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How did you manage your feelings when you stopped dissociating?

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barefoot

MyPTSD Pro
I wasn’t sure whether to put this here on in the Therapy section. I opted for here as I think this is the main underlying issue, even though it generally impacts most in therapy. Happy for mods to move it if it should be elsewhere.


So...I haven’t dissociated in about six months. I am not thinking this necessarily means it is gone for good - or maybe it is, who knows?!

I used to dissociate a lot in therapy whenever we so much as even dipped the very tiny tip of a toe into the deeper, historical work. The episodes would be pretty brutal and would floor me for a week.

Now it isn’t happening. I am much more present. This is obviously good therapeutic progress. And it feels absolutely horrendous!

How do you tolerate feeling all the feelings? It just feels so unbearable and I don’t know what to do with them. I know it is A Good Thing that I’m not dissociating at the moment and it must mean that I don’t “need” to. But it doesn’t feel good and I feel so lost.

Does anyone have any advice? Or is it just (!) a case of keep going to sessions and sitting with the unbearability and my tolerance will gradually increase?

Any thoughts or tips welcome. I am really struggling with this but also wonder if I am just being impatient and looking for answers when the reality is that I just have to buckle in and ride it out for however long that takes.
 
Yea....I'm in the same boat. This "feel your feelings" crap sucks. T is all excited she finally got me to crack the door open a little but I'm not a fan so far.

She promises it will get better as I process them but warned me it's not going to be fast or easy. I guess for now it falls under...

Buckle Up Buttercup - this is gonna suck.
 
Hi there.

My advice,what my T had me do,is learn to sit with the feelings,allowing yourself to feel them and realizing they're not going to hurt/kill you.And yes,build up a tolerance to them,which can take such a long time.

Feeling is such a hard thing to do when you're not used to it.And at first everything seems/feels so extreme.Being happy can feel overwhelmingly euphoric,feeling sad can feel like you're in the depths of hell.But eventually it all balances itself out.
 
Thanks for the replies, both.

T is all excited she finally got me to crack the door open a little but I'm not a fan so far.

Exactly. T keeps telling me what great progress it is and I KNOW she’s right - it just FEELS awful! And I think I want her to be able to help to make it not feel so hard. But I guess I am realising that isn’t really anything else she can do to make it all feel better. She doesn’t have a magic wand, alas. And feeling better is clearly going to have to mean feeling a whole lot worse first. And it has felt far from great for the past three years so the thought of it now ramping up and feeling a lot harder is quite overwhelming.

Buckle Up Buttercup - this is gonna suck

Yeah....sigh...

sit with the feelings,allowing yourself to feel them and realizing they're not going to hurt/kill you.

Yes, my T often says that the psyche won’t allow anything that I can’t manage. The world isn’t going to come crashing down. I am not going to break. So, if dissociation has stopped (whether that’s for now or forever) and the feelings are coming, I have to try to find a way to trust that I am strong enough for them.

everything seems/feels so extreme

Yes, this is so true. I think I thought that, if dissociation disappeared, it would be a gradual process. And instead it just feels like BAM!
 
my T often says that the psyche won’t allow anything that I can’t manage

Mine blathers on about the same thing! I think shes lying and the minute I let my feelings out I'm going to dissolve into a pile of goo. She keeps insisting that can't happen but still....

She doesn’t have a magic wand, alas.
This is a running joke between me and T. If she would just get out the wand and fairy dust I would be all better.

I can't tell you how much it helps just to know that there are others going through this too...
 
I spent a ton of time constructing my 'safe place'. Learning how to train my mind to shift gears and practicing how to have that 'safe place feeling' run through every cell of my body. I also use Ho'oponopono if my thoughts are going erratic (inner critic stuff).

So yeah, I learned how to replace one feeling with a newly constructed other feeling.

I have gotten to the point as well, where I can mindfully dissociate from a triggering event. It is kind of like my go to for stress reduction. If I know something is triggering then I can catch it prior to it's having to be dealt with and ask trusted people to offload the stress by taking over for me. Then I just remove myself from the event (as much as I can). All sorts of tricks.....

Also
Not so certain that this is true.

Yes, my T often says that the psyche won’t allow anything that I can’t manage.
I would say that if you have that 'I am going to snap into a million pieces' feeling, then your therapist should be being more proactive with this. She/He should be providing you with coping strategies on how to ground out of that feeling.
 
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I spent a ton of time constructing my 'safe place'.

I see quite a few people post here about their “safe place.” It’s not something I’ve ever done. Is it a specific exercise/visualisation etc you do with a therapist or is it just about thinking of something/somewhere on your own?

I have gotten to the point as well, where I can mindfully dissociate from a triggering event

That sounds useful!

I would say that if you have that 'I am going to snap into a million pieces' feeling, then your therapist should be being more proactive with this.

I don’t think I am having that feeling. It’s not really feeling as though I absolutely cannot cope and it’s going to break me. It’s more about it just feeling hard and horrible and excruciating. And excruciating feels awful. It sometimes feels so unbearable. But it’s not about feeling that it will destroy me. If that makes sense?
 
Safe place is somewhere you can picture in your mind that feels safe - it can be imaginary or real. Whatever works. We did some safer place work when I first started therapy. But then I’d dissociate. Oops! Lol. So we’ve left that for a bit. Love this discussion. You’re all way ahead of me so it’s nice learning from you.
 
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