Emotions - I guess an emotional rollercoaster is part of the healing process, right?

[the10thleper319]

Thank you @the10thleper319 .

Maybe the better question is not why do you deserve happiness but rather why do you feel you don't? But I get it. For me I fear it as it became conflated or associated with really bad news and it's consequences. I hope your therapist can help you!


I like that ^^^. Good luck tomorrow!

Just checking in to see how you are doing, Tinyflame.

 

[Tinyflame]

Hi @the10thleper319 I just am trying to get through this day at work and then am off 5 days. I will try to come back then. I hope you are ok? Thank you for the beautiful sentiments and I am grateful for you also!

 

[the10thleper319]

Hi @the10thleper319 I just am trying to get through this day at work and then am off 5 days. I will try to come back then. I hope you are ok? Thank you for the beautiful sentiments and I am grateful for you also!

Good to hear about the 5 days off! I am achieving both psychological and physical successes in my trauma recovery. Thank you for being grateful for me.

 

[Tinyflame]

That is wonderful news @the10thleper319 !

I am achieving both psychological and physical successes in my trauma recovery.

^^ May i ask how? (Other than your great attitude, which is obvious. (I think gratitude, perseverance and faith make a large difference. Certainly helps usually rather than hinders.) And what are physical successes? (It's ok too if you don't want to elaborate. )

Very happy for you!

 

[the10thleper319]

Thank you. The psychological success is achieved by my trauma therapist using the modality, Internal Family Systems therapy. Internal Family Systems Therapy. This treatment method has uncovered sources for the anxiety and panic. I also use the self-compassion of mindfulness. My therapist also agrees my great attitude. determination, work, and resiliency are key positive elements in the healing process. The physical symptoms of the trauma includes chills and nausea. As I have progressed in therapy, the chills are gone and I am not running to the bathroom feeling like I am going to puke. I now just get sporadic, short-lived bouts of nausea. Thankfully all my gastro tests were negative so my doctors and I agree the nausea is a symptom of the trauma. As my mind and emotions heal, so does my body.

 

[Tinyflame]

That's great @the10thleper319 ! I can't wrap my head around parts but it works for many. Terrific!

 

[the10thleper319]

That's great @the10thleper319 ! I can't wrap my head around parts but it works for many. Terrific!

Thank you! Other modalities for trauma include DBT Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT): What It Is & Purpose, EMDR EMDR Therapy: What It Is, Procedure & Effectiveness, and ACT Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. These are best used when working with a therapist who specializes in trauma (like mine), as opposed to a "regular" therapist. I hope that helps!

 

[Tinyflame]

Thank you @the10thleper319 ! Lol, yes- I've been at this over 35 years in one form or another, at least doing it by myself. I guess I meant, what is the difference- or secret sauce- as to why that worked for you, or worked now? How, or what factors, made it resonate to the core to see the progress? I likely suspect it DID or does resonate for you, and your T 'gets' it?

I have done (by myself) CBT, DBT, ACT and exposure therapy. I think the last has been most useful, though all have been in different ways. Frequently I've already resorted (even as a last resort) to what they recommend without realizing that's what they name it (Wise Mind, Radical Acceptance, identifying Cognitive distortions, etc). But, in reality, the most helpful things weren't conventional therapy modalities: church, dancing, definitely my dog(s). Self disclosure of the lousy stuff too, I guess. I mean, the conventional modalities were useful for when I am white knuckling it but not as much for me for producing a feeling or perception of safety, peace and joy. I think the more I have a sense of those the more I am also able to bring them where I go. The VA though had a good manual that was pretty game changing for a few key grief-laden things.

I suppose, and I don't really have the words, that the most or even any healing came with faith, and age/ circumstance/ God/ my priest/ my friend. Because anyone is there in the good times; not so the bad. Wouldn't be here if I had offed myself lol. Really being given help, learning what trust is and how to do it, with people and God. (Knowing the intellectual explanations were never enough, if that makes sense.) Not really sure words to describe it. It unfolds as I go, I guess. It seems more like a journey than a destination. It is, as a whole.

Anyway, happy healing to you! Hugs!

 

[Tinyflame]

ETA @the10thleper319 , I think a teeny bit of the words is like the saying of someone ~meeting you where you are. As I have been, it has become easier to meet myself and my life where I am. Not what I think I would have liked it to be or include or exclude, but rather just 'as is', the hand I was dealt and what came before and after. And a whole lot of gratitude. A focus on what I am grateful for vs what I could think of as lacking or what I wished didn't occur and what it caused, especially. Which includes over and above my own responses but also what I didn't cause but someone else chose. Acceptance but with a twist.

Ugh. Still hard to find words lol.

 

[the10thleper319]

First of all, THANK YOU for your sharing and information. My secret sauce is my spirituality. Everyone has their own perspective when it comes to religion, especially with trauma and hardship. Speaking strictly for myself, I've always been religious/spiritual, since I was a kid. My therapist and IFS therapy are incredibly beneficial elements God has led me to and is using to heal the trauma. I also credit Him with the realizations for the sources of the persistent panic and anxiety. I do not blame or ask Him why I have endured four years of physical health hell which has resulted in the trauma, I lean into Him for guidance, comfort, help, and healing. Acceptance and gratitude are also key ingredients in the secret sauce. Acceptance of my situation has been positively impactful in the healing. While I am not grateful for cervical spinal stenosis, I am grateful for it in comparison to worse case scenarios. In the spring when I was a physical rehab center for a stenosis fall, many of my fellow residents were single and double leg amputees, and stroke victims in wheelchairs with their arm bent. My thankfulness is that though my legs are not what they used to be, at least I still have them. And that I able to live at home and not in a wheelchair with a bent arm due to a stroke.

 

[Tinyflame]

Yes @the10thleper319 I think some of these things are eye openers for ways it is needed to change our lives. Not in a negative way but rather the opposite, being kinder to ourselves. Much as you said before about accepting happiness, or trusting, or whatever for example.

Hugs today.

 

[the10thleper319]

Yes @the10thleper319 I think some of these things are eye openers for ways it is needed to change our lives. Not in a negative way but rather the opposite, being kinder to ourselves. Much as you said before about accepting happiness, or trusting, or whatever for example.

Hugs today.

Thank you! Being self-compassionate and wanting to accept happiness/break the generational curse of not deserving happiness are, for me, good things which resulted from the 4 years of health hell and trauma.