what if." What if we all started looking at the prospect of having those things (realistic things) as "when" instead of "what if?"

Really agree with all of @Rumors ' post.

Yes goals are good. Essential really! But she wasn't asking what are your goals, she was asking what would your life look like if trauma had never happened and you did not have ptsd.

Goals look to the future, this question seems to be asking if you could undo the past where would you be now.

I think not to make us sad, but to budge the thinking is the idea.

If I understand this correctly, the question is "What if?" which is a little different from "If only......"

I think so, entirely. ^^

Interesting topic! My T does this kind of stuff. I've kind of thought it was just him, having kind of a bizarre way of looking at things. (And my first response is usually along the lines of "What's the point of THAT?")

Sorry to be so long-winded. After so many years of dealing with this, the times I made tremendous progress- real turning points- the means or what-have-you seemed so unrelated or counter-intuitive.

I can only say this just came to me 'naturally', & in this short time most unusual for budging 'something'. More so than the mindful way through depression, or exposure therapy and etc. I totally respect though how this could be found to be disturbing to some. But I think it's kind of amazing. I don't know how to do it on my own (yet, anyway), but even looking at the question helps. When I can do nothing, I can't generate thoughts or self-help, I can still answer questions honestly (well outside of admitting things about abuse & stuff to medical doctors, etc, or stuff to anyone but the super-trustworthy).

 

[Justmehere]

As I journal about this, about 1/2 of what I write is angry at my therapist for asking the question. Angry at how bad it feels. The question feels party offensive, partly hopeful. It brings up really deep anger for me. Which is ironic, because my therapist has been trying to help me feel like it's ok to be angry, and talk to her about it. I suddenly now have something I'm angry about to talk to her about.

For me, there is tremendous vulnerability behind the anger.

Then it feels almost like being a kid, when they get really into saying impossible life dreams, but we encourage it anyhow because kids are supposed to dream big. Only my "what if" answer is a realistic dream, if the trauma had not happened. It still feels like saying I want to be a singing-princess-astronaut-ballarina-moviestar or just stupid, like ok, lets bring the dead back to life. Totally ridiculous fantasy. As I write, what would it be like if so and so was alive, or if such and such job had not been lost because of PTSD, or if I had a family, some part of me crawls up into it, and things start shifting.

Then I end up someplace different. Where I'm thinking a little about well, ok, I miss that person, I miss that sense of connection with that person, I miss that job, but maybe I can get back a little of what I miss, and mostly...

...it's grief and hope and fear and pain and breathing - all colliding together in one big mess.

I'm somehow past part of the wall my therapist was trying to help me get past, and right into these feelings.

 

[ladee]

Usually , for me, the things that cause the most feelings, the ones I want to avoid, I will try and it worked... don't know why we have to fight getting healthier , but I know I do....So happy to hear this is working as T hoped it would. I still haven't the courage to write mine.....

 

[angrypanda]

Oh, that's a fantastically tough question! I'll be Journaling this today, thank you. I can say for sure my relationships, self core beliefs, self talk and eating disorders would be different. I might actually love myself, imagine!

 

[Kintsugi]

I prefer the first question to the latter, because I think the latter is really hard for anyone with developmental trauma to wrap their heads around.

I mean--I don't know? I guess I would have an amazing relationship with my family and all kinds of things would have been different? I would be good at different things from what I'm good at as a result of my upbringing? I'd be less of a perfectionist, so maybe I wouldn't have been so prodigal in academia? Who knows what could have happened if that were the case. I think everything would be different, and I don't think I can wrap my mind around all of the millions and billions of what-ifs. To ask that question is to look into the furthest reaches of my own timeline and pick the one universe where none of this ever happened, and I just am not even sure if I can fathom that timeline, that dimension. As I say again and again as I move through decisions in like, the multiverse spreads as a mandala. It is an incomprehensibly expansive landscape.

The former question is very interesting. How would that feel. I think it would be really difficult to stay my age. I think all of the childish yearning and rage would emerge, all the grief, the injustices, the consuming feelings of being too weak and helpless to change my role. The only ways I had to gain power as a kid was through earning favor through obedience and acheivement but most of all obedience. I have a lot of deep anger, I think, that that was so. I have a lot of rage over the immense unfairness of my role, over the burdens that were placed on me, over the negligence--the apparent apathy--of my parents in ensuring my safety.

I think all of that would come loose. And I would be very vulnerable and bare and in so much pain over the things I cannot change and never could.

Better, perhaps, that miracles don't exist.

 

[Nevermore]

yes I feel similar simplysimon. This question makes me feel angry. And yes everything would be different for me too, but so that doesn't make me feel better. It makes me feel sad. And I cant even really think how life would be.
I would have to go back to being a young child to remove all trauma from my life.
I think this question makes me angry because it feels similar to being told to get over it, like the problem is dwelling too much on what happened.
I don't feel like that's my problem! I struggle with symptoms, trying to overcome my fear of others etc etc
I just want to feel ok in my own skin. I don't want a fantasy life or a miracle.
I just want to get better

 

[Justmehere]

@Simply Simon - I deeply relate to your reaction to my therapist's first question.

"Let’s say we could have a miracle happen, and you felt fully safe and able to let go in therapy with me and everything turned out ok? What would that be like for you?” - this question is too much for me.

The former question is very interesting. How would that feel. I think it would be really difficult to stay my age. I think all of the childish yearning and rage would emerge, all the grief, the injustices, the consuming feelings of being too weak and helpless to change my role. The only ways I had to gain power as a kid was through earning favor through obedience and acheivement but most of all obedience. I have a lot of deep anger, I think, that that was so. I have a lot of rage over the immense unfairness of my role, over the burdens that were placed on me, over the negligence--the apparent apathy--of my parents in ensuring my safety.

I can relate to almost every single word you wrote.

If I really felt fully safe in therapy, all the helplessness, rage, grief, pain, - all that I have tried so hard to stuff away, it would surface.

I think all of that would come loose. And I would be very vulnerable and bare and in so much pain over the things I cannot change and never could.

Same for me.

Which something my therapist said she was actually exactly trying to help me access. She says we will hopefully trying to do it slowly, and in a controlled way, so it is healing. But it scares me to go there at all! All the pain... Yikes!

As we talked this through a little, she told me that sometimes therapists use this type of question to identify with the client what a behavior does for them in a beneficial way. I get so mad at myself for not risking more in therapy. But I can see now that I hold back from fully letting go in therapy and risking further because some developmentally young rage and pain would surface, all the vulnerability, and I'm scared it would overtake the entire process.

I'm so glad my therapist is ok with continuing to go slow... and yet, I know this road leads towards feeling safe and dealing with all this stuff, if my therapist and I both stay on this path and she stays safe...

 

[Kintsugi]

and yet, I know this road leads towards feeling safe and dealing with all this stuff, if my therapist and I both stay on this path and she stays safe...

Dun dun DUNNN!

Yeah, I totally feel you 5000% on this, JMH. Soooo there with you. My T also essentially said that it might not be possible to create that sort of relationship just seeing her twice a month. But I can't afford to pay for four times a month. :eek:

 

[Chava]

Very interesting! I had not heard of this but was actually thinking about similar concepts somewhat today. I notice, in the fleeting moments when I feel like a whole "self", most like myself, connected to the universe, like I have a soul, etc., that I am just not my trauma. Separate. I'm not even connected to my family, but neither somehow dissociated from it. I belong to the universe. This sounds maybe way f*cking fruity. But for me, I can imagine this a bit. the tricky part is that my trauma happened so early that there isn't really a "before" that links me quite into what seems like normalcy. I developed as a sort of hermit.

So, totally separate from my trauma, maybe it would be like this connected feeling I have sometimes when hiding out in my hermit home, connected to nature or whatever else, but also somehow being able to bring that or keep that connection in the world of other humans. :bored: But do I even have the desire? :meh: I suppose in a miracle, I'd just wake up and not feel so painfully locked inside my body, or something like this. It would not hurt to be alive. I would just feel okay.

 

[Justmehere]

@Chava, what you wrote reminds me of a particular session I had about 9 months ago.

My previous trauma therapist, who I worked with in intensive treat me, started off the session one day telling me, in a somewhat confrontationally kind way, that I wasn't broken.

"(jmh) you are not broken, you don't need to be fixed."

"Right yeah, ok..."

"(Jmh) you are not broken."

"Um ok... Then what the heck am I doing here?"

"You have PTSD, you have been through trauma, and you have some things to work on. But YOU, jmh, are not broken. YOU don't need to be fixed."

I sort of wanted to throw my journal at him, and sort of wanted to run screaming from the room. Instead, I broken down crying.

Because he is right.

I have PTSD. I have been through horrible things. I have real symptoms and real problems. I also am a person outside of that.

It's so weird because I'm so deeply reluctant to admit to myself or others that I have PTSD and I hate the mere idea that I have been a victim. It is so liberating and painful to accept what this therapist told me. But it's true.

I feel like I'm at war with myself on this, maybe a good battle to be in? I don't know...