I journal, but therapist isn't happy at that

[Applecore]

Sorry to hear about your experience with your mother :/.

Thank you, I am very much resolved with my mother having brought her in to family counselling for a few sessions.

'thoughts are of the ego abd therefore bad'.

And the rest. How about: "Everything is an illusion, so my traumatic past is an illusion, my child abuse is an illusion, my rapes are an illusion, my miscarriages are illusion, so my feelings are an illusion, I am an illusion, you are an illusion, but the cult is not an illusion because some things are less of an illusion than others, and if the cult tells me who to marry I will marry him even if he abuses you because the cult says we are walking hand in hand on the path to full consciousness which is transcendence of illusion, and so we must write the cult into our will."

Laughing about it now. Empathy helped me to understand and forgive my mother. She couldn't cope, and that was her way.

Fortunately George Orwell and Aldous Huxley were on my high school reading list, which also helped.

 

[Applecore]

Something that annoys me is when your (now former?) T implies that you are only allowed to keeps a journal if it manages your pstd symptoms. I mean it's nice if it does that but I do journaling simply because it gives me a narrative to my life. In the long run it probably helps to deal with trauma too but mostly it's about 'slices of life': good, bad and the banal. Someone keeps a diary, another draws and third makes a poem. It's about expressing oneself, not simply a symptom management method.

Also, journaling can help relieve the classic C/PTSD symptom of mentally re-churning over the traumatic event (rumination) which can get in the way of our day. If we write or type up the thought, it can contain it so that we don't have to go over it in our minds infinitely. It's like using a tissue for a few seconds rather than walking around with a running nose for hours. So helpful.

 

[Freddyt]

I have always found my journal is more about helping me see things in a different light.....and many times that leads to seeing the trees instead of the forest....seeing that it may not be like this but like that instead.

 

[Applecore]

I have always found my journal is more about helping me see things in a different light.....and many times that leads to seeing the trees instead of the forest....seeing that it may not be like this but like that instead.

Very well said. By journaling, sometimes we get to see what we are thinking, and by reading back our journal we get to see how our thinking may be part of the problem, and the solution.

 

[Friday]

I have always found my journal is more about helping me see things in a different light.....and many times that leads to seeing the trees instead of the forest....seeing that it may not be like this but like that instead.

Translating things into words… is a powerful thing. Especially if one doesn’t THINK in words.