Ok.
It's taken me a while to get this? But for some people, locking the trauma up and walking away is actually more productive than processing.
I process it...and then the bomb is defused. Now, anyway.
But then again I am DID and not the one who's deciding when the memories arrive. Someone else decided to flip off the dissociation in 2011 and engage exploding-head mode.
It's highly probable that different coping methods are appropriate for different phases of recovery, too, so walking away might be better at first.
Then processing becomes needed to move forward later.
Though I tried to process in my 20's. Did not work.
I wish I'd had DBT back then instead, it would have been the boot in the butt I needed...and DBT is...not so much repression as regulation, working with the here and now. Not trying to dig out a past I wasn't ready to handle; in retrospect I WOULD have been better served to box it up and leave it for later?
I thought digging it out would produce personal transformation...and was a hot mess.
My guy seems to have only gotten worse when trying to dig his trauma out. He just increases flashback frequency and intensity. His flashbacks are full-immersion. Some of them cause him to throw up Thus, digging it out has not helped him so far. OTOH, self-care of any sort is something he struggles with? He's not stable.
Box up and walk away is what currently works for him.
( I DO have his express permission to talk about his stuff! I keep my mouth shut typically.)
So...
Process versus avoid? What works for you?
It's taken me a while to get this? But for some people, locking the trauma up and walking away is actually more productive than processing.
I process it...and then the bomb is defused. Now, anyway.
But then again I am DID and not the one who's deciding when the memories arrive. Someone else decided to flip off the dissociation in 2011 and engage exploding-head mode.
It's highly probable that different coping methods are appropriate for different phases of recovery, too, so walking away might be better at first.
Then processing becomes needed to move forward later.
Though I tried to process in my 20's. Did not work.
I wish I'd had DBT back then instead, it would have been the boot in the butt I needed...and DBT is...not so much repression as regulation, working with the here and now. Not trying to dig out a past I wasn't ready to handle; in retrospect I WOULD have been better served to box it up and leave it for later?
I thought digging it out would produce personal transformation...and was a hot mess.
My guy seems to have only gotten worse when trying to dig his trauma out. He just increases flashback frequency and intensity. His flashbacks are full-immersion. Some of them cause him to throw up Thus, digging it out has not helped him so far. OTOH, self-care of any sort is something he struggles with? He's not stable.
Box up and walk away is what currently works for him.
( I DO have his express permission to talk about his stuff! I keep my mouth shut typically.)
So...
Process versus avoid? What works for you?
