How Would You Describe The Feeling Of Trauma Resolving?

[Hashi]

I'm wondering how other people experience their trauma being processed and resolving.

For me, this is about trauma experiences moving into the past rather than being in the present. By being in the present I mean what I would call "activated" - still active in body, brain, psyche or emotions. How do you experience this? What is it that tells you a trauma experience is resolved? Or that it's heading that way?

For me this process has been a very gradual shift. Things moving a little more into the past, then a little more and so on. So I was aware of some things feeling, say, 80% in the past but still 20% in the present. And that was great progress from my starting point all that time ago, when it was more like only 1% in the past.

I can't really describe how I assess this. It's pure feeling. The most objective I can get is things like, how sick did it make me feel a month ago and how sick does it make me feel now? But really it's an overall sense.

I'm also aware of the words I unconsciously use and what these represent. For example, I've always referred to myself as a survivor but not in the sense of having survived - in the sense of currently working on surviving. Like an actor is someone who is acting, and a producer is someone working on production.

A couple of days ago I suddenly felt how the last thing I worked on, which has been intensely awful to deal with, was resolved. Not 80%, but completely in the past. No longer something I was dealing with but something that happened. Something I survived. It wasn't only the words but also the feeling of them. The feeling of the past tense was overwhelming. This is new, the past tense being so firmly and absolutely attached to something from trauma. When I thought about the thing that happened, it was with a sense of peace.

Later in my dream diary I noticed that instead of writing that something "made me think of X" [the trauma experience] I'd written that it made me think of "the memory of X". The memory of??!!!

So, whatever you feel about the process you use - EMDR, exposure therapy, somatic therapy, talk therapy etc - what is your feeling of the trauma resolving? Is it a feeling of it going into the past or is it something different? How would you describe it? How do you know it has resolved, or is starting to?

 

[digger]

I'm nowhere near being so far along in the process so can't really answer the question, but thank you for posting this - it gives me some hope and some idea of what I'm (hopefully) working towards.

 

[cherryblossom]

For me it was when the memoires and emotions gradually became less over-whelming and less all-encompassing.

'Before', the emotions and memories were raw, and yes, to some extent I was stuck in the past, rather than it being a memory from the past. So the emotional pain, the stress, the anxiety, and the panic, etc, etc, were all at a similar level to how they were during the trauma, or directly afterwards when it came to guilt, shame, fear.

Processing those memories and emotions dampened all those emotions. They gradually became less intrusive, less over-whelming.

It's really hard to describe. . . .maybe I'll come back to this another time.

 

[arfie]

Sometimes I have epiphanies -those Aha Moments- where a switch flips and the blinding light goes out and the glare effects start leaving my vision. More often it comes in small, unspectacular increments. Being able to experience a reminder without a surge of adrenaline. Being able to talk to somebody who looks like my father without wondering I he is a bi-sexual pedophile. Realizing that memories don't make me do anything. I have the power to decide my reaction to the memory. A memory only has the power I give it.

I believe a trauma is resolved when I can rummage through nearby memories without being distracted by the trauma. Turns out I lost allot of precious memories in my quest to avoid the traumatic memories.

The feeling? More liberating than a Gloria Steinem convention!

 

[Deleted member 1860]

I think you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned the trauma finally being in the past. I processed my trauma in an intensive 2 week span of 35 hours a week of individual therapy in an intensive trauma therapy program. I know this is different than most other people, as there are only a few of these programs in existence to my knowledge.

My processing involved repeated exercises to emphasize that the trauma is over. I think that this is a key part of processing, as a large part of PTSD is simply our minds getting stuck in the past. ITT (intensive trauma therapy) emphasized a complete picture to me so that my mind stopped reliving that one moment in time. Instead of simply thinking about "the trauma", I was reminded that there were happy times before and happy times afterward. Now, instead of getting stuck on the moment of trauma, my mind quickly switches to one of the happy events that I experienced post-trauma.

The change for me was a lot quicker than most, due to the structure of my therapy. I was able to see the change in myself within the first week of processing, and my family noticed a great difference when I returned home after two weeks.

I was traumatized when I was only 4 years old, so it is understandable to me that I still have lingering symptoms such as thought rumination, heightened anxiety, and trust issues being the worst of them.

It is frustrating when I see a new therapist and she insists that I need to continue to dig into my past because I am still symptomatic. By my way of thinking, the symptoms related to the trauma aren't going to simply go away because I've resolved the memory of the trauma itself. These responses are so ingrained in me that it is going to take a lot more work beyond processing in order to control my reactions to events. I know that some say this is a continued part of processing, but I do not see it that way. I am working by the three step trauma recovery model (safety/stabilization, processing, reintegration with normal life...or something like that!) and if my mind thinks that I'm still in processing mode, then I won't work on returning to normal life, which is where my emphasis needs to be right now. I know that the three steps overlap at times, and you can jump back a step or so even if you've moved on to a later step, but I know I am in the third step right now and will not go back to digging into the trauma itself.

 

[Lady of Longbourn]

My memories of the rapes are fading. They seem far away and fuzzy. I am sure that if triggered by a movie or asked a point blank question would make me upset but on a daily, weekly bases I have shown a lot of improvement. Also, my dreams have started changing. Sometimes they are bad dreams, but lately they start out bad and end with something hysterically funny happening. I haven't had that in a few months however.

I also seem to be able to handle a bit more. I have been a staff member for a year now and that is getting easier probably from practice and more patience but also I am able to keep more emotions in check and get less triggered. I also think it's becasue I have improved a lot in the last year.

I am having more issues with childhood these days and I am working through that. But I think that is more about me forgiving myself and feeling compassion for the little me and less about trauma.

Still some ways to go but I am doing it. Thanks for the thread, it's reminded me that I have made progress.

 

[JustBe]

When I have just resolved something that I've buried far too deep for far too long I become physically Ill. It feels like the flu.

I drink tons of water and go to sleep in a dark room. I'm usually wiped out for days after but it's worth it.

 

[Venusian]

I have noticed that all the details don't come back all at once when the memory hits me in the face. It used to be overwhelming and now when I have to get through it I don't have to relive all of it. When I first began to talk about "it",it was hard to talk about in the past tense, now it is in the past. I can talk to doctors about what happened a lot easier. They need to know what happened because there were physical repercussions I am just now discovering. There is still a long way to go but when I look back at what I wrote when I first came here I can see how far I have come.

 

[EvenStrongerNow]

For me, I knew my first trauma was processed when my memories of it were more stable than my emotions about it. If I could paint it, it would be a mama circle to represent the memories, and a baby circle to represent the emotions. The mama circle used to be small and the baby circle really large and all encompassing. Now, the mama circle is very large and holds the baby circle in her arms constantly telling the baby that she is safe. The baby believes her every time.

I felt that I had gotten my childhood back. It is mine and nobody can take it from me anymore. I still have memories that make the baby circle expand a bit, but the mama circle is aware of how the baby feels all the time now and can stroke her to a place of calm--while still taking care of business.

I also felt put back together in my brain from my childhood trauma all the way up to just before my last trauma, which I haven't processed yet. Right now, there is a big bad shape shifting circle who is bigger than the mama circle. She can still keep the baby circle protected and feeling safe, but the mama circle is secretly battling with the big bad circle.

Urgh. I hope this makes sense.

 

[franciemarnie]

I remember prior to diagnosis being at work about 20 years ago and having the bizarre visceral sense that if I left my desk and went downstairs and hailed a cab and drove 30 miles north to my childhood home, I would walk in the door and find my family and me right there in 1972.

I could feel it all still happening in a parallel reality. I knew it wasn't true but the felt sense of it was discombobulating-ly real. It was maddening and made me so sad because I felt if I could only find that wrinkle in time, I could slip back in and fix it. It felt within reach though I intellectually knew it was in the past.

I worked in realty once and checked the history of purchase there and though it was in a great neighborhood etc., it had a history of turning over constantly and had been empty for a while. I thought perhaps irrationally - that's because of the residual trauma energy playing over and over there. No one would be at peace.

I've always had a sense of physical proximity to old traumas still being played out in a parallel reality close by - like down the hall or a block away.

When resolved, they feel on the other side of the planet. So far away I can't feel them anymore.

 

[Marf]

Wow, this thread is interesting! I like how everyone is describing it. I agree with what everyone has already said. However, I need to add one detail: I know how well I have processed the trauma by how much it effects my present day life.

 

[Seasounds]

What is your feeling of the trauma resolving? Is it a feeling of it going into the past or is it something different? How would you describe it? How do you know it has resolved, or is starting to?

Initialing, I did relaxation with regression work coupled with healing imagery. Now I let current circumstances lead me to events, that I may need to re-address.

I can now (via developing the skills) heal those past traumas through current time mindbody therapeutic work (e.g. Craniosacral therapy, Alexander technique, Jungian and Psychoanalytic Therapy, Gestalt Therapy techniques, imaginary work, neurological retraining through self defense classes.) This is helpful in that I don't need to collapse my psychophysical ego structure-that happened in regression work, to release pain and integrate new healing.

I can tell traumas are healed by nightmares ceasing, clearer thinking, faster multitasking, happier dispositions, feeling better about myself, better association, being able to stay connected to my intentions longer, improved creativity, more social, better tolerance-of everything, and having freer body movements.

Events that I thought I resolved, still may bubble up, but with less frequency and less intensity. The benefit of growing older is having more skills in my pocket.;):joyful: