Abstract- What does SU stand for?
Hi Tealeaf,
Sorry to confuse! I know it as SU for suicide and SI for self injury. I know SH is also used for self harm.
Absolutely! I think other things helped me a lot with SH/SI but this stuff helped me enormously with both depression and suicide. It took me absolute enormous amounts of work and years and years to get to where I am now. But it has absolutely been worth it.
I was so disconnected from myself before I did not even connect distress and flashbacks. :alien: At the point I did most of this work I did not think I had trauma in my life but was fighting a long term eating disorder and depression. I would appear to be very functional on the outside and then have periodic breakdowns but had significant depression even when others would not have realised it before.
I have a lot of missing memories and periods of time but generally from what I can tell (and have seen when I was older) is that whatever I felt was undermined. So I literally almost felt that I did not even have a right to smile unless it was directed. i also was not allowed likes and dislikes of my own. With my father it was aggressive. With my mother it appeared not to be but was manipulative and passive aggressive.
My models for anger are very bad. Father raging, aggressive and unpredictable. Mother apparently submissive bit actually aggressive. Any sign of slight questioning or assertiveness let alone anger put me at risk and in the firing line.
To me anger was dangerous in itself, awful and I put me in danger (on an instinctive level). I therefore literally never felt it. I was in my late 30's and had never lost my temper with anyone. And thought I never had been angry. Other than at myself of course. But I didn't see that as anger. I just saw it as me identifying my faults.
Resolving this was essential for recovery from my ED. Any loosing of touch of what my feelings were and why I felt them would result in both ed behaviours and increased depressive symptoms.
As I have been able to accept my own anger more I have been able to tolerate others anger more easily. It still triggers flashbacks but my general levels of tolerance have improved a lot. I would literally internally disintegrate before. For me it seems that looks like dead calm from the outside. Practice makes perfect. :p Not useful in getting T's to realise what is happening though.
I shall stop blabbering now.
Oh. One more thing. I find it is absolutely essential to be able to identify anger as a way of knowing when boundaries need to be defended and when assertiveness is required. I am able to keep myself safer since I found my anger.
