Anger Stage! But, Hopeful Anyway

[Kle]

I have been in therapy for 10 months now, and where I have found much of it beneficial, I have felt stuck for a while now. I am flying out to California to see an EMDR trauma specialist next week and to do some therapy out there. My therapist is great here for talk therapy, but I need something more. I feel like I have been stuck in a sink hole for so long now. I've had 2 therapists say that I am a very complex case (I'm obviously a C-PTSD sufferer... soon to be survivor I can only hope!) Multiple perpetrators, multiple incidents, and the CA therapist referred to as "so much trauma and very hard life"

And, excuse the whining you are going to hear next, but when is it exactly that we get to stop paying for the pain others inflicted on us?! I have high blood pressure, asthma, hypothyroid, and at the age of 36, osteoporosis. Not to mention anxiety up the wazoo! All of which are linked to PTSD. I'm a single mom, started my own business about 5 years ago, and haven't been able to find a decent health insurance plan that doesn't have pre-existing condition exclusions for mental health, if it even offers mental health. When it's all said and done, this now broke single mom will have spent in excess of between $10,000-$20,000 on therapy!

I'm so tired of feeling like crap, being broke and being treated like crap in relationships. I know, woa is me! I have never been a feel sorry for me type person, and never blamed my life on the past. But this hard therapy work is brutal! I know I will be a stronger, healthier, happier person when this is all said and done. I do truly believe in the process and am so committed to it. I'm just really peeved right now that this is the life I was given, and after having to deal with it all as a child, I get the pleasure of having to deal with it again. Nobody seems to have to pay for these ludicrous acts of abuse but us.

I think I've written on there maybe once or twice before, so I apologize I don't post more positive threads. I've isolated myself to the extreme and even getting on here takes some real effort for me. I want my life back, or I guess I should say I want my life to start. I just don't want to feel this way anymore. My bags are already packed and by the door, and I can't wait to get started next week on the EMDR therapy.

Thanks for listening!

 

[Sterre]

Good luck with the EMDR therapy Kle!

 

[AngelKeeperJ]

Welcome to the Forum!

EMDR worked wonders for me! Good luck, and happy healing. It can/will take time, but it is well worth it. Don't give up, or give in!

 

[Ted Moen]

I want my life back, or I guess I should say I want my life to start.

Y'know Kle, you express a feeling well that we all have at a certain point in learning to live with ptsd. We want our life back, for those of us who remember a person that was before the trauma. And for those of us who don't really remember such a person or time, there's just the feeling this isn't the life I deserve and I want the life I deserve to start.

I think we have the life we have, a life that is the consequence of our behaviors.

Our problem, or challenge as I like to think of it, is our behavior in our current situation is sometimes an expression of intense feelings we buried when we were doing what we had to do to survive the abnormal situation (trauma) rather than the behavior that would get our current needs met. When we act on those intense feelings, especially the intense anger, we behave in a way that is inappropriate in our current situation. We behave in a way which undermines our participation in a set of relationships and activities that would generate the feeling we are living the life we want to live.

So the challenge is to behave appropriately in our current situation, in a way that results in a set of relationships and activities that meets our current needs as we participate.

A fact of life for those of us with ptsd is the flow of intrusive thoughts and feelings are not going away. They are a part of us. They are going to be triggered in our current situation by stuff that happens and, if we act on the intense feelings, result in behavior that is inappropriate in our current situation and undermines our set of relationships and activities. So getting our life back, learning to live better with ptsd is all about learning to manage our behavior in our current situation even though we are experiencing intense feelings inappropriate to our current situation.

Talk therapy is good. We need to talk to a safe person in a safe place about the intense feelings. For some of us, EMDR helps us understand what the intense feelings are all about. Understanding what the intense feelings are all about is good because it leads (eventually) to a reduction in the intensity. And even a small reduction in intensity increases our ability to learn to manage our behavior in our current situation. Understanding ptsd in general and the specifics of our experience is an inmportant step in the process of learning to live with ptsd a little better each day.

But the part that really gives us our life back is learning to manage our behavior in our current situation. That involves the development of our "toolbox" of cognitive-behavioral "tools" for managing our symptoms in our current situation while behaving appropriately. Tools like mindfulness, self-monitoring, anger management, affect management, and so on.

So EMDR can result in some insights into your specific ptsd experience, and that's a good thing, worth the effort even if it dosen't happen for you. And talk therapy is good. But it sounds like you're at the point in therapy where you're ready to develop a "toolbox" and learn to manage your behavior in your current situation. If so, you might want to seek out a therapist or program (or both) based on cognitive-behavioral therapy.

Ted

 

[Kle]

Thank you for your replies! Angelkeeper, I love to hear when EMDR works for people. I have high hopes for it! Ted, what a great and well thought out response. The therapist I have been going to is far and away the best I've ever been to. She knows her stuff and she totally gets what is going on with me. She's gotten more out of me than any other therapist ever has even come close to. She does not do EMDR though, and I really wanted to give the EMDR process a shot, which my current therapist backs 100%. I have about a long list of traumas to work through so if EMDR can speed me through my past, I can start focusing on the here and now much faster! So, I will still be seeing my current therapist as well. I read so many books about how to control anger, how to communicate effectively, etc. But, until I really work through my past, I feel like making many modifications to the present is like a downhill battle. I do okay for a while... then pop goes the weasel! I want EMDR to help me process these memories so I can move on to the next step, which is learning how to effectively and happily live in my newfound life. I need to learn how to set healthy boundaries, how to communicate more appropriately, and certainly how to listen to my instincts better. I really don't mind doing the work, though some days it's really tough. But, what is the alternative, living a somewhat turbulent life for the rest of my existence? No thanks! :) Most importantly, I have the best little girl ever. She's happy, confident and just down right awesome by all accounts in my book. My mother is beyond help as she was very sexually abused as a child herself, and it seems that the vicious cycle just keeps going, but I refuse to ever put my daughter in a position that is ultimately going to kill her spirit. It's in my hands now to break this cycle. I have a tendency to choose the wrong men, but I at least thus far have had the know how to keep her separate from that. Once I get myself healthy, I will feel much more confident that this ugly cycle is broken and she can go on being the bright eyed happy girl she is today. There is no amount of work that is too great, or amount of money that is too much, to stop me from making sure that happens. We may end up living in the tree planted in the back yard after they decide to repo my house, but we can only do what we can! Rather than unleashing my anger on the innocent bystanders in my life who really don't know what the heck I'm ranting about, I felt it more appropriate to do it here. See... baby steps, right? :)