Is this unusual? (sharing with your therapist)

[beaneeboo]

2.5 years into intensive trauma therapy for dissociative disorder. I am getting memories surfacing in different forms. I've understood trauma processing is the second stage for this type of therapy. But there is a HUGE resistance to me and my parts sharing anything with T. I've shared little bits here abs there but very little. I think it must nashe his job harder.

Anyway I've noticed others here including those with dissociative disorders, so tend to share some level of detail to at least be able to patch some things together to make sense of the fragments and tu process.

I just can't seem to in any meaningful way even though we meet 2 hours a week every week.

Am I doing something wrong? Is anyone else in this position? Did anyone else have a breakthrough?

I'm just feeling like a bit of a freak and wondering if it's wasting his time

 

[Sues]

I have such a hard time sharing with my therapist. It's so hard to say the words. I freeze up and physically brace for danger any time I have the really bad memories come up. I often dread going into the therapy room, not because of my therapist, he's great, and he's safe. But because I know this is where I'm supposed to bring up and deal with the memories. I spend all week trying to keep them locked away and push them down so I can survive and function. It's a struggle to get words out, to talk about even what I'm feeling when the memories are there.

I don't know if this helps, but I know what it's like to not be able to share memories with anyone, even my therapist.

 

[Sideways]

Breakthrough? Not really. More like very slow progress by chipping away at it.

It’s a self-preservation instinct, and got a bunch of shame attached to it, which makes it one of those things that’s particularly hard to shift. So, it does shift, but slowly, over time.

It’s helpful to me to not assume that I’ll be able to just say the words I need to say out loud. Approaches that I use as an alternative have included emailing info to my T, writing it down and taking it to the appointment with me, and writing it down and reading it out (that’s where I currently am).

We’ve also spent a lot of time working through the issue directly - talking about why it’s so hard to talk about it. And that’s probably been the most useful part for me to get some genuine traction.

 

[Movingforward10]

I don't think you are doing anything wrong.

I know you haven't put it here, so ignore this obviously, but the mandatory reporting is a part of the challenge in feeling freedom to speak? I can imagine that must be impacting?

With new memories, it's layer after layer of things to say and share and feel. There is a lot of trauma. It does take a long time?