So it's now after Christmas, made it through without having to seeing my uncle. In all honesty, I have so...
I'm so glad you got through Christmas okay!
Sorry to hear about the after-Christmas stuff. It's interesting that the EFT brought some new stuff up. I have not experienced this myself and have not heard of this happening - that doesn't mean what you experienced is not normal. For me, EFT usually helps me process intense feelings that are already there.
The reaction you felt could be normal - and even positive - for you. Perhaps your psyche felt like it was now safe to now open up something that you previously suppressed, and that this time you are more equipped to handle it?
I think healing this stuff goes through stages. At first we need to contain the hurt, and tuck it away somewhere, so we can just get through life. But eventually we get into pieces of the real ugly, painful, intense stuff, because we never really resolved all of it. And we may go back and forth between the containing, managing, opening up and resolving stuff phases at different times for different facets of our trauma wounds.
It's possible you dealt with a lot of this stuff on the conscious, cognitive level - which is hard work and is really awesome. However, our body and subconscious remembers on a different level and still needs to release stuff. Even though Christmas went really well for you, it was still probably stressful on at least a subconscious level because of what you had been through in the past and the theoretical or subconscious/imagined possibility of seeing your uncle. You even said yourself that there would have been trouble if you would have seen your uncle (understandably so). That's a clear indication that there is still a lot pain to heal.
On my own journey, I remember one day when I was having a flashback - which for me is re-experiencing the excruciating emotions that occurred during my trauma - I decided to just let it happen and not fight it. I said to myself, "Okay, let's see what this is all about. I'm not afraid of this today." The idea was to, instead of containing, suppressing, or distracting, I was going to mindfully experience the pain so I could get more information about myself and what I needed for my healing, and so that I could release some of this stuff. Sometimes, I can do this and sometimes I choose not to do this approach. I needed to make sure I had a ton of coping tools ready before I could do this. The first time I tried to do this, the flashback immediately dissipated. I think this happened because I just was not ready for it but I was happy that the feelings went away. The next time I had a flashback, I was able to really experience what was happening. I wrote about an example of doing this in another post - I let myself feel the pain of the trauma. Then, as if I was a third party observer, I gave myself the love and compassion that I never received back when the trauma occurred. I gave myself the freedom to cry and scream because what happened to me was worthy of crying and screaming. Since I didn't try to fight it, it helped me process some of it. After I was ready to be done crying, I did things to ground and nurture myself. And then I took it easy for the rest of the day. When I started taking this approach the flashbacks became so more manageable.
For you, it doesn't sound like what you're specifically dealing with is flashbacks. Instead, it's the general unresolved pain coming up. But you could consider if its right for you to develop a similar approach - See what you can learn from the pain - what is it that your psyche is trying to release and what do you need in response? However, I do think before you really face the ugly stuff, that you have a tool box of techniques that you can use for pain and stress management, grounding, etc. We need to use our intuition and wisdom to decide what we are ready to handle. If you are not ready to really face the next round of pain, then maybe its appropriate to lay off of potentially triggering stuff for a little while and work on the smaller, more manageable stuff, or just work on self-care and taking it easy.
Sometimes it's nice to focus on positive stuff like "How can I take great care of myself?" This way, we're not feeling like we are stagnant. We are always learning and progressing. The more positive self-care stuff is often undervalued and is not seen as real healing or progress. Sometimes we just want to push the "face the ugly stuff" aspect of healing without giving ourselves all of the support we need.
Hope this helps.
