Do traumas have a cumulative effect?

[tiler]

I'm wondering if anyone knows how to address traumas if there are multiple traumas from adulthood? Specifically, will EMDR work for this, and how?

I've been in quite a few separate traumatic situations and several of them would probably be classed as major. I was blocking them all out for about 15 years. Then one thing happened, and this is the one that I just cannot get past at all, it would be seen as a lesser trauma by most people though, and it's bringing up sensory flashbacks which I think are linked to the previous traumas as well now. It's all such a mess, I don't know what feeling is coming from which trauma.

If I try EMDR, would working on the most recent trauma take away the issues from the previous ones since that seems to be the one which has triggered me falling apart?

 

[anthony]

Do traumas have a cumulative effect? Yes.

 

[Sideways]

I was blocking them all out for about 15 years. Then one thing happened, and this is the one that I just cannot get past at all,

Yup. The final straw that brings the brilliantly sectioned, compartmentalised, “nothing to see here” house down.

Coping just fine…until suddenly you’re not. Totally!

 

[arfie]

when i first met the acronym, "cptsd," around the turn of the millennium at the veteran's administration, the "c" stood for, "complex" and typically indicated repetitive trauma. "prisoner of war" survivors were the example used in the explanation. years of living in POW camps were compared to a broken bone hit in the same spot, day after day for extended periods of time. the bone was not simply broken. it was crushed and pulverized.

yes, repetitive trauma has a cumulative effect.

 

[Freddyt]

Yup. The final straw that brings the brilliantly sectioned, compartmentalised, “nothing to see here” house down.

Coping just fine…until suddenly you’re not. Totally!

Yup. Exactly how it happened. Good, good, good, boom....

Except - when you look back - you were coping - and what you thought was fine was just barely......

 

[tiler]

Thanks all.

Does anyone know how you treat that in EMDR. Do you have to work on each one, or can you work on one and it will help everything?

 

[Friday]

I'm wondering if anyone knows how to address traumas if there are multiple traumas from adulthood? Specifically, will EMDR work for this, and how?

All of my traumas are from my adulthood. Thousands, or tens of thousands, in total. Spanning dozens of “types”. Most of which were work related, some of which were in my personal life.

So for ME, addressing any singular event isn’t just going to wipe the whole durn slate clean.

But addressing a singular TYPE, can & does, remove that whole durn type from the spiderweb. For example? All of my rape/sexual assault trauma was so fully processed that even new rapes? Really don’t bother me, much. Some, sure. Easily sorted in a matter of DAYS. Nothing from the past brought forward. Nothing tangled up, or distorted (I know I used to blame myself for that nonsense, and I can understand the impulse, but I’d have to suffer severe head trauma to go there, again. Hell I HAVE suffered severe head trauma and haven’t

Can multiple traumas be addressed by EMDR -or any other type of effective trauma processing- whether they’re repeats of the same type of trauma, or wildly different types? Yep. Very, very well. The exact same way it works on individual traumas… on a prolonged time scale. Fortunately? One doesn’t have to tackle every event, when there are hundreds/thousands, of the same type. Usually? A “few” will resolve the whole type. But? Whilst they’ll make pieces of the other types “easier”, the other types are still going to need to be processed, and will still be brutal.

I wish it were as simple as sort one (trauma OR type) and the rest all fall in line… but? Any win is a in.

 

[anthony]

Do you have to work on each one, or can you work on one and it will help everything?

The fastest way, is to take the worst one, and start with that. It will be the most painful, but it will dramatically shorten the time you endure feeling like shit from retraumatisation, if you start small and work upwards. Starting small and working towards the bad, usually ends up making the dysregulation and such from the worst, become worst anyway, purely due to PTSD doing what it does... exacerbating every negative emotion to overwhelm and destroy a person.

I am personally a big fan of starting at the worst... as it will knock out most of the smaller stuff by default purely from working through the worst of it. Again, whilst extremely painful to start with, IMO it gives you the most reward. You just really have to be honest with yourself so you don't toss yourself of something tall when depression kicks your arse.

 

[tiler]

The fastest way, is to take the worst one, and start with that

I'm genuinely not really sure which is the worst one.

Is it the one that makes me ruminate constantly to work out what went wrong, the one that I had amnesia from for years, the one that I have to face every day and makes me shake even thinking about it or the ones I force myself to remember, but my brain automatically blocks as soon as I put myself in first person memory mode, or the ones I have pinpoint accuracy memory of, but constantly go round in my head, the ones that cause sensory distress, or the ones that involved death... I have no idea.

Also, I can't actually be upset or hurt infornt of people. I just shut it off, and if my brain just blocks out memories of some of them then how will I ever do EMDR, it won't work will it?

@Friday I'm sorry you are still having to deal with repeat traumas. Your message was very helpful, thank you. I have a variety of types, but some I guess are pretty similar, so that's reassuring.

Not sure that I can do this though.

 

[Sideways]

if my brain just blocks out memories of some of them then how will I ever do EMDR, it won't work will it?

Couple of things - EMDR is more about allowing your brain to make associations, and isn’t necessarily going to involve recounting the trauma from start to finish in a sequential timeline.

Second, the process of EMDR is likely to shift things in the way your brain is consciously accessing these memories, and it may well be quite a different experience to what you’re currently conscious of.

All reputable EMDR therapists (and any trauma therapist irrespective of modality) work on establishing an accessible safe place before embarking on pulling out things that aren’t going to destabilise a person. There’s no point trying to process anything while a patient is unstable, and therapy will only work if a degree of stability is sustainable.

 

[anthony]

I'm genuinely not really sure which is the worst one.

The worst one is the one that bothers you most symptom wise right now. The present tense is the important aspect of this. If there are two, pick one.

 

[Friday]

The worst one is the one that bothers you most symptom wise right now. The present tense is the important aspect of this. If there are two, pick one.

Very strongly.,, yes.