If You Didn't Have A Chance To Build A Self Before Complex Trauma

[rightkindofme]

I hope that you are seeing a trauma based specialist.

I am! I am seeing a woman who opened one of the first complex trauma centers in the US. :)

 

[ms spock]

I think we often go around in circles and then take off at high speed for a bit and then circle again for a while and so it goes on. Some of us are in a circle stage whilst others are speeding and then it swaps around. I think we all have very unique paths to travel and places we need to go. I think you might be about to get to a speeding ahead phase.

I do so hope so Abstract, but I will be so grateful for small incremental improvements. I would be delighted to have those.

What I have read about resilience indicates that if there is just one person a child can go to who is reliable and supportive that it has a hugely protective effect when it comes to being traumatised. The absence of having a emotionally available and safe person is very detrimental.

It is indeed. Is there any literature that addresses this that you know of - how do you create and heal when there was pretty much no one or no one?

Just to be clear Ms Spock. I was just pointing out that I personally don't think that trying to be exactly who we are before trauma is helpful to anyone. It wasn't in any way not acknowledging that finding a way forward when we have never had a basic knowledge of who we are is going to be more difficult. I hope I put that better and clearly. :)

I do get what you are saying. It isn't easy either way. And thanks for clarifying that.

I had in my head that it was extra hard to do it without a prior self but it seems people are doing it so I need to buckle down and get a move on.

Being changed by trauma doesn't stop us being a self though. If you look at your description of who you define sense of self it is about knowing who you are and who you feel and being able to feel that and feel solid. The effects they mention were about tendencies to anxiety etc if I remember. It's good to speak through all your thoughts.

I don't know who I am, I don't know what I feel a lot of the time. I had a good cry about my family so I did feel solid in that. Grief about the trauma is coming up.

Sorry Ms Spock. I did'n't in any way mean that in a whinny way! Just in a slightly clarifying way as I wasn't quite sure of what you meant with this first quote here and was guessing that you were saying you didn't agree with what I said before. I didn't mind that if that was the case but I wasn't clear! I wasn't implying that you didn't consider what I said and you are very free to discard and not consider anything you don't feel will be helpful for you personally. I am glad you are speaking through what you really think as the thread is for your benefit and if you don't speak how you really feel then there won't be as much progress.

I took your comments as respect for my point of view and I reciprocated and showed respect for your thoughts, words and points of view. I didn't think any whininess came into it. I appreciated the respect. I didn't want you to think I discounted your opinions. That is the problem with communicating by text, tone of voice, eye contact and nuances are missed out. So my theory is to say what you are perceiving so you show respect for a person's culture, healing process and insight.

I just wanted to comment on this too. Just in case you feel judged or that there isn't compassion when people share that they have a positive view of this concept. I hope you know that I there hasn't been one tiny molecule of judgement or lack of compassion for someone elses viewpoint or where they are on this thread. Often we have one thing that is further ahead than someone else and in another area they they are ahead. It all works out in the end and different things help different people. I think often the judgements are our own. I know I judge myself terribly. Just wanted to say that there has only been compassion on here so you need not fear.

No I didn't write that for you. I wrote that for everyone.

There has been a suicide of a brother of my neighbour. I wanted to communicate that compassion is important for those of us who don't go fast enough or far enough. That compassion that is needed - it was my "I wish we could have done something for Brian paragraph."

 

[ms spock]

Just wanted to add Ms Spock that I was in no way implying that you were circling at present just in case you thought that!:) Just speaking in general concepts. I know I am circling. I then put one toe forward and inch there before circling again. That has been the story for a while...

I appreciate you being so clear and concise and generous with your posting. I didn't think you were saying that.

The thing is I have been cycling for a very long time without even knowing it. I didn't mean not to get well. I just didn't get a whole lot of basic concepts and ideas. I am learning a lot now and it will mean I move forward in the future.

 

[ms spock]

I have learnt a lot from this thread. I think I will have to continue to reread it to really understand it.

 

[Abstract]

I had in my head that it was extra hard to do it without a prior self

I think it is Ms Spock.

 

[rightkindofme]

I read a lot of books about resiliency. The next one on my list is
Building Resilience in Children and Teens: Giving Kids Roots and Wings Paperback
by Kenneth R. Ginsburg (Author)

But I can't recommend it yet because I haven't read it. :) Most of the books I read are actually more directed at building resilient corporations (I'm really weird) but I decided to look on Amazon to see if there was something more geared to folks like us and low-and-behold! :) (I'm a kid--I don't know about you...) So I'm going to order it. If you want I can tell you what I think later. Or we could do a book club. :)

 

[ms spock]

"While PTSD is a good definition for acute trauma in adults, it doesn't apply well to children, who are often traumatized in the context of relationships," says Boston University Medical Center psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, MD, one of the group's co-leaders. "Because children's brains are still developing, trauma has a much more pervasive and long-range influence on their self-concept, on their sense of the world and on their ability to regulate themselves."

Link Removed

I am trying to understand this again.

 

[Eleanor]

I didn't have time to read the whole thread, so someone may have said this already. What has helped my H and I with some of our "integration" issues (which might be what you are talking about here, how to make all the bits and pieces of your consciousness cohere into a "whole"?) is an exercise where you self consciously practice moving from one activation state to another. Specifically we were working on anger/resentment. The exercise is to think of a thing that activates an emotion (he criticized me for X!) stay with it long enough to activate the emotion to about 10%. THEN say to yourself HALT HALT HALT (which is an acronym but never mind) and THEN you do a rather longish multipart structured thinking thing to move you into a more positive emotional state and activate the problem solving and compassionate part of you. You do this about 12 times a day or whenever you notice the emotion coming up. We got this from a guy who does relationship work with couples who have problems with verbal (and sometimes physical) abuse. Steven Stosney is his name. It made a big difference for both of us.

I can explain more completely if you want, but have to run out the door right now! Anyway it seems to explicitly wire some new connections...

 

[Chava]

Just jumping in and might be repeating some ideas since I haven't had a chance to read all, but it's a good question...something I wonder a bit about too. But for me it sort of feels like there are pieces of "self" that are independent from all negative influences. They are just scattered and disjointed, and sometimes the good parts are weak. My trauma started pre-birth since I was not a healthy fetus. Some of the early childhood stuff I know from others and the facts (and later memories of my home situation) match my early body memories and frozen states. So, this is like whole life cptsd. What was there before? Hmm...probably nothing. But I have developed parts of my self, like I said...they just are timid or scattered or lost.

But also, like I've been realizing lately, I do connect to sound well....not something someone gave to me or can take away. It is just in me. This is also likely a part I had very, very early, like a positive resource. I don't know how to explain it well, but I know that in this process of finding ourselves, it's helpful to notice our positive resources and the ones that are internal...and they can be sort of abstract, like curiosity, sense of humor, the things in the world we resonate with. ...all stuff that helps me feel like a person and feel real. That's super important.

What I'm not sure about is how far I can change really early relationship patterns. I remind myself of the test monkey raised by a wire monkey. I like people, generally, but connect on levels of a few common interests but very rarely find lots of comfort or safety in others or let anyone get close. Really deep avoidance and also adaptation so that isolation feels comforting most of the time. But of course I also struggle with feeling deeply detached from the world at times. This is something I'm trying to work on in therapy...just not sure how far I'll get...tricky balance of pushing myself but also accepting myself where I am and not beating myself up for not being super "normal." I think because of my stuff I probably enjoy a deeper connection to nature and music than probably others do. So it's not all bad...but overtime the isolation has eaten me away I think and I'm glad if I can understand it better and try to change a little in ways that make sense to me (like connection more hopefully, just a bit, but well into the introverted spectrum)

 

[Caroline-M]

My first trauma was being separated from my triplets at birth, but I don't believe I had PTSD until I was 4 when I started being bullied. The bullying never stopped until I left college but until my therapist asked, "have you ever been bullied?" I honestly didn't think I'd ever been bullied once. I suppose my recovery has been a giant change in perspective from being a passive observer in the things happening around me to realizing I'm actually a person. At all. Or that life is even real. At all.

So I get what Ms Spock means by having no basis to form an identity. My whole life seemed to play out before me while my identity sat back & watched it like a movie on the big screen. I don't know much about myself yet, I feel like I only just met "myself" & I'm nothing like the person I presented to everyone else. I think I'm quite the opposite! There are things about me that have always been true, but there's so little truth beneath the bulk of lies I forced myself to believe. However, I've always had a gut instinct. Maybe I never knew what it actually was, but looking back I can think, " Hey! I knew that was wrong all along! I knew it - HA!"

Dissociation (sp?) is weird. It was weird feeling like I kept walking through a nightmare I'd never wake up from & then finding out the nightmare was happening to me & then finding out it wasn't a nightmare, it had been my entire life all along. But making that switch in my brain of trying to believe in reality & suddenly becoming PRESENT in reality felt like being born. Everything since then has been developing my life the way a baby would for the first time. & since this is like "myself's" first time being born there's a lot to catch up on that I simply never learned, even as an infant. Hygiene, feeding myself, using money, doing dishes, etc. were not priorities in my previous development. This stuff is hard to learn.

 

[ms spock]

I still struggle with this.

 

[April34]

I am kind of new here, one month or so hanging around. I'm not sure my childhood was much different than the other kids in my small town where I grew up. I watched my dad beat my mother, smash TV's, offer me the phone to call the police only to rip it out of the wall before I could call, and when my sister did call the sheriff one night, he ended up having a beer with my dad in the basement talking about Vietnam. And boy did we get it the next night....I never thought it was ABnormal as a kid. He would disable the car so we couldn't escape, things like that. In fact, I never told anyone about it,,, but somehow everyone in town knew and feared my father.

I lived through my sisters suicide, my husband's suicide, and I'm 44 now,,, and I feel like I have NO idea who I am. NONE. I feel like i've been faking it for years now. I think I knew who I was before my husband died,,, as much as I was going to anyway,,,, a HUGE people pleaser, but at least I had some kind of purpose and drive. Now,,, I just feel awkward, empty, blank and nothing. I feel like I fake my way through work, life, social things, everything. "fake it till you make it." That's how I feel most the time and its really hard.