Post therapy reaction

[LucyLou]

Hi guys. It’s been a while. Hope you’re all doing ok?

I don’t really know why I’ve been gone for so long, guess i wanted to try and figure some things out for myself. Therapy is going better, even my therapist has said something has shifted over the last few weeks because I’m being so much more open than I was and actually feel like I’m doing something for myself. The problem with this is that I had a session yesterday, which was a heavy one but I was ok with…until a few hours after and I processed properly what we had actually spoken about and it made me a bit emotional…then come the night time, the memories were just relentless. With some of the memories, it was like I was seeing it and I know it was me but seeing it like I was watching it? Just a strange feeling that I don’t really know what to do with because I know bits about depersonalisation etc and I don’t know if that’s what it was because isn’t that just something that can happen at the time of the trauma? I don’t know why I feel like I need to label this…maybe for it to be something real for me to take back to my therapist. I don’t know

 

[Lost in the Woods]

Welcome back. I have a few memories that I see from above. One I was in my crib and I see my mother glaring down at me. At the same time I see myself from above. Another one was when I was 9 I was sent to a sadistic boarding school and I see myself from above wondering what has become of my life. Another was my mother was beating me with a pipe. I have my forearms raised to protect my face. I am trying to get out the front door but both the deadbolt and door knob have to be turned at the same time to get out. I realized I had to lower my arms to get away. I knew I was going to get hit in the face with the pipe but I did it anyway. That memory is in slow motion from above. I was in middle school at the time.

I welcome memories coming back because there are so many questions. Although the memories are generally unpleasant they don’t seem to trigger me. Each one is another puzzle piece. It really is amazing that I survived it all.

 

[Movingforward10]

This is , in my experience, what happens in trauma therapy.

I had/have delayed reactions. With the emotions coming out later. Maybe they start to come through the session but it is after when it got/gets overwhelming.

And seeing the memory from a viewpoint of you watching it happen to yourself? That's how most of my traumatic memories are. So that is also very common.
One memory, I'm not even in it at all, as that is the 'event' that just shattered my mind. All I have is snippets of visuals of his jumper , his height, his smile. Like tiny shattered memories mixed with intense fear.

Trauma therapy is so incredibly hard.

I get depersonalisation and derealisation mixed up so can't remember which is meant to be which. But apparently, seeing yourself in a memory and everything you describe is meant to be one of those or a form of disassociation.

You can work through it.
Accepting that this is part of the process. And being gentle with yourself.
It will pass.
I always remind myself that in these hard times, that's when things shift even more and healing happens.

 

[Freddyt]

then come the night time, the memories were just relentless. With some of the memories, it was like I was seeing it and I know it was me but seeing it like I was watching it?

I always think of reprocessing like a card file of memories and when you change how you feel about them your brain runs through the card file changing how you feel about them one by one. I could tell where reprocessing for things was by the memories that returned.

I always find they return in linear order, like Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday......