How did you manage your feelings when you stopped dissociating?

[Deleted member 45251]

Also I totally agree with crazydiamond47 in terms of viewing your experience neutrally from a distance. Try to turn it into black and white and grainy like an old movie; or run it in fast forward with you as a remote viewer from a distance, like you are in a cinema seat or a projection room watching it on a big screen; then rewind and watch it backwards before playing it fast again. Play with the memory as much as you like to make it as comfortable for you to view as possible - like when we were kids and we used to watch horror movies from behind the couch. Imagine you are watching it happening to someone else, or move it as far away from you as you can and then bring it back towards you slowly, but at a speed you are comfortable with. When you are comfortable enough to watch the experience being played out in front of you in close up, turn off one of the senses - tell yourself you can't hear anything, or can't feel anything. You essentially need to desensitize yourself to the experience so that it no longer bothers you. Then your symptoms will cease. It can take a few attempts to find the right method for you. Also, don't let the flashbacks or images control you. If you start to experience one in a situation which is not convenient say outloud, or loudly in your head, 'No." Then get up and 'walk away from it' as if you were denying a badgering child your attention. I tell my practice clients that anxiety and fear is like a Jewish mother - it wants to hold you back, it wants to keep you under its wing, it wants to prevent you from moving on. But you want to move on and you don't want this Jewish mother nagging you all the time so just put your hand up, and say 'No' and put that nagging presence in its place making it plain you are in control.

 

[GleRu]

Writing helps me ease the pain when I am flooded by emotions. My feelings usually build until I am miserable, and then when I think I can't take anymore I find myself with a pen and journal. Sometimes I write for hours until I am completely exhausted mentally and physically, and this usually includes weeping and sometimes yelling, but when I'm finally exhausted I can then see/feel I have a path through the emotions. It's painful, but I don't think I'd still be here if I couldn't ease the pain in some way. Best wishes and lots of hope coming your way.

 

[EveHarrington]

Internal Family Systems Therapy. IFST.

Good stuff! It’s how I’m learning to manage my emotions.

I’m learning it on my own, without a therapist. Yes, it can be difficult at times (like right now when I’m feeling things I’ve never felt before and am not sure what to do), but since an IFST therapist isn’t an option at this time, I’ve chosen to do the work on my own.

 

[Suzetig]

Hi there, You don't need a therapist to get you to a safe place, but as a trainee registered clinical hypnotherapist focussed on PTSD who spent two years on the battlefront in Afghanistan (2010 - 2011) I can help.

This seems like a good place to remind everyone that we all post here in our private capacity, regardless of professional knowledge or experience. And to remind folk that this isn't a safe space in that we have no way of knowing who people are or that they are who they say they are.

Now I've got that out of the way @Sarah Y i can only assume you've never had a flashback. It's not a memory or a feeling, it's a reliving. It's not me standing back and watching myself being raped, it's physically and emotionally feeling every part of the rape again, including me silently screaming "stop" at my rapist, including me whispering "no" over and over again to no avail. Can you see how the idea that I use a stop technique or simply say "no" would just recreate the trauma further?

PTSD is incredibly complex and some folk do find benefit with hypnotherapy but it's not as simple as "use this breathing exercise, use this guided relaxation process or this technique".

Flashbacks are different to the emotions and feelings we have when we finally are able to feel. Those feelings need to be gone through I'm afraid, healing lies at the other side but the pain of knowing you were purposely hurt and abused is incredible and deserves respect, care and compassion.

 

[Deleted member 45251]

Hi there. I am posting in a personal capacity, offering a few methods which might help, as I know them and have used them myself. I have had flashbacks. I was in Afghanistan for two years, on the ground on combat missions. I am very aware it is a reliving when it happens and the disorientation is horrible. I have stood in fields at home and been unable to take a step forward as I had no idea if they had been mine cleared and have been screaming at my dogs not to move. So please don't make assumptions just because since returning from theatre I have decided to try to find a way to help myself and help others. The flashback is reliving. But by accessing the subconscious mind using hypnotherapy one is able to dissociate the reality and move oneself away from the incident while still being able to examine it and analyse it. The lady asked how to establish a safe place. That is done through breathing exercises and imagination. I was responding to crazydiamond47 regarding distancing oneself from the memory lodged in the hippocampus because he/she is right that that is the methods used when analysing and examining the event under hypnosis to minimise upset. As for the 'no' method I have seen it stop panic attacks in their tracks in 90 seconds. It disrupts the impulse from the brain and stops the cycle of feelings and physical effects. We are all only offering opinions here as to what has helped us and what we have seen help others. What works for one person doesn't necessarily work for others.

 

[The Albatross]

Diligent goal setting and mindfulness and stress relief/reduction til it became a behavior.

 

[Suzetig]

Hi there. I am posting in a personal capacity, offering a few methods which might help

All of which is fine, but your personal opinion was prefaced by your professional credentials and it's easy for folk to ascribe more weight than is appropriate or to forget that people can misrepresent themselves online.

In terms of what works, some of what you describe can actually increase symptoms because it acts as a form of exposure therapy. For example viewing your trauma as if on a screen, rewinding and replaying, making it appear as an old image etc exposes the individual to their trauma which can increase anxiety and emotion and potentially trigger the very flashbacks the individual is trying to stop in the first place.

I'm not saying these techniques don't work for some people, or that there's no value in hypnotherapy, it doesn't suit me but I know some folk got along with it just fine - I'm saying that you can't possibly know how your very detailed process might impact someone because you don't know where people who post here are in their journey.

So, you can say the "no" method works, stops flashbacks in 90 seconds, I say it's an awful technique in my book - both viewpoints are relevant and important to be represented.

 

[EveHarrington]

Hi there, You don't need a therapist to get you to a safe place, but as a trainee registered clinical h...

Hi,

People tend to bristle when professionals come here and give advice on a professional level, even if they do have PTSD.

I see it this way.

This is a peer to peer site for the most part, and I can pay for professional advice. I cannot ever pay for peer to peer advice from others who have been there. So, I tend to glaze over and move on when people post in a professional capacity.

 

[shimmerz]

Is it a specific exercise/visualisation etc you do with a therapist or is it just about thinking of something/somewhere on your own?

It is something like the guided visualization at the end of this video. Notice he engages senses? This is how I started to construct my 'safe place'.

How Your Brain Can Turn Anxiety into Calmness

 

[Dissociatorr]

Therapist got me to stop dissociating without a net. It's a defense mechanism. You have to have something else to put in it's place if you have CPTSD. I wasn't able to stop crying, couldn't work. Work makes me happy. So therapy was just retraumatizing me. I found another therapist. We work on the material in session. I feel, I remember, I hate it, and then I put it in an imaginary box and go on with my life until the next week. I'm getting better! I have noticed clarity. I can see where I am, as in what direction I'm facing and how to get somewhere without a gps or getting lost. (Never in my life!) I was able to create an entire spreadsheet with formulas and everything. A first! I have to use them at work but avoid them like the plague.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

Now it isn’t happening. I am much more present.

Hi, I am late to this, and glad you made this thread. A therapist told me a very long time ago that whenever I do not feel safe I dissociate so I have been working on helping me to feel safe more since then and I not longer have dissociated yet.

How do you tolerate feeling all the feelings?

The intensity of the feelings is very hard to cope with for me and I use my diary to fully get my feelings out there and express it all, eventually the feelings do pass away and I usually feel better some time after that and this is really helping me so very much because I get very good safe support which has made the process so much more bearable for me. It has been working very well for me and I am just now getting slowly in touch with my angry feelings toward my abusive father.

Does anyone have any advice?

Find what best works for you in feeling and getting the feelings that you are feeling out of you in some real and tangible way if possible and continue with therapy.

Any thoughts or tips welcome.

Keep yourself safe at all times and have a really good self care plan. I wish you the very best and think that you are doing very well. It takes a lot of spunk and courage to feel the intense emotions and deal with the aftermath.:hug:

 

[Saywhat]

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....

Whelp. The only reason I go to counseling is that when those feelings come, I become a pile of goo. I now stay quite disengaged from people because that gives me privacy. Or, better, dignity. There isn't any dignity in being the person who suddenly starts crying for no discernible reason. So, for sure, those feelings don't hurt me, don't kill me, don't throw me into a flashback. Nothing serious like that. They just massively inhibit my ability to fully engage with people. So, really? I'm supposed to embrace that crap? Yeah. No.

Therapist got me to stop dissociating without a net. It's a defense mechanism. You have to have something else to...

<3 <3 <3 I love what you said about clarity and being able to find your way around. And in 10 extremely difficult therapy sessions, we never got to a box. Just visit after visit, me disgorging experiences and uncovering memories. It. Was Awful. But it also helped. But it would have been super wonderful if we'd ever talked about how to stuff that stuff back into the dark corners, in a box, but with a KEY that enabled me to access them in a planned fashion.