Exposure And Worsening Of Symptoms With Complex Trauma

[Tinyflame]

Your home environment must be stable, safe and supportive.

• You must be able to manage your emotional stability during trauma therapy (techniques, cognitive functioning).
• You must know relaxation and stress relief techniques, and have them implemented within your life, prior to trauma therapy.

Thank you Anthony.

I have basically tried to work on the last 2 to deal with the 1st (home environment).

There are now only 2 of us (myself and sister), and a third (her boyfriend) who stays over a couple or few days per week.
There is frequently uncontrolled drinking (not by me), and fights (which I try to remain out of)- either screaming directed with no response from me, or fighting between them. I am tentatively hopeful this may abate in the future, as they have both expressed (they feel) their drinking is out of control. But that is their business.
And God knows I understand, have used it (in the 'ptsd journey') to self-medicate, long ago.
I would also almost eat my shirt if my sister doesn't have ptsd, herself, from everything I've lived and recognize in her behaviours, and what she tells me.

A few years ago there was domestic violence; now it is primarily emotional abuse ('words'/ slamming doors, etc).
Almost without exception only during the drinking.
The last 2 weeks have been better, prior to that it was almost every day (night), or you live in constant vigilance of not knowing 'what's' coming, or how bad it will be.
So I'm not sure how 'safe' it is, but definitely not stable and it never feels safe at those times, or even anticipating them.

My sister also does not believe ptsd can be aquired through anything but war, and she does not budge on that belief. I have on 2 or 3 occassions over the years tried to talk to her about it/ ask her for help, but it pretty much results in secondary wounding. So I don't go there, and at this point tell her nothing (of it/ this). It used to hurt me terribly but now I do my best to just avoid it, and regulate myself.
I have however- because I do recognize myself in how she feels and reacts, tried to educate her/ help her by 'slipping in' what I've learned, and she relates whole-heartedly. She's at the point where she just said yesterday "Not to sound whiny but she/ we have been through a lot of traumas".

But anyway, moving at this time is not an option, although I can now come and go as I please, because I work but also because (prior) we had a relative here who needed 24 hour care, which made that impossible. But she passed away. Which I know, now however, you also add 'grief' to the mix.

I feel stronger now than I did from 2008-2010, and have only had a real unanticipated/ poorly managed meltdown in April 2011, but that I understand better now.

Thanks again, Anthony.

P.S- I realize you are correct, re: dom. violence. And a lot of not leaving is giving up, plus control and threats, financial constraints, plus lousy self-esteem.

 

[Jacquie]

Or the need to be loved/cared for/protected? Or protect?

The fear of not being able to do it on your own? Or of letting the other person(s) down?

Its very often seen that if you get someone out of one DV sit they will find their way straight into the next one without realising how they got there. They have the 'matching behaviours'. And the DV sits dont change until those behaviours/resposes/expectations change.

Sadly the worst abusers have 2 very distinctive sides to them. The HELPER and the supporter.....and the controller/blamer. And both of those are about their ego.

Re leaving and it being 'in their imagination' there is a real threat? Oh I dont think so. I think thats a very dangerous assumption. And there are plenty of dead women and dead kids to support that statement. Both leaving and staying has its dangers. The only permanent solution is for the abused person to find the courage to 'calmly' say they are leaving but do it in such a way as to not trigger the response they've been avoiding for years. And when you are 3/4 destroyed and have been convinced this big strong wise all knowing all powerful F*** WIT is also your protector....its not easy.

The starting point is sometimes to take up a new hobby or sport and expand the people around you. To get some kind of healthy comparison.

Which therapies don't use a cognitive and exposure element Jacquie?

Balance. Bringing the body back into balance. Which brings back more accurate perceptions, where the mind itself can process input more effectively and facilitate more appropriate responses.

Drugs. Chemically correcting (or counteracting) excesses or deficiencies in certain essential chemical chains of events within systems.

 

[doglover]

Balance. Bringing the body back into balance. Which brings back more accurate perceptions, where the mind itself can process input more effectively and facilitate more appropriate responses.

How would you go about bringing the body back into balance? I ask because I'm not sure balance is therapy. I see it more as a goal of various therapies or a sign of coping skills that work. Or like the stuff that helps you get balanced would be therapies of various sorts or the application of coping skills. Do you mean things like acupuncture - methods that leave the mental component out completely? Stress relief? Or do I totally misunderstand (wouldn't be the first time ;))?

 

[intothelight]

I just wanted to say that from my personal experience, what Anthony has summarized it correct. When dealing with complex trauma, you have to KNOW that you are safe, secure and supported, KNOW you have the skills necessary to handle increased PTSD symptoms, and KNOW that you are emotionally stable enough that you are not going to become suicidal, engage in self-harming behaviors, or hurt others.

CBT has worked for me. I took the principles and they are a bit modified to my own personal situation, but each of us are individuals. A friend of mine gave me an interesting analogy, that I have adopted when incorporating CBT. We have a rational mind and this is what we know. Then we have an emotional mind that is what we feel. PTSD seems to be a big disconnect between the two. The connection occurs when we develop a wise mind, when are emotions are compatible with what we know in the present.

For example, I know the odds of certain things carry little or no immediate threat of death. Yet, there were times I had this overwhelming fear of dying. There were events in my past that had the threat of immediate death, but somehow I had generalized them to a point, they were crippling my ability to engage in normal every day activities. So what I knew to be reality, did not in any way shape or form match my feelings. So I had to identify the trigger, and confront the fears, stay in the present and battle the urge to run and hide, with the rational knowledge the fear was unfounded. It has taken a long time, involved more of an emotional thread through multiple traumas, identifying and confronting multiple triggers. Not a textbook approach, but one that works for me.

The result is I can leave my house, drive, walk in my own neighborhood, shop at a local store, and it gave me my personal freedom back. It doesn't mean that I am going to suddenly take up sky diving or become an extreme sports participant, but it means that I can live a relatively normal life. A balanced life.

I have just started this process, and there are so many things to work on. But the fact that it works gives me hope and keeps me motivated to keep working. It has little or nothing to do with making myself "relive" or "re-experience" my trauma, but it does involve me revisiting it, with the present knowledge, to find the answers to the things that are carrying over into my present life. Once I find them, then I can confront them in the reality of now, and loosen the hold my past has on my present. (Awkward sentence, so it may not make sense.)

 

[maddog]

It has little or nothing to do with making myself "relive" or "re-experience" my trauma, but it does involve me revisiting it, with the present knowledge, to find the answers to the things that are carrying over into my present life. Once I find them, then I can confront them in the reality of now, and loosen the hold my past has on my present. (Awkward sentence, so it may not make sense.

Oh no Intothelight, it made blinding sense, thank you for saying in one non-awkward sentence what I spent dozens of paragraphs trying ineffectually to say.

Maddog

 

[Jacquie]

How would you go about bringing the body back into balance? I ask because I'm not sure balance is therapy. I see it more as a goal of various therapies or a sign of coping skills that work. Or like the stuff that helps you get balanced would be therapies of various sorts or the application of coping skills. Do you mean things like acupuncture - methods that leave the mental component out completely? Stress relief? Or do I totally misunderstand (wouldn't be the first time ;))?

Body-Balance. Physical balance. Balance.

Can anyone here walk a tight rope? Bet you cant ;)

In order to walk that tight rope your body needs to be calm, focussed, relaxed but aware, and totally in tune with both your body movement and your environment.

If you try it you'll find maybe your left or right shoulder is too high and throws you off the rope. Correct it. Next time you find you get dizzy. You need to sink your body over the centre and take some calm breaths, slow ones. Next time you might find your right foot thinks its centre but its off centre. You fall, your arms wave like flapping pigeons. You focus on that foot next time and retrain it where centre is.

Clap your hands. Do they hit square on or is one slightly in front of the other? Correct it. Concentrate on it. Clap your hands perfectly while waiting for the coffee to make. It becomes a habit after a while.

When you learned to ride a bicycle. Did you do it first time? Did you just get on that bike and ride away? Or did you wobble, fall, struggle, bounce from left leg to right and forget the pedals? Slowly the feet working the pedals also kept the handlebars straight too (or turning) instead of the hands correcting what the feet were doing. Your hands and feet learned to work independently and obey subconscious signals. But you had to practice right?

Now we want someone else to give us a bike riding injection.

If they never let go. If they always held the seat of the bike as we went along. If all we had to do (work at) was just sit there like sitting on a sofa and move our legs....whats going to happen when one day there is nobody holding the seat? We fall, we crash, we get hurt, but we cant understand why. Every other time, it didnt fall. But we never did it for ourselves did we?

I'm learning to walk the wire again. I have a guide rope for now I can grab hold of if I need to. But my focus is on doing the work. And by losing balance, I get to see whats NOT working right. Because when it IS right I'll be able to close my eyes and walk the wire without grabbing the guide rope.

I'm also doing weights. Not so much for muscle structure, but because its bilateral. Left side right side left side right side. Repetition. And because in that too, I need to be balanced. Or frankly it hurts. Pain helps me to correct the bad habits my body has fallen into.

Mental balance. Practice practice practice. Repetition repetition repetition. Like riding a bike.

And as the body rebalances the chemicals and neural responses (it is) then I'm finding its getting easier to walk up to those things I somehow started avoiding.

Do I get the shakes still? Yep. And when I do I fall over. I shake anyway. I fall anyway. I stopped worrying about my hand or head shaking. I just do the work. Some days I am absolute crap and others it goes ok. But EVERY day I do the work. And every day is a little better.

Yoga (if you have someone who isnt just in it for the TRENDY and BUSINESS side of things) has really helped (and it kills my body) but puts pressure on glands and release points and opens the blocked or restricted areas so things can 'flow'. Flow = blood flow = oxygen = cleaning out rubbish and toxins (the body in its correct state does that but in this state it isnt)

I've been charting my progress. And you can see major dips, but there is a general incline. So those dips even though they drop me about the same amount....a drop of 200 when at 1200, is very different to a drop of 200 when you are at 300. When I dip it 'feels' like I'm back at 300, but looking at the charts shows me I am not. That helped me to ride out the dips, and keep working.

My aim is to get to 1500 in all areas. So a dip of 200 will drop me back to a higher level than I am right now. And I'm finding that if my blood and oxygen flows are good the adrenalin gets out of my system faster. The body is not made to sustain high levels of adrenalin for that long. And its that...that wrecked me.

 

[anthony]

Balance. Bringing the body back into balance. Which brings back more accurate perceptions, where the mind itself can process input more effectively and facilitate more appropriate responses.

Drugs. Chemically correcting (or counteracting) excesses or deficiencies in certain essential chemical chains of events within systems.

Both use cognitive and exposure. You continue trying to fight things Jacquie, which I don't really understand, which seems to be a pattern from you since being here.

Balance is not a therapy, however; it takes both a thought process, which also means cognitive functioning, and the moment you have to try and change perceptions or facilitate appropriate responses, that is exposure. Its called imaginary exposure... it can be trauma based (therapy) or even relaxation based (which is therapy by definition).

You may want to read what exposure therapy is in relation to trauma, however; if you want to take it outside of trauma therapy, like you're trying... then just remove the word trauma, so the moment you think about something, you are cognitively performing a function, as well as performing exposure, whether imaginary or actionable.

[DLMURL]https://www.ptsdforum.org/c/wiki/exposure-therapy/[/DLMURL]

Pharmacotherapy uses both a cognitive and exposure aspect as well. How do you think Placebo works? Give a person a sugar pill, and suddenly they are fixed. The moment you take a pill is the same moment your brain cognitively processes the act of taking the pill, and then your brain begins exposure to the relief that is anticipated from the pill.

Every therapy contains a cognitive and exposure aspect, there are no exceptions.

Please stop trying to be right and fight facts... facts are facts. If you focused your attention to learning about the brain, about what cognitive functioning is, being a thought and action, which immediately equates to a cognitive act + action (exposure), whether in your head only or physical act.

 

[anthony]

There are now only 2 of us (myself and sister), and a third (her boyfriend) who stays over a couple or few days per week.

There is frequently uncontrolled drinking (not by me), and fights (which I try to remain out of)- either screaming directed with no response from me, or fighting between them.

I am tentatively hopeful this may abate in the future, as they have both expressed (they feel) their drinking is out of control. But that is their business.

Ok... this is where you have to talk with your sister and her boyfriend, and be an assertive person.

Do you pay rent / share costs? If the boyfriend does not live there with you both, then he should be respecting you by not drinking in that house, as should your sister, to the level of arguing and fighting, if that is negatively affecting you.

So this is what can be changed... you don't have to leave, but you need to talk with them and get them to either take their joint drinking outside of the house, to his place, or they stop drinking when there with you.

Respect goes all ways. No doubt you give them privacy, which they would want, to be together... then they should give you the same respect by not drinking around you if it ends up in arguments and distressing you.

That is what I would focus upon. You don't need to move, your sister and her boyfriend need to show you some basic respect, that you no doubt, or should, show them as well.

When living jointly, all parties must come to a common ground and be discussed, so negativity is reduced as much as possible and agreeance is applied for harmonious living.

This is why apartments have body corporates or such... when someone is loud and partying in a building, annoying others, it creates problems... so a common body acts and forces the people out, otherwise the annoyed people end up taking action themselves, which usually results in much worse outcomes.

 

[Tinyflame]

Thank you Anthony, you are correct and it gives me some hope, I thought I was sunk.

I had failed to afford myself the same respect, in that by the time the fighting has occurred, of course that (and the ramifications) seem to be what is in focus.
So naturally the only time to try to speak on it is privately, sober ideally, and 'pre' the occurence.

And I will be the first to admit I've tried to keep the peace at all costs, I have not been assertive.

Yikes- I should add, the 2 of them don't necessarily want the privacy- he is the worst for it- but I do! So that is another good reason to be assertive, thank you.

 

[Jacquie]

Anthony a PLACEBO is not chemical balance its pure psychology. If a person THINKS this little blue pill will make them better, it does. I would question then if the CAUSE was also psychological. For a person with a real imbalance the thinking that little blue pill will fix it.....doesnt. Try giving a diabetic in a hypoglycaemic event a little flour pill and see what happens. You got a dead person on your hands.

Regarding FACTS ARE FACTS (and I'll translate that as Anthony is always right). If facts are facts then the facts that existed 300 years ago are ALSO right, right?

Facts are not facts. Facts have never been facts and facts never will be facts. Facts are theories until other 'facts' come along to defeat those previous facts/theories. Thats how science works.

Science by nature of being science begins with a supposition...a hypothesis. Science then sets out to prove said hypothesis. By nature of attempting to prove said hypothesis other factors encountered along the way are NOT factored in or the hypothesis would be so long in the testing none of us would live long enough. We start at point A and the intention is to come out at point Z. The pathway is set. The ONLY relevance to the testing of the hypothesis is if we do actually reach Z or not. Its black and white, pass or fail.

Anthony I know you have a problem with me (and have from the beginning) and I know you and I have very different approaches to things and to 'healing' vs 'addressing'. And I also know those diametrically opposed positions probably wont change.

But how about this? Recognise that we are VERY DIFFERENT to each other and that it doesnt actually need to be a problem.

No two people in this world are the same. I do not feel the need to be the same as you, think the same as you, believe the same as you, or act the same as you. And things that work for you (and many others) maybe dont work for me (and many others). And things that work for me (and many others) might well NOT work for you (and many others).

We can discuss, have conversations, offer views, share information, share support. Or we can fluster, bluster, posture, fluff up our egos and be opinionated bullying control freaks.

I am going to ask again that you refrain from your pointed comments and constantly and consistently telling me I am wrong. Offering my own take on things IS NOT WRONG.

thank you

 

[anthony]

You take care Jacquie...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact

 

[Jacquie]

Oh it seems Anthony is RIGHT again. Says TAKE CARE but shoves something in my face at the same time. Oh dear. Well I wont practise duplicity. But I will say, Anthony you need to take a good honest look at whats going on here.

The olive branch is still extended. I am not going to get into some war you want to win. I dont need to prove anything to you, or anyone else. My 'opinion' is just as valid as your 'opinion'.