Hi - Hold My Hand A While, I'm Scared Of You

[Helliepig]

I am a big believer that "when the pupil is ready, the master appears". Funny how EMDR came along for me just as I'd started to realise that the therapy I was doing, and that had sustained me with hope, was not going to do it. That's a scary place to sit, when your crutch no longer supports you.

What I have experienced is that when you feel up against a brick wall, it's not that you are truly stuck, but that something you believe with all your heart no longer works. Something has to die, some hope, some belief.Those of the moments of real steps forward, when you sit and say "OK I don't know anymore" cos then you have to open up your eyes to knew ideas and/or to trying something that previously you couldn't consider. And that's often when "the Master " steps in - if only you let yourself recognise it.

It's so easy to sit within the limits you set yourself and kid yourself you are working hard every day to beat the pain, but actually you are doing safe stuff. It's easy to get angry at other people for not understanding and not helping but really that is exactly what you are doing to yourself- neither understanding nor helping yourself! The true helping comes when something inside of you says "b*****r this, I'm going to step out of my limits.

It's hard for me to socialise, even though I can and do get on well with a lot of people - the pain is complex and about self esteem, belonging, intimacy, abuse triggers - I am still working through it. At one time I would let myself be beaten back by the intensity of my triggers because it was overpowering, incomprehensible, made everything feel utterly worthless and desperate. I would sit and home and feel sorry for myself, Now, it is a little easier because some of those issues have been explored and aren't so overwheming, but also, now, my attitude has changed. Although I can still feel awful shame etc, and can still be beaten back on occasions or even go into full scale retreat, some of the time now I can sit with it, almost wanting the triggers to fire so I can find the remaining parts of the trauma we need to work with. And because I want to beat it, I want to be out there. It is real change and healing I am after, not sitting at home rehearsing it.

I think it takes the right timing, the right experiences, the right support, the right therapy, hearing the right messages often enough, and getting the right understanding, to move from a place where you are almost defined by your trauma, where it is too overwhelming to do anything other than fire-fight, to one where you take the b****** by the horns and truly start breaking down some of those brick walls.

And paradoxically, although the deeper you go, the bleaker and more painful it gets, in some ways it gets easier because you have fought the beast and won on many occasions, and because some of the shit has been creamed off already.

Although I have been told I had cPTSD, I don't ever say that to myself. I don't believe labels are ever helpful because they are too rigid, people don't fit into catagories. They evolve and develop and their issues change. I tell myself that I dissociate, because that is something I DO in response to trauma, not something I AM. I have spent enough time trapped and resentful and missing out on life, I don't want to trap myself with a label. I plan to be healed and well some time soon, and make up for missing all that time, and letting all the crap sink into the past, where it belongs.

When you start to truly heal, I think you start to truly believe that this is possible. A year ago it was just a hope I went after with all my heart. At times now, I'm beginning to see it manifest.

 

[maddog]

Wow, yet again Helliepig you nail the truth so accurately and give me so much to think about.

I liked the part about the "up against a brick wall" feeling being indicative of the same old same old just not working anymore. I experienced this with brutal confrontation myself a while ago and can vividly remember the conversation I was having with T at the time. This was in the fairly early days, and boy oh boy, I was holding on tight to everything that used to work. How proud was I of the strong, unbreakable survivor I believed myself to be, and of the fact that I could work 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, doing three times as much as anyone else and never ever ever stopping or failing. I even had the lack of insight to be blathering on to him about this in a defensive "this is what I need to get back to" kind of way that actually makes me smile now. He, of course, listened politely, allowed me to vent my frustration, and then casually, almost offhandedly, asked me "so, does that still work for you?"

I missed the point at the time, I really did. But I got it some time shortly afterwards when we had our famous "you're done running Maddog" discussion, and it's always stayed with me as a signpost moment along the way. I guess that was when the pupil wandered in to see the master afterall. You have to be ready to go there though, and that's something that I think has to happen in its own time, or it won't happen at all.

And I really do relate to sometimes taking courage and reassurance from tackling the deep stuff. Honestly, I'm not sure I've really gone that far yet, as deep and dark as I think it gets, I know intuitively that there's much further to go, but even by my current standards I know that the courage I take from those experiences is as you describe, a sense that I've beaten some of the worst of the demons, so I'll be able to do it again... reminds me of one of my reassurance/coping statements which says that I've lived through the trauma once for real, and I survived, and it can never be any harder than that now.

Not thinking terribly clearly at 2.39am in the morning I'm afraid, but thanks again, you always make me think and reflect and ask myself the big questions, and that's always healthy... no matter what time of the day or night.

Maddog

 

[maddog]

Also forgot to say that I agree entirely about the unhelpfulness (is that even a word? of labels. Honestly, apart from the initial (and very earth-shattering) discussion when he explained to me what c/ptsd is etc, we haven't talked about the term or referred directly to it ever since, and I feel no need to. It is what it is, and emersing myself in the label and its implications is of no benefit to me. But then, I've never been big on diagnoses for the sake of them, in relation to physical or mental illness, I think too much effort goes into finding a label and hanging onto it, at the expense of the individual unique reality of the person's situation.

And in just rereading your post, I was thinking even more about that signpost time of realising that what used to work just didn't anymore. It's funny, but I think that one of the most profound and vulnerable statements I ever made was the first time I sat there and said "I don't knowhow to do this." Sounds like such a simple and childlike statement, but perhaps that was the whole point, and for me, the ultimate take charge survivor, to say something like that, had more significance than I could ever have known.

Sadly, I'm still saying it... God, I think I said it 2 days ago, but at least now I can. I guess that's an important step, an early preliminary step admittedly, but an important one anyway. I hope so...

Maddog

 

[Helliepig]

Hi chuck,
It's so important to signpost where you have big moments, when you realise something fundamental, like as you descibe. It's so easy to get lost in all of this you forget where you started. Sometimes that feels really painful, you feel like you have lost too much, it helps you if you can see what you lost as a thing that you have outgrown - even if there doesn't seem anything clear to replace it straightaway.

My previous T was a bit of a philosopher and liked to talk about paradoxes which figure a lot in this healing lark. He used to talk about, if you could allow yourself to be really weak, that in itself was actually a strength. Think of all those people out there still doing what you did 24/7 and never daring to take off the bright smile and frantic activity.

A lot of what you realise about yourself in therapy is the opposite of what you expect - or very different from what you expect .What you dread in finding in yourself - weakness and shame and madness, actually turns into huge strength because you have dared to look into yourself and be real, and because you realise your strength in surviving all of this stuff in the first place, when you were little and ignorant and unsupported and vulnerable.

The other saying I really like is " whatever is most personal is most general" -ie most people have the same worries deep down. Admittedly we had to deal with existential terrors at an age where we should have been playing happily with Barbies, and our psych has been damaged as a result, but everyone has existential fears. Most choose not to face them head on, we have no choice.

There is so much wisdom in some of the guys who went before. Some of them were just clever with words, but some of them suffered.....

I'll end with Henry Ford "whether you think you can, or you can't ...you are right"
Too right, Mr F, too right.

 

[ms spock]

I'm also trying to piece together all the things that have happened, making sense of who I am becoming and where I've been.

I spent years in therapy not making any real progress because nothing was strong enough to push me through into the core stuff... but I do feel sad at all those years of trying, all that effort and dedication, all the time it was like looking under the streetlamp for something I'd dropped over the other side of the road road, just cos it was easier there to see under the light!!

I so feel for you. I also tried so hard for so many years and it was dedicated trying. I worked very hard.
ms spock

 

[ms spock]

What is EMDR?

 

[ms spock]

What you dread in finding in yourself - weakness and shame and madness, actually turns into huge strength because you have dared to look into yourself and be real, and because you realise your strength in surviving all of this stuff in the first place, when you were little and ignorant and unsupported and vulnerable.

When you are real and someone else is real it is quite an amazing connection. You have expressed this all so well.
Ty
ms spock

 

[ms spock]

You groovers are quite amazing! Thank you for fleshing it out.
ms spock

 

[CraftyCath]

What is EMDR?

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. It's a type of Psychotherapy where the therapist moves his fingers back and forth in front of your eyes (not too close) and you follow the movement with your eyes, without moving your head.

You discuss a traumatic memory and then the therapist does the EMDR and you process that memory. I've been having EMDR for a while now. It leaves me exhausted and lots more memories come back after the EMDR but it works for me. Some people find it too much and others find it doesn't work for them. My therapist uses lots of other therapy's too, like EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique or tapping) and common sense.

Hope this helps MS Spock.

 

[Helliepig]

HI Ms Spock, dunno it will help but there's a couple of discussions about EMDR that I've come across "Emdr, I'm Giving It A Try" in the therapy section and another one I've read bu can't remember the title, in the same section.

 

[ms spock]

Thanks I was just wondering.
ms spock