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Sideways
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This comes up periodically. I’m looking at potentially doing some ketamine or mdma augmented therapy, so I’m confronting some of the fears I’ve got about that, which is why it’s come up (again!) now for me.
I have this contradictory relationship with my lack of conscious recall (or…just plain old amnesia…or, avoidance, or DID-related memory issues…whatever is driving that lack of ability to just “remember and know”). And, it’s particularly relevant because MDMA, while substantially more expensive, tends to have a particular relationship with trauma memories and that may determine which route (if either) that I go down.
On the one hand: what if I have an epiphany that it never really happened, and this is all just conflation? What if my brain has made this up, conflated illness or distress with experience, and here we are with a bunch of BS memories that have completely fked my life? (I get that this can happen, unintentionally, particularly with bad therapy…and I’ve had some bad therapists in the past!). How could I possibly cope with discovering that my own brain, my own insanity, is the only thing responsible for all my suffering?
On the other hand: what if I have an epiphany that it really did happen? Any of it. Even just one of my abusers having done those things, and I realise that it’s real. And the safety blanket of “it may not actually be real memories” gets taken away…how the fk do I cope with that? I don’t think I want that life.
Both of those options seem equally terrifying. Both of those options seem like things that I don’t think I’d cope with.
In the past, I’ve given others here pointers (which may or may not have been helpful) about how to deal with the ‘what if it’s not true’, or (equally awful), ‘what if it is true’ conflict. Can’t for the life of me give myself any good advice right now.
The augmented psychotherapy wouldn’t be to directly target whether my memories are real / reliable or the things I know remain memory-gaps (we’re trying to poke at the dogma that I still hang onto, whereby I am fixated on my own perpetual suffering as some sort of homage to my abuser), but the past, and my relationship to it, would inevitably come up. And those 2 fears are the big ones holding me back from diving in to the opportunity I’ve been presented with.
I hang onto “it may not have really happened” as a coping strategy. And it’s a pretty important one for me I think.
So, experiences with dealing with / coexisting with / overcoming either of those, or any other insights, would be awesome.
I have this contradictory relationship with my lack of conscious recall (or…just plain old amnesia…or, avoidance, or DID-related memory issues…whatever is driving that lack of ability to just “remember and know”). And, it’s particularly relevant because MDMA, while substantially more expensive, tends to have a particular relationship with trauma memories and that may determine which route (if either) that I go down.
On the one hand: what if I have an epiphany that it never really happened, and this is all just conflation? What if my brain has made this up, conflated illness or distress with experience, and here we are with a bunch of BS memories that have completely fked my life? (I get that this can happen, unintentionally, particularly with bad therapy…and I’ve had some bad therapists in the past!). How could I possibly cope with discovering that my own brain, my own insanity, is the only thing responsible for all my suffering?
On the other hand: what if I have an epiphany that it really did happen? Any of it. Even just one of my abusers having done those things, and I realise that it’s real. And the safety blanket of “it may not actually be real memories” gets taken away…how the fk do I cope with that? I don’t think I want that life.
Both of those options seem equally terrifying. Both of those options seem like things that I don’t think I’d cope with.
In the past, I’ve given others here pointers (which may or may not have been helpful) about how to deal with the ‘what if it’s not true’, or (equally awful), ‘what if it is true’ conflict. Can’t for the life of me give myself any good advice right now.
The augmented psychotherapy wouldn’t be to directly target whether my memories are real / reliable or the things I know remain memory-gaps (we’re trying to poke at the dogma that I still hang onto, whereby I am fixated on my own perpetual suffering as some sort of homage to my abuser), but the past, and my relationship to it, would inevitably come up. And those 2 fears are the big ones holding me back from diving in to the opportunity I’ve been presented with.
I hang onto “it may not have really happened” as a coping strategy. And it’s a pretty important one for me I think.
So, experiences with dealing with / coexisting with / overcoming either of those, or any other insights, would be awesome.
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