Embarrassed To Talk About Trauma

[piratelady]

I have been in therapy for nearly a year. Initially we were working on safety and now I'm starting to talk about the traumas I've experienced over the past several years.

Last week was the first time I spoke about anything in detail. I am very ashamed of what I have been through, and talking about it is embarrassing. How do you get passed that? Are you supposed to talk about it in detail?

 

[Smushroom]

Hi piratelady. I too am in the same boat. I've been in therapy for over a year now, and just can't bring myself to 'speak' about the sexual abuse/rapes I have experienced. I find writing it is easy. My T encourages me to email her after our sessions, so I can say the things that I couldn't say during the session. She said as long as I'm getting it out, it's fine. She doesn't let me get away with it all the time. She knows when/how much to push, so I've had to say a few things. But not many.

She said I will overcome this. And I believe you will be able to too!

 

[712xx]

I haven't really been given a good answer for why they think it would help to tell them the details. The stock answer is -- because it gives the trauma less power over your life. :O_o: I've spoken about a few things before, but it didn't make me feel better. They can't change my past, and telling them what happened only spreads the story around (like a toxic gas). That is how I picture it in my mind as I'm speaking.

It makes me anxious, and causes speech problems and interupts the flow of conversation, because I have to then deal with the anxiety. The issue about the topic we were discussing doesn't get resolved, because my insurance doesn't pay enough to see a well educated person; I just get a well-intentioned person. Hi again 'island mentality', nice to see you again. :cautious: Better than nothing?

 

[Tinyflame]

Maybe it helps to unearth and deal with the anxiety? :unsure:

 

[712xx]

:pJb, optimism probably helps you, so I won't go and ruin it with my pessimistic yuckness.

 

[Ted Moen]

It's all about getting to the feelings you stuffed when you were doing what you did to survive in the hostile environment. Those intense feelings are the core that drives your ptsd symptoms. Work toward expressing them at your own pace, in a safe place with a safe, trained person. Approaching them will create a lot of anxiety, not approaching them will continue to create ptsd symptoms. Approaching them will get more intense before it starts to get better.

We all feel embarrassed and guilty about things we did or did not do in the process of surviving our hostile environment. You T isn't interested in the sordid details. Your T is interested in you expressing the intense feelings you have stuffed so that you can get on to recovery.

I was in individual therapy for a little over 20 years. It took me the first 10 to learn nothing was really going to improve until I started spitting out the stuff I really didn't want to talk about. My pace was one tiny step at a time, because each time I thought I was getting to the core I discovered I was just peeling back the top layer. I spent the next 10 tears working through the layers (of stuffed feelings) until the intensity reduced to a level that allowed me to manage my behavior appropriately in my current situation, and life began to improve.

Life is good these days. I've pretty much been out of therapy for around 8 years now, and have relationships and activities that make me feel productive and good about myself and my life. I still need to talk about ptsd stuff sometimes, but this list seems to fill that need.

So spit it out (in a safe place with a safe, trained professional). It will always feel messy and embarrassing and stuff, whenever you get around to it. Recovery is possible, and you are worth it.

Ted

 

[Meadowsweet]

Thats really good to hear Ted Moen.

Piratelady, If you don't mind sharing, may I ask what structure your therapy has taken in the past year? This is only for my own interest in different therapy types.

I'm in the UK and it might be due to financial restrictions, but my therapist uses a very structured approach to CBT. Basically after the initial assessments and 'getting to know me' sessions, we move into a structured model of therapy.

My therapist reassures me that I'm in control of how quickly we progress. But the structure goes something like this: Learn the basics about ptsd. Learn grounding techniques, safe place visualisations and basic relaxation. Then go into 're-living' sessions, which is perhaps what you are meaning.

The re-living involves going into the small details of what my 5 senses picked up during trauma, what I felt emotionally and what I thought at the time. And its normally spoken or written about in present tense.

This is apparently because trauma memories get stuck as they were experienced. So when we re-experience them, everything remains as it was at the time, without the time relapse (filing it into the the 'past' file).

So re-living it works to bring it into the present, so that with the guidence of the therapist, we can file parts of it away in the 'past' box, and start trying to re-build our perceptions of the present.

So after we've done the reliving bit, we might work more on the main sticking points of the trauma memories.

But after re-living, we look at the meaning I took from the trauma (like: I can't trust my judgement). Then the behaviour Ive developed from that (like: isolating). And the things I've learned (like: I'm useless).

And we go through how those are connected to the traumatic memory and start to change what we can.

Then we practise or test it out in the real world (like: try something and notice that nothing bad has happened).

The other thing is, that apparently if we start with the worst trauma, the rest may filter down into the others. So we don't necessarily have to re-live or remeber every trauma, because the interpretations, behavious and cognititions will be the same for similar experiences.

Sorry I've gone on a bit. The sharing is something that I'm just having to do (next week) in therapy. And II feel really anxious about doing it too. So I'm going over why I need to do it for myself as much as anything. But I hope it will help you go for it.

 

[Kimpersonal]

I've spewed my flashbacks and memories in settings I likely shouldn't have. Heck, I probably traumatized a few people who were in the process of trying to traumatize me! If an unsafe person/environment is causing you to trigger (not to be confused with innocent/unsuspecting civilians) ... this is a great educational opportunity for a "would be" abuser to perhaps realize the consequences of his/her actions in the lives of others.

This is a form of "risk-taking" and "exposure therapy" taken to it's utmost level. Probably much wiser to face these past humiliations in the presence of somebody safe in a safe environment. In other words ... don't do what I did.

 

[piratelady]

Ted, thank you for the input. It was very helpful :)

Meadowsweet: There isn't a lot of structure to my therapy. I was still with my husband when my therapy started. In the beginning we talked through that and I finally left him. Since then I have avoided talking about anything traumatic, despite a lot of encouragement from my therapist. I went on vacation and that brought back some traumatic memories that I had forgotten, which I talked about last week in therapy. That was the first time I actually talked about anything that has happened to me. Now I'm not sure where we will go from here.

I went to therapy today and he told me that it is up to me when I want to talk about it again and that we can take things very slowly. The thought of talking about anything else is very scary for me, so I'm not sure how quickly I'll opt to go there again.

 

[Meadowsweet]

I understand that it is very scary.

But it is the way to help make life a little better too apparently.