Please Stop The Roller Coaster

[Silent one]

I have just finished some trauma work with my therapist. My head is spinning with flashbacks and thoughts. Bad thoughts. This work is dangerous. Is this the only way to heal? Reliving the trauma each day seems to make things worse. I thought I was making progress. I am stuck in a deep hole. This doesn't feel good. I am sick to my stomach. The emotional roller coaster stinks.

 

[Sideways]

It's important you try and communicate with your T about how you felt after your appointment. Can you write it down? Even just dot points?

You probably don't need to hear (yet again) that it gets worse before it gets better. But it does need to go at a pace that is manageable, that you can sustain.

Try and do something positive for yourself today. Something that is soothing or grounding. Take a bath, do some exercise, get outdoors, spend time with a pet if you have one...all those sorts of slef-soothing activities that you've got prepared for times like this.

It is one of the most confronting and painful things you will ever do in your life. But most people seem to find it helpful. The memories are painful to review because, for years they've been too painful for your brain to process. This is only a stage of your recovery, and you will get through it, but try and be gentle with yourself today. You've done some really hard work, so give yourself a bit of recovery time.

 

[Silent one]

Thank you for your help. I feel understood. These memories that I have break my heart. Just to process what happened to the little girl inside me years ago makes me want to die. It is very sad. I am struggling with self hatred and blame. Have you ever heard the term " perfect storm?", where all things that happened fell neatly into place causing the perfect storm? This is what happened. I can't help thinking that one small change could have had a different outcome. Thanks for listening.

 

[ghotiff]

I've yet to go into my trauma as I'm too scared (after the disaster of my first T). My current T knows this and is going very slowly and I feel like I'm getting better.

Be sure to communicate with your T so you can go the right pace for you. My thoughts are with you.

 

[Silent one]

:)Thank you for taking the time to reply!

 

[joeylittle]

@Silent one, what technique are you and your therapist using to work through the trauma? Did they give it a name?

 

[Silent one]

@Silent one, what technique are you and your therapist using to work through the...

We are working on childhood traumas through guided imagery and exposure to the traumatic events. She also incorporates dbt and cbt.

 

[Silent one]

I have gone through many forms of therapy including IOP. EMDR is another one I tried.

 

[joeylittle]

through guided imagery and exposure to the traumatic events.

If you are fundamentally following an exposure therapy protocol, it's most certainly going to be super-rough at the beginning. That's usually the biggest criticism about that method. However, it's something that does work, if you can push through it. My advice would be to talk with your therapist specifically about the radical acceptance concept in DBT - it's great for understanding how to endure treatment phases that are especially difficult, but will eventually be finished.

Was EMDR too traumatizing for you? (that's what I'd guess, given what you've written - it's got many of those same drawbacks that exposure therapy has).

 

[Silent one]

Yes, EMDR was traumatizing for me. I tried very hard for 2 years to work through the trauma. I have severe trust issues and it takes me a very long time to get to the point where I trust people even just a little bit. EMDR left me dissociated, anxious and suicidal. I had to stop it.

 

[Silent one]

I have never heard about the radical acceptance concept in DBT. Can you tell me a bit more?

 

[joeylittle]

Radical acceptance is a bit tricky, everyone ends up with their own understanding of it.

The way it makes sense to me is this:

Mental suffering happens when we fight with our reality. When we can accept that our current moment, as shitty as it might be, cannot be struggled against, fought with, or changed - that's radical acceptance.

You aren't making peace with it, or deciding it's ok to feel as bad as you do - you are simply saying that it's what your reality is, right now. You can't change it right now. You will co-exist with it. And eventually something will change. Doesn't even mean you have to believe it's going to get better - you just need to know that things change.

Applied to your situation - you feel wrecked after trauma therapy, worse than when you started, and you are afraid, overwhelmed - you wish it wasn't happening the way it's happening. The suffering is a result of the tension between the reality and the wishing.

Accept that you are wrecked. You're tired, depressed, afraid - that's just what it is, for now. Not forever, but for right now. It is what it is, it's really shitty, and there's no changing it right now.

Oddly, when it clicks - it's a profound relief. Just not fighting against those feelings, not wishing they were different, can make big chunks of suffering and stress vanish.

I'm sure others have their own ways to describe it, this is just my way. I don't think I'd be alive still without it, though.