Poll Pacing Your Trauma ' Reveal ' In Therapy

[BloomInWinter]

For the purpose of this poll, 'Pacing' is defined as the rate of conscious, voluntary transference of traumatic memories from an informed patient to their therapist in the controlled therapeutic setting.

Please only participate in this poll if;

• You have formally been diagnosed with PTSD and
• You are in formal therapy

 

[kers]

I am very satisfied with the pacing, probably because it is mostly up to me. I have shared pretty much all my worst memories by now and it was always, ALWAYS completely voluntary. If I said I was too embarrassed or scared to share, then my therapist told me to trust that and not share until I was ready to. He also allowed me to repeat the memories for what has felt like a thousand repetitions. Pacing my work in therapy helped me to trust myself a lot more.

 

[Jade-]

I'm somewhat dissatisfied. It seems a little too slow paced for me.

It's not because of my therapist though, because everything I say in there is completely up to me. He doesn't force me to talk, he coaxes me though. It's a little slow paced because I really struggle with talking about my traumas.

Sometimes we have to stop trauma therapy because I'm having home issues or I'm in a bad state, but we pick back up when I'm able to.

Sometimes the memories are in bits and pieces and it takes me awhile to get them all out.....like months. Sometimes when I'm recalling memories, he stops me at a certain point so that I'm not overwhelmed.

I think the pace is more up to the patient than the therapist.

 

[nie]

I voted neither. I think this to be true as an overall experience so far. At first I thought it was too fast, as it was overwhelming and my T pushed a lot. There have been other times when I thought it was slow and I wasn't making any progress. Looking at it as a process though, I think it is a good pace.

 

[NarcSis]

When I went to 'routine' therapy and not the sporadic crap my EAP offered, I was still experiencing numb verbal diarrhea with respect to the trauma, the story came out, and came out, and came out repeatedly. My face would get numb and it was always there distressing me and this was 6 months after the fact. My T actually had to teach me to distance myself from it so that we could come back in a more controlled manner.

 

[Justmehere]

Sometimes I go way too slow. Other times, I think I go way too fast and my therapist has intentionally slowed down our work in therapy so I don't get too destablized by going too fast.

 

[watundah]

It took forever to get going. My defenses were sky high and my dissociation was too easy to hide behind. I would leave every session disheartened and frustrated that I was wasting money and turning my wheels. We're finally getting somewhere but still quite slowly. Whenever I have complained she assured me that going too fast would be retraumatizing. She also credits my tenacity but I AM determined and quitting wont fix me. While it does take soooo long, keep in mind how many years you've carried this burden. It's worth it though.

 

[Chava]

The poll is geared towards wanting to reveal quickly, right? I'd say I'm very satisfied because it's been slow and tolerable. No rush, no flooding, and no super self-destructive fallouts. (In the meantime, learning how to take better care of myself, stay connected to my body better, and stay a little more present). Even though I trust my therapist, I've revealed pieces as it has felt personally safe and as some have come back to me...and it's probably been on the slow side, and good.

 

[7Cs]

Can I say too fast and too slow?

 

[Deleted member 28403]

Let's say my plan is often to take a bunch of anxiety meds and then spurt it out quickly, but my T works on me not doing that, ad that would probably mean quite a serious set of symptoms for me...