Do I Have To Talk About My Childhood Abuse To Therapist?

[Notsowild]

One thing I have discovered since I started this is that while you may not want to delve into something, your brain has very different opinions on the matter. Everything is related. Once in session, I had a flashback that rolled from an adult trauma right into a childhood trauma. The two were related in a way. It's not like you can build a fence around it and only deal with one thing. Trust me, I tried.

Building a fence around it... Brilliant
I guess that's what I'm doing. I'm keeping all my childhood abuse fenced in. Eventually it will leak through with my other traumas. Never thought of it that way Thanks desiderata 310... Great wisdom

 

[Notsowild]

@marylouise... Thanks for your advice. I will try to look after myself this week. I do though have papers he gave me to fill out about myself and what I expect from therapy. Should keep me busy :eek:

 

[desiderata310]

Great advice! I love the idea of lists. Thanks for your great advice and I'll keep you posted.
ALSO... About EMDR... I heard it wasn't good for repressed childhood abuse. Have you heard that?

Emdr isn't for everyone. It IS important that your therapist knows you have childhood trauma as well before trying emdr. It does open doors and sometimes open floodgates. You'll need to be prepared.

You kind of sound like me: want to go to a few session and bam: all done. I was devastated when he said years of therapy for me. Fact is, you're going to heal at your own pace.

I currently work a high stress job that keeps me at work long hours, I'm a single mom with two kids at home, am writing a masters thesis, and train for triathlons. No one knows that I go to two 90 min therapy sessions a week. It comes down to a question of making me better. It's a priority because I wasn't functioning as well.

Will the process disrupt your life? It does have that potential. It has disrupted mine. Though, no one really seems aware of it.

One thing that my therapist said that really hit me is that you have to be ready to get better and some people never are. So I suppose the question is: are you ready?

 

[TimeToHeal]

Regarding EMDR -- I have only had 2 sessions so far so I can't really speak to its effectiveness for me in particular.

I have not heard anything about EMDR being either "good" or "bad" for repressed childhood memories specifically. I have multiple traumas that I do remember, as well as strongly suspected (by multiple doctors and therapists), early childhood sexual abuse, of which I have no formed memories - and my therapist has not expressed any concern regarding repressed memories.

I'm not sure if you mean "not good" as in, not helpful in recovering repressed memories, or as in, could possibly be harmful. I don't know that there is any specific treatment thought or proven to actually aid in recovering repressed memories - though I'd be interested if there were!

In any case, @desiderata310 is correct, EMDR is certainly not for everyone (I'm still deciding whether it's for me or not!), and you've got to be in a pretty stable place before beginning it. There is much preparation that goes in to it beforehand.

I also understand your being impatient. Unfortunately for all of us, there just is no quick fix for PTSD and all that goes along with it. I would hope that your therapist would first focus on getting your most severe and debilitating symptoms under control, before you even begin to process the trauma. I know you need to get back to work, and with any luck you'll be able to get stable enough to do that while you continue you're journey in therapy. Like I said, it's not a quick fix, not something you can start and complete in a month or so. :sorry:

Having said all of that, you're not in this alone, and you CAN do it!!

 

[Deleted member 1860]

I agree with you but once again I'm trying to speed things up. Do I really have time to deal with all this? I need to get back to work eventually. Dealing with my childhood trauma seems like a big undertaking. Can I work and deal with all this? I don't know.

I'm not sure I can answer this as you're in a different place than me. I hit rock bottom and had no choice but to wade through all the muck. I didn't have the option to put things off so here I am now, having processed my trauma and now working through the "reconnecting with society" part of healing. I was fortunate (relatively speaking!) to have been able to take time away from working in order to heal, in large part because of my supportive family. I know not everyone can take a long time off of work/not work, and I'm sure others who are working can give you better advice in this regard.

 

[marylouise]

I also understand your being impatient. Unfortunately for all of us, there just is no quick fix for PTSD and all that goes along with it. I would hope that your therapist would first focus on getting your most severe and debilitating symptoms under control, before you even begin to process the trauma. I know you need to get back to work, and with any luck you'll be able to get stable enough to do that while you continue you're journey in therapy. Like I said, it's not a quick fix, not something you can start and complete in a month or so. :sorry:

Having said all of that, you're not in this alone, and you CAN do it!!

Well said, TimeToHeal. I so often have wished there was a quick fix. I think one of our greatest challenges is accepting that there's not.

 

[Notsowild]

Well I've been seeing a psychiatrist for 2 months now. I really like her. She is very open and friendly and very knowledgable. She has put me on clonazapam and it seems to be helping with my hypervigilance.

I've seen my trauma therapist twice now. I really like him too. If learnt a lot about trauma and triggers. I'm actually quite pleased with how it's going so far. Of course he knows about my childhood abuse but we agreed to work on my current trauma first. My only sticking point with them is saying I don't show enough emotion when talking about my traumas. We will discuss this at my next appointments. So... So far so good.

 

[marylouise]

That sounds good, notsowild. I'm amazed by how many resources are available now to trauma survivors compared to when I started this work two decades ago. Sounds like you're making good use of the resources available too. It's very proactive of you to bring up your concerns. Good luck!