Hello to my new PTSD Friends! Just found this site recently and this is my first post. This thread is really relevant to my current experience in therapy and I wanted to share that with y'all.
A little background to set the scene: I have been seeing my current therapist for 8 years. While we have had plenty to talk about during that time period, it is only in the last few months that I have been able to even kind of broach the subject of the ongoing sexual, physical and emotional (all boxes checked, unfortunately) abuse that happened throughout my childhood. And, the only reason it came up for me is that my executive functioning was becoming increasingly impaired from spontaneous dissociation. It resulted in short-term amnesia, which made remembering everyday things like paying bills, meeting deadlines, completing or just even remembering my assignments in the first place, almost impossible. For the first time I was overdrawn at the bank and late on the electricity bill. And the utilities. And the insurance. And, and, and...the list goes on. Anyway, a family gathering over the holidays triggered some ugly flashbacks and add to that the stress of potentially losing my husband in a risky, yet medically necessary surgery and voila! I am opening up to Tdoc about that which cannot be named.
Ok, fast forward to this past month. Enter somatic therapy experience that has absolutely rocked my world and lifted my healing to previously unimaginable and accelerated levels.
Prior to current T, I had been in and out of talk therapy for decades. It helped to a certain extent, but something was always lacking. We were helping the mind, but ignored the fact that said mind is attached to a body and that needs to be incorporated if healing is to truly take hold and sink in on a cellular level. Unlocking the trauma that got frozen there.
So after 8 years of building trust for such a time as this, T suggested we do some holding to help the younger parts of me that are emerging feel safe and nurtured.
So far we've got Six year old, Nine year old and 16 year old versions of me (coincidentally the ages match the point the trauma occurred and got stuck in time) and they are all terrified and don't know what a hug that lasts more than 20 seconds would feel like because, well, none of them ever had that experience before.
Everything was done in a gentle and incredibly respectful way with permission asked and granted to sit next to me on the couch. Then the question: would you like me to put my arms around you? A nod in the affirmative and I was esconced in arms that held me so protectively and lovingly that I felt like I was being held by God and a heavenly host of angels. Like some portal to the Divine opened up to cradle my existence. It was amazing and scary and needed and hopeful and bat-crap terrifying all at once.
Then, the shaking started. Involuntary trembling so intense I thought I would vibrate right off the couch. T had a good hold though and, after a long while of tremors ripping through me, my body relaxed in her arms. Then, more shaking and relaxing; shaking then relaxing until after about 40 minutes of this, the shaking subsided and I was finally able to feel peace, maybe for the first time ever.
It has been a few sessions now of shaking and sharing and relaxing and stillness in the arms of this compassionate T. Six year old has even felt brave enough to share details of what happened to her that she has never told a living soul. It is amazing how being held and cherished while sharing something so intimately painful and secretive is absolutely transfiguring.
This is only my experience and what is working for me, as you know. May not work for everyone. Yet, in my little world, it is the most meaningful experience of therapy I have ever had. It feels like the piece that has been missing all along has been found. So simple, being held and nurtured and loved, yet so succinctly meeting an ancient need, an existential longing, that should have been met decades ago by family but was not.
An unmet necessity of life locked in time, suspended and almost forgotten. Almost, until an intuitive T took a chance and dared to break through all the darkness to find me and to simply hold me. Showing me how Love Wins.
It's an ongoing process to be sure. Will keep you posted on the non-linear trek to wholeness and the bumps and bruises along the way if you are interested. Thank you for letting me share this turning point in my journey. It is so nice to feel so NOT alone right now.
Be well, Friends.
