Denial Of Flashbacks, Intrusions And Dissociation.

[Deleted member 12723]

I think I dissocotiated alot when I was growing up. After being abused I do not remember what I did or what I felt or thought. That is what I loved about emdr, it put me in touch with my thoughts and feelings and gave me closure. I have to wait two months before I can do more emdr. It is my HMO. I have been reading along and I have learned so much. I am not safe to remember anything right now, because my life demands that I function normally as a caregiver for my husband.

I am different from my brothers and sisters as they remember so much more than me. I always envied them that. It really messes with my sister though. She has ptsd and is not getting treatment for it. So she struggles with all of the symptoms. I just feel so detached from life. I know I have amnesia. I know I have many repressed memories. I used to desperately want to get them back when I first started therapy, but it was never safe enough to remember.

I am afraid when my husband dies I will be flooded with memories. I am very afraid of that. I know I am what iffing myself.

Thank you everyone for your responses. You have given me alot to think about.

 

[Abstract]

I think letting the understanding that I actually can't fix/ignore/avoid/solve myself by myself sink in for a few years

Hi Faraway,
My reasonable mind is there! It just seems that the rest of me doesn't agree. And is blocking me.

dead end'

Yes! Glad you are finding a away around it. Thank you!:)

starting therapy, ... more stable, stronger and safer generally

Thanks Hashi! I think what has just clicked is that maybe my safety skills are enough to generally more or less manage myself when I do absolutely nothing, avoid trauma in every way possible and avoid therapy. As soon as I do approach any of these then it all falls apart. I am not sure I really have much ability to improve my skills that much on my own though. I have done a lot of work. I feel I have hit an end point to what I can do without professional help. And yet it isn't enough to get me into professional help.

I am open to suggestions.

 

[Hashi]

I know I have many repressed memories. I used to desperately want to get them back when I first started therapy, but it was never safe enough to remember. I am afraid when my husband dies I will be flooded with memories. I am very afraid of that. I know I am what iffing myself.

I still have amnesia over many things. I've remembered only the smallest amount about the CSA. I'm afraid that when my parents die I'll remember everything.

My therapist says that it won't necessarily happen. She says that people can resolve their trauma by remembering enough of it to resolve without having to remember it all.

I'm choosing to believe this, because I don't know what will happen so I might as well choose to believe something less scary. But anyway, by this point I trust that if I remember something, then that's because I'm ready to deal with it, and it wants to be healed.

gizmo, I'm so glad you were brave enough to try EMDR and that it works so well for you.

What does HMO mean?

 

[Abstract]

Hi Gizmo,

I suspect that memory gaps and general feelings of being detached are good indicators or general levels of dissociation. I can understand why you would want to preserve balance at the moment with having so much on your plate with your husband and the knowledge that it will get worse.

Dissociation is definitely a coping skill and you and your sister are also obviously very different personalities and have had different life experiences.

I am afraid when my husband dies I will be flooded with memories. I am very afraid of that. I know I am what iffing myself.
.

I can understand that fear. I guess like faraway and Hashi have said here - you will only remember what you are able to cope with so it will be OK.

 

[Abstract]

Oh, Abstract. This sounds so painful and difficult. You're right, being frozen in an attempt at self preservation isn't going to take you anywhere. I just mean first getting safe enough to be able to find a therapis

Thanks Hashi! :hug:

It has been painful being so trapped. I crossed posts with you at that point but understood when I read what you wrote before this. I guess i have been trying to do this in a sense but really have not made that much progress. Or should I say I have made big strides in my general levels of safety (am not physically battling with myself anymore) but I think it might go back if I take any steps forward again. I hope that makes sense,

 

[Hashi]

I feel I have hit an end point to what I can do without professional help. And yet it isn't enough to get me into professional help.

I've been thinking this when I was reading things you've written. I think we need skills training for trauma work, which is separate from the trauma work, in the same way that we can do DBT skills training.

If OK, I'm going to sleep on this! I want to post something more specific about what I mean, and about visualisation, and need a bit more time than I have right now cos it's :sleep:time soon.

I think the skills you've already developed are probably the basis for going forward. I agree, trauma safety is on a completely different level. I needed the skills and resources I already had, but 100 times stronger. The way I see it though, is that you're already part way there. At the same time, I hear you when you say you've done a lot of work and feel you've taken it as far as you safely can on your own. So I'm going to have a think before making any more suggestions.

This might be something you'd rather not say or even think about - if so, then fine and please ignore it. Thinking about having to do things like finding a therapist, is there a word for what comes up? For example, for me it would be something like overwhelm, disruption, anxiety, vulnerability, risk, intrusion or being shaken up. If there's a word, can you represent it with a metaphor or an image? For me, this might be something like: My feeling of overwhelm is like a tsunami, my feeling of anxiety is like facing a crevasse, my feeling of vulnerability is like an animal caught in a trap, my feeling of risk is like being on a tiny liferaft in a violent storm.

Take care.

 

[Hashi]

I feel like in order to move forward I need to share with her the extent of my dissociation. It's a scary step to take. I fear that she will tell me that she can no longer treat me. That I need more than she can offer.

71nothing, it is scary, but I hope you'll tell her. As you've seen on this forum, what you're experiencing is something that goes with having PTSD. Our therapists know this.

I can't promise what your therapist's reaction will be, but I'd be surprised if she said she could no longer treat you. I think it's possible that it's almost the opposite way round. If you don't tell her, it will be very difficult for her to give you the help and support you need. If I was a therapist, I would definitely want my client to confide what was going on so I could help them better.

I hope you don't mind me saying something a bit less serious. Your post made me think about recently when my therapist was doing grounding in a session and asked me to tell her what date it was... then sheepishly got out her phone to check because she had no idea herself!

 

[Abstract]

Hashi, Thank you! There is no pressure at all and I appreciate the input. Take as much time as you want and come back if it is Ok for you. I hope you have a good sleep. :sleep:

I am very willing to think about anything that might help. The word that comes up is terror. But maybe I should try to look at the nuances a bit more.

Ok. I am having the same response to attempting to do this that I have when I try to take steps to get a therapist.

Essentially what I have eventually come to to explain it is that my mind seems to work by having shutters or steel doors that come down. That is the case with trauma stuff. Immediately after something has happened in the past I feel like the shutters come down and so I just move on. There is always the sense that I know that something is there behind the steel doors but going anywhere near them just has me bouncing off. Its like there is a label on the doors that I have access to but otherwise nothing. I hit the doors and bounce off if attempting to come close.

Something similar seems to happen when I try to do something to get a therapist (T). I get to a certain point and I "bounce" off of it. My mind empties entirely and no thoughts or feelings get through until I turn away. When it comes to getting a T this has happened every single time I have tried to gather information. It feels as if I am bouncing off something and although I have worked long and hard on ways to try to get past this I have been unsuccessful.

I will continue to try to work on an analogy. I am not bouncing off as such but my mind is just emptying. I hope that makes some sense. :wacky:

 

[Deleted member 12723]

Hashi HMO means Kaiser permenete. It is a group of hospitals that have policies in place that determine the kind of care you get. I hope this helps.

 

[Abstract]

Just saying some of the things that I previously wanted to say.

Thanks Hashi!

I lived in a haze all the time, barely connected, and wasn't even aware of that until recently.

Because the insights would have been too much, at least at that time for the resources you had then?

I could have started healing years ago, instead of letting my life go by. I've given myself a very hard time over this, but I'm trying to stop doing that.

I kept wishing I could go back and make everything completely unreal again.

The insights have always been there, it's just that I couldn't face them before. I worked very hard not to.

It's very difficult (or even impossible) for us to be objective about our own experiences of trauma.

You sound so much like me when I started trauma therapy! Except I couldn't even see it in myself

I have never found any comfort at all in being seen as a victim either. And I think my need to always look strong and "fine" has greatly stopped my progress in so many ways and ways in which I had no idea they were doing. I also thought I did not need others and that is far from true.

I have only come to these realisations in recent years and a lot of this has was precipitated by a misunderstanding with a long term T I was seeing for eating disorders and a breakdown. In some bazaar way I actually think the misunderstanding set off my PTSD symptoms worsening greatly. That and the new dawning realisations and awareness at last started understanding sinking home for me.

Essentially I told her that I had self harmed and that I was suicidal. I had never told anyone anything like this in my life before. Even in therapy I would tell T's something after it was resolved or when it was over. She never believed me. It seems my “I am fine” veneer was so good that she could not consider I was telling the truth. I had seen her for 5 years. No matter what I said and despite us discussing it for eight months, every session, she continued to do so. It devastated me in ways I can't explain.

It is hard to put into words how little I told her and how little I realisedthat. In retrospect I realised that I spend years and years and years speaking about really little and thinking I was working really hard. I do think I was in many ways. I was just that disconnected.

Years later I can at last mostly see that this is what T is for some in ways. It exposes the patterns in how we relate to others and ourselves. I blamed myself entirely for the longest time but now can sometimes see that her job was to realise those patterns and listen and point these things out to me rather than just disbelieve me and fall for the veneer I put on. And leave me to struggle through the realisations myself and by myself. That when I told her what I did and then tried to explain myself when she did not believe then she should have started asking questions rather refuse to listen and assume she knew more about me in an absolute way than I did.

So yes I figured it out by myself but I would not recommend my route of doing so. It's been hard and very confusing. These things should happen with a therapists support.

I relate to all that you said here. I too often wish I could go back. And it's hard to accept what one didn't do or know in the past and the waste that that equates too. But as you said we didn't know it then and so that is that.

Thank you for saying what you did about trauma severity. There is part of me that is rational and that part knows it is minor ish but you are right that I can't really see it clearly. It feels like nothing at all and that probably isn't the truth. Its hard to accept that would be people who have experienced what I have and not ended up with the problems I do. I have read up about resiliency and can guess why for some of it but it still bugs me.

 

[Abstract]

Hi Faraway!

One of the things I am finding refreshing about this new journey is accepting that I've failed at that - I haven't coped well at all. For some reason I'm seeing my identification of that failure as another chance to achieve it.

I think I understand what you mean. I also think that trap of needing to be or appear strong is very tiring. The two last breakdowns I have had (humiliating to admit) there was an element of relief when I hit rock bottom and could do nothing else but get help. Now I have at last learned how to manage myself rather that going in cycles and ending up in states like this. I am glad you are finding power in you and your real vulnerability!!

 

[Abstract]

. Like you said if I had accepted it with out the denial, I wouldn't have coped. Having time to adjust to the concept my life was one huge delusion, has made it easier to accept the memories, and maybe one day I will get to the point I will stop using the denial to help me cope.

Thanks for sharing this Shell. I am trying to accept what all of you are saying. I have never been good at being patient with myself and tend to barrel ahead and ignore any fear or consequences when I decide to do something. That worked well for me in many ways in the past. But I had no ability to monitor my well being and how I was coping and when something was too much. So it was like doing things totally blind.

Now I am able to be connected to consequences and affects on me and try to manage my safety. And considering that and trying to balance my tendency to be single minded is hard.

I have wasted so much of my life and many ways I feel I have only started living at all in the last 2 or 3 years and the rate I am going I will be 60 before I get into this properly.

I am glad your T is able to help you with being kind and understanding with yourself.