Confused about (new) inability to deal with therapy

[anthony]

I am amazed by the responses from the AI here

Because I programmed it specifically for here. It is not what you get if you just use ChatGPT yourself. Using chatgpt at openai is not the same as what you can do when you pay for the API and integrate it for your own use, which allows me to program the system to how I want and need it to operate, not a generic model and bunch of safety nonsense openai have to do.

 

[PamelaS]

Because I programmed it specifically for here. It is not what you get if you just use ChatGPT yourself. Using chatgpt at openai is not the same as what you can do when you pay for the API and integrate it for your own use, which allows me to program the system to how I want and need it to operate, not a generic model and bunch of safety nonsense openai have to do.

Thank you anthony! You are helping so many people! Out of the pain of your own suffering you are using your skills to help all of us, and who knows how many more people will find their way here! If you don’t mind, I would like to pray blessings and healing over you.

 

[Friday]

In a lot of ways, I went mute. I could "talk" about superficial things, but couldn't access what really mattered.

It took a really long time to figure out what was going on at all and in the end we figured out that this adult trauma had re-activated very early childhood trauma - the pre-verbal stuff - so ages 0 to 3 or 4 years old.

For me, that’s just one of the ways Avoidance shows up… HARD … in my life.

No childhood or preverbal trauma, “just” CriterionC

C. Persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the traumatic event(s), beginning after the traumatic event(s) occurred, as evidence by one or both of the following:

1. Avoidance of or efforts to avoid distressing memories, thoughts, or feelings about or closely associated with the traumatic event(s).
2. Avoidance of or efforts to avoid external reminders (people, places, conversations, activities, objects, situations) that arouse distressing memories, thoughts, or feelings about or closely associated with the traumatic event(s).

First? I physically cannot talk about it. I try to talk, even fiercely want to, but simply can’t.

If I keep trying?
- Explosive dysreg kaBOOM! Emotional, physical, the whole 9.
- Suicidal Ideation & active intent
- Rapid decompensation / lose my damn mind.

If I get through the acute explosive dysreg relatively intact? And keep trying?
- My mind BLANKS. Can’t think of anything. Trauma, normal, nuffink. Lights are on, but nooooobody is home! (Disassociation)
- Something like a great white featureless wall forms between “me” & the rest of my life/memories. I have total / full access to everything not-trauma but my user privileges have been revoked / I’ve been banned from thinking about anything (Forget about talking, can’t even think it!) even remotely related to trauma. (Also disassociation).

^^^ So I had to actively look for workarounds / figure out how to flank that symptom ^^^

Over time I learned that…

- Things I cannot do for myself? I CAN do for someone else. I cannot talk about my trauma history around XYZ for me, but I can talk about PIECES of it (what relates) for someone else who is hurting &/or dealing with the same shit.

- If I blow off an incredible amount of steam / stress / energy, both in advance (stress cup stuff) AND in the moment AND afterwards? The avoidance factor doesn’t seem to have enough energy to activate. So I can talk about things I “never” talk about whilst sparring, surfing, having sex, hiking, climbing, etc.

- Certain DGAF drugs create “chemical distance”, allowing me to talk about things without the massive mental/emotional/physiological smack down. Over time, I’m more and more capable of thinking/speaking/managing myself without mommy’s little helpers, until I'm actually able to think/speaking/handle myself straight.

 

[Ecdysis]

I have a "therapy" appointment today... Ugh...

I've written the following note to hand to my therapist and I guess I'll see what happens from there...

"In the past, I've always been able to do talk therapy well - I was able to work through my childhood trauma successfully for many years.
Since the trauma in 2016, I have unfortunately gone completely silent inside and can no longer get to any of the traumatic material verbally. I've been trying for 9 years but I can't do it anymore. It's like mutism. When I try to break through it, I completely dissociate and my brain is goes empty.
I now know that the trauma from 2016 is related to the earliest childhood traumas, which were also pre-verbal (ages 0 - 3).
No matter how much I try to force myself to talk, it doesn't work. It's a blockade that I can not overcome.
Back then in 2016, everyone around me, including my therapist and psychiatrist, experienced and could see what a terrible state I was in. Despite PTSD and childhood trauma, no one had ever seen me in such a state. I was partially catatonic.
Unfortunately, my therapist retired and my doctor now works in a clinic, so no one in my current treatment team experienced these incidents and can intuitively grasp them. I have to explain the situation to new doctors and therapists and I can no longer do that. It's impossible on a verbal level.
I chose to try depth psychology and EMDR in the hope that it is somehow possible to work on a non-verbal level, as opposed to normal talk therapy.
I no longer know what to do. This complete lack of access to everything verbal gives me the feeling that I am no longer capable of therapy at all. I don't know how to deal with it."

 

[Ecdysis]

Well, here's the update:

So, yesterday I went through this issue with the AI here... Going through my feelings of resistance to this therapist... That basically deep down inside, I wanted to tell him to eff off and that I didn't want to do therapy with him... So the AI kept making suggestions and I kept being like "No, that's not going to work... No, that's not an option..." So went through like 15 or 20 cycles of that, until I could better specify what was actually bugging me about it so much... And once I got to that point, the AI actually started generating suggestions geared to that, which felt more workable to me... So, in the end of that process, I finally wrote that note above to give to my therapist...

So, on the way to therapy, my car partly broke down, I had to take it to the mechanics to get the okay to drive the hour to therapy, without damaging the car... It was crazy stressful but luckily I'd left half an hour earlier than I needed to, so it ended up okay time-wise... But the stress of it had my blood sugar crash really badly, cos I'd not eaten all day... The kind of blood sugar crash where you feel like you'll pass out... Sigh... So quickly stopped to get some food to shove in my face... But then felt really, really sick for the entire therapy session and rest of the afternoon...

Anyway, I got to therapy, told him that I'd just nearly fainted from a blood sugar crash and now felt really sick, just so he'd know a) why I looked like I was sick and b) so he'd know what to do if I did end up passing out...

And then I handed him my note...

And kudos to him, he rose to the challenge and did some really excellent therapist work...

And kudos to me, I rose to the challenge too and did some really excellent patient therapy work...

It was reeeeeally deep work and I was sobbing for most of the session, but we barrelled on and boy, did we get a lot done...

Like, ten times more than I'd ever have expected...

And I think he was pretty relieved a) to see that I wasn't totally failing therapy and b) that he could actually provide some helpful, useful input...

So, massive thanks to the AI @anthony ... Couldn't have done it without it... I think I'd have f*cked this therapy up, if I'd been left to my own devices... Guess I'll send over another donation, as I said I would, whenever the AI and I kick ass and solve some really messed up problem...

 

[Helpfulmom34]

Talk therapy is actually retriggering in and of itself for many with trauma(according to research).

Overexposure/being triggered *by how much therapy*, one has *can happen*(be it that you're having it several times a week or because you're having longer time span) which is often recomended for those going through a harder time.

This things wouldn't be unique to you, or make one "odd" or "different now". Not to mention many of the trauma focused therapies in and of themselves can be too intense if someone is already *struggling*, *more easily triggered*, especially if their mind is working in avoidance of what it ties the trauma to.

This means the therapist may do well to try a different therapy module, less intensity, less sessions(shorter sessions even) and modify it to suite you- therapist is triggering you/retriggering you(unintentionally).

Modified trauma focused CBT helped loved ones, close to me with this but everyone is different.

It's ok that you "were in x place" and now it's different- you aren't who you were, and trauma actually unfolds with time and has new expression(new symptoms) and ways of expressing itself over time(that's normal), just like being triggered/retriggered by (talk therapy, duration or type of trauma focused therapy) **can be normal**. Things have to be adapted *to you*. The point isn't to have you triggered like this, it isn't productive. If you don't have the words, email the therapist (use my words If it helps), you need things modified to you and they are supposed to *work with you * on things that hinder progress and hear you out(and just use that to adjust what suites you).

Wishing you healing♡

 

[anthony]

So went through like 15 or 20 cycles of that, until I could better specify what was actually bugging me about it so much... And once I got to that point, the AI actually started generating suggestions geared to that, which felt more workable to me... So, in the end of that process, I finally wrote that note above to give to my therapist...

That is exactly what the AI is there for... you can press it hard to help resolve your thoughts. You started unsure, you ended in a full thought that you could express accurately. Well done.

 

[Feels Invisible]

So it seems I'm no longer able to "do" therapy...

There's a thread here currently on the forum about the question of "would you want to know" about your childhood trauma... For me, I always have known... All of it (well, most of it)... There's never been an option of not-knowing or un-knowing...

So, I've always been dealing with all-the-fallout right from the start... And I went to see a counsellor in my early 20s and said "I'm not coping anymore... I've been holding all of this mess from my childhood in, but I can't do it anymore..." And from there things progressed first to therapy and then to trauma therapy...

I've never had that (strange) blessing of trauma being forgotten and having decades of miraculously normal functioning, only for the childhood trauma to emerge later in life... My functioning has always been impaired by the mess of post-trauma issues...

So, starting in my early 20s, I did really "well" at therapy... I was really "good at" talk therapy, was able to fully engage in it, put in a huge amount of work and effort, was able to deal with really complex and overwhelming topics, always felt like I was making progress, knew how talk therapy worked and how it didn't work, etc etc.

Then, at age 40, I experienced trauma as an adult, that impacted me far, far worse than the childhood trauma did and things really went south. Suddenly, talk therapy stopped helping at all. In a lot of ways, I went mute. I could "talk" about superficial things, but couldn't access what really mattered.

It took a really long time to figure out what was going on at all and in the end we figured out that this adult trauma had re-activated very early childhood trauma - the pre-verbal stuff - so ages 0 to 3 or 4 years old.

This is the only childhood trauma that I hadn't been consciously aware of... And of course, given that it's so early, any memories of it are hazy and basically emotional memories - but I know they're accurate from a lot of descriptions of relatives who observed what was going on a the time. So, I know these memories are accurate. In fact, I always knew the "facts" of what happened age 0 to 3, but until the adult trauma, the emotional content of it was "offline" I guess, and it never really bothered me. Only when it was re-activated, did it become a hugely difficult mess to deal with.

So now I feel like I'm struggling with something similar that people with trauma amnesia struggle with - the fact that as long as this traumatic material is "offline" and we're disconnected from it, we function relatively well, but when the traumatic material becomes emotionally accessible for us, there's a big drop in functioning and things are a terrible mess.

I don't know how to deal with it... The drop in functioning for me has been terrible... I mean, my functioning was always impaired by the PTSD stuff already, but with this adult trauma plus pre-verbal trauma added in, my functioning has basically dropped to zero.

And also dropped to a point where I'm no longer able to "do" talk therapy.

And it's deeply confusing for me, for those that know me and for my new therapist, whom I'm not getting along with at all.

I feel like telling him "This therapy sucks, I suck at it, I just want it to go away!"

That feels like the least mature, least sensible, least helpful, least sane thing to do tho.

I have too few resources right now to just be throwing some out of the window because they're not working properly.

But I also don't know how to express my utter frustration and my utter inability to engage in talk therapy without it coming out of my mouth as "this sucks"...

And I also don't know what to "do" to be better at therapy again...

I have similar experiences. Except my adult ptsd happened in my late 20's to mid 30's and amplified the symptoms and challenges I already had from the complexity of childhood trauma. DBR really helped me in therapy because I was disasociating so much. Then the very early childhood stuff (pre verbal, and even neonatal) started cropping up for me. The blessing with dbr is that you don't have to talk through memories, or access old feelings you don't remember or didn't expience because of disasociation. I was in a functional freeze for a really long time, and even as a teen just couldn't talk about anything. DBR is really helping.

I agree with arfie about looking into other modalities for treatment. I am reading the same book she talked about, the body keeps score. I highly recommend that you read it. It explains what happens inside our body and our mind when we are processing the triggering of trauma. That’s all the farther I got so far, but it is very helpful. And because of that, I have decided that talk therapy is not for me right now. I have searched out a trauma informed therapist, that is someone who is trained according to that book, body keeps score. There are other ways to approach the trauma in order to not freeze. There’s somatic therapy as well that may be helpful. Look into some options before you push yourself too hard in the direction you’ve already been going. Sometimes it’s good to make a shift to a different angle. Wishing you well as you move forward.

I found that most therapist's are trauma informed today; still have been re-traumatized with them because they were not trauma focused.

 

[Ecdysis]

DBR really helped me in therapy because I was disasociating so much. Then the very early childhood stuff (pre verbal, and even neonatal) started cropping up for me. The blessing with dbr is that you don't have to talk through memories, or access old feelings you don't remember or didn't expience because of disasociation. I was in a functional freeze for a really long time, and even as a teen just couldn't talk about anything. DBR is really helping.

Hi, what's DBR?

 

[parrotthepolly]

Hi, what's DBR?

Deep Brain Reorienting

 

[Freddyt]

That has been a HUGE change that happened when I changed therapists.

Therapy is now binary. It's either work on trauma and related stuff or talk with no talk about trauma and related stuff.

So today - was talk. And lots of stuff on dealing with everyday symptoms and dealing with them. Even stuff like exercise and walking - like to find somewhere that's not the off leash walking trails behind my house. Don't know why but likely at some point when we are working on trauma stuff we will work on whatever T spotted.