My therapist’s reaction to a timeline really hurt

[Abstract]

Hi,

You alluded to the specific nature of a trauma on a previous thread and I am guessing (wrongly or rightly) that this relates to the same trauma. If I have the wrong end of the stick then please ignore me totally. If it is (with barely any knowledge) I can see why t's have been cautious when dealing with it but it does not comment on you in any way or you being a "freak". If it is this I think feelings and problems with your t are an inevitable part of processing this. And I think anything like this is always a little complicated but complicated isn't the end of the world and doesn't at all comment on your ability to process this, be heard, or get help for it. To me complicated merely means multifaceted. It is also ZERO comment on you.

Would it help to write out instructions for her on what you would like her do in the next session. And what you don't want her to do. What you want to hear and what you don't want to hear.

T stuff is intense and for so many reasons. But that can mean it can be intensely healing. Credit to you for going there and a huge truckload of shame to the idiots who treated you then way the did after the trauma, and even more truckloads to the perpetrator.

You are not the trauma. You are merely trying to process it. It sounds like you are personifying the reactions to it which I totally understand.

 

[scout86]

There is no reason for all this.

Sure there is. The whole "vulnerability" thing. You took a huge chance. Your experience, so far, is mostly that coming back to bite you. This time? I kind of think it might turn out otherwise. (Really and truly, I do.) But then, what do you do with THAT? Seriously. Sometimes "progress" is scarier than no progress. If you're stuck, at least it's familiar territory, right? Being freaked out about this seems totally reasonable to me. Not pleasant, for sure, but totally reasonable. Radical acceptance of the fact that you're going to be feeling a little freaked out for awhile?

 

[Justmehere]

Things are really rough. Reading you all again is helping.

I got through a presentation. After the room was empty, and I was cleaning up, I bumped into a table that was behind me. The surprise of the table behind me was enough for my brain to jump a flashback right to this trauma. Like it was happening again. Right then. Next thing I know, a janitor stuck his head in the room. I could hear the echo of my scream in my ears. He asked if I was ok. I just stood there, my mind quickly catching up to 2018.

It’s been awhile since I had a full on flashback like that. After that, I came home... and fell apart. One of the hard things about the timeline is that it was really clear for the first time how this trauma actually lead to another more serious event. That hit both of us pretty clearly. I had never connected the two... and she was right to say the connection was hard to see until I did the timeline and then it was starkly clear. It made everything feel so much worse.

I reached out to her. I don’t think I handled it well at all. I emailed her, which she encourages knowing she responds until the next session. It was a terrible impulsive broken email. I didn’t vent but I wrote I wish I hadn’t told her... I wanted to take all the words back... the email itself was a huge mistake.

Things got dark. I got worse with the sucidial stuff, and it was either reach out to her or go to the ER and I couldn’t get myself to the ER.

I am very hesitant to reach out. This was a moment of reaching out or needing to take other steps toward safety. I texted... I hate texting... but I said I wasn’t ok, but trying to get back to ok, and I asked if we could put it all away, as if I never said any of it. She said we could back offf from this topic and reminded me to contain the work we did. I just sat and cried until I fell asleep.

@MyWillow - wow, I wish I could think of myself 1/10th as well as you write about me. Thanks for your kind and super gracious words.

I’m not sure I’m going to be much help here but I want to say that your T sounds honest and human and so do you. I

This helped. Being human is something I can handle.

I wonder if in some way you thought she was minimizing your trauma by calling it complicated and uncommon. I would guess she just thought she was describing it.

In a way, I guess I thought she was making it bigger than it was by saying it was complicated. Like I’m more broken.

As far as the suicide conversation: Nietzsche said, "The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets through many a dark night."

Yeah. I think this is where I was going with it. I was clear I wasn’t planning on it at all. I even said it was a fantasy. An escape... but I wanted it to stop.

He has kind of a formula, I think, for what works and he follows it. (I do the same thing working with horses.) Once in awhile, you venture into territory you've actually never covered before. Or seldom. Doesn't mean you can't do it, just means it's different and, well, complicated.

I think this is it. I do the same even working with people. To be super overly generalized, reactions to trauma tend to be pretty patterned. Perps tend to fall in certain patterns too. In fact, the more severe the trauma, the more predictable the pattern of the ways people behave around it.

She has a ton of experience with lots of types of trauma.

She said my reaction to not shut down when it happened but fight for systemic change so no one else would get hurt and to speak out and... that was uncommon. My perp came after me in response to my doing that, unlike his other victims... which was more trauma... I have a hard time seeing the uncommonness of my response as good.

Complicated and uncommon - I equate that with being alone and in danger. I need to undo that association.

@Sweetleaf- thank you for the empathetic and thoughtful response. Ah, the feels. :hug: to you if you accept them.

I think its more an acknowledgement on her feelings, not on the actual facts that happened.

Yeah you are probably right. It is complicated.

Would it help to write out instructions for her on what you would like her do in the next session. And what you don't want her to do. What you want to hear and what you don't want to hear.

I tried that once, and it got weird. I think I rather her be her and be there with me in it.

You are not the trauma. You are merely trying to process it. It sounds like you are personifying the reactions to it which I totally understand.

I needed this reminder, thank you.

The whole "vulnerability" thing.

I. Hate. Vulnerability. I rather poke my eyes out.

I was trying to be vulnerable though.

But then, what do you do with THAT? Seriously. Sometimes "progress" is scarier than no progress.

Wow. Funny thing you mention this. When she said we can take a break and not work on it directly next week, she said we can instead work on my fear of success.

 

[scout86]

she said we can instead work on my fear of success.

She sounds like a keeper.

If this was easy, you'd have sorted it out a long time ago. But, you've done a LOT of hard stuff in your life. I really believe you guys will manage this too.

I have a hard time seeing the uncommonness of my response as good.

I agree. The world would be a better place if more people could manage to work for systemic change. And if more people were listened to when they try.

I was trying to be vulnerable though.

I think you succeeded! (That's why it feels so upsetting. :) I still have a hard time seeing how "vulnerable" is good.)

 

[hithere]

I guess at the heart of it, we were running into resistance. I got really gung-ho in explaining this...

The aloneness of the trauma when experienced; the aloneness before during after, that is the most painful thing for me. I too had (have) a therapist who can't for what ever reason just can't actually "be" in the room with me to listen. it has been hard and painful and leaves me the feelings of "aloneness" (lonliness)

 

[joeylittle]

It is complicated. I argued it’s not THAT uncommon. Saying that it is complicated over and over leaves me feeling really alone. It feels like pushing me away. Is it?

Forgive me if this has already been said...

It strikes me that she is advocating for you to accept is as being complicated. You do not want to accept it as unique or complicated because that interferes with come core coping strategies connected to minimization.

Dunno if this helps...not too long ago, my therapist referred to my trauma as 'complex'. It was part of a conversation we often have, that goes something like me thinking I should be further along than I am, and him working to give me ways to understand it takes time.

I was shocked how I reacted to him calling it 'complex'. So shocked that I am having deja vu writing this, I think I've already written about this on the site somewhere...I said, "I do not have complex trauma". He smiled - smiled! -and said, "yes, you do.".

So - I'm aware that a huge built-in coping strategy for me is to break what happened down into little bits, and then think of those as just...bits. I don't chain them together, because it's intensely overwhelming. I know eventually I will need them to connect. But it's a big achilles heel for me.

It's interesting though, because there are other times when I think he's minimizing stuff, and then, it's possible for me to look at it the other way. That's usually when we have the bi-monthly conversation about whether he's going to keep working with me. I drive that one. He's never had a client with my particular trauma...then again, in a lot of ways, that doesn't matter. I do get that. But sometimes, when he so confidently says that he believes he's the right person for me, so long as I am comfortable with him - I want to scream 'what the f*ck makes you so very qualified?' And I do mean, scream. Which isn't very like me.

The PTSD thing - that the trauma event has become magnified and disconnected - inherently means that we struggle with the scale of the things that happened to us. Ultimately, we're working towards right-sizing them. This is never going to be a no-big-deal kind of story...it's a horror show (talking about my trauma, not speaking to yours). But eventually it will be a horror show that happened, instead of happening in some corner of my mind every single day.

Talking about scale might be a useful session.

 

[Justmehere]

So - I'm aware that a huge built-in coping strategy for me is to break what happened down into little bits, and then think of those as just...bits. I don't chain them together, because it's intensely overwhelming. I know eventually I will need them to connect. But it's a big achilles heel for me.

It’s exactly this.

I’ve been talking about it all with her in bits and pieces. Nothing we talked about was new. I just drew the line to connect it all. And I freaked. Myself. Out.

In a way, the trauma became so much more simple, clear, real.... big.

I over-complicate things to push them away. When she says complicated... that’s true. And in the middle of my feeling like this is bigger than I realized, in the middle of my melting down my minimization, I hear complicated as “you are too much.”

As I write this, I think that’s what I think. Not her. I dunno quite what she thinks. Oh I have my many guesses. Ugh.

I think this is too much. I’ve been wrestling with escapist sucidial thoughts trying to face it, which is just another way I’m trying to run from it. My therapist even shivered once talking about how horrible it was... it was validating. And made it real.

This week feels like it’s been a battle to remember it is over. I had a flashback for the first time in quite awhile.

My therapist said this is all part of the process to integrate it.

I think it’s also hard because... well, she’s a freaking pain in the ass. I mean, I’m sure there is a better way to put that. She’s good. She’s good for me. She’s not a soft therapist. She’s blunt and direct and... actually, she’s tried to be softer with me and I check out every time. My head floats away and then I’m frustrated. So instead, she’s different with me. I think trying to reach me in any way I’ll actually take in....

I just want the pain of it to be over. We joke about my desire for a magic wand.

 

[Tinyflame]

So - I'm aware that a huge built-in coping strategy for me is to break what happened down into little bits, and then think of those as just...bits. I don't chain them together, because it's intensely overwhelming. I know eventually I will need them to connect. But it's a big achilles heel for me.

I find this too. Much like adding numbers- instead of multiplying them. On their own each seems isolated and maybe easier to bear. Like having blinders on.

Idk @Justmehere it is a process. You can't really rush your mind, and yet trust hangs in the balance.

I think you are extraordinary so maybe that itself requires different means. Especially if you contemplate things extensively. Your own mind has to be satisfied with the conclusions you are drawing and learning, and that may take more effort, because you challenge more thoughts, or have more thoughts to challenge.

I think you will make great progress, despite this frustration and fear and sorrow. Hang in there. :hug:

 

[Freida]

A couple of times I have been talking about something really traumatic and my T has said or done things that have rocked my world. Then I got home and said to myself --- did that really just happen? So I wrote it down and took it back to her the next week. And we discussed what had happened from her side. And they usually weren't the same. Her version of the story made way more sense. So it could be you are projecting your thoughts about what you told her onto how you heard her responses.

I worried and still worry that I'm abnormally f*cked up, that I'm a freak, for having experienced what I've experienced, enough for someone who treats other people with PTSD to tell me that my trauma is really complex, complicated, and interconnected,

I still fight my Ts on this. I do not have complex trauma. I have a series of unfortunate events that could have happened to anyone and I shouldn't be fussing about it. They have people much more traumatized than I am to work with. It's a total insult to imply it's complex, because in my ass backwards brain it means it is complex because i couldn't handle it -- not because the traumas were more than what most people face. blahblahblah

I’m home. All I keep thinking is I shouldn’t have told her, and I want to take it all back. I even start to think I should ask her to ignore it all and let’s never speak of it again

Been here. My T says the worse I feel about what I shared the more I needed to get it out.

In a way, I guess I thought she was making it bigger than it was by saying it was complicated. Like I’m more broken.

Oh i soooo get this! Its like she is condemning me to a life sentence of never being able to get better because there are all these other things running in the background that she wants me to see. And I don't want to see it. Telling me it is complex ptsd was a much bigger thing for me than just regular ptsd and it took me a long time to understand what she was blathering on about,

I said, "I do not have complex trauma". He smiled - smiled! -and said, "yes, you do.".

When my T diagnosed me with ptsd I yelled at her because it was so idiotic and she should be better at her job. Imagine how well it went over a year or so later when she told me that I had moved into the ranks of complex trauma

We joke about my desire for a magic wand.

so do I!!!!

My EMDR T is much more ...lets say direct...than my other T. But one day she said to me --- I like seeing you each week. Because when you walk in the door I have to work harder than I usually do. I do more research and read more books because I have you as a client. Most people who come see me have run of the mill problems. They are still suffering, and I still want to help them. But they don't stretch my brain as much as you do. With you I'm always having to stay one step ahead, educate myself, improve my skills. Because what you went through was horribly complex - and I want to be able to help you.

It made me feel like a totally broken freak. Then it gave me the giggles.
And now we have decided that I'm basically a unicorn who will stab her with my horn if she gets it wrong. So...there's that.

 

[MyWillow]

I cracked it last week and asked my psydoc’s who’s dumb shit idea was it to call it “trauma sensitive yoga” and can we not mention the word “trauma” in the near distant future. She was totally cool with that. And she’s blunt but kind. It’s taken me 18 months to be able to name “dissociation” and I still struggle with my T.

I joke with my T about finding that magic wand too. If I discover it I promise I’ll share ;)

 

[ButterflyBean]

@Justmehere - I want to write my own thread about where my therapeutic journey is right now, but I can’t bring myself to do it yet, so I’ll just say that you are not alone! Simply put, I am dealing with the aftermath of a pretty major surgery that is both physical and emotional in nature; I have a tendency to think of those two elements as separate when in fact they are so incredibly related and intertwined. Sounds like your reaction to hearing the word “complicated” or as you interpreted it as “you are too much” is similar to my need for help getting angry and expressing my emotions through tears. Definitely not the same but similar.

I am also reminded of the therapeutic experiences @barefoot has had and written about in the past. I don’t exactly know why, but she popped into my head and might have some thoughts/insight?

One more thing about your reflection regarding your therapist trying to be “softer” with you but needing to be more direct in order for you to take her in and be able to process. Personally, I don’t respond well to direct approaches. That is, when I finally started dealing with my trauma for what it is, and incorporating inner child work, I needed to change the way that I continue to interact with my therapist. We still have logical conversations, and talk about what needs to be addressed from a competent, adult level when needed, but she’s gotten good at knowing when I need her to be gentle with me and create space for my little self to be vulnerable and express pent up emotion. SometimesI can’t ask her to do that when I need that type of session, and I put pressure on myself to be adult-like when I really need to let my “little’s” emotions out. What I’m saying is, it might be worth asking yourself what you need in the moments that your therapist tries to be softer with you? Is there something that scares you and/or causes you to shut down when she tries to be more gentle? I ask because directness may not allow you to access the emotions needed to process the complicated nature of what you’re dealing with right now, so finding a balance might be something for you to work toward instead of beating yourself up about how are you’re viewing the current situation. I’m sure you logically know that this is all part of the healing process, but it doesn’t feel good at all right now. Give yourself credit for beginning a really tough conversation and try to be compassionate toward yourself! I can see the great work you’re doing!

 

[Tinyflame]

I have a series of unfortunate events that could have happened to anyone and I shouldn't be fussing about it. They have people much more traumatized than I am to work with. It's a total insult to imply it's complex, because in my ass backwards brain it means it is complex because i couldn't handle it -- not because the traumas were more than what most people face. blahblahblah

Yes. ^^^

have logical conversations, and talk about what needs to be addressed from a competent, adult level when needed, but she’s gotten good at knowing when I need her to be gentle with me and create space

Also agree ^ , because:

I ask because directness may not allow you to access the emotions needed to process the complicated nature of what you’re dealing with right now, so finding a balance might be something for you to work toward instead of beating yourself up about how are you’re viewing the current situation