NovemberStar
Platinum Member
Sorry it's long. I need to write the back story to make it clear for myself firstly.
I'm currently trying to face one of my deeper traumas - abandonment and being left to 'cope' with being very traumatised as a child and having NO ONE.
In all honesty I do not know for sure what the underlying trauma is. I've only had flashbacks of the immediate aftermath - where I run to my bedroom and shut myself in my bedroom cupboard and wish myself to die, because I felt so completely ALONE and completely overwhelmed. I had no escape - and realised I really do have NO ONE and nothing will ever get better. I was 9 or 10 years old. It might have been following my mother punctually hitting me, or coming home from across the road after my friends brother molested me. I've had flashbacks of feeling the trauma in that bedroom, the same event from a hundred different perspectives / viewpoints, for the past year. The flashbacks are not in the house where my mother died - she died while we were in holiday at my grandmas house. We returned home 5 days after mum died.
It also possible the trauma relates to my mothers sudden death. I was 10 years old and saw her fatal heart attack. I had NO support after she died. I wasn't even told in a nice kind way. No one sat me down to talk of heaven and angels and her being at peace. I was told "she's dead". I had NO support in the hours or days afterwards. NONE. Not one adult sat me down, asked me how I was. I didn't get one single hug. I was back at school as usual within 6 days. I was teased at school for having a mother "rotting in the ground with the worms"'. My father was always incredibly emotionally shut off - that did not change.
My mother died 8pm on a Saturday night. Sunday morning, my sister and I were sent away to stay with Mums best friend and her husband. We were forced to spend the day around a nationwide fundraiser (a Telethon) around festivities and happy dancing people. Mums friends were helping organise it. It never occurred to them to perhaps cancel their commitments and take care of us instead.
I spent the day lost, afraid, trying to grieve, and had no one. I don't even remember them getting us lunch. I remember a boy on the playground saying to me 'why aren't you going to play??!!!'. I just stood and stared and said very quietly "my mum just died''. He shrugged and walked off. My sister and I were made to stay the night at their house. I remember feeling so angry because I just wanted to GO HOME - so I told them - over dinner - exactly what Mum's face and body looked like as she had her heart attack. It was the only way I knew how to hurt them. I can still recall the shocked looks on their faces like it happened an hour ago.
I remember having at least one waking nightmare about her death after she died. I dreamed she wasn't really dead and she walked in the front door. I woke only to remember it was just a dream but it was so real it really upset me. I had already had dissociation prior to her death due to the abuse; so I probably ALREADY had PTSD. Certainly don't recall any 'new' symptoms. Had already had suicidal thoughts and feelings and depression, and I suspect flashbacks from as far back as I can remember.
Fast forward: my T is going away on holiday next month for a month. I won't see her for 5 weeks. It's bringing up really huge fears and terror - whenever I've come close to being in touch with the 'Something' , I have been so traumatised by the mere existence, I've relapsed severely into anorexia and had to be hospitalised for it twice for re-feeding as a well as a night in the cardiac ward in the last 3 years.
The 'Something'' doesn't even has words - I tried drawing it once but it's bigger than the world; bigger than ANYTHING. It's so big it isn't name-able.
All I know is my T going away has triggered a huge fear she will die suddenly on me. Thinking about her going away for just a month leads me to dissociate and get really dizzy. But I think my ultimate fear is she will die. Besides my mother, I've had other people suddenly die on me - a number of suicides from when I was 19-25 years old and in PTSD already (misdiagnosed then however).
***trigger mentions suicides and methods ***
A guy I lived with gassed himself in his car. I helped the staff clean out his room and pack his things up.
A close friend I really loved killed herself by jumping off a cliff into the sea - she took a taxi FROM the psych ward and the taxi guy only rang the police because she wasn't going to pay the fare. She jumped anyway.
Two of my friends' boyfriends killed themselves also (Another car exhaust and the same cliffs).
And the very first psych. Dr I had killed himself 3 weeks after I began seeing him. He drove his wife to the same cliffs and jumped off in front of her on a nice Sunday afternoon. I was at the day program where he worked every day so got told the next day what he did. They never found his body - it was in the newspaper the helicopter had sighted it but couldn't retrieve it before it was washed further out to sea.
***end trigger ***
(The same Dr who is diagnosed me as having BPD I might add - although it took years for me to think 'hey, maybe, given the fact he killed himself, he was so sick himself he really didn't know what he was doing'. It helped me feel validated that he was wrong).
Tonight's I had the thought that I think I might need to grieve my T's possible death WITH her, just in case she does die suddenly. To have the conversations with her I never had with my mum. We did talk a little about it today - it sort of helped when she said she would hope I would continue on with the work she and I had started together.
She also tried to say she isn't unique, that there are many other T's out there who can hear me and validate me - I get why she said that but I'm NOT there yet - she is irreplaceable to me and there HASN'T been another T in all 20 years of therapy that has 'got it' like she has.
I had the idea - could I ask her to write me a letter 'just in case' and give it to me now so IF she died suddenly I'd have her words if encouragement. Don't know if I will ask her that, but I wild like to talk to her and hear some encouraging words and have her tell me she believes in me and that I COULD survive her sudden death if it happened.
Sort of like an exposure therapy?
Facing the fear of losing her but while I HAVE her to work it through with?
I'm not necessarily afraid she will kill herself (although it's impossible to know that for sure - my psychiatrist worked in a large work environment with multiple psych nurses and consultant psychiatrists and no one saw that coming). But I worry about car accidents (I live in a country so small every single road accident causing serious injury or death is breaking news nation-wide - I am not exaggerating). I worry her plane will crash, or she will be killed when on the other side of the world on her holiday.
Questions:
Has anyone else had those same fears / sudden death fears following trauma from sudden loss / abandonment?
Anyone grieved the loss of their T, WITH their T, just in case?
I'm ask so afraid she might not want to go there - why would she want to talk about her sudden death with ME? Not exactly a cheery conversation and not everyne wants to consider their own mortality, much less with a client?
I'm currently trying to face one of my deeper traumas - abandonment and being left to 'cope' with being very traumatised as a child and having NO ONE.
In all honesty I do not know for sure what the underlying trauma is. I've only had flashbacks of the immediate aftermath - where I run to my bedroom and shut myself in my bedroom cupboard and wish myself to die, because I felt so completely ALONE and completely overwhelmed. I had no escape - and realised I really do have NO ONE and nothing will ever get better. I was 9 or 10 years old. It might have been following my mother punctually hitting me, or coming home from across the road after my friends brother molested me. I've had flashbacks of feeling the trauma in that bedroom, the same event from a hundred different perspectives / viewpoints, for the past year. The flashbacks are not in the house where my mother died - she died while we were in holiday at my grandmas house. We returned home 5 days after mum died.
It also possible the trauma relates to my mothers sudden death. I was 10 years old and saw her fatal heart attack. I had NO support after she died. I wasn't even told in a nice kind way. No one sat me down to talk of heaven and angels and her being at peace. I was told "she's dead". I had NO support in the hours or days afterwards. NONE. Not one adult sat me down, asked me how I was. I didn't get one single hug. I was back at school as usual within 6 days. I was teased at school for having a mother "rotting in the ground with the worms"'. My father was always incredibly emotionally shut off - that did not change.
My mother died 8pm on a Saturday night. Sunday morning, my sister and I were sent away to stay with Mums best friend and her husband. We were forced to spend the day around a nationwide fundraiser (a Telethon) around festivities and happy dancing people. Mums friends were helping organise it. It never occurred to them to perhaps cancel their commitments and take care of us instead.
I spent the day lost, afraid, trying to grieve, and had no one. I don't even remember them getting us lunch. I remember a boy on the playground saying to me 'why aren't you going to play??!!!'. I just stood and stared and said very quietly "my mum just died''. He shrugged and walked off. My sister and I were made to stay the night at their house. I remember feeling so angry because I just wanted to GO HOME - so I told them - over dinner - exactly what Mum's face and body looked like as she had her heart attack. It was the only way I knew how to hurt them. I can still recall the shocked looks on their faces like it happened an hour ago.
I remember having at least one waking nightmare about her death after she died. I dreamed she wasn't really dead and she walked in the front door. I woke only to remember it was just a dream but it was so real it really upset me. I had already had dissociation prior to her death due to the abuse; so I probably ALREADY had PTSD. Certainly don't recall any 'new' symptoms. Had already had suicidal thoughts and feelings and depression, and I suspect flashbacks from as far back as I can remember.
Fast forward: my T is going away on holiday next month for a month. I won't see her for 5 weeks. It's bringing up really huge fears and terror - whenever I've come close to being in touch with the 'Something' , I have been so traumatised by the mere existence, I've relapsed severely into anorexia and had to be hospitalised for it twice for re-feeding as a well as a night in the cardiac ward in the last 3 years.
The 'Something'' doesn't even has words - I tried drawing it once but it's bigger than the world; bigger than ANYTHING. It's so big it isn't name-able.
All I know is my T going away has triggered a huge fear she will die suddenly on me. Thinking about her going away for just a month leads me to dissociate and get really dizzy. But I think my ultimate fear is she will die. Besides my mother, I've had other people suddenly die on me - a number of suicides from when I was 19-25 years old and in PTSD already (misdiagnosed then however).
***trigger mentions suicides and methods ***
A guy I lived with gassed himself in his car. I helped the staff clean out his room and pack his things up.
A close friend I really loved killed herself by jumping off a cliff into the sea - she took a taxi FROM the psych ward and the taxi guy only rang the police because she wasn't going to pay the fare. She jumped anyway.
Two of my friends' boyfriends killed themselves also (Another car exhaust and the same cliffs).
And the very first psych. Dr I had killed himself 3 weeks after I began seeing him. He drove his wife to the same cliffs and jumped off in front of her on a nice Sunday afternoon. I was at the day program where he worked every day so got told the next day what he did. They never found his body - it was in the newspaper the helicopter had sighted it but couldn't retrieve it before it was washed further out to sea.
***end trigger ***
(The same Dr who is diagnosed me as having BPD I might add - although it took years for me to think 'hey, maybe, given the fact he killed himself, he was so sick himself he really didn't know what he was doing'. It helped me feel validated that he was wrong).
Tonight's I had the thought that I think I might need to grieve my T's possible death WITH her, just in case she does die suddenly. To have the conversations with her I never had with my mum. We did talk a little about it today - it sort of helped when she said she would hope I would continue on with the work she and I had started together.
She also tried to say she isn't unique, that there are many other T's out there who can hear me and validate me - I get why she said that but I'm NOT there yet - she is irreplaceable to me and there HASN'T been another T in all 20 years of therapy that has 'got it' like she has.
I had the idea - could I ask her to write me a letter 'just in case' and give it to me now so IF she died suddenly I'd have her words if encouragement. Don't know if I will ask her that, but I wild like to talk to her and hear some encouraging words and have her tell me she believes in me and that I COULD survive her sudden death if it happened.
Sort of like an exposure therapy?
Facing the fear of losing her but while I HAVE her to work it through with?
I'm not necessarily afraid she will kill herself (although it's impossible to know that for sure - my psychiatrist worked in a large work environment with multiple psych nurses and consultant psychiatrists and no one saw that coming). But I worry about car accidents (I live in a country so small every single road accident causing serious injury or death is breaking news nation-wide - I am not exaggerating). I worry her plane will crash, or she will be killed when on the other side of the world on her holiday.
Questions:
Has anyone else had those same fears / sudden death fears following trauma from sudden loss / abandonment?
Anyone grieved the loss of their T, WITH their T, just in case?
I'm ask so afraid she might not want to go there - why would she want to talk about her sudden death with ME? Not exactly a cheery conversation and not everyne wants to consider their own mortality, much less with a client?
